Fall-Front

See Drop-Front.

Fan Back Chair

A chair or settee, perhaps of French design, introduced early in the Mahogany period with a back the principal feature of which is a fan-like design either upright or reversed.

Fan-Design

A semicircular design much used upon Elizabethan furniture, and later. In a shape which more exactly answers to the name it was much used in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Farmhouse Furniture

Under this name much of the cottage and kitchen furniture is included, besides furniture specially adapted to the farmhouse. Some of the most noteworthy pieces were butter, bacon, and other food cupboards; chairs such as the Lancashire spindle-back, Windsor, and Yorkshire ladder-back; dressers ; tables of the refectory type ; settles, etc.

Farthingale Or Fardingale Chair

A chair with broad seat without arms, made in England in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. to accommodate the large hooped dresses or farthingales then worn by ladies.

Fauteuil

The French term for an arm-chair with open sides and elbow-pads as distinguished from the bergere or arm-chair with upholstered sides.

Feathers

See Prince of Wales's Feathers.

Fender

A low metal guard, usually of iron or brass or both, to "fend" or defend the floor, rug, or carpet from the fire. In the second half of the eighteenth, and the early part of the nineteenth, century the fender was almost invariably of brass and formed a highly decorative object. Varying from a few inches to a foot in height, the front was either solid or pierced with geometrical motives or scrolls partaking somewhat of an arabesque character. Fenders very often rested upon lions' paws. Some were mere kerbs, while others had a bottom plate of iron with an upright support at one end, or both, against which the fireirons rested.

Festoon

A curved design painted or carved on furniture, representing a string of leaves, flowers, fruit, drapery, etc., suspended horizontally. A catenary; a swag.

Fiddle-Back

A chair with a splat in the shape of a fiddle. A characteristic feature in the reign of Queen Anne.

Fiddle-String Back

The name sometimes given to the back of a Windsor chair or the like, the rods of which resemble fiddle-strings. It is sometimes called a "stick-back."

Fielded Panel

In heraldic language the word "field" means the general surface of a shield or escutcheon. In furniture the word is sometimes used in a similar sense to describe a panel the surface of which is on the same plane as the surrounding woodwork and is defined by a sunk bevel or other moulding.

Figure

The. natural markings on wood.

Fillet

A narrow flat band or moulding used between more important mouldings or flutings.

Finial

A term used in furniture in a wider sense than in architecture to describe a decorative terminal ornament to a feature in either a vertical or a horizontal position.

Fire-Dogs

See Andiron.

Fire Irons

Poker, tongs, and shovel for mending and tending a fire. In the eighteenth century these implements were usually of massive brass but sometimes of steel, and partook of the decorative character of the fenders they matched.