The term “Art Deco” has become a collective term for almost any object of conscious design, whether sophisticated or naïve, if it was created between the First and Second World Wars. Included in this bewildering array are objects arising from opposite philosophies and representing all levels of aesthetic quality. Art Deco, as the term is used today, has been applied especially to the decorative arts (furniture, ceramics, silver, interior design) as well as to architecture, graphics, painting and sculpture. Artists as different as Mies van der Rohe and Marie Larencin, Fernand Leger and Rene Lalique have been included under the broad umbrella of this stylistic term.

The Art Deco – also called style moderne – movement in the decorative arts and architecture originated in the 1920s, and developed into a major style in Western Europe and the United States during the 1930s. Its name was derived from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925, where the style was first exhibited.

Macassar ebony, Indian ebony, marble wood, coromandel, calamander wood, tendu, temru, tunki, timbruni. Ebony is a collective trade name given to all species of Diospyros, which have a predominately black heartwood, by contrast to the North American white ebony, also known as persimmon. Macassar ebony from Indonesia is more variegated still. With a heartwood that is dark brown to black interspersed with contrasting bands of yellow to golden brown, Macassar ebony yields a bold and attractive look by offsetting the darkest of the dark woods with a variety of color.