Mahogany was introduced to Europe from the Caribbean in the 17th century and quickly became the most prized furniture wood of the 18th and 19th centuries. Georgian and Chippendale furniture in mahogany defined an era of British design. The colour became associated with wealth, craftsmanship, and the particular elegance of colonial-era British culture.

Rich, serious, and traditional. Mahogany is the colour of expensive furniture and dark-panelled libraries — it carries associations of wealth accumulated over time, of serious institutions and learned professions. Unlike the warmth of terracotta or burnt sienna, mahogany has a gravity and formality that suggests permanence and gravitas.

Mahogany's popularity in 18th century furniture drove extensive deforestation of Caribbean and Central American mahogany forests — species like Cuban mahogany (Swietenia mahagoni) are now endangered. The wood's colour defined British Georgian interior aesthetics so thoroughly that "mahogany" became a shorthand for a certain kind of traditional British wealth and taste. The "mahogany row" in organisations refers to executive offices panelled in this wood.