The first book-length study of American furniture from Philadelphia's Neo-Classical period

Whether you want to identify, date or evaluate your own pieces, Furniture is the only comprehensive, full-color reference guide for you. Judith Miller gives a global overview that spans the last 3,000 years of design, guaranteed to turn any amateur into a furniture buff. Furniture defines decorative motifs of key periods with over 3,500 photographs of every style and form. This eBook also includes profiles of influential designers, craftsmen and key movements.

Drawing on the latest scholarship, this comprehensive, lavishly illustrated survey tells the story of the evolution of American furniture from the 17th century to the present. Not viewed in isolation, furniture is placed in its broader cultural, historic, and aesthetic context. The focus is not only on the urban masterpieces of 18th century William and Mary, Queen Anne, Chippendale, and Federal styles but also on the work of numerous rural cabinetmakers. Special chapters explore Windsor chairs, Shaker, and Pennsylvania German furniture which do not follow the mainstream style progression. Picturesque and anti-classical explain Victorian furniture including Rococo, Renaissance, and Eastlake. Mission and Arts and Crafts furniture introduce the 20th century. Another chapter identifies the eclectic revivals such as Early American that dominated the mass market throughout much of the 20th century. After World War II American designers created many of the Mid-Century Modern icons that are much sought after by collectors today. The rise of studio furniture and furniture as art which include some of the most creative and imaginative furniture produced in the 20th and 21st centuries caps the review of four centuries of American furniture. A final chapter advises on how to evaluate the authenticity of both traditional and modern furniture and how to preserve it for posterity. With over 800 photos including 24 pages of color, this fully illustrated text is the authoritative reference work.

This book illustrates and discusses 300 prime objects displayed in the 1970 exhibition of American decorative arts displayed during the Centennial exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1970. Presented as a series of lavish room settings and galleries, the exhibit included pieces in the 19th century’s principal styles of furniture and decorative arts--Federal, Empire, Gothic, rococo, Renaissance, art nouveau, and reform. Objects featured in this book include various pieces of furniture, silver, glass, ceramics, and metalwork from the Museum’s American wing.

A Storied Past: Collections of the Historic Odessa captures the historical character and significance of two important late-18th-century houses, each of which retains a high percentage of original furnishings and locally made objects. Over the past several years, the collections have undergone careful examination and interpretation. One hundred are published along with four interpretive chapters. Relatively few historic sites have received this level of investigative treatment. Additionally, several of the hitherto-unpublished objects relate to others already in the decorative and fine arts lexicon. Using rich archival and genealogical sources, Philip D. Zimmerman brings to light here for the first time an extraordinary array of decorative and fine arts from the collections at the Historic Odessa Foundation. This well-documented group of family objects provides an intimate glimpse into the daily life of members of the Corbit and Wilson families in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and also sheds light on the history of Odessa, Delaware, and the larger region. Particularly strong holdings of furniture made by John Janvier and his talented sons and nephew allow informative contrasts with products made in Delaware, Phil­adelphia, and elsewhere. Needlework and other textiles made by Corbit and Wilson women char­acterize their handiwork. Other objects tell other stories. Some, labeled by their nineteenth-century owners for posterity, document evolving trends in early collecting and historic preservation. The richly illustrated book includes more than 200 photographs, including many details and historic images, along with careful physical descriptions and historical documentation. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, A Storied Past illuminates a wealth of furnishings, works of art, and artifacts with common provenances and interlocking histo­ries and places them into the artistic, social, and historical contexts of their time. The collections documented here furnish the Corbit-Sharp (1774) and Wilson-Warner (1769) houses, built on adjoining lots by a tanner and a merchant and now maintained by the Historic Odessa Foundation. Subsequent generations valued and preserved the two houses and many furnish­ings. The Wilson house opened in 1923 as the first historic house museum in Delaware. The Corbit house remained in family hands until H. Rodney Sharp bought it in 1938 to preserve it. Furniture owned in the family of John Janvier, the noted cabi­netmaker in Odessa, was added in the 1970s, and the Foundation has continued to acquire Corbit and Wilson family furnishings as well as locally made furniture in the years since. Those interested in historic houses and late 18th and early 19th century life, American antique collectors (especially of furniture), and those with local interests will find this book interesting.

Presented in conjunction with the September 2000 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, this volume presents the complex story of the proliferation of the arts in New York and the evolution of an increasingly discerning audience for those arts during the antebellum period. Thirteen essays by noted specialists bring new research and insights to bear on a broad range of subjects that offer both historical and cultural contexts and explore the city's development as a nexus for the marketing and display of art, as well as private collecting; landscape painting viewed against the background of tourism; new departures in sculpture, architecture, and printmaking; the birth of photography; New York as a fashion center; shopping for home decorations; changing styles in furniture; and the evolution of the ceramics, glass, and silver industries. The 300-plus works in the exhibition and comparative material are extensively illustrated in color and bandw. Oversize: 9.25x12.25". Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Magnificent reproduction of 1788 folio of Hepplewhite furnishings. Classic, highly valued work depicts chairs, stools, sofas, sideboards, beds, pedestals, desks, bookcases, tables, chests of drawers, wardrobes, fire screens, and many other items. 128 plates.