Engraved Waterloo Frame, 1875

• Fiddleback - A name given to the pattern of the grain in some timbers, where the lines of the grain are compressed and at the same time wavy. Fiddleback grain is prized as a timber for furniture and musical instruments, and is expensive becasue of its scarcity.
  
  In Australia fiddleback graining is found in blackwood. Other non-native timbers that are sometimes found with a fiddleback grain are mahogany and maple.
• Art Union of London - Art Unions were organisations that functioned to promote and fund works of art. The members would pay an annual subscription, which would be used to purchase works of art, and these would then be distributed among its members by means of a ballot.
  
  The Art Union of London was established in 1837 and by the 1840s was distributing art to the value of £9,000 each year.
  
  The works purchased ranged from paintings which had been exhibited at the Royal Academy and in galleries to prints and smaller pieces including commissioned Parian wares, medals and bronze statuettes.
  
  The membership numbers of the Art Union of London remained strong until the 1890s when they began to decline, and the Union was wound up in 1912.
• Blackwood - One of the best known and most widely used Australian timbers, blackwood (acacia melanoxylon), is a member of the Acacia (wattle) family and grows in eastern Australia from about Adelaide in South Australia, as far north as Cairns in Queensland.
  
  The largest, straightest and tallest trees come from the wet forest and swamps of north-west Tasmania where it is grown commercially.
  
  Blackwood timber colours range across a wide spectrum, from a very pale honey colour through to a dark chocolate with streaks of red tinge.
  
  The hardwood timber has been commonly used in the production of furniture, flooring, and musical instruments in Australia from the late 19th century. However, the straight grain timber is not the most prized or valuable, that honour falls to blackwood with a wavy, fiddleback pattern, which is used both in the solid and as a veneer. Fiddleback was only used on the finest examples of furniture.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• picture frames - blackwood 21