Spinet (Italian Spinetta, Little Thorn)

A musical instrument popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, until it was superseded by the harpsichord. It had a keyboard of four or five octaves only, and could be played either on a stand or on a table. Like the harpsichord the strings were plucked, not struck, as in a pianoforte. The case was often highly embellished with painting, gilding, etc.

Spinning Wheel

The foot-driven wheel for spinning wool, cotton or flax into threads, was invented at Brunswick in 1530, and was in use until Hargreaves made the spinning jenny in 1767. Spinning was a favourite occupation in fashionable circles during the eighteenth century, and the wheels made for the purpose are often now used as decorative features in a room. Their use persisted in remote farmhouses until an even later date.

Spiral

A curve which winds round a fixed point, and does not return to itself. The whorls - each whorl being one complete turn of the curve round the axis - may be in one plane, or flat like a watchspring, or in ascending or conical form like a shell. Spirals in many varieties are met with in the decoration of furniture both in the flat and in the round, in such forms as the volutes of capitals of the classical orders, the scrolls at the ends of swan-neck pediments, and those at the ends of the top rails of many of Chippendale's chairs, the "barley sugar" turning of the leg stretchers and uprights of chairs of the Restoration, etc.

Spiral Evolute

See Wave Scroll.

Spiral Turning

The spiral turning of legs, stretchers, and the uprights of chairs and features in other pieces of furniture, came into greatly increased fashion soon after the Restoration, when walnut superseded oak, and made the turning easier and more successful. Spiral turning was of Portuguese and Indian origin, and was practised to a small extent in the reign of Charles I., and remained a vogue till the time of William and Mary.

Spitalfields

See Silk.

Splat

The central upright portion of a chair-back contained within the uprights, the top rail and the seat rail or the horizontal bar just above it. Up to the end of the seventeenth century the carved French and Dutch splats were the vogue. In the early Queen Anne period the splats were nearly always plain, in vase or fiddle-shape, but a little later it became fashionable to adorn them with marquetry. Then followed a variety of shapes carved and pierced which were adopted in the Mahogany period, but without marquetry. In the Chippendale and later periods the splat was developed by strap and fretwork, Gothic tracery, bars and ornamental features, such as the ribbon, honeysuckle, Prince of Wales's feathers, etc.

Splay

This term is used to describe the turning or spreading outwards of any features, such as the splay of the arms of chairs which was so usual between 1685 and 1695. Sometimes the words "outward rake" are used.

Spoon Back

See Spooning.

Spoon Cases Or Prong Boxes

These cases for spoons and forks, often made to match the slope-fronted knife-cases standing on the side-tables and sideboards of Adam, Hepplewhite and Sheraton, were sometimes very beautifully constructed and made by workmen who specialized in this kind of small furniture.