These terms apply to Antiques, Antique Furniture,
Auctions, Glass, and Other Assorted Collectibles
Cable – A twined rope molding design pattern.
Cabriole – Graceful, double curved ‘S’ shaped (usually table or chair leg) that gracefully curves out at the knee, turns in gradually tapering at the ankle and flares out at the foot. Resembling the leg of an animal (”goat” in Spanish, Italian for “goat’s leap”) Popular with Queen Anne and Chippendale furniture with widespread use in the late seventeenth century.
Cabriole Leg – A leg with an out curved knee and an in curved ankle.
Calligraphy – Beautiful handwriting historically practiced in the Orient and Near East also describes drawing or painting with decorative brushstrokes of calligraphy.
Camelback – 18th-century style with a distinctive triple-curved (camel back) frame with a raised central curve along the back. Often-used on sofa and chair backs with a pierced-shield design and anthemion or honeysuckle vine extending from the seat to the highest curve.
Camera Obscura – System of lenses and mirrors from the 16th to the 17th centuries functioning as a primitive camera such that artists could project a scene onto the painting surface.
Campaign Furniture – Portable collapsible furniture, often with handles, that folds flat or can be disassembled and re-assembled. It originated for military use and is commonly associated with colonialism.
Caning – split rattan or similar material soaked, woven and dried in place, commonly used to cover chair seats and backs.
Canopy – A fabric attached at the top of bedposts to a frame for decorative and practical function (privacy screen, bug net).
Captain’s Chair – A rounded spindle back Windsor chair.
Card Table – Folding table originating by English nobility’s passion for gambling in late 17th century.
Case Pieces – A piece of furniture with storage space.
Casegoods – General term of furniture designed for storage space. Including bedroom and dining room furniture, desks, bookcases and chests.
Cedar – An aromatic, knotty, softwood conifer frequently used to line chests, drawers and panel walls. Available in white or red varieties. Cedars fragrant pitch is well noted to keep insect pest away.
Chaise Lounge – Literally, a “long chair”, armchair, sofa or daybed with the upholstered back and seat lengthened for reclining. Modern chaise lounge styles are usually a single piece; but early version designs were two armchairs with a center stool or a bergère and a large stool.
Chamfer – The beveled cutting on an edge or corner.
Chandelier – Light fixture that hangs from the ceiling. French word for candlestick.
Channel Back – A chair back with fluting or grooves for decoration.
Channeling – A furrow or groove.
Charles of London – Low, rolled arm style of sofa or chair.
Checking – Natural development of cracks or splits in wood caused by expansion and contraction due to humidity fluctuations upon varying wood densities.
Cherry – A sturdy and hard wood of red-brown tone and straight, close grain. Cherry wood is easily worked, yet resists checking and warping. American and French18th century styles both use cherry as solid and veneer woods.
Chest on Chest – Tall chest of drawers in two sections, composed of a larger chest-of-drawers supporting another top chest.
Chesterfield – Overstuffed sofa or couch style with large rolled arms in one continuous curve with the back, deep button tufted upholstered ends and no exposed wood.
Chest-On-Chest – A case piece with a chest placed on top of another chest to form one unit.
Cheval Glass – Freestanding tall mirror in a vertical frame.
Chiaroscuro (cheer-a-scu-ro) – Italian for light and dark, referring to the use of light and shade to model form.
Chiffonier – A tall, narrow chest-of-drawers. A “semanier” is a chest with seven drawers.
China Cabinet – Cabinet with glass front doors (sometimes glass sides also), used to store and display fine china dishware.
Chinoiserie – Intricate pattern style influenced by Chinese art, painted or lacquered on furniture and as themes on fabric and wallpaper.
Chinoiserie - Raised – painted decoration of oriental design adorning furniture.
Chintz – Brightly printed cotton fabric, often glazed or “polished” high sheen, commonly used in casual rooms.
Chippendale – A period of furniture 1754-1790. Based on the designs of Thomas Chippendale.
