Marqueterie (Fr.) Or Marquetry (Eng. From Fr.)

A mosaic pattern or design of inlaid wood of different coloured pieces of thin material, such as veneer, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, ivory. See also Parquetry.

Mortise

The oblong square hole made to receive the end of another piece of wood called a tenon, which fits it exactly, and makes what is termed a "mortise and tenon" joint.

Parqueterie (Fr.) Or Parquetry (Eng. From Fr.)

A mosaic of woodwork for house decoration. In cabinet work this term applies to a mosaic of pieces of the same kind of wood, generally arranged in a geometrical pattern, as distinct from marqueterie, which is a mosaic of different kinds and colours of veneers (q.v.).

Patera (Lat.), Pl. Paterae

A flat round or oval ornament in bas-relief. In furniture and decoration of the style known as Adam's, paterae are used in the friezes of tables and cabinets; in chairs the patera will be found just above the tapering leg.' See illustrations in Chapter VI (English Furniture Of The Eighteenth Century).

Pediment

An architectural term used in cabinet work to describe the part of the cabinet above the cornice. Strictly speaking it should be of triangular form, like an obtuse gable, and may have a panel which is sometimes enriched with carved ornament.

Pembroke Table

A table with two folding flaps, which, when opened, give the full size of the top. It is generally oval, but sometimes rectangular. The flaps are supported by brackets, or by one leg for each side which pulls out from the centre frame. When they are folded down the table top is an oblong, generallyabout eighteen to twenty-four inches across, and about twenty-four to thirty inches wide. The difference between a "Pembroke" and a "Sutherland" table is that, while both open up on similar principles, the "Sutherland " when folded is much narrower, generally only seven or eight inches across, and the table itself is much smaller. Pembroke tables were introduced in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The Sutherland is a modern invention.

Pietra Dura (It.)

Hard stone. Mosaic, or a design worked in high or low relief, of hard stones, such as jasper and agate. About a hundred years ago there was a fashion for cabinets enriched with panels, ornamental friezes and drawer fronts of pietra dura. Paul Beckford, in his "Letters from Italy," published in 1805, writes of some furniture of 1787 as follows: " The best part of the furniture is the inlaid table in Pietra dura, a work of great labour and design." See also Chapter IV (Italian Furniture).

Pilaster

An architectural term signifying the square column generally attached to a wall as an ornamental support to an arch, and seldom projecting much in advance of the face of it. In woodwork the pilaster really means the flat column, half or a quarter the thickness of the column itself, which we find ornamenting a cabinet. It is generally fluted and sometimes has the capital and base of suitable character to the design, just as it would in architecture. Pilasters occur in Renaissance Italian furniture, and also in those of the Adam style.

Quarrel

The square or diamond-shaped panes of a door which is called a "quarrelled" door.

The term is also often stretched to apply to the more fanciful traceries of the doors of English bookcases and cabinets of eighteenth-century style.

Reeded

Reeded ornament means the decoration of a flat surface like the frieze of a table, by narrow slips of wood, finished on the outside with a rounded surface, placed side by side, and should be three, five or seven in number, the odd one in the centre being generally slightly thicker than the others. When legs of tables are described as "reeded" it means that the leg is formed of a number of reeds, which in cabinet work are the reverse of "flutes," the latter being hollows cut out of the substance of the leg. See Flutes.

Rococo

The word means literally rock and shell, and is the florid development of the exaggerated decoration which marked the end of the time of Louis XV. It is a style chiefly remarkable for the lavish abundance of details, which are thrown together without propriety and due connection. Scroll and shell ornaments abound; sometimes rockwork pavilions, birds and enormous flowers are combined to produce an overloaded effect in defiance of constructive propriety. See also Baroque.

Sabot (Fr.)

The French word sometimes used to describe the brass mount which ornaments the foot of a French commode or writing table. The mount which ornaments the bombe-fronted part is sometimes alluded to as the " knee " piece.

Secretaire (Fr.)

A writing desk or table fitted with pigeon holes and drawers. In old documents the word is spelt Secretoir.

Sofa Table

The design of a sofa table was first published by Thomas Sheraton in 1804; it therefore belongs to his later period. It is an oblong table supported by two standards, one at each end, these standards having each extended feet, and being connected by a stretcher. The top of the table is an oblong, generally about 3 ft by 1 ft. 9 m. or 2 ft., with an oval-ended folding flap at either end, which when pulled up is supported by little folding brackets. A sofa table has generally two drawers. They were made in rosewood, in mahogany banded with satinwood, and sometimes mounted with brass lion's feet and handles to the drawers, to correspond.

Splat

A word which does not seem to appear in any dictionary, but used to describe the flat member which connects the top of the back of a chair with the frame of the seat, and supports the back of the sitter. Splats may be shaped, plain or carved. See Chapters V and VI.

Sutherland Table

See Pembroke table and Tables.

Tables

In the chapter on Jacobean furniture there is some mention of the seventeenth-century table, the "drawinge" table, "dormant," "extending," "folding," "framed," "joined," "standing," and other kinds now almost forgotten. In the eighteenth-century we have the "wine" table, the "Pembroke," "sofa," "side," "pier" or "console," "kneehole" and the "Carlton." The names of tables come and go with the changing fashions, as, for instance, the round table with pillar-and-claw support which our fathers and grandfathers knew as a " Loo" table, when that game was almost as popular as the now all-prevailing Bridge. Fancy names taken from fashionable leaders of society are of passing interest, but some remain. The "Sutherland" table (q.v.) is one of these, and other instances could be given.

Tarsia Work

See Intarsia.

Tall-Boy

A name given to a double chest of drawers, one chest standing above another, but forming one piece of furniture about the time of Chippendale before and after. Some of them have dentelled cornices and quaint ornamental flat brass handles. They are generally made of mahogany, but occasionally of walnut wood, and are really good sound useful pieces of bedroom furniture. There is an illustration of one in Chapter VI (English Furniture Of The Eighteenth Century).

Tambour (Fr.)

This word, and also "tambour-front" as applied to a secretaire or cabinet, signifies that the slide or cylinder which opens when the table is in use, and shuts when not so required, instead of being made in one piece, is formed of a number of reeds, or narrow strips of carefully finished wood, on a canvas background, so jointed that they act in much the same way as the revolving shutters which we have seen fixed to shop windows. Heppelwhite's book contains designs of "tambour" tables, and Sheraton devotes considerable attention to them. Tambour fronts were also fitted to old French furniture.

Tenon

See Mortise.

Urn Stand

A small square or oval table on four tapering legs, with a little slide which pulls out from under the table top. When tea was a luxurious and expensive article, about the latter end of the eighteenth century, these dainty little tables held the urn, and the teapot for filling was placed on the little slide. See Chapter VI (English Furniture Of The Eighteenth Century).

Veneer

Thin layers of wood especially prepared for laying on furniture and giving to it what is termed marqueterie decoration. Furniture may be veneered with one kind of wood only, such as satinwood or mahogany, without marqueterie - the advantage of this process over using the solid material being, that it is possible to make a choice of much better and richer figured woods in veneers than in solid pieces of timber. When fret-cut galleries or stretchers are added to tables of the Chippendale character, the wood to be fret-cut is formed of three or four thin mahogany veneers glued together different ways of the grain in order to toughen or strengthen the perforated decoration.

Vitrine (Fr.)

This French word, meaning literally a window, is often used to describe a cabinet which is intended for the display of china, and has the maximum of glass with the minimum of wood-really a show case. The term is applied equally to upright cabinets and to those knicknack tables for the display of small curios which have lately become fashionable.