Silent Theatres: Dramatising Furniture in the Fictional Interiors of Fin-de-Siècle Exhibitions, Stages, and the Commercial World

Abstract

Focusing primarily on Paris and London, this essay delves into fictional interiors crafted for exhibitions and commercial displays around 1900, contending that their genesis can be traced back to the practices and methods of theatrical stage design. Nineteenth-century performance, fervently inclined to material realism, established traditions for the staging of domestic objects. Theatres lent their techniques and their professionals to other types of display. From stages to homes, and from bedrooms to period rooms, the dramatisation of domesticity seized both public and private realms. Regardless of the purposes they served, be it memorial, educational, recreational, or promotional, fictional interiors of the turn of the twentieth century capitalised on the emotional resonance of material settings on individual sensibilities, and the ability of the audience to weave narratives from the arrangement of domestic objects.