Antique Furniture Terms Explained
Find those specific definitions and illustrations here!
More furniture terms: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
R
- Rails: The horizontal part of a joined frame of a panelled piece of furniture. Also: Top Rail or Cresting Rail; used to describe the top wooden member between the uprights of a chair back.
- Ram's Head: Decoration used by Adam in mask form.
- Rat-claw foot: Distinctive claw-and-ball foot, found on some Chippendale-style tripod tables, consisting of an elongated ball with flattened bottom topped by a claw. Modern term.
- Récamier couch: A chaise longue with a single high armrest which can also serve as a back. Name comes from Madame Récamier, who was immortalized reclining on such a couch in a painting by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825).
- Reeding: Carved ornamentation in the form of a series of parallel vertical convex lines. The opposite of fluting. Used on eighteenth century furniture and particularly later eighteenth and nineteenth century chair and table legs.
- Reel turning: Turned element in the form of a spool.
- Regency style: The English version of the Empire style, which was characterized by the practice of copying furniture from Greek and Roman models. Popular from the late 18th to early 19th centuries. Named for the Prince Regent, later George IV.
- Relief: Projection of design from flat background.
- Reserve: An enclosed area.
- Restauration: The style current in France before and during the reign of Charles X (1824-1830). The furniture is a simplified version of the Classical style: Ormolu mounts disappeared, and light fruitwoods were preffered to mahogany.
- Ribbon-back splat: Chippendale-style splat with carved "gathers of ribbon" worked into the back of the chair.
- Rice carving: Decorative motif resembling the ripe grain of the rice plant. Found on some South Carolina furniture.
- Riddle-back chair: Chair with a back composed of a series of pierced slats.
- Ring turning: Turning in the form of a ring.
- Rococo: 18th-century style which originated in France and featured asymmetrical curves and naturalistic motifs such as shells, foliage, and rocks. Also see Rococo or Louis XV.
- Rod-back: Type of Windsor chair or settee with a rectangular back composed solely or primarily of bamboo-turned vertical spindles. Popular during the early years of the 19th century.
- Rope turning: Turning resembling the twisted strands of a rope.
- Rosette: Circular ornament sometimes divided like the petals of a rose.
- Roundabout chair: Alternate period term for corner chair. In such a chair the seat and legs have been rotated forty-five degrees, so that it has one leg in the front, two on the side, and one at the back. The back is generally in the shape of a semicircle.
- Ruffle carving: Carving in the form of a gathered piece of cloth.
- Rule Joint: An edge joint found on drop-flap tables from the seventeenth century, but pretty well superseding other plain joints in the eighteenth century. Used on gateleg and Pembroke tables.
- Runner: The strip of wood on which a drawer runs.
- Rush seat: A chair seat composed of the twisted stems of marsh grass.
- Rustic furniture: Furniture of natural materials and organic form generally used as camp and garden furniture during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America. Also called bent twig or Adirondack furniture.
