period piece

1. 1.

   any work of art whose special value lies in its evocation of a historical period

   Broaderwork of art

Questions about period piece

What does period piece mean?

period piece means "any work of art whose special value lies in its evocation of a historical period".

Is period piece a common word?

period piece is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.