George III Mahogany Pedestal Partners Desk, 1765

• Provenance - A term used to describe the provable history of an antique or work of art, and thus an additional aid to verifying its authenticity. Provenance can have an inflating effect on the price of an item, particularly if the provenance relates to the early settlement of Australia, a famous person, or royalty. Less significant are previous sales of the item through an auction house or dealer.
• Attributed - A cataloguing term where the item in the opinion of the cataloguers, is a of the period of the artist, craftsman or designer, and which probably in whole or part is the work of that person.
• Kneehole - A recessed section, mainly found on Georgian desks and dressing tables, which does not go through the full depth of the item, and usually terminates in a cupboard at the back.
• Pedestal - The columns that support many dining tables and most small occasional tables. They are usually turned, though octagonal-shaped pedestals were fashionable during the 1830s and 1840s.
• Gadrooning - A series of lobes usually as a border. In furniture gadrooning is found as carved decoration around the edges of table tops in the Chippendale and Jacobean style furniture. Gadrooning is also found as decoration on the rims of silver and ceramics.
• Frieze - An architectural term denoting the flat, shaped or convex horizontal surface of furniture, between the architrave and the cornice, usually found on a cabinet or bookcase, or on desks and tables where it may include drawers, the area between the top and the legs. In ceramics, the term refers to the banding, of usually a repeating pattern, on the rims of plates and vases.
• Mahogany - Mahogany is a dense, close grained red-coloured timber from the West Indies and Central America. It was first imported into Europe in the the early 18th century and its use continued through the 19th century. It was popular for furniture making because of its strength, the wide boards available, the distinctive grain on some boards, termed flame mahogany and the rich warm colour of the timber when it was polished.. The "flame" was produced where a limb grew out from the trunk of the tree, and this timber was usually sliced into veneers for feature panels on doors, backs and cornices.
  
  Some terms used to describe mahogany relate to the country from which it originally came, such as "Cuban" mahogany, "Honduras" mahogany etc. However unless the wood has been tested the names assigned are more a selling feature, rather than a true indication of the timber's origin.
• Circa - A Latin term meaning 'about', often used in the antique trade to give an approximate date for the piece, usually considered to be five years on either side of the circa year. Thus, circa 1900 means the piece was made about 1900, probably between 1895 and 1905. The expression is sometimes abbreviated to c.1900.
• George Iii - George III (1738 - 1820) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1760 to 1820.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• desks, period or age
  • Art Deco 36
  • Georgian 135
• desks, style or type - large antique partners / pedestal desks 172
• other furniture - Chippendale style 181