Colonial Huon Pine Cabinet with Scrolled Mouldings

• Important - Important is a word used in the antique trade to indicate an object should be ranked above other similar objects, and is therefore more valuable.
  
  The object could be considered important because it is by a famous designer or maker, has been shown at a major exhibition, is of exquisite workmanship, is rare or is a "one-off", was made for an important patron, and so on.
  
  Even further up the pecking order are objects that are described in catalogue descriptions as highly important or extraordinarily important.
• 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.
• Huon Pine - Named after the Frenchman who discovered the Huon River in Tasmania, it is an extremely slow growing and long living tree. Huon pine is native to Tasmania, and it can grow to an age of 3,000 years or more. The wood contains oil that retards the growth of fungi, hence its early popularity in ship-building in convict-era Tasmania. The timber is a warm yellow colour, finely grained, and was popular for household furniture in the Victorian era. Interestingly, much Huon pine furniture was made in South Australia. Huon pine is a protected species and only limited quantities are available nowadays, for craftsmen to manufacture small items such as platters, sculptures and other decorative objects.
• Mouldings - Decorative strips, deriving from architectural features, that may be either applied separately to a piece of furniture or worked directly on to the carcase. Mouldings are found on cornices or pediments, around the edges of panels and drawer fronts, and around both the tops and bottoms of chests, bookcases and other cabinet furniture. Until the late 19th century mouldings were worked by hand, using a shaped moulding plane. Latterly, they have been shaped by machine.
• Veneers - Veneers are thin sheets of well-figured timber that are glued under pressure to the surface of a cheaper timber for decorative effect, and then used in the making of carcase furniture.
  
  Early veneers were saw-cut so were relatively thick, (up to 2 mm) but is was realised that saw cutting was wasteful, as timber to the equivilent of the thickness of the saw was lot on each cut.
  
  A more efficient method was devised to slice the timber, either horizontally with a knife, or in a rotary lathe.
  
  Flame veneer, commonly found in mahogany or cedar furniture, is cut from the junction of the branches and main trunk. So-called fiddleback veneers, where the grain is crossed by a series of pronounced darker lines, is usually cut from the outer sections of the tree trunk.
  
  During the 17th and 18th centuries, and in much of the walnut marquetry furniture made during the latter part of the 19th century, the veneer was laid in quarters, each of the same grain, so that one half of the surface was the mirror image of the other.
  
  The use of veneer allows many other decorative effects to be employed, including stringing, feather banding, cross banding, and inlaid decorative panels in the piece. The carcase over which veneer is laid is usually of cheaper timber such as pine, oak or, sometimes in Australia during the first half of the 19th century, red cedar.
  
  The important thing to remember about veneers is that prior to about 1850 they were cut by hand, and were consequently quite thick - ranging up to about 2mm deep.
  
  From the mid-19th century veneers were cut by machines and were almost wafer-thin. This is a critical point when trying to judge the approximate age of veneered furniture.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• cabinets, period or style - Colonial 112