Acid - A sour liquid that occurs naturally in fruit such as lemons, or it can be made. Acid can permanently mark or destroy some materials. Some acids can be very dangerous and must always be handled with care.
Adhere - Verb meaning to stick
Adze - A tool, like an axe, used for chipping and slicing away the surface of wood
Alabaster - A soft calcium-based stone that is white in its purest form
Alloy - The name for a metal made up from mixing together different metals; for example, brass is an alloy of the metals copper and tin (or zinc)
Analyse - Verb meaning to look at closely or to take apart
Atmospheric conditions - The quality of air, how wet, dry or dirty it is
Binding medium - A liquid, such as oil or water, that is mixed with pigments to make paint
Biscuitware/Biscuit/Biscuit fired - An unglazed ceramic that has been fired only once
Body - The name for a mixture of clays
Bois durci - A material made to imitate the expensive black wood ebony. It is made from sawdust, water and animal blood
Bow drill - A type of drill used for carving very small things
Brass - A metal alloy, made up of copper and tin (or sometimes zinc)
Brittle - Adjective meaning fragile, hard and likely to break
Bronze - A metal alloy, made up of copper, tin and lead
Burin - A tool used by an engraver
Burr - Part of a tree that has been damaged and grows back thickly grained and knotted
Carcase - The basic frame (normally made in wood) of a piece of furniture
Cast - A mould used for making sculpture
Casting - When a liquid, such as plaster or melted metal, is poured into different shapes called casts or moulds
Ceramics - Objects made from clay
Chalcedony - A precious stone; a type of quartz that has a waxy appearance
Chandelier - A decorative light-fitting that has many branches (or arms) to hold small lights or candles. Often found in grand old houses
Chasing/Chased - Shaping something with hammers. Either with large hammers for construction or small ones for decoration when the metal is hot and soft. This can also be called RAISING, EMBOSSING or HAMMERING
Chemical composition - The building-blocks of any material
China - A fine semi-transparent earthenware, a kind of ceramic
China clay/China stone - A fine, white clay made from granite. China clay stands up to high temperatures in the kiln and china stone is very easy to shape. Together they help to make hard paste porcelain.
Chinoiserie - The name for Western art inspired by China and the East
Chisels - A cutting tool, often used with a hammer, to shape wood, metal, stone and other sculptural materials
Classical style - Works in the style of ancient Greek and Roman art and architecture
Clay - A type of earth or soil used to make ceramics and pottery
Coffer - A name for a strong box or chest, often used to store valuables
Cogs/Cams/Shafts - Parts used in making mechanisms. Cogs are toothed-wheels that interlink. Cams are wheels that can be different shapes to make something move in different ways. Shafts are the sticks that link cogs and cams together.
Columns and Balustrades - Columns are big pillars that support buildings. Balustrades are like stair banisters, with rows of short columns that are linked by a rail across the top. Balustrades are often seen on the top of grand houses.
Commission - Verb meaning to ask for something to be made. Most works of art in the past were ‘commissioned’, meaning rich people went to artists and asked for a certain object to be made for them
Composite - Something made up of different parts or different materials
Compress - Verb meaning to squash and make smaller
Conservators - Someone who looks after precious objects
Contract - Verb meaning to get smaller or shrink
Copper - A brown-red metal. Often used with tin to make brass or bronze. Copper is a very good conductor of heat and electricity
Coral - The skeletons of a kind of sea-creature that lives in warm seas. Corals can become very big and form reefs
Cores - Metal sticks that are carefully attached to a model used in the ‘lost-wax’ method of casting. These sticks are used to make sure the model does not move around within the mould when the wax has been melted and the molten bronze is poured in. When the bronze has cooled, the mould and the cores are chipped away
Cross-hatching - A technique used for shading when drawing and engraving. Small, close-together lines are drawn diagonally in one direction and then more are drawn over those in the other direction
Curators - People who work in museums and galleries, as keepers of the objects
Debris - Very small bits of rubbish, dust and tiny bits of rock
Density - How heavy something is compared to its size
Depict - Verb meaning to show, describe or represent in a work of art or writing
Derive - Verb meaning to come from
Dilute - Verb meaning to make something thinner or less concentrated by adding to it; for example, adding water to orange squash dilutes it
Drills - Tools used for making holes
Dry body - The name for ceramics that are not glazed (coated)
Earthenware - Clay that is fired at a low temperature. One of the oldest ceramic materials
Easel - The wooden frame artists use to hold up paintings
Ebony - An exotic and expensive wood that is black
Emboss - Shaping something with hammers. Either with large hammers for construction or small ones for decoration when the metal is hot and soft. This can also be called RAISING, HAMMERING or CHASING
Emery - A material used to grind and polish surfaces
Enamel - A glossy coating made from glass, joined by heat to a surface (usually metal or ceramic) for decoration
Engraving/Engraved - When patterns or words can be cut into the surface of the metal using fine cutting tools.
