Ladder-Back

The name given to a chair-back having horizontal cross-rails or slats between the uprights. Large numbers of these chairs of the farmhouse type with rush seats were made in and about Yorkshire in early Georgian times, but the type existed before then. They were made with both low and high backs, with from three to five slats including the top rail. Chippendale made them in the higher-class chair in carved and pierced mahogany, and other makers followed his lead.

Lambrequin

See Pelmet.

Lamp

In furniture, a device for giving light. Lamps are of great antiquity and of infinite variety, and are made in metal, china and wood; they are either portable or pendent. Vast ingenuity has been expended upon their artistic form, but owing to their comparative fragility and constant use old examples are rarely met with.

Lamp-Stand

A small table or stand, easily portable, upon which to place a lamp. Lamp-stands were often of tripod form, and in the late eighteenth century in France and in the corresponding Adam period in England they attained a remarkable degree of elegance. They were occasionally of iron for use in halls. See Candle-Stand and Torchere.

Lancashire Spindle-Back Chair

A chair of the farmhouse type made in Lancashire from about 1730, the uprights of which are turned and connected with a top rail centering in a shell-like ornament. The back consists of two rows of four or five vertical spindles supported by the top rail and two horizontal rails. The turned front stretcher generally centres in a bold knob and the seat is rushed.

Batty Langley (1695-1751)

Architect and designer of furniture. His firm, Batty and Thomas Langley, published in 1740, "The City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Design," and other books. His frequent use of the ogee or cyma curves in designing the mouldings round the panels of doors and drawers has caused this feature to be associated with his name and termed the Batty Langley style. In 1747 he published "Gothic Architecture Improved by Rules and Proportion," and was thus responsible in some degree for the Gothic revival of this period.

Lantern Or Lanthorn

A case with a framework of metal or wood, containing panes of glass or other transparent material. In times before Sir R. Mansell's monopoly for glass-making, early in the seventeenth century, horn was frequently used instead of glass, and gave rise to the word "Lanthorn," a word which is still used to describe hall lamps in stately mansions, such as the one at Harewood House, the wooden frame of which was probably carved by Chippendale.

Lathe

In its connection with furniture, the instrument used by cabinet-makers and others for holding and rotating wood or other material, and cutting it into rounded forms such as table and chair legs. The invention of the lathe has been ascribed to Talus, a grandson of Daedalus, about 1240 B.C., but it must have been used centuries before then by the Egyptians.

Lattice-Work

A construction in wood or metal, having its parts crossing like network. Chair-backs by Manwaring and Sheraton are examples. The tracery in the doors of cabinets and bookcases is also called lattice-work. Small work of the kind is sometimes called fretwork.