Chippendale – Notable style (1750-1790) from Thomas Chippendale, a late 18th century cabinetmaker whose work was the first to evolve into its own elegant and formal furniture style following the American Queen Anne period. Adaptations from various periods and styles attest to Thomas Chippendale’s influence and ability to borrow styles and create variations. The Chippendale design is more rectangular than Queen Anne with graceful proportions and delicate decoration. Refined ornamentation was carved in classic, Chinese or English rococo form. Characteristics include handsome cabriole legs, claw and ball feet, and broken pediment tops including architecturally detailed columns, cornices and friezes. Block-front chests from Newport, Rhode Island and masterpiece highboys and chairs from Pennsylvania represent some of the pre-eminent American Chippendale design.
Classicism – see Neo-classic
Claw and Ball – Oriental dragon claw with pearl or an animal’s paw evolved into an
American eagle talon’s claw grasping a ball.
Philadelphia style
Massachusetts style
Newport, Rhode Island style
New York style
Club Foot – resembles a turned club, usually on a cabriole leg.
Cockbead – Small, half-round mold beading applied to edges of a drawer fronts.
Collage (col-laj) – French word for cut and pasted scraps of materials, such as paper, cardboard, chair caning, playing cards, etc., to a painting or drawing surface; sometimes also combined with painting or drawing.
Colonial – Dominating style of this general American furniture period from about 1700 through the Revolutionary era. (William and Mary, Queen Ann, to early Chippendale) Formal styles are made of mahogany, cherry or walnut with simpler crafted furniture in pine, oak and maple woods with varied ornamentation. American Colonial term is also used to describe furniture that is high-backed, bulky and casual. The term “colonial” generally represents styles rooted in motherlands but adapted to the uses and materials of the colonies (esp. Africa, Americas, Caribbean and India).
Colonial Revival – Classic 18th century American style adaptations not all accurate. Revival furnishings were in vogue from the 1870s through the period after World War I.
Commode – Loosely defined as any type of small, low chest with doors or drawers; originally a French chest-of-drawers on legs.
Complementary Colors – Colors located opposite thee another on a color wheel (red and green, blue and orange, yellow and violet). When mixed together complementary colors will theoretically produce a neutral color temperature. A primary colors (red, yellow and blue) complement is a mix of the other two primaries. Pure complementary colors placed next to each other will appear much more vibrant. Shadows of an object’s primary color have the complementary color in it.
Concave (IN) and Convex (OUT) Shell Carving – A Newport furniture style.
Console – Term originally defined a bracket that supports cornices or shelves and later used to describe tables fixed to a wall and supported with legs only at the front. Modern use to describe any type of table in use along a wall.
Contemporary – Covers several furniture styles developed in the latter half of the 20th century with a form that rounded and softened the stark lines of modern designs.
Corner Chair – A chair with offset legs that will fit in a corner. (Roundabout)
Cornice – Molding set that crowns or runs horizontally along the top of a cabinet or other furniture.
Cornucopia – A horn shaped container with fruit and or flowers in it. Often-on Empire and Victorian furniture.
Credenza – A buffet or sideboard, often used as a serving table, with a cupboard below the surface. Originating in the 15th century, a recessed, upper tier was added in the 16th century. In addition, a horizontal filing cabinet frequently placed decoratively behind an office desk.
Crest Rail – The top horizontal rail on chairs and sofas.
Cross-Hatching – The technique of shading by using overlapped sets of parallel lines in drawing, etching, etc. Hatching is one set of parallel lines while cross-hatching is one set going in one direction, while the other overlapped set(s) are applied offset in often-perpendicular strokes.
Crotch Veneer – Highly desirable veneer cut from just below a tree’s crotch (V-shaped wood where trunk or branches meet).
Cupboard – A case piece for storing various items.
Cusped Corner (Cusp: point formed by intersection of two arcs) – The indented corner of a table top or other panel, created where two quarter round corners intersect.
Cyma Curve – A distinctive double “S” curve form popular in Queen Anne furniture.
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