Engraving wheel - A tool used for engraving and small carvings
Expand - Verb meaning to get bigger
Exposure - Verb meaning to change the environment or condition that an object is in; for example, if you expose a painting to a lot of bright light the colours will fade
Fermenting – Chemical reaction of an organic material splitting into more simple substances
File - Long thin tool with a ridged surface, used for shaping, smoothing and grinding down
Filigree – Delicate ornamental work of either gold or silver
Folk Art - Art and objects made by people who are not artists, using styles and materials from where they live
Fossils – The remains of a plant or animal that lived in a past age. The remains appear in the form of mineralized bones or shells
Frieze - A story scene or decoration drawn along a strip or band
Furnace - A kind of oven used for heating and melting metals
Fuse - To stick something by melting it onto a surface
Gilding – To cover with a thin layer of gold
Gilt-copper - Copper that is coated with a very thin layer of gold
Glaze - A coating for ceramics, made from minerals and applied with heat, to make a hard shiny surface. Can be clear or coloured
Glost kiln - The kind of oven used for firing (cooking) clay to make it hard
Gouges - A type of chisel with a blade shaped like a scoop
Grandeur - Majestic and splendid
Grain - The little lines found in wood
Grinding - Crushing or polishing
Gum Arabic - A type of resin from an African tree, often used as a binder or thickener
Hammering - Shaping something with hammers. Either with large hammers for construction or small ones for decoration when the metal is hot and soft. This can also be called RAISING, EMBOSSING or CHASING
Hand-building - Make something by hand
Hard paste porcelain - A type of porcelain made from china stone and china clay
Hippocamps - Imaginary sea monsters, often with a horse’s body
Humidity - Moistness or dampness in the air
Igneous - A type of rock, formed from volcanic magma
Imitation - Something designed to look like something else; for example, bois durci is made to look like ebony
Inlaid/Inlay - To set materials (such as wood, stone, ivory) into a surface to make a decorative design or picture
Interiors - The inside (usually of a building)
Iron - A kind of silver-white metal that rusts easily
Ivory - The hard, white tooth-like material from the tusks of elephants and other animals
Japanning - The name of the process of using imitation lacquer to make objects look like proper Japanese lacquered works of art
Kayaks – Canoe-like boat made of a frame covered with animal skins. These were used by the Inuit people
Keratin - The chemical that forms nails, horns, beaks in animals
Kiln - An oven for hardening pottery
Lac - A thick, sticky substance produced by the lac insect, used as imitation lacquer. Also called SHELLAC
Limewood - Wood from a lime tree (different from trees that produce limes)
Lost wax method - A way of casting metal using shaped wax in the mould, which is then melted and poured away to be replaced by bronze. This method allows sculptures to be made with just a very thin layer of bronze, which is very expensive and heavy
Lustre - The kind of oily shine on ceramics, caused by metal oxides in the glaze
Manufacture - Verb meaning to make
Marble - A kind of stone which is very popular for sculpture. It is white in its purest form
Marqueteur – An artist skilled in the method of marquetry
Marquetry - The process of using very thin pieces of wood and other materials (such as ivory and mother of pearl) to create a picture or pattern
Mechanism - A noun for something that makes something move, made up of cogs, cams and shafts.
Medieval - Describing something dating from between 400 – 1500AD /CE. Also called the Middle Ages.
