Macrame
Macrame is a textile craft using knotting rather than weaving or knitting to create patterned textiles, popular for decorative trims in the Victorian era and again as a craft revival in the 1970s.
Macrame is a textile craft using knotting rather than weaving or knitting to create patterned textiles, popular for decorative trims in the Victorian era and again as a craft revival in the 1970s.
A Magazine Rack is a small stand with divided compartments for storing newspapers and magazines, a form that became common in the late 19th century as periodicals grew popular in the middle-class home.
Mahogany is a fine-grained, reddish-brown tropical hardwood that became the dominant furniture timber in England from the mid-18th century, prized for its strength, workability and the rich figure achieved in veneers.
Maison Jansen was a Paris-based interior decoration and furniture firm active from 1880 to 1989, celebrated for sophisticated, eclectic interiors for royalty and the elite worldwide, and highly influential on 20th-century design.
Majolica is brightly coloured, lead-glazed earthenware, popularised in Victorian England following its 1851 Great Exhibition debut, typically moulded in naturalistic relief forms such as leaves and animals in vivid glazes.
Malachite is a vivid green banded mineral, historically sliced and applied as a veneer to tabletops, vases and objects, especially fashionable in Russian and French decorative arts of the 19th century.
A Manor House is the principal residence of a rural estate, historically the administrative centre of the manor, and a term describing English country houses ranging from medieval origins through later remodelling.
A Mansard Roof is a four-sided roof with a double slope on each side, the lower slope steeper than the upper, allowing for usable attic space, associated with French architecture and widely adopted in Second Empire style buildings.
A Mantel Clock is a clock designed to sit on a fireplace mantelpiece, a form that flourished from the 18th century in materials ranging from gilt bronze and marble to porcelain and inlaid wood.
A Mantel Garniture is a matching set of ornaments, typically a clock flanked by a pair of vases or candelabra, designed to be displayed together on a fireplace mantelpiece, especially popular in French interiors of the 19th century.
A Mantelpiece is the decorative shelf and surround framing a fireplace opening, ranging from simple painted wood to elaborate carved marble, and often the visual focal point of a period reception room.
Maple is a pale, close-grained hardwood used in furniture-making for both solid construction and decorative veneers, particularly prized in its figured forms such as birds-eye and curly maple.
Maples & Co. was a major London furniture retailer and manufacturer active from the 19th century, supplying furniture to households and institutions across Britain and the British Empire.
Marble is a crystalline metamorphic stone valued since antiquity for sculpture, tabletops and fireplace surrounds, prized for its fine polish, veining and the sense of grandeur it conveys in formal interiors.
Marble Sculpture refers to carved marble figures and busts, a tradition stretching from antiquity through the Grand Tour era, when copies of classical statuary became prized souvenirs and status symbols in English country houses.
A Marine Chronometer is a highly precise timekeeping instrument developed in the 18th century to allow navigators to calculate longitude at sea, a landmark achievement of horological engineering pioneered by John Harrison.
Marquetry is a decorative technique in which a picture or pattern is built entirely from shaped pieces of veneer applied to a furniture surface, distinct from inlay, and a hallmark of fine 17th to 19th-century cabinet-making.
Masonic Collectables encompass ceremonial regalia, jewels and glassware associated with Freemasonry, a specialist collecting field valued for symbolic decoration and fine craftsmanship, particularly items from the 18th and 19th centuries.
A Match Holder is a small container designed to hold matches within reach of a fireplace or lamp, made in materials from brass and silver to pottery, a common small collectable from the Victorian era.
A Match Strike is a small pottery or metal container with a roughened striking surface, used to hold and ignite matches beside a fireplace or lamp, a common Victorian and Edwardian household accessory.
Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) was an English manufacturer and business partner of James Watt, whose Birmingham Soho Manufactory produced exceptional ormolu, silver and industrial goods central to the English Enlightenment.
A Meat Dome is a large, domed silver or silver-plated cover placed over a serving dish to keep food warm and presentable en route from kitchen to dining table, a standard feature of grand Georgian and Victorian dining.
A Medicine Cabinet is a small, often glazed or mirrored cabinet used to store medicines and toiletries, typically wall-mounted, and a common bathroom or dressing room fixture from the Victorian era onward.
Medieval Style refers to the decorative and architectural forms of the European Middle Ages, characterised by heavy oak furniture, linenfold panelling and Gothic pointed-arch motifs, later reinterpreted extensively in Victorian Gothic Revival.
Meissen Porcelain is German hard-paste porcelain produced since 1710, the first true porcelain made in Europe, celebrated for finely modelled figures and the crossed-swords mark that remains one of the most recognisable in ceramics.
A Menorah is a branched candelabrum central to Jewish ceremonial tradition, historically crafted in silver or brass, with antique examples valued both for their religious significance and fine metalworking craftsmanship.
A Mercury Barometer is a weather-forecasting instrument that measures atmospheric pressure via the rise and fall of a mercury column, produced in fine cased forms for the home from the 18th century onward.
Mercury Glass is double-walled glass with a silvered interior coating, giving a mirrored appearance, developed in the mid-19th century as an affordable alternative to solid silver for vases, doorknobs and Christmas ornaments.
Metamorphic Furniture is furniture ingeniously designed to transform between two functions, most famously library steps that convert into a chair or table, a clever space-saving innovation of the Georgian and Regency periods.
A Mezzanine is a partial floor level positioned between two main storeys of a building, often overlooking the floor below, a feature found in grand entrance halls and libraries of period houses.
