The Hill House: antimacassars

Antimacassars are pieces of cloth placed over the backs of chairs to protect them from grease and dirt, or simply as an ornament. The name also refers to the cloth flap ‘collar’ on a sailor’s top, which was used to keep Macassar oil off their uniforms. Macassar oil was an unguent (ointment or lubricant) for the hair commonly used by men in the early 19th century. It was often made with coconut oil or palm oil, combined with ylang-ylang or other fragrant oils. The fashion for oiled hair became so widespread in the Victorian and Edwardian period that housewives began to cover the arms and backs of chairs with a washable cloth to prevent the fabric from being soiled. Around 1850 these started to be known as antimacassars.

Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh designed and made a set of three antimacassars for the settle (a high-backed chair designed to protect the occupant from draughts) in the drawing room at the Hill House. We moved the original antimacassars into a controlled display cabinet on the first floor of the house, but have replaced them with beautiful replicas which were researched and made by textile experts. These particular designs are quite unlike anything that would have been found in a typical drawing room of the time. Margaret used bold colours, combining dots and stripes to produce the double-sided coloured panels of interwoven fabrics, which include silk and velvet. The design also features a central yin/yang symbol, made by winding black or white thread around small balls of silver paper.

The high-backed chairs in the drawing room also have antimacassars, designed in the shape of rose leaves. These are a fantastic vibrant green, with black embroidery and decorative blue beads shaped like dewdrops, harmoniously bringing design and practicality together. It’s likely that the materials Margaret used were bits and pieces of fabric and ribbon from her sewing workbox, which is now in the archives of the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow.

Margaret studied drawing, watercolour painting, metalwork and embroidery at Glasgow School of Art. Jessie Newbery had started teaching embroidery there in 1894 – it was the first course of its kind and set the pattern for teaching embroidery in Scotland.

Arts & Crafts principles were at the heart of Jessie’s teaching, and like Margaret she believed that design and beauty were important in everyday life. So the next time you visit the Hill House, make sure you take a moment to discover our antimacassars – they may be small in size but are mighty in story!