Melting point - The temperature at which a material turns from a solid to liquid
Metamorphic - Sedimentary rock (formed by debris) that has been compressed and heated
Mineral - Any natural material formed by ‘geological processes’ in the earth (materials that are not from plants or animals)
Miniature - A very small painting
Mining - The way of getting materials from the earth, using a mine (digging deep into the earth to take out metals and other materials)
Modello - A model, often made from clay or wax, in preparation for making a bigger, final sculpture or for use in the casting process
Monitor - Verb meaning to watch something in case it goes wrong
Mother-of-Pearl - The shiny inner surface of sea shells, made up of calcium carbonate
Nacre - Another name for mother-of-pearl
Netsuke - Japanese belt-toggle, often made out of ivory and very decorative
Oil paints - Paint that is formed by mixing pigments with oils
Ore - Lumps of metal in rock freshly mined from the earth, before it has been purified
Oriental lacquer - Real lacquer, made from the sap of the sumach tree, which only grows in Far Eastern countries such as Japan
Oxides - The name for chemicals made when metals mix with air
Palette - Word meaning a range of colours
Pastel - Pigments that have been heated and compressed to form chalk-like sticks of colour
Patination/Patinas - The colouring of metal, caused by treating it with special chemicals or leaving it exposed to the air. A curator will look for patination on metal to help tell an objects age
Pearls - Smooth, hard material found in oysters and other sea shells. Pearls are highly prized
Pietra Dura - The name for special mosaic work, invented in Italy, using different semi-precious stones and coloured marbles set into a hard slab of stone. Pietra Dura is Italian for hard stone
Pigment - Dry powders of colour used to create paints and other drawing equipment. Pigments can be made from plants, minerals or animals
Pique - A process where a surface is very gently pricked and punched with a sharp object to make space for decorative materials
Pivot - A pin that attaches two things together but allows them to move; for example, on a helmet the visor is attached to the rest of the helmet with pivots, allowing the visor to be lifted and lowered
Plasticity -Able to shape easily
Porcelain - A special type of clay mix that makes pure white translucent ceramics
Porous - Absorbent (something that soaks up liquids)
Pottery - Objects made out of fired clay
Prism - Something that reflects and bends light to create different colours (the colours of the rainbow)
Proportion - A proper relation between things or parts
Purify - Verb meaning to make pure
Quartz - A type of semi-precious stone
Raising - Shaping something with hammers. Either with large hammers for construction or small ones for decoration when the metal is hot and soft. This can also be called HAMMERING, EMBOSSING or CHASING
Recipes - The instructions for how to make something
Reductive - To make smaller by removing some of the material it is made from; for example, when a marble sculpture is carved from a large block pieces of marble are removed using a chisel or other tools. This is called a reductive process
Relief - Sculpture that has a flat background from which shapes stick out
Resin - A sticky substance that comes from trees used for glues and varnishing some objects
Retouching - To make small repairs or improvements, particularly in paint
Revetments – A facing of masonry to protect a wall
Rolling - When lumps of metal are squeezed between heavy rollers to make flat sheets that can then be made into other things
Rosary - A string of beads used for prayer in certain religions, especially by Roman Catholics
Ruched - Fabric that is gathered into a ruffle or pleats
Saffron - A deep yellow-orange colour that comes from the stigmas of the crocus plant. Also used as a spice
Scalpels - Very sharp knife-like tool
Scudding - The name for removing the flesh and hair from a hide to make leather
Scutes - The outer plates of the giant sea turtle’s shell
Sedimentary - Rocks made up from sediment (bits of dust, rocks, fossils and general rubbish) that settle and become crushed into one rock over thousands of years
Shellac - A thick, sticky substance produced by the lac insect, used as imitation lacquer. Also called LAC
Simulate - Verb meaning to imitate or copy
Slab-built - Technique for making pots and other objects using slabs of clay
Slate - A type of rock that splits into smooth layers
Slip - Diluted (watered-down) clay used for decoration
Slip-casting -A technique that involves using slip (watered-down clay) that is poured into a mould to create a thin layer of dry clay that is exactly the same shape as the mould
Snuff - Powdered tobacco that is sniffed up the nose
Soft paste porcelain - A type of pottery that was invented to copy Chinese porcelain
Sprigs - Tiny pieces of clay used for decoration. Made into shapes by being pushed into moulds
Stamping - Using a heavy weight to force a shape or pattern into a lump or sheet of metal
Steel - A metal alloy made mainly from iron
Stoneware - Pottery that is fired in a kiln at high temperatures to make it glassy, smooth and tough. Man-made 'stone'
Synthetic – A material that is made artificially through a chemical process
Tarnish - Verb meaning to discolour metal by exposing it to air so that oxides, such as rust, form
Technology - The process of inventing or developing better tools to do a job
Tepees – Cone-shaped tent made from animal skins as used by American Indians in the past
Terracotta - A type of reddish, water-resistant clay
Three-Dimensional/3D - Objects that are not flat and have a height, width and depth
Throwing - The process of making clay objects using a potter’s wheel
Tin-glaze - A glaze (coating) for ceramics that is made with tin
Transfers - Pictures on thin tissue paper that are stuck onto ceramic objects to transfer the picture to the surface of the clay
Translucent - Word to describe things that light can pass through but that are not clearly see-through
Tripod - Something with three legs
Varnish - A liquid that can be painted onto a surface (particularly wood). It dries hard to protect the surface and make it shiny
Vellum - Calf, lamb or kid-skin which is treated for use as a writing or drawing surface
Veneers - Very thin pieces of wood (or ivory, turtleshell etc) used for covering surfaces
Verdigris - A greenish or bluish patina (surface covering) that forms on surfaces of copper, brass, or bronze as they are exposed to air or water
Versatility - Having a number of different uses
Visor - The moveable front part of a helmet or other headpiece, which protects the eyes and upper face
Watercolour - Paints made by mixing pigments with water
Wigwams - Cone-shaped tent made from animal skins as used by American Indians in the past
You - A Chinese wine vessel used in religious ceremonies such as funerals