2021/01/01 by Laura C. Jenkins · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Architecture, Design, and Social History #Financial Crisis of the 21st Century #Decadence, Literature, and Society #Style (visual arts) #Taste #Gilded Age #Art #Art history #Elite #Classics #Aesthetics #Visual arts #Law #Political science
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/arh.2021.5
openalex publication_date 2021/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
ABSTRACT In the decades around the turn of the twentieth century, New York was seized by a passion for things French in interior decoration. The influx of French eighteenth-century decorative arts from London and Paris exerted a powerful influence over the imaginations of a new millionaire class, while the emergence of the professional dealer-decorator established channels for the incorporation of these materials into the luxury residence. While these interiors were developed in collaboration with leading US architects such as Richard Morris Hunt and George B. Post, they also posed a subtle challenge to the discourse of intellectualism developed on architects’ behalf. Governed by issues of taste and commerce as well as by artistic judgement, these French interiors presented a compelling vision of aristocratic stature that was at once in keeping, and in conflict, with the aspirations of an American Renaissance. This article considers the role of eighteenth-century French-style interiors in the articulation of a ‘civilised’ architectural tradition in the United States during the so-called Gilded Age. Focusing on the private mansion, it reconsiders the notion of the American Renaissance as a principally academic movement by calling attention to the ways in which it also responded to the requirements of the elite class as well as the commercial marketplace.