Mask

A carved ornamental design representing the face of a human being or animal, in natural or grotesque form. It was sometimes used with additions such as the feathers on the Indian mask, which was often carved on furniture in the Satyr mask period (1730-1740).

Matted

This term is sometimes applied to the flat-sunk background of the carving on oak furniture which is left in a rough state and often pitted with small dents or gouge-marks.

Mattress

A movable case of ticking or cloth filled with feathers, hair, cotton, straw, or such-like stuffing which forms the essential part of a bed. It is of great antiquity. A "spring mattress" is made of wire either flat or in spirals, and is placed beneath the movable mattress.

Mauresque

See Moresque.

J Mayhew

In partnership with W. Ince under the title of Mayhew and Ince, Cabinet Makers and Upholsterers of Broad Street, Golden Square. They were contemporary with Chippendale, and are generally referred to as of his school. They issued a book of designs, "The Universal System of Household Furniture," about 1763, and on the title page their names are in reversed order.

Juste Aurele Meissonier (1693-1750)

An Italian, born in Turin. He went to Paris with remarkable and varied art accomplishments, and was generally regarded as a Frenchman. He was appointed director of the Royal Factory in Paris in 1723, and was largely responsible for the growth of the rococo taste which prevailed both in France and England for about twenty years after his death. He published "Le Livre des Legumes" and "Le Livre d'Ornements," which provided inspiration for many exponents of the rococo manner - exponents among whom Chippendale himself must be counted.

Melon-Shaped Foot

A bold feature in that form, used in Elizabethan and Jacobean furniture.

Metal Furniture

Furniture has sometimes been made of silver, steel, bronze, and other metals - the modern bedstead is a familiar example. King Dagobert's chair (q.v.) was of bronze, gilded, and metal furniture was known to the ancients centuries before his time. The beds in the palace of King Ahasuerus "were of gold and silver"; and the Assyrians, Egyptians and Romans had furniture of the precious metals as well as of bronze, and the mediaeval romances of chivalry mention such furniture, though at that time it probably existed chiefly in the exuberant and exotic imagination, which took little count of facts or even of probability, of their authors. With the Renaissance furniture once more began to be made of silver, or of plates of silver upon wood ; there are some famous pieces of this kind at Windsor Castle and at Knole. At Longford Castle there is a folding chair of steel, made at Augsburg.

Misericord Or Miserere

A bracket on the under side of a hinged stall seat, so formed that when the seat was raised it gave considerable support to the person standing in the stall.

Mitre

The line formed at the junction of two pieces of woodwork of the same section, cut through obliquely, so that when joined together they form an angle, usually a right angle.