Chatoyance is a surface optical property

Chatoyance is a surface optical property of some materials which causes them to appear differently when seen from different angles. The term is coined from the French œil de chat (‘cat’s eye’) referring to gems such as tiger’s eye quartz:

This is especially evident for many woods, such as figured Maple, Sapele, Etimoe and many others.

Within woodworking, chatoyance is often sought as a decorative effect.
As an example, curly maple violin backs exploit wood chatoyance to highlight the wavy grain pattern within the wood.

Chatoyance is often highlighted by figure; however, chatoyance can be considered as a property of the material, while figure is related to the specific piece of wood under analysis. Figure creates contrast patterns which make chatoyance much more evident; yet if there is no chatoyance, the figure won’t show.

Figure highlights (relatively low) chatoyance in this Pear wood specimen

Plain grain does not highlight chatoyance on this Pear wood specimen

High chatoyance shows figure on this European Walnut specimen

Very low chatoyance fails to highlight figure on this Olive specimen

High chatoyance meets figure yielding spectacular results on this Iroko specimen

These pages show examples of interaction between chatoyance and different types of wood figure. PZC results are reported, aimed at showing how difficult it is to evaluate by eye how chatoyant a figured surface really is.

Ribbon Stripe (Interlocked Grain)

Flecks

Curl

Other Figures

Growth Rings

Want to know more? Get Woodworker’s Guide to Chatoyance!