19th Century Mahogany Chest of Drawers with Gilt Accents

• 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.
• Giltwood - Giltwood is used to describe a gold finish on furniture and other decorative wooden items, whereby a thin sheet of gold metal, called gold leaf, is applied to the surface for decorative purposes.
  
  Unlike gilding, where the gold leaf is applied over a coating of gesso, with giltwood the gold leaf is applied direct to the surface, or over a coat of linseed oil gold leaf adhesive.
  
  Most gold-finished mirrors will be gilded, whereas furniture with gold highlights will have the gold applied through the giltwood method.
• Tapered Legs - found on both cabinet and country-made furniture from the 18th to the later 19th centuries. The leg sometimes terminates in a spade foot, though on most country furniture the taper continues for the whole length of the leg. The important thing to remember is that the taper ought only to be on the inside face of the leg, and the outer face should be straight and square. Some legs were made where both sides tapered, but in such a case the taper ought to be the same on both the inner and outer faces of the leg. Where the inside of a leg is straight, with only the outer face tapering, there is every reason to be suspicious
• Mahogany - Mahogany is a dense, close grained red-coloured timber from the West Indies and Central America. It was first imported into Europe in the the early 18th century and its use continued through the 19th century. It was popular for furniture making because of its strength, the wide boards available, the distinctive grain on some boards, termed flame mahogany and the rich warm colour of the timber when it was polished.. The "flame" was produced where a limb grew out from the trunk of the tree, and this timber was usually sliced into veneers for feature panels on doors, backs and cornices.
  
  Some terms used to describe mahogany relate to the country from which it originally came, such as "Cuban" mahogany, "Honduras" mahogany etc. However unless the wood has been tested the names assigned are more a selling feature, rather than a true indication of the timber's origin.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• chests of drawers, material - mahogany 886
• chests of drawers, period - Victorian 1,167