19th century carving

[CWC]

I’ve never done any carving, but I’ve been watching some videos and reading about it. I’m interested in re-creating some 19 century items. I would like to learn how to do carving as seen in the attached photo. It looks simpler and less sophisticated than modern floral style carvings, but since I have not done any carving, I am not sure what the differences are.

Am I correct that there was no background stamping? Minimal, if any, shading? 

If anyone has suggestions on learning to do this type of carving I would love to hear it.