Victorian Burr Walnut Marble Top Credenza

• Plinth - The square or rectangular base of a piece of cabinet furniture, often ornamented with moulding. The plinth may be separate, as in some wardrobes or presses, and act as the support for the carcase. In a false plinth, the moulded boards may be attached directly to the piece. Furniture with a plinth base usually does not have separate feet. The term derives from architecture where it denotes the base of a column or statue.
• Burr - Burr (or in the USA, burl) is the timber from the knotted roots or deformed branch of the tree, which when cut, displays the small circular knots in various gradations of colour. It is always cut into a decorative veneer, most commonly seen as burr walnut on 19th century furniture.
• 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.
• Skirt - In furniture, the skirt is a strip of wood underneath the top or front of the item. On chairs, the skirt is the support under the seat joining the legs, while on tables, the skirt is the support under the top, that assists in supporting the top and also joins the legs. On carcase furniture such as chests and cabinets, the skirt is the timber strip immediately under the drawers or cupboard.
• Ebony - Ebony is a close grained timber, black in colour. It has a fine texture which can be polished to a high gloss, making it suitable for venereering, inlay and stringing and its use as solid timber is resticted to small decorative items and ornamental decoration, such as chess pieces and musical instrument parts. The term "ebonised" means "faux ebony", timber that has been darkened during the polishing process to resemble ebony.
• Carrara Marble - Carrara marble is a type of white or blue-grey marble quarried in the Carrara region of Tuscany, Italy. It is prized for its beauty, durability and the ease with which it can be worked. The marble has been used for thousands of years for sculptures and architectural details, and was particularly popular during the Renaissance period. Some of the most famous sculptures in the world, such as Michelangelo's David, were carved from Carrara marble. It is also widely used in the construction of buildings, floors, and countertops, both indoors and outdoors. This marble is known for its unique veining which gives it a distinctive look, and it's a popular choice for interior design, especially bathrooms and kitchens.
• Satinwood - Satinwood is a dense pale gold coloured timber that was imported into Britain in the second half of the 18th century, and early 19th centuries from the East Indies and the West Indies. The name derives from the satin-like surface sheen when the timber is polished.
  
  It was used in the solid, as a veneer and in inlays. As well as furniture, satinwood was used for making musical instruments, barometers, boxes and clocks.
  
  It will usually be found on only the very best quality objects, presumably because of of its cost at the time.
• 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.
• Foliate - Decorated with leaves or leaf-like forms.
• Inlay - Decorative patterns inserted into the main body of a piece of furniture, generally in wood of contrasting colour and grain, though brass, ivory, ebony, shell and sometimes horn have been used. Inlay may consist of a panel of well figured timber inset into a cabinet door front, geometric patterns, or complex and stylized designs of flowers, swags of foliage, fruits and other motifs. As a general rule, in pieces where the carcase is constructed in the solid, the inlay is relatively simple such as stringing, cross banding and herringbone banding. Where more elaborate and decorative work was required veneer was used. Inlay has been fashionable from at least the latter half of the 17th century, when a variety of elaborate forms were developed

This item has been included into following indexes:

• Adam, Robert (Scottish) - furniture designs 18
• cabinets, material
  • satinwood 57
  • walnut 665
• credenza - with mirror back 99