Michael Thonet (1796-1871) was a German-Austrian furniture designer who pioneered industrial bentwood furniture manufacturing, most famously the iconic No. 14 chair, revolutionising furniture production and design.
Micromosaic is a refined mosaic technique using minute glass tesserae to create highly detailed images, developed in 18th-century Rome and produced as prized Grand Tour souvenirs depicting classical ruins and flowers.
Mid-Century Modern describes design produced roughly between the 1940s and 1960s, characterised by clean lines, organic forms, tapered legs and an emphasis on function, encompassing designers from Scandinavia, America and Britain.
A Milestone is a stone marker historically placed along roads to indicate distance, collected today as a piece of vernacular history and occasionally repurposed as a garden ornament.
Militaria is a collecting category encompassing military uniforms, medals, weapons and equipment, valued for historical significance and craftsmanship, spanning periods from the Napoleonic Wars to the 20th century.
Milk Glass is an opaque white glass, produced from the 16th century but especially popular in the 19th and 20th centuries for vases, dishes and lampshades, valued for its soft, milky appearance.
Millefiori Glass is decorative glass made by fusing cross-sections of multicoloured glass canes to create flower-like patterns, an ancient technique revived in Venice and widely used for paperweights in the 19th century.
A Millstone is a large, round stone historically used for grinding grain, often repurposed decoratively as a garden feature, stepping stone or water feature centrepiece.
A Miner's Lamp is a portable safety lamp designed to burn fuel without igniting flammable underground gases, developed in the early 19th century following Humphry Davy's safety lamp design, and now a popular decorative collectable.
Ming Dynasty Porcelain refers to Chinese porcelain produced between 1368 and 1644, encompassing celebrated imperial blue-and-white wares and marking a high point of Chinese ceramic technical and artistic achievement.
A Portrait Miniature is a small, finely detailed painted portrait, typically on ivory, vellum or copper, popular from the 16th to 19th centuries as a personal, portable likeness before the advent of photography.
Minton is an English ceramics manufacturer founded in 1793, celebrated for majolica, fine bone china and elaborate encaustic tiles, and among the most historically significant names in British pottery.
A Mirror Plateau is a mirrored stand placed at the centre of a formal dining table, used to reflect candlelight and display silver centrepieces, a fashionable feature of Regency and Victorian dining rooms.
Mission Style is an American furniture style of the early 20th century, related to the Arts and Crafts movement, characterised by simple rectilinear oak forms, exposed joinery and minimal ornament.
A Model Ship is a scaled representation of a vessel, ranging from sailors' folk-art creations to precise dockyard or Admiralty models, valued by collectors for craftsmanship, historical accuracy and maritime association.
Modernism is a broad 20th-century design movement rejecting historical ornament in favour of functional form, clean lines and new materials, profoundly reshaping furniture, architecture and the decorative arts from the 1920s onward.
Mohair is a lustrous fibre from the Angora goat, used since the 19th century for fine upholstery fabric and trimmings, valued for its sheen, strength and resistance to crushing.
Moorcroft is an English art pottery founded by William Moorcroft in 1897, renowned for its tube-lined decoration and rich flambe glazes depicting stylised flowers and landscapes, still in production today.
Moorish Revival is a 19th-century decorative style drawing on Islamic architectural and ornamental traditions of North Africa and Spain, characterised by horseshoe arches, geometric tile patterns and intricate lattice woodwork.
Morris & Co. was a decorative arts firm founded by William Morris in 1861, producing influential textiles, wallpapers, furniture and stained glass that became foundational to the Arts and Crafts movement.
A Morris Chair is a reclining armchair with an adjustable back, associated with William Morris's firm, though largely designed by Philip Webb, and highly influential on later Arts and Crafts and Mission style furniture.
A Mortar and Pestle is a paired grinding tool comprising a bowl and club-shaped grinder, historically made in bronze, stone or wood for apothecary and kitchen use, now often collected as decorative objects.
A Mortise Joint, used together with a tenon, is a fundamental woodworking joint in which a projecting tongue fits into a corresponding slot, forming the strong structural backbone of traditional joined furniture and framing.
Mosaic is a decorative technique of assembling small pieces of stone, glass or ceramic (tesserae) to form a pattern or image, with antique examples ranging from Roman floor fragments to Grand Tour micromosaic souvenirs.
Mother-of-Pearl is the iridescent inner shell layer of certain molluscs, used since antiquity for furniture inlay, jewellery and small decorative objects, particularly prominent in Victorian papier-mache and Regency furniture.
Moulding is a decoratively shaped strip of wood, plaster or stone used to trim edges, frame panels or finish cornices, ranging from simple beading to elaborate carved profiles across furniture and architectural applications.
Mourning Jewellery is jewellery created to commemorate the deceased, particularly fashionable in the Victorian era, often incorporating jet, black enamel or woven hair as a personal, sentimental keepsake.
Mughal Style refers to the decorative art and architecture of the Mughal Empire in South Asia, celebrated for intricate inlay work, jali lattice screens and richly ornamented metalwork, influential on later Anglo-Indian furniture.
A Mule Chest is a chest fitted with one or two drawers beneath the main lidded storage compartment, a transitional form between the simple chest and the chest of drawers, common from the 17th century.
Muller Freres was a French glassmaking firm active from the early 20th century, celebrated for Art Nouveau and Art Deco cameo glass produced in the tradition of Emile Galle.
