A decorative cloth or lace cover placed on the back or arms of furniture to protect it from stains and grease.
From 'anti-' + 'macassar' (Macassar oil, a popular 19th-century hair product from Makassar, Indonesia). Victorian furniture needed protection from the oily residue people's hair left on chairs.
Antimacassars reveal Victorian anxieties about cleanliness and fashion—they became so culturally important that Oscar Wilde and other writers joked about their ubiquity, making them an unexpected window into what people actually worried about.
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