Oak furniture is furniture made principally from oak, the dominant timber of English furniture-making from the medieval period until the late seventeenth century. Early oak pieces were constructed by joiners using pegged mortise-and-tenon joints and frame-and-panel construction, producing chests, coffers, joint stools, refectory tables, court cupboards, settles and press cupboards of great strength and durability.
Although fashionable furniture moved to walnut and then mahogany, oak continued to be used throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for country furniture, such as dressers, gateleg tables and Windsor chairs. It enjoyed major revivals in the Victorian period, when Jacobean and Gothic styles were fashionable, and again in the Arts and Crafts and Edwardian eras, when designers valued its honesty and texture. Collectors pay close attention to colour, patina and originality: a rich, untouched surface built up over centuries is highly desirable. Signs of genuine age include shrinkage across the grain, hand-made pegs and fittings, and natural wear in places touched by generations of use.
