Enfilade

Symposium | New Discoveries in Furniture and Historic Interiors

Posted in conferences (to attend) by Editor on January 12, 2026

Left: Alexander Roslin, Portrait of Hedvig Elisabet Charlotta, Princess of Sweden, detail, 1775 (Nationalmuseum, Sweden). Center: André-Charles Boulle, Coffer-on-stand (Chatsworth House Trust). Right: Mirror shard cabinet, Apartment of Margravine Wilhelmine of Bayreuth, ca. 1750 (Old Palace of the Hermitage in Bayreuth; photo by Achim Bunz).

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From the reservation page at Eventbrite:

New Discoveries in Furniture and Historic Interiors

University of Buckingham, London Campus, 23 January 2026

Registration due by 19 January 2026

The Furniture History Society invites you to its eighth Early Career Research Symposium, to be held at the University of Buckingham’s London campus, 51 Gower Street, from 9.30am to 5pm on Friday, 23 January. Part of the Society’s Early Career Group (ECG) programme, the symposium features current research by emerging scholars in furniture history, the decorative arts, and historic interiors. The programme reflects the wide range of interests among early-career researchers, with speakers from Britain, Sweden, France, Italy, Germany, and the United States. The event is free to attend, but advance registration via Eventbrite is required by midnight (GMT) on Monday, 19 January. The limited number of places are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. The symposium will be recorded and made available for one month to registered participants. Any enquiries about this event or the Early Career programme should be directed to grants@furniturehistorysociety.org.

The day is made possible thanks to the generous support of the University of Buckingham, the Della Howard Fund, and the Oliver Ford Trust.

p r e s e n t a t i o n s

• Mary Algood (V&A/RCD History of Design Programme, UK) — Makers of Funeral Furniture in 17th-Century England

• Tristan Fourmy (Institut National du Patrimoine, France) — Hercules in the Decorative Arts in 18th-Century France

• Laini Farrare (University of Delaware, USA) — Atlantic Mahogany: Enslavement, Labor, and the Early American Windsor Chair

• Francesco Montuori (European University Institute, Italy) — Beyond Chinoiserie: The Gabinetto di Porcellana and its Floor

• Anne Weiss (University of Cologne, Germany) — Status and Space: Dynastic References in the Furnishings of Wilhelmine von Bayreuth’s Apartments in the New Palace and Old Palace of the Hermitage in Bayreuth, 1735–1758

• Karolina Laszczukowska (University of Uppsala, Sweden) — The Material Hierarchies in the Furnishings and Interiors of the Private Apartments of Princess Sofia Magdalena and Duchess Hedvig Elisabet Charlotta at Stockholm Palace in 1766 and 1774

• Katherine Hardwick (Chatsworth House, UK) — Garrets Full of the Commodity? Collecting Boulle at Chatsworth

• Paul Giraud (Institut National du Patrimoine, France) — Collecting Italian 18th-Century Furniture at the Belle Epoque: The Origins of Interior Design

• Justine Lecuyer (Sorbonne, France) — Crafting Comfort: Upholstery and Textile Aesthetics in 19th-Century Interiors

• Eleonora Drago (Civic Museums of Treviso, Italy) — Paul Albert Bernard and the Decoration of the French Room at the Biennale in 1905: An Homage to Venice and France from a Decorative Skylight

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