Bobbin turning is a form of decorative woodturning in which a leg, stretcher or spindle is shaped on the lathe into a series of repeated rounded swellings, resembling a row of bobbins or beads strung together. It is one of the most recognisable features of seventeenth-century English and Continental furniture.
The style was especially popular in England from the mid-seventeenth century, appearing on gateleg tables, chairs, stools and stands, typically in oak, walnut, fruitwood or beech. It sits alongside other period turnings such as ball, ring, baluster and bobbin-and-reel forms, and preceded the fashion for barley twist turning later in the century. The motif was revived enthusiastically in the Victorian period and again in the early twentieth century, when reproduction Jacobean-style furniture was produced in large numbers. Telling the two apart depends on careful inspection of the turning, which on early work is often slightly irregular and crisply cut, together with wear to stretchers, shrinkage across round members, construction methods and the depth and colour of the patina. Bobbin-turned pieces bring a sense of texture and rhythm to country and period interiors.
