Panel-Back Or Wainscot Chair

A cumbrous high-seated oak chair with heavy legs, stretchers, and high wainscoted back, in use in Tudor and Jacobean times. It was probably copied from church furniture, and was used as a chair of state by the head of the family, others sitting on stools and benches. The earlier examples had usually the top rail mortised between the uprights; the late ones - the Jacobean - had the top rail and cresting fixed with dowels on the top of the uprights.

Paper Hangings

Wall decoration is an art which has existed from the remotest times, expressed among other ways by means of carved stone or marble, painting, tiles, stucco, embossed leather, textiles, etc. The Chinese were the first to produce a wall-paper, and Europe followed in the eighteenth century with squares of paper printed by hand from wood blocks. Towards the end of that century machinery was invented in England to print wall-paper, such as is now sold in rolls. See Wall-Papers.

Paper Scroll

A name given to the scroll sometimes carved on the ends of the top rail of chairs. This scroll was much in favour towards the middle of the eighteenth century, and is also named spiral whorl, spiral scroll, spiral volute, conical volute, helicoidal volute.

Papier Mache

A paper pulp and some resinous or other binding material, compressed and moulded into various forms, such as boxes, trays, and small articles of furniture, which were afterwards painted, lacquered, japanned, or otherwise decorated. This material of Eastern origin began to be extensively used in England in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Parcel Gilding

A method of decoration by which selected portions only of the surface or carving of an article were gilded. It was practised towards the end of the seventeenth century, and became popular in the Decorated Queen Anne period.

Parlour

From the French parloir, a private room to which persons could withdraw for conversation, meals and retirement. It may possibly have developed from the screened-off portion of the common hall in mediaeval times, the "speke-house" of the monastery, the talking-room of Norman times, the withdrawing room of the sixteenth century. The term "parlour" came into general use in the time of Queen Anne, and in the latter years of the eighteenth century eatingparlour, or dining-room, drawing-room, sitting-room and parlour were almost convertible terms.

Parquetry (French Parquet, Inlaid Floor)

A flooring of inlay or mosaic of woods of the same or contrasting colours, usually forming a geometrical design. In the Restoration period it was laid in the houses of the wealthy, probably by foreign workmen. It was also made, as now, in the form of a veneer and laid over existing floors.

Patera

A shallow dish or saucer used in ancient times for drinking purposes. The name was also applied to architectural ornaments of that appearance, and they were reproduced on the Renaissance furniture of the eighteenth century, either round, oval, or square. When the patera was carved with a rose on it, it was frequently called a rosette.