George II Oak and Walnut Chest of Drawers

• Bracket Feet - On bracket feet the corner edge is square and joined by a mitre to its partner on the opposite angle. The inner edge is usually shaped or scalloped. Bracket feet were first introduced in the early 18th century and used until c. 1830 and are found on carcase furniture such as chests, cabinets, bookcases and bureaux.
  
  Ogee bracket feet, a variation on straight bracket feet, have the outside edge forming an "S" shaped curve with the top bulging outward and the bottom turning inward.
  
  On splayed bracket feet, the exterior edge curves outward.
• Graduated Drawers - A bank of drawers, where the top drawer has the least depth, and the depth of the each drawer is greater than the drawer above.
• Oak - Native to Europe and England, oak has been used for joinery, furniture and building since the beginning of the medieval civilisation. It is a pale yellow in colour when freshly cut and darkens with age to a mid brown colour.
  
  Oak as a furniture timber was superceded by walnut in the 17th century, and in the 18th century by mahogany,
  
  Semi-fossilised bog oak is black in colour, and is found in peat bogs where the trees have fallen and been preserved from decay by the bog. It is used for jewellery and small carved trinkets.
  
  Pollard oak is taken from an oak that has been regularly pollarded, that is the upper branches have been removed at the top of the trunk, result that new branches would appear, and over time the top would become ball-like. . When harvested and sawn, the timber displays a continuous surface of knotty circles. The timber was scarce and expensive and was used in more expensive pieces of furniture in the Regency and Victorian periods.
• Column - An architectural feature sometimes used for decorative effect and sometimes as part of the supporting construction. Columns should generally taper slightly towards the top. They may be plain or decorated with carving, fluting or reeding. Columns may be fully rounded or, more commonly, half-rounded and attached with glue, screws or pins to the outer stiles of doors, or the facing uprights on cabinets and bureaux.
• Fluting - A form of decoration found on many pieces of furniture, as well as ceramics, silver and clocks, in which round-bottomed grooves, of varying width and depth, are let into columns, pilasters, legs. As a general rule, flutes are cut in the vertical, though they may follow a turned leg in a spiral pattern. In cross-section, they may be described as a series of 'U' shapes, rising and narrowing at each end of the groove. Fluting is the opposite of reeding, with which fluting is often associated.
• Drop Handles - In furniture of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, small metal drop handles were often used, frequently in a pear or tear shape. The back plate, to which the drop was attached, may be either a simple plain circle, or in the form of a star or diamond. These handles have been widely reproduced, and are frequently found on Jacobean and Queen Anne style furniture made after the first world war. Reproduction handles can usually be identified by the inferior quality of the metal used during the 1920s and 1930s, sometimes thinly coated with brass or copper, though modern copies are often of excellent quality.
• George Ii - George II (1683 - 1760) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1727 until his death in 1760.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• chests of drawers, material
  • oak 332
  • walnut 475
• chests of drawers, period - Georgian 763