Victorian Sheraton Style Mahogany Chest with Inlays

• Proportions - Essentially, the size of the various parts of a piece of furniture in relation to the whole. Ideally, the proportions should be pleasing to the eye appearing neither top-heavy nor unbalanced and convenient for ordinary use.
• Thomas Sheraton - Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806) was born in Stockton on Tees in the north of England. He was apprenticed to a local cabinetmaker and after working as a cabinetmaker, Sheraton moved to London about 1790. Although he described himself as a cabinet-maker, like Chippendale, no definite piece of furniture can be traced to him as maker. Nevertheless, he was immensely influential and in 1791-4 published his four volume book 'The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book'. The books were used as source of design by the furniture-making trade , who often simplified or modified the designs to suit their own preferences. Sheraton furniture is marked by restraint and sophistication, elegance and discretion, though he also found time to invent fanciful combination furniture.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• chests of drawers, material - mahogany 898
• chests of drawers, period - Victorian 1,199