Adam Bowett mentions that ‘the name rosewood has been given to many different woods over the centuries and is still the subject of confusing misinformation as to its origin and application’.[1] These various species of trees were appreciated for their scent but also for their warm colour and they could come from a range of geographical areas. John Stobart notes that rosewood was ‘sourced from both the East and the West Indies in the eighteenth century and increasingly from Brazil in the nineteenth century’.[2]

​

Rosewood, however, is now considered a ‘controversial import’.[3] It has been protected since 1975 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). The first global report on rosewoods was published as ‘CITES Rosewoods: The Global Picture’ recently.[4] The report notes that there are 300 species of the rosewood tree currently protected. It is an exotic wood that generates ethical debate, much in the same way that ivory does as its trade contributes to the endangerment of elephants due to poaching. Whilst there is a tension between banning trade in endangered species materials and preserving cultural heritage, antiques are considered exempt if acquired before 1947 or, if from a later date, are sold with an article 10 certificate (CITES).

​

There are a number of pieces of furniture at Raby Castle that contain, or are made of, rosewood: it is likely that an eighteenth-century Indo-Portuguese hardwood cabinet is made from this wood, as it has a red-rose colour when examined closely; there are rosewood veneers on the exotic woods circular pedestal table; and a Victorian X-frame piano stool is made of carved rosewood. Whilst acknowledging the ethical complexities linked to former trade in rosewood, not only at the level of exploitation and deforestation, these three pieces offer a fascinating window into the different shipping routes that brought the raw material to Britain. In just these three pieces of furniture, the shifting nature of trade routes used for the transportation of exotic woods during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is made manifest.

 

 

 

[1] Adam Bowett, Woods in British Furniture Making, 1400-1900: An Illustrated Historical Dictionary (Oblong Creative/Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, 2012), p. 200.

[2] John Stobart, ‘Second-Hand Empire? Global Goods in English Provincial Auctions, c. 1760-1840’, in John Stobart (ed.), Global Goods and the Country House: Comparative Perspectives, 1650-1800 (UCL Press, 2023), p. 267.

[3] ‘Illuminating Objects’, The Courtauld < https://sites.courtauld.ac.uk/illuminating-objects/illuminating-objects-home/a-painted-ivory-marriage-casket/controversial-imports> [accessed 21 September 2025].

[4] CITES Secretariat, Report on the conservation and trade of CITES-listed rosewood species Leguminosae (fabaceae) (2024) <https://cites.org/eng/topics/flora/cites-and-forests> [accessed 21 September 2025].