A Secretaire a abattant describes a French tall writing desk that has a door flap that comes down to create the writing surface. The cabinet usually contains drawers and pigeon holes. The lower part can either be a cupboard with two doors or sometimes it contains drawers.
Satinwood is so called because of its satin-like sheen. It is hard and durable wood and is very popular for cabinet making and is particularly used in marquetry. It comes from tropical trees from the tree family ‘Rutaceae’ which are native to southern India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, South East Asia, Australia and Jamaica. The wood […]
S. & H. Jewell were cabinet makers with premises in Little Queen Street, Holborn, in London. They were founded in 1830 and were a family business. They are listed as having sold their furniture to Standen House, the Arts & Crafts home in East Grinstead. They also restored antiques and sold them from their London […]
Rosewood is a type of wood with a distinctive grain with black and dark brown outlines It has a rich warm reddish brown colour. Rosewoods can vary from one variety to another even though they belong to the same species. It is a hardwood, native to India, South-East Asia and Brazil. It is notorious for […]
Robert Gillow (1704–1772) was the founder of Gillows of Lancaster, an English furniture manufacturer. Robert Gillow started out as a ship’s carpenter and sailed to the West Indies. He discovered mahogany in Jamaica and in 1720, brought samples back to Lancaster. This could have been the first mahogany ever imported to England. He went on […]
Robert (Mouseman) Thompson ( 1876 – 1955) was an English furniture maker based in Kilburn, North Yorkshire. He established a business making Yorkshire oak furniture around 1919 after teaching himself to use traditional tools and experimented with ideas based on 17th century English styles. His claim to fame is that most of his pieces incorporate […]
Restauration Period denotes the period from 1815 and the fall of Napoleon I to 1830. Also known as the ‘Bourbon Restoration’ the brothers of beheaded Louis XVI were returned to the French throne and ruled as Louis XVIII and Charles X. The furniture of the period still had many features of the Empire period, but […]
Regency Furniture – Prince George became Prince Regent from 1811 to 1820 due to his father’s, (George III) incapacity. During this period furniture and the decorative arts followed the earlier neoclassical Georgian style which had taken its inspiration from the ancients, but during the Regency it became the fashion to make exact copies of ancient […]
A Refectory table – is a very long oblong table which was originally used for dining in Medieval monasteries. In the Later Middle Ages it evolved into a banqueting and feasting table used in castles and manor houses. They were handmade, usually in oak or walnut based on a trestle style with stretchers supporting the […]
Purdonium is a type of coal-scuttle or coal-box that has a removable metal lining. This meant that the dirty and noisy business of refilling it could be removed from the firesides of the 19th century middle classes and that the elegant outer casings of the scuttles and boxes could be kept in prime condition First […]