Art and Antique Information: Glossary of terms and definitions
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- Saber Leg: A leg curved like a saber.
- Satinwood: Light colored wood used as cabinet wood and for veneers with soft grained features.
- Scroll Bracket: A decorative brace-like member at juncture of legs and aprons on tables, cases, and chairs, characteristic of the Chippendale style. knee block?
- scumbling: A technique of painting consisting by dabbing a layer of opaque paint over a base coat of a different color or tone, so that the lower layer shows through in an uneven, broken effect (an opposite of glazing).
- Seasoning: Process of drying wood by removing the moisture, either naturally or in a humidity controlled environment.
- Secretary: Slant-front desk sitting on top of a chest of drawers (popular in America and England in the 18th and 19th centuries). Secretaries of this period usually had a bookcase superstructure with a bonnet top piedmont above the desk that contains cubbyholes and slots.
Secretary Desk Newport Six Shell - Semenier: A tall, narrow, seven-drawer lingerie chest, from an old French term for "seven". Authentic semaniers must have seven drawers, one for each day of the week, otherwise it would be referred to as a chiffonier.
- Serpentine Front: A waving, compound curve with convex center and concave ends (two cyma curves) on the front of a chest or desk drawer and door fronts. Serpentine fronts are features utilized on various French and Hepplewhite styles.
- Serving Table: A long narrow table that has drawers for linens, silver, etc.
- Settee: An elongated chair or bench with a back and arms accommodating two or more people the settee first evolved in the 17th century, before the sofa and was often upholstered.
- Settle: A long wooden bench with high back and solid arms, often had a hinged seat covering storage space with drawers, brought from England to America by the pilgrims.
- sfumato: (sfu-ma-to) Italian term meaning smoke, describing the soft blending of light and shade of figure modeling. Da Vinci wrote in his Notes on Painting: 'light and shade should blend without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke'.
- sgraffito: (sgraf-ee-to) Italian term meaning scratched; in painting, one color is laid over another, and scratched to reveal the color underneath.
- Shaker: Furniture style design combining functionality and beauty and made by Shakers. This style characterized by no decorations with spare, elegant lines, straight, tapered legs, and woven-strap seats as shown in the tall, slim Shaker ladder-back chair. Shakers were founded in the 18th century American as a communal, religious sect, whose namesake was derived from the movements of their dancing.
- shade: A darker value of a color, as opposed to a tint, which is a lighter shade of a color. Also, the process of creating a three-dimensional effect using lights and darks. A window or light shade is the actual element that shields direct light from the viewer.
- Shell motif: Usually in the form of a scallop shell, decorative shell carvings were popular in Queen Anne and Chippendale styles.
Newport Block and Shell Bureau 
- Sheraton: (c. 1795-1820) Furniture style was an elegant elaboration of neoclassical forms named after England's Thomas Sheraton, whose designs were published in the early 1700s. Sheraton pieces were more delicate and with diminished classical ornamentation than the Adam style, yet more linear, segmented and severe than similar Hepplewhite forms. Classic features included fluted columns, painted decoration, reeding, skillful inlays and bands of contrasting veneer woods. Chairs contained openwork backs with lyre, swag or urn themes with characteristically tapered and usually turned legs (earlier Hepplewhite styles were square). Sideboards were popular furniture of this period. Duncan Phyfe (1795-1848) a cabinetmaker in New York was well known for the late Sheraton style in America.
- Shield Back: A shield shaped form of chair back.
- Shirt: The fabric along the bottom edge of upholstered furniture that conceals the legs.
- Shoji Screen: Translucent Oriental screen made of wood frame and rice paper, often used as a room divider.
- Sideboard: A serving or buffet table with a wide center drawer at the center flanked by cupboard shelves or drawers on the sides for holding plates and silver. Used in a dining room for displaying food ready for serving. Sideboards are generally long and narrow or may have a fold-out top. Traditional 19th century sideboards sometimes had a brass "gallery." rail on the top sides and back to keep serving items from sliding off.
Federal Sideboard / Huntboard buffet table - Side Chair: Smaller scale chair with no arms stood against a wall when not in use.
- Slat-back: Early American chair design using horizontal slats to form the back.
- Sleigh bed: 19th century American version developed from a renowned French Empire design with a scrolled, high headboard and slightly lower footboard resembling the shape of a horse-drawn sleigh.
- Slipper chair: A low, armless, usually upholstered chair, often with short legs, a skirt and high back in 18th century America for bedrooms.
- Slip matching: Veneering process of placing sheets side-by-side to produce diamond, herringbone and checkered patterns.
- Slip seat: A removable, upholstered chair or bench seat.
- Snake foot: Carved foot, usually on tripod bases, with slender, undulating lines suggestive of a snake's form.
- Sofa: A development of the armchair in the mid-18th century, very popular by the early 1800s with the use of springs for comfort. Longer and less formal than a settee, the sofa enjoys widespread use in modern times.
- Sofa Table: Typically, a long and narrow table with drop-leaf ends and drawers used to store game boards.
- Softwoods: Woods from conifers (such as fir, pine and spruce) rather than deciduous trees.
- Spade foot: A tapered, squared foot design resembling the outline of a spade typically found in Hepplewhite styles.
- spatial cues: Eclectic artistic techniques of indicating 3-D space and form in 2-D images. Examples include: modeling form and distance with light and shade; a linear perspective system of converging lines; overlapping forms to indicate relative space; diminishing sizes in perspective; vertical positioning to indicate depth; use of atmospheric color intensities; and any other method to manipulate shape, color and size relationships.
- Spindle: Turned wood lengths, for example, used in a vertical series for a chair back.
- Splat: A flat, vertical, wood support member in the middle of a chair's open back, often carved or ornamented.
- Spring Down: Upholstery cushions made of spring coils wrapped with polyurethane, and covered with down batten.
- Spruce: A strong, light wood that cures and glues well, often a core material under veneers.
- Staining: Furniture finishing process of applying dye colors which permeate into the wood. Stained woods are usually finished with a clear coat after drying.
- Stile: The vertical outside part of cabinet and door frames.
- stippling: A laborious drawing technique of constructing an image of small dots; also used in painting (pointillism).
- Stretcher: A horizontal furniture bracing of an "H" or "X" shape, typically connecting table or chair legs. In paintings, stretchers are the wooden framework that a canvas is 'stretched' across and held in place.
- study: A preliminary artwork created to model a larger, usually more complex work.
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