Cabriole Leg

A cabriole leg curves outward at the top (the "knee"), then back inward toward a narrower "ankle" before flaring slightly again at the foot -- an S-curve profile associated most strongly with 18th-century Queen Anne and Chippendale furniture, though it remains a recognizable furniture silhouette today. Despite the fluid curve, a cabriole leg is cut from one solid, thick block of wood, not steam-bent -- the curve comes entirely from bandsawing (or historically, hand-sawing) the profile out of a squared blank, typically on two adjacent faces, then shaping and smoothing the resulting facets round.

Because the grain has to run reasonably straight through the leg's full length for strength, cabriole legs need a thick, largely knot-free blank -- the deep curve at the knee removes a lot of material, and grain that runs out at a sharp angle anywhere along that curve becomes a weak point.