Reference
Glossary of Victorian furniture terms
A short, factual reference to the people, styles, forms, and techniques that come up most often in the archive. Eras are approximate. Definitions are general background, not appraisals — the archive never assigns value or attribution.
Styles
- Rococo Revival
- A mid-19th-century revival of 18th-century French Rococo, marked by naturalistic carving of fruit, flowers, leaves, and C- and S-scrolls, often in rosewood or walnut.
- Renaissance Revival
- An architectural style using pediments, applied medallions and rosettes, burl-veneer panels, incised lines, and turned or tapered legs.
- Gothic Revival
- Furniture borrowing medieval architectural motifs — pointed arches, trefoils, quatrefoils, crockets, and tracery.
- Eastlake
- A rectilinear, reform style after Charles Locke Eastlake, favouring shallow incised geometric and stylized ornament over heavy three-dimensional carving.
- Aesthetic Movement
- An "art for art’s sake" style with ebonized surfaces, gilt incising, and Anglo-Japanese motifs such as fans, cranes, and stylized blossoms.
- Egyptian Revival
- A recurring 19th-century fashion using pharaonic motifs — sphinxes, lotus capitals, winged scarabs, and palmettes.
Makers
- John Henry Belter
- A New York cabinetmaker known for laminated, steam-bent rosewood with deeply pierced and carved Rococo Revival ornament.
- Herter Brothers
- A New York firm (Gustave and Christian Herter) central to the American Aesthetic Movement, known for inlaid and ebonized cabinetry for wealthy clients.
- R. J. Horner & Co.
- A New York maker known for massively carved oak furniture, often with figural supports such as winged griffins, lions, and caryatids.
- Alexander Roux
- A French-born New York cabinetmaker working in Rococo and Renaissance Revival styles, among the most prominent of his era.
- Pottier & Stymus
- A New York firm known for Renaissance Revival and Egyptian-motif furniture and complete interior commissions.
- Mitchell & Rammelsberg
- A large Cincinnati furniture manufacturer, one of the most significant Midwestern producers of the mid-19th century.
Forms
- Étagère
- An open unit of tiered shelves, often mirror-backed, made for displaying ornaments and bric-à-brac.
- Secretary
- A writing desk combining a fall-front or drop writing surface with drawers below and frequently a bookcase or cabinet above.
- Sideboard
- A dining-room storage and serving piece, in this era often large and elaborately carved with game, fruit, or figural motifs.
- Parlor table
- A central table for the parlor, typically with a marble top and carved or turned base.
- Méridienne
- An asymmetrical reclining sofa with one raised end and a sloping back.
- Whatnot
- A light stand of open tiered shelves for displaying small objects; the term overlaps with the étagère.
Materials & techniques
- Burl
- Highly figured wood cut from a burl growth on a tree, sliced as veneer for decorative panels.
- Marquetry
- Decorative inlay made from veneers of contrasting woods (and sometimes other materials) set into a surface to form patterns or pictures.
- Spelter
- A zinc alloy used to cast inexpensive decorative figures and mounts that imitate bronze; softer and lighter than bronze.
- Lithophane
- A molded, translucent porcelain plaque whose image appears in light and shade only when backlit.
- Tufting
- An upholstery technique that draws the cover into a regular pattern of padded, buttoned pockets, common on Rococo Revival seating.
- Ebonizing
- Staining and finishing a lighter wood to a deep black in imitation of ebony, characteristic of Aesthetic Movement pieces.