456 THE BAROQUE AND ROCOCO MOVEMENTS

Furniture. It? the less elaborate earlier phase of the Colonial
period, furniture was made of walnut in the Queen Anne style.
At the height of the period it was made of mahogany usually from
Chippendale designs. See pages 86, 90, and 460.

The most easily recognized feature of the Baroque style is the
cabriole leg, which has a high knee curve. These curved legs ap-
peared on chairs, tables, beds, desks, highboys, lowboys, and chests
of drawers. Cabinet makers had become skilful enough to make
these legs so strong that they did not need stretchers to support
them. They were finished with Dutch, Spanish, Flemish, snake,
slipper, or ball-and-claw feet. Sometimes bracket feet were used
on case furniture.

Another important design feature of the Baroque style was the
broken curve. Some of the decorative motifs were the acanthus,
lions' heads and feet, satyrs' masks, scrolls, frets, egg and dart,
shell, honeysuckle, fuchsia, and Chinese motifs.

The chief method of decoration was carving, but imitation of
Chinese lacquer was also fashionable. The flat surface of case
furniture was broken by the block front, the bow front, and the
serpentine front. The block front, an American development
from Rhode Island, featured by John Townsend and John God-
dard, was particularly handsome. It consisted of a raised portion
on each side of a similar sunken portion. The shell motif was
sometimes used at the top of the three sections of the block front.
See page 459.

The chairs were of many types, including the typical Queen
Anne chair of walnut with rounded shoulders, solid central splat,
and horseshoe seat, and the typical Chippendale chair, of mahogany
with a bow-shaped top rail resting on back posts, an openwork
splat, and a seat with straight sides. There were also upholstered
easy chairs with or without arms. The Windsor was a provincial
chair of this period.

Tables were of many varieties. Side tables were made the same
height as the drop-leaf dining tables so that they could be com-
bined when necessary. The card table with a hinged flap was
popular. Tea tables were very important to the colonial dames
because much of the social activity occurred at tea time, Til wop
pedestal tea tables of a number of sizes, many kettle statute, and
various tray tables were found in both parlors and bedrooms.