Furnishing Louisiana

Creole and Acadian Furniture, 1735–1835

by Jack D. Holden, H. Parrott Bacot, and Cybèle T. Gontar, with Brian J. Costello and Francis J. Puig; edited by Jessica Dorman and Sarah R. Doerries

The Historic New Orleans Collection 2010
hardcover • 9" × 12" • 552 pp.
949 color images, 58 b/w images
ISBN 978-0-917860-56-0

Available from The Shop at The Collection for $95

 

A landmark in the field of decorative arts scholarship, this magisterial study evokes an era before mass production and ease of transport homogenized furniture design across America. From the early eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, distinctive cabinetmaking traditions developed in Louisiana through a melding of French, Anglo-American, Caribbean, and Canadian influences.

A visually stunning book, Furnishing Louisiana presents a comprehensive catalog of furniture forms produced in the upper and lower Mississippi River valley, along with contextual essays on the cabinetmakers who created early Louisiana furniture; the hardware and the woods, native and exotic, employed in their craft; the art of inlay as it developed locally; the import trade at the Port of New Orleans; and the interior of the early Louisiana house. This volume stands as a tribute to the region’s cultural diversity and remarkable artistry.