Stump Work

A kind of raised embroidery, in vogue in the late Tudor and Jacobean periods, of silk thread on a ground of silk or satin. Parts of the design, such as figures or flowers, were worked over a "stump" of wool or other material so that they appeared in relief.

Style

A characteristic method of designing furniture of sufficient merit and distinction to be considered a type - thus, the Adam or Sheraton style. See Period.

Summer-Bed

A design of Sheraton consisting of two single fourpost bedsteads separated by a gangway but connected above by the cornice which was continuous over both beds and the gangway.

Sunk Top

This term is sometimes used in connection with the tops of tables which have a sunk ground, by reason of a rim, moulding, or gallery being provided round the edge.

Supports

See Arms and Supports.

Surbase Moulding

In architecture the series of mouldings forming the cornice of a pedestal. In cabinet work, when the base of a piece of furniture is treated as a pedestal, it is often provided with a surbase which is sometimes enriched with carving, inlay, or otherwise, and often provided with drawers.

Swag

A festoon or chain of flowers, fruit, foliage, drapery, etc., suspended in a curve and used as a design on furniture in carving, painting, inlay, etc. Of classical origin, it was much used by Adam and later designers.

Swan-Neck Pediment

A broken pediment in which the raking lines are formed of two opposed S-curves, the upper ends of which are scrolled over or finished with paterae on their faces. The pediment usually centres in a short pedestal surmounted by some ornamental feature such as a vase. This kind of pediment became a favourite for cabinets, clock-cases, etc., in the middle of the eighteenth century, but it was in use in the Queen Anne period. See Pediment.

Sweep-Front

A term used in the eighteenth century and afterwards to describe a flat-bowed or slightly curved-fronted piece of furniture.

Swell Front

A term sometimes used to describe the segmental or bow front of a cabinet, chest of drawers, etc.

Swept-Whorl Top Rail

An alternative description to the spiral scroll, or "voluted" rail of some of Chippendale's chairs which have these scrolls at the ends of the top rail.

Swing Glass

See Cheval Glass.

Sycamore (Acer Pseudo Platinus)

A species of maple naturalized in Britain, the wood of which is of a yellowish white hue, and is used for veneers, the inside of drawers, etc. When stained with oxide of iron, it assumes a greenish grey colour, and is named "hare-wood." Hare- or hair-wood was much used as a veneer by cabinet-makers in the last half of the eighteenth century.

R. W Symonds

Author of "The Present State of Old English Furniture" and "Old English Walnut and Lacquer Furniture," in both of which the subject of spurious furniture is fully discussed. See Reproductions.

Tabaret Or Taberray

A heavy silk fabric with satin stripes, used for upholstery.

Tabernacle

In furniture of the Gothic type the name of tabernacle work was given to the open-work decoration of canopied niches. In the classical period it was applied to the frame enclosing a niche for the reception of a statue or other ornament.