VINTAGE DECORATIVE ACCESSORIES 

This very selective list of traditional small furnishings for the period home includes glass, art-pottery vases, tableware, and candlesticks; clocks; mirror and picture frames; wall art.

The house restorer will look to the past for those finishing touches that authenticate a room—the plein-air painting, the mahogany mantel clock, the Victorian glassware. More universally, the “small goods” of the past offer extraordinary aesthetic and practical value, meeting the artist–craftsman’s admonition eloquently stated by William Morris: “Have nothing in your house which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

We’ve divided traditional small furnishings and accessories into these period home accessories sub-categories:

Traditional Small Furnishings: mantel and tabletop clocks; fine-art prints, paintings, and frames; metalwork; sculpture; miscellany

Pottery: decorative pots, vases, and objects

Tabletop: textiles including embroidered doilies and table runners; stoneware, glass, silver, and ceramics; candelabra; utensils