Victorian Ebonised Cabinet with Porcelain Medallion

• Victorian Period - The Victorian period of furniture and decorative arts design covers the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. There was not one dominant style of furniture in the Victorian period. Designers used and modified many historical styles such as Gothic, Tudor, Elizabethan, English Rococo, Neoclassical and others, although use of some styles, such as English Rococo and Gothic tended to dominate the furniture manufacture of the period.
  
  The Victorian period was preceded by the Regency and William IV periods, and followed by the Edwardian period, named for Edward VII (1841 ? 1910) who was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India for the brief period from 1901 until his death in 1910.
• Plinth - The square or rectangular base of a piece of cabinet furniture, often ornamented with moulding. The plinth may be separate, as in some wardrobes or presses, and act as the support for the carcase. In a false plinth, the moulded boards may be attached directly to the piece. Furniture with a plinth base usually does not have separate feet. The term derives from architecture where it denotes the base of a column or statue.
• Boxwood - Boxwood is a hard, yellow coloured, close grained timber. In the 19th century it was often used for inlays, especially stringing, because of its contrasting colour to the darker timbers of the carcase. Stringing is the inlay of a narrow strip of veneer of a lighter colour, such as boxwood along or close to the edges of an object that has been veneered in a darker timber such as mahogany.
  
  Because of its fine grain and resistnce to splitting or chipping it has also been used for treen, turnings, carvings and other small wooden items, such as chess pieces.
• Ebonised - Timber that has been stained or lacquered black in imitation of ebony. The process has been used since the Renaissance, but is most commonly found in late 19th century furniture, sometimes gilded and turned in imitation of bamboo. Furniture with an ebonised finish is not currently in vogue, and this is reflected in the price for such pieces.
• Stringing - Fine inlaid lines, in contrasting colour to the carcase timber, found mainly on furniture made in the styles of the later 18th and early 19th centuries. Stringing, which may be of satinwood, pine, ebony, horn, brass or occasionally ivory, is found principally on drawer fronts, around the outer edges of usually tapered legs and French bracket feet, around the edges of inlaid panels and between the joint of the cross banding and carcase timber on table tops, chests of drawers, cabinets etc. The effect is to emphasize the line of the piece and add to the impression of lightness and elegance. Stringing also occurs in Sheraton-revival-style furniture of the later 19th and early 20th centuries.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• display cabinets, period, age or style - Victorian 283