Architecture

• Colonists of the early 18th century experienced new found wealth and began a consumer revolution. Heavily influenced by British styles, the Maryland colonial elite built large Georgian houses and public buildings. Georgian architectural styles emphasized order, symmetry and balance, drawn from Renaissance models, particularly those of Palladio, who wrote a popular treatise on architecture that was very influential in the colonies (Thomas Jefferson's Monticello was heavily influenced by Palladio's ideas).
  
  

Furniture

• Exotic beverages from Europe -- such as coffee, tea and chocolate -- led to the development of a new furniture type in the colonies: the tea table. Furniture styles, like architecture, upheld Renaissance ideals in that they used classical floral and vegetal motifs as well as emphasized spare and elegant lines and proportions. Cabinetmakers, for example, made Rococo-style furniture developed from London pattern books.
  
  

Decorative Objects

• Most wealthy Maryland colonists owned Chinese porcelains and fine English earthen wares (like those from the Wedgwood company). Wedgwood earthenware, like colonial architecture and furniture, was essentially Neoclassical with scenes and styles drawn from ancient Greek and Roman prototypes.
  
  

Paintings

• Portraiture was the most common form of painting in colonial Maryland. Elites often had their portraits painted and hung in grand rooms in their homes and public buildings, though many portraitists' names have since been lost. Portrait miniatures -- a few inches tall at most -- were also favorites.