Furniture Terms: A Glossary for Recognising Furniture

Furniture terms are the words used to describe a piece’s parts, techniques and types. The most important are apron, tenon and mortise, dovetail, veneer, marquetry, cabriole leg, chest of drawers, sideboard, secretaire and armchair. If you know them you can read a piece of furniture and date it.

Facts

Construction

The frame of a chair or table is based on a few parts. The apron is the frame that binds the legs together under a seat or tabletop. The legs are usually fixed with tenons, a cut-out part on one piece of wood that fits in a hole, a mortise, in the other. Tenon joints are glued, sometimes with wooden pegs.

A drawer is put together with dovetails, a kind of comb joint where the pieces of wood hook into each other. They distinguish handwork from machine production, as you can read in the guide to dating an antique chest of drawers. The bottom of the drawer is called the drawer bottom, and its sides are the drawer sides. A spindle or slat is a narrow vertical strip in a chair back, and a splat is a broad, often shaped board in the middle of the back.

Surfaces and decoration

Veneer is a thin sheet of fine wood glued onto a cheaper wood. It makes it possible to use a beautiful but expensive wood, such as mahogany, rosewood or birch burr, without building the whole piece from it. Burr is surface timber from knobs in trees, with a strong pattern. Marquetry is a picture or pattern of differently coloured pieces of wood laid into a surface.

Gilding and lacquer give other effects. Gilding uses gold leaf over gesso, and lacquer gives a glossy, hard surface. Patina is the soft sheen and darkening that comes with age and use, and which collectors value. Mounts can be of brass or gilt bronze, ormolu, as on the Rococo chest. Read about the style in the guide to Rococo furniture.

Legs and forms

The shape of the leg reveals much about the period. The cabriole leg bends outwards at the knee and inwards towards the foot and belongs to Rococo. The sabre leg is curved backwards like a sabre blade and is found on Empire and Biedermeier furniture. Column legs are turned like columns. The square or tapering leg is straight and slender, as on the Gustavian chair.

A chair with turned legs and spindles in a frame may be a Windsor chair, where the legs are set straight into a solid seat. The Shaker chair has a straight, simple form, and Thonet No. 14 is made of steam-bent beech. More such classics are found in the guide to chairs to know.

Types of furniture

The chest of drawers is a low piece with drawers, invented around 1700. The sideboard is lower and broader and stands in the dining room. A chiffonier is a narrow, tall piece with drawers. The secretaire has a fold-down writing surface and drawers and small compartments behind it. A fall-front secretaire can be a cabinet with a flap that turns down into a writing surface.

An armchair is a chair with arms and an upholstered seat. The bergère is a deep, comfortable armchair with closed sides, typical of Rococo. A canapé is a sofa with a wooden frame and an upholstered seat, and a daybed is a sofa that can be used as a bed. Read how the styles follow each other in furniture styles in chronological order, about Biedermeier and see the category furniture.

How to recognise it

Exercise

What is the frame that binds the legs together under a chair seat called?