Regency Rosewood Chiffonier with Gilt Metal Lattice Base

• Back Boards - As the name implies, the boards that back a piece of cabinet furniture such as a chest of drawers. The backing timber is usually of cheaper material like pine (often called 'deal' by the British trade), though in early Australian colonial days, red cedar was also used to back a piece. As cedar became scarcer during the later 19th century, craftsmen turned to kauri pine.
  
  On early furniture, made before the first half of the 19th century, the backboards were often chamfered at the edges and the wide boards slotted into grooves in a supporting central frame. In later furniture, the backboards were generally nailed or screwed into rebates cut directly into the carcase and the boards became much thinner and narrower.
  
  From about the first world war plywood was frequently used for cheaper pieces.
  
  Backboards are one important way of judging the age of a piece of furniture.
• Rosewood - A dense timber that varies in shade to very light brown to almost black. When rosewood is cut and sanded the colour of the timber will turn black, and after polishing and exposure to daylight, the surface will gradually lighten over time to light brown with black streaks.
  
  The name comes from the odour emanating from the timber when it is planed, sanded or cut.
  
  Rosewood was very popular for use in Victorian furniture in the second half of the 19th century, and at that time most of the rosewood was imported from Brazil. However it also grows in India and Indonesia.
  
  It is used in the sold for chairs and table legs, but for carcase furniture such as side cabinets and bookcases, and for table tops it is always used as a veneer.
• 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.
• 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.
• Regency Period - The Regency period in English furniture design refers to the period when King George III, was declared unfit to rule in 1811, and his son ruled as proxy as Prince Regent, until 1820, and then, after the death of his father as George IV until his death in 1830. The Regency period was preceded by the Georgian period (George I, George II, and George III: 1714 - 1811), and was followed by the William IV period, which only lasted until 1837 when William IV died as was succeeded by Queen Victoria.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• cabinets, material - rosewood 138
• cabinets, period or style - Regency 129
• chiffoniers (small sideboards), period or style - Regency 26