An architectural panel is a flat or carved section of wood, stone, plaster, metal or glass made to form part of a wall, door, ceiling or piece of fixed joinery. The term covers individual sections of oak wainscoting, carved linenfold and Romayne panels, painted French boiserie, cast iron and bronze panels, terracotta plaques and leaded or stained glass panels.
In England, oak panelling lined the rooms of Tudor and Jacobean houses, both for warmth and for display, and many panels were later removed and reused in new houses or made up into furniture during the Victorian enthusiasm for old oak. Georgian rooms favoured large raised and fielded panels in painted pine, while the eighteenth-century French interior used carved and gilded boiserie. Salvaged panels are now popular for lining studies, cloakrooms and boot rooms, or for hanging singly as decorative objects. Collectors look for hand-worked carving, good colour, original surface and evidence of age such as pegged joints and pit-sawn backs. Panels that have been reshaped, heavily stripped or recut from later timber are worth considerably less than undisturbed early examples.
