1920s Australian Blackwood Dining Suite with 8 Chairs

• Fiddleback - A name given to the pattern of the grain in some timbers, where the lines of the grain are compressed and at the same time wavy. Fiddleback grain is prized as a timber for furniture and musical instruments, and is expensive becasue of its scarcity.
  
  In Australia fiddleback graining is found in blackwood. Other non-native timbers that are sometimes found with a fiddleback grain are mahogany and maple.
• Turned Legs - are legs which have been turned on a lathe. In use from the 16th century, turned legs on tables, chairs and cabinets became more frequent until, by the 1830s, the Georgian square or tapered leg was rarely found except in country pieces.
• 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.
• Turning - Any part of a piece of furniture that has been turned and shaped with chisels on a lathe. Turned sections include legs, columns, feet, finials, pedestals, stretchers, spindles etc. There have been many varieties and fashions over the centuries: baluster, melon, barley-sugar, bobbin, cotton-reel, rope-twist, and so on. Split turning implies a turned section that has been cut in half lengthwise and applied to a cabinet front as a false decorative support.
• Blackwood - One of the best known and most widely used Australian timbers, blackwood (acacia melanoxylon), is a member of the Acacia (wattle) family and grows in eastern Australia from about Adelaide in South Australia, as far north as Cairns in Queensland.
  
  The largest, straightest and tallest trees come from the wet forest and swamps of north-west Tasmania where it is grown commercially.
  
  Blackwood timber colours range across a wide spectrum, from a very pale honey colour through to a dark chocolate with streaks of red tinge.
  
  The hardwood timber has been commonly used in the production of furniture, flooring, and musical instruments in Australia from the late 19th century. However, the straight grain timber is not the most prized or valuable, that honour falls to blackwood with a wavy, fiddleback pattern, which is used both in the solid and as a veneer. Fiddleback was only used on the finest examples of furniture.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• tables, large dining - extending, Australian incl. cedar 54