Metamorphic Library Chair with Parquetry Motif

• Foldover - A term used when describing card, tea or games tables, where the top folds over onto itself when not in use. The interior surfaces that are exposed when the top is open may be polished (in the case of tea tables) or baized (for card or games tables).
• Metamorphic Furniture - An item of furniture, that can be transformed from its apparent purpose to a different purpose. The most common examples are the library chair that can be folded into a set of library steps, and the side table that transforms into a multi-tiered dumb waiter through a series of ropes, pulleys and weights.
• Parquetry - Parquetry is inlay laid in geometric patterns, the contrast being achieved by the opposing angles of the grain and veneers. The herringbone pattern is the most commonly used in flooring, but this is almost never seen in furniture - the patterns used are more complex and unlike flooring, can include several different varieties of timber.
• Maple - Maple, native to North America, is a dense heavy timber from light to yellow-brown in colour. It has very little distincive graining unless it is one of the variants such as birds-eye maple or burr maple, so was not used extensively for furniture in 18th and 19th century, where cabinetmakers and designers preferred timbers with more distinctive features such as mahogany, walnut, rosewood and oak.
  
  Birds-eye maple has a seres of small spots linked by undulating lines in the grain, is highly sough and is used as a decorative veneer. Burr maple has larger and irregular grain swirls than birds-eye maple.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• chairs, singles / pairs / threes, style or period
  • desk 294
  • library 294
  • metamorphic (library steps) 18
  • office 294
  • Victorian, other styles 1,220