Enfilade

From Bloomsbury:

Christina Anderson (anthology editor), A Cultural History of Furniture, volumes 1–6 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), 1824 pages, ISBN: ‎978-1472577894, $550.

Furniture is an artifact, so what can it tell us about culture? What social, religious, political, and economic factors have shaped its form and functions? How does furniture demonstrate the transformations in private and public life across time and cultures?

In a 6-volume work spanning 4,500 years, 70 experts chart the changing cultural framework within which furniture was designed, produced, and used in Western Europe. Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and, to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six.

1  Antiquity, 2500 BCE–500 CE
2  Middle Ages and Renaissance, 500–1500
3  Age of Exploration, 1500–1700
4  Age of Enlightenment, 1700–1800
5  Age of Empire and Industry, 1800–1900
6  Modern Age, 1900–Present

Chapters address: Design and Motifs; Makers, Making, and Materials; Types and Uses; The Domestic Setting; The Public Setting; Exhibition and Display; Furniture and Architecture; Visual Representations; and Verbal Representations. The total extent of the pack is approximately 1,824 pages. Each volume opens with a series preface, an introduction, and notes on contributors; each concludes with notes, bibliography, and an index.

A Cultural History of Furniture is part of the Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available both as printed hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, or as part of a fully searchable digital library available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access.

Christina M. Anderson is Research Fellow, History Faculty and Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

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Sylvain Cordier, Christina Anderson, and Laura Houliston, eds., Volume 4: A Cultural History of Furniture in the Age of Enlightenment (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022), ISBN: ‎9781472577856.

c o n t e n t s

List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Series Preface

Introduction — M. B. Aldrich with Sylvain Cordier
1  Design and Motifs — Barbara Lasic
2  Makers, Making, and Materials — Yannick Chastang
3  Types and Uses — Mary-Eve Marchand
4  The Domestic Setting — Antonia Brodie
5  The Public Setting — Jeffrey Collins
6  Exhibition and Display — Frederic Dassas
7  Furniture and Architecture — Peter N. Lindfield
8  Visual Representations — Michael Decrossas and Sylvain Cordier
9  Verbal Representations — Tessa Murdoch