Interior Decorating in Nineteenth-Century France: The Visual Culture of a New Profession

摘要

Stemming from relatively unknown and disparate creators, perspectival views of private interiors proliferated in France during the second half of the nineteenth century. Inspired by watercolours of actual interiors that became popular collectibles during the first half of the century, these images printed for mass publication presented well conceptualized but inexistent rooms, selling to middle-class through upper-class home owners visions-what architect and decorator Georges Remon called 'interior dreamscapes'-rather than real spaces. Until Anca I. Lasc's book came along, this constellation of images had remained mostly scattered, physically and conceptually. Working under an umbrella of professional titles, from 'upholster-decorator' to 'creator of ensembles', the producers of those images had not congealed into one coherent group yet. Through rigorous archival research conducted in North America and in France, Lasc has assembled a corpus that, the book demonstrates, both served as an incubator for Art Nouveau and bred the modern interior designer.