Victorian Burr Walnut Sewing Table

• 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.
• Fretwork - Pierced intricate decorative patterns, cut with a fine saw and generally found around the galleries of desk tops, open-hanging shelves and small tables.
  
  In open fret, the timber is completely pierced, giving an appearance of great lightness and delicacy.
  
  With blind fret, as seen in Chinoiserie styles of Chippendale, the fretwork is applied like a moulding to a solid panel.
• 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.
• Turning - Any part of a piece of furniture that has been turned and shaped with chisels on a lathe. Turned sections include legs, columns, feet, finials, pedestals, stretchers, spindles etc. There have been many varieties and fashions over the centuries: baluster, melon, barley-sugar, bobbin, cotton-reel, rope-twist, and so on. Split turning implies a turned section that has been cut in half lengthwise and applied to a cabinet front as a false decorative support.
• 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.
• Stretcher - A horizontal rail which connects the legs of stools, chairs, tables and stands, to provide stabilisation of the legs. A stretcher table is any table with a stretcher base. The term is usually applied to substantial farmhouse tables, although many cabinetmaker's pieces, such as sofa tables, also have turned stretchers.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• tables, purpose or type - sewing and work 357