Ebony

Ebony is very dense hardwood, black in colour. It comes from several species, but may also be used to describe other hard black woods from unrelated species. Its’ fine texture means it can be polished to a very smooth and mirror-like finish making it valuable for ornamental woodwork.

It has a long history with carved ebony items being found in Ancient Egyptian tombs. By the end of the 1500s fine luxury cabinets were being made from the wood in Antwerp and it went on to become very popular in Paris. Cabinet makers in Paris came to be known as ebenistes, which still remains today as the French name for cabinet maker.

Ebony is now restricted to small items such musical instrument parts such as piano and harpsichord black keys, Black pieces in chess sets were traditionally made of ebony with ivory or boxwood being used for the white pieces.

Due to unsustainable harvesting many ebony species are now considered threatened making ebony very expensive to buy.