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
S
- Saber leg: A chair leg tapered to resemble a cavalry saber. First used on the Greek Klismos chair.
- Sack-back chair: Type of Windsor armchair with a rounded back in which the vertical spindles pierce the horizontal arm rail. Made mid- to late 18th century.
- Saddle seat: Concave, upholstered seat of a chair. Rarely seen in America but used on a set of Chippendale style chairs made in Philadelphia by Benjamin Randolph.
- Saddled: Scooped. Used to describe the shaped yokes of some chairs.
- Salem rocker: A rocking chair in the Windsor style, having a lower back than the Boston rocker.
- Sausage turning: Modern term for bead-shaped turning used on some 18th-century chairs. Often associated with New York.
- Scagliola: A plaster and marble chip composition, made to imitate marble, used for table tops in the eighteenth century.
- Scallop: Curved projection.
- Schrank: Distinctive cupboard or wardrobe form used by Pennsylvania Germans during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
- Scroll: Curved element which came in a variety of forms including single, double, S-, and C-scrolls.
- Scroll-back chair: Another name for the Greek Klismos chair. Period term.
- Scroll foot: A cabriole leg termination shaped like a rolled-up scroll of French origin used from mid-eighteenth century. Also favored by Thomas Chippendale in his Director, but rarely used in America. Period term for William and Mary style Spanish foot.
- Scrutoire: Synonym for escritoire, secretaire or writing cabinet.
- Serpentine: Curve which is convex in center and concave at each end. Often refers to the curve of a chest of drawers or table front.
- Serving table: Table with a top of marble or some other stone used for the display and serving of food.
- Settee: A small sofa.
- Settle: A wooden bench with high back and arms, used to keep drafts off those seated upon it. Seventeenth- and early 18th-century form. Form also revived at the turn of the 20th century.
- Sgraffito: From the Italian word meaning "to scratch". Refers to the technique of scratching through a surface coat to reveal a different color below. Primarily a technique used on ceramics, it was occasionally employed on furniture.
- Sham: Fake; used to refer to false-fronted drawers.
- Shell carving: Carving resembling seashells, in particular scallop shells. Popular decorative motif in the walnut and early mahogany period, covering the years from 1700 up to c.1770.
- Shield-back chair: A chair back shaped like a shield, commonly found on Federal style furniture based on patterns of the English designer George Hepplewhite.
- Sideboard: A wide and relatively low case piece placed against the wall in a dining room for the display and serving of food.
- Six-board construction: The six-board chest is an alternative to the joined chest. Six-board refers to its construction. Five boards are nailed together to form a box, and the top is hinged on. A universal construction technique.
- Skirt: Section of a table found where the legs meet the top, below the under-framing.
- Slat-back chair: A chair composed of parallel horizontal slats. Also called a ladder-back.
- Sleigh bedstead: Form based on French prototypes and popular during the Classical period. Headboard and footboard are of the same height and are curved, thus resembling the outline of a sleigh.
- Sling-seated armchair: Upholstered armchair with an X-shaped base and fabric- or leather-covered back and seat of a single piece. Based on Spanish prototypes and popular during the Classical period, particularly in New Orleans and New York. Also called a Campenchy or Spanish armchair.
- Slipper chair: Upholstered chair with a high back and low seat. One story has it that such chairs were used to put on shoes, hence the name. Introduced during the Queen Anne period.
- Slipper foot: Elongated and pointed foot used on some Queen Anne style furniture such as tables.
- Snake foot: Softly rounded foot which was used on some New York Federal pedestal tables.
- Snowflake punch: Stippled background design punched into some Federal furniture made in Salem, Massachusetts. Associated with Samuel Mclntire.
- Spade foot: Terminus of a square, tapering leg somewhat wider than the leg and trowel-like in shape. Seen on chairs and tables based on Sheraton and Hepplewhite design. Common Neoclassical feature.
- Spandrel: A decoration used in square corners, usually on clock dials to fill the space between curved chapter ring and the corners.
- Spanish foot: Another name for the paintbrush or scroll foot. The vertical scroll curves inward to form the foots base of support. Modern term.
- Spindle-back chair: Chair with a back composed of spindles. Particularly popular in Eastlake-influenced furniture. Also refers to Arts and Crafts-style chairs with very thin vertical slats.
- Spindle: Slender turned rod usually used in a series. See also Split spindle.
- Spinet desk: Diminutive desk which rests on four legs and has a gallery or shelves at the back of its top.
- Spiral Twist: A form of turning often known as barley-sugar twist very popular in the late seventeenth century.
- Sphinx: A mythological being, usually composed of the body of a lion and the head of a woman. The sphinx is found in classical Greek and Egyptian art, and was later popular as a decorative motif in furniture design.
- Splat: The middle section of a chair back, parallel to the uprights on either side of it. Splats could be highly carved, and some of the popular shapes include the scrolled, vase, eagle, and urn.
- Split Baluster: Used as a decoration on chests of sixteenth and seventeenth century and made by splitting a turned baluster vertically in half to provide a flat surface for application.
- Splint seat: Seat woven of thin strips of wood.
- Split spindle: Turned length of wood which is flat on one side and is nailed to the surface of a case piece of used in the back of a chair. To create a split spindle the turner glues a soft length of wood, such as pine, between two lengths of harder wood. He turns this block on a lathe, chops out the soft wood, and is left with two "split" spindles.
- Spool turning: Another name for ball turning. Particularly popular during the middle of the 19th century and associated with the Elizabethan Revival style.
- Spoon back: Descriptive of chair back on which the splat curves like a spoon handle.
- Square-back chair: Chair with a back in the form of a square or rectangle. Often used to describe Federal chairs with Sheraton-style backs.
- Step-down Windsor chair: Early to mid-19th-century Windsor chair with a crest rail which is higher in the middle than at the ends. The outline of the crest rail resembles a few stairs going up and then coming down.
- Stile: Upright or post on a chair. Or the vertical part of framing of a panelled piece of furniture.
- Stop fluting: Fluting in which part of each concave hollow is filled in with reeding.
- Strapwork: Decorative ornament of interlaced straps, or bands, resembling carved fretwork. Used originally in the oak period from mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth century but again in Chippendale period.
- Stretcher: Element which connects the legs of an object and stabilizes it.
- Stretcher table: Table stabilized by stretchers. Early and/or utilitarian form.
- Stringing: Thin length of decorative inlaid wood, usually lighter than the surrounding wood. Popular technique during the first phase of Classicism.
- Stump leg: Generally refers to a squarish back leg with chamfered corners. Found on some American Queen Anne and Chippendale style furniture, but also used in Britain.
- Sunburst pattern: A decoration of radiating lines or rays used particularly in the bottom drawers of tallboys and chests of the walnut period from 1700 to 1730. Made to look like the sun's rays and often inset in a concave shaping of the bottom drawer. Also popular in the Queen Anne style.
- Sunflower chest: See Wethersfield chest with drawers.
- Swag: Inlaid, carved, or painted motif in the form of a gathered length of fabric which hangs lower in the middle. Popular Classical design.
- Swan: Furniture term used to describe drop handles of eighteenth century form. Also used to describe the curve of a broken pediment cornice.
