Antique Furniture Terms Explained
Find those specific definitions and illustrations here!
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- Daybed: An armless lounge chair, first introduced to America during the William and Mary period. Daybeds are usually upholstered or else have caned or rushed bottoms. Also called couch.
- Deception bed: Bed which folds up into another form of furniture such as a chest of drawers or a sofa.
- Dentiling: Trim in the form of a series of little rectangles, each separated by a space. Name comes from its resemblance to a row of teeth.
- Desk-on-frame: Step in evolution of desk form. Slant-top box, with or without drawers below, resting on separate frame.
- Diamond-and-scroll splat: Splat with interlacing scrolls and diamond motifs favored by New York chair makers during the mid- to late 18th century.
- Diaper: A decorative pattern of diamond-shaped lines with dots or forms inside. Used for border decoration.
- Dolphin: Classical decorative motif more recently associated with the Empire style.
- Dot-and-dash piercing: Pattern of piercing found on some Newport table stretchers dating from the mid- to late 18th century in the form of alternating circles and sets of three horizontal lines.
- Dovetail: Right-angled joint formed by interlocking, flaring tenons.
- Dowel: A wooden peg used to fasten timber joints.
- Drapery: Swaglike draping of cloth used as a carved or inlaid decorative motif on Federal and Empire-style chairs and sofas.
- Drawing-room chair: Thomas Sheraton used this term to refer to a type of armchair with upholstered back. George Hepplewhite preferred the term cabriole chair.
- Draw-top table: Also known as a draw table; a table which can be extended by pulling out leaves located under the tabletop.
- Dressing table: Table designed to be used by the person completing his or her toilet, usually having drawers to hold toilet articles, and a mirror.
- Drop finial: Hanging architectural element which was sometimes used on 17th-century furniture such as tables and court cupboards.
