Furnishing the Eighteenth Century: What Furniture Can Tell Us About the European and American Past

by Goodman; Dena

• ISBN13: 9780415949538
• ISBN10: 041594953X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-12-13
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Furnishing the 18th Centuryis a collection of original essays that delves into the history of furniture, examining every day items such as tea tables, jewelry boxes, dressers and sofas to uncover the social practices of the 18th century, including tea drinking, gambling, prostitution, conversation, and letter writing, both in Europe and in the colonies. The essays take serious consideration of what the furniture of one's house has to say about 18th century taste, social hierarchies, consumerism, gender, and even sex.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Mapping Meaning Globally	p. 11
Orientalism, Colonialism, and Furniture in Eighteenth-Century France	p. 13
Mahogany as Status Symbol: Race and Luxury in Saint Domingue at the End of the Eighteenth Century	p. 37
A Wanton Chase in a Foreign Place: Hogarth and the Gendering of Exoticism in the Eighteenth-Century Interior	p. 49
Diffusing Furniture, Fashion, Taste	p. 61
Fashion, Business, Diffusion: An Upholsterer's Shop in Eighteenth-Century Paris	p. 63
Sideboards, Side Chairs, and Globes: Changing Modes of Furnishing Provincial Culture in the Early Republic, 1790-1820	p. 79
Goddesses of Taste: Courtesans and Their Furniture in Late-Eighteenth-Century Paris	p. 97
Making Meaning in the Domestic Interior	p. 115
Color Schemes and Decorative Tastes in the Noble Houses of Old Regime Dauphine	p. 117
The Joy of Sets: The Uses of Seriality in the French Interior	p. 129
Decoration and Enlightened Spectatorship	p. 155
Forms, Functions, Meanings	p. 167
Tea Tables Overturned: Rituals of Power and Place in Colonial America	p. 169
The Secretaire and the Integration of the Eighteenth-Century Self	p. 183
Looking at Furniture Inside Out: Strategies of Secrecy and Security in Eighteenth-Century French Furniture	p. 205
Contributors	p. 237
Index	p. 239
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.