Australian Wine Table with Barley Twist Column
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An Australian wine table with barley twist column, cedar and blackwood, 19th century 70 cm high, 51 cm diameter
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- 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.
- 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. - Barley Twist - The leg, and frequently other uprights such as columns, chair frames, spindles and stretchers, are turned in fairly wide and deep spirals, usually slightly rounded. Also known as the 'Jacobean twist' and common on the dark stained Jacobean Revival furniture of the 1930s and 40s.
As a rule, the twists on opposite uprights should move in a contrary direction. Thus, if the spiral on a right side is clockwise, that on the left side should move in a counter-clockwise direction.
This is also true of rope-twist or cable-twist turning, a nautical term that came into fashion after Nelson's victories over the French fleet. The essential difference is that with rope twists, the spirals are more finely turned on the lathe and placed closer together, than they are with barley-sugar turnings.
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