Southern furniture, 1680-1830: the Colonial Williamsburg collection

Abstract

Southern Furniture 1680-1830: The Colonial Williamburg Collection goes beyond earlier aesthetic and stylistic analyses in providing the most recent information about the South's extensive cabinetmaking traditions. The book is divided into two parts. Three introductory essays explore the history, economy, ethnic and cultural diversity of the South's principal regions - the area around Chesapeake Bay, the backcountry, and the Carolina Low Country. Each essays draws a picture of the lifestyles and living conditions in these areas and examines work, leisure, architecture, and other elements of daily life, many of which are illustrated in drawings and engravings that portray people, houses, and a variety of activities of the period. A useful map leads off each of the three regional sections, enabling the reader to trace the sources of the furniture referred to later. This overview is followed by a catalogue of 183 entries, each of which examines in detail many of the important objects in the Colonial Williamsburg collection. The entries are divided into four sections based on type (seating furniture, tables, case furniture, and miscellaneous forms) and each section opens with meticulously labeled photographs of the object type that identify the key parts of the furniture referred to in the catalogue descriptions. This useful technical introduction serves as a visual glossary. Each entry begins with a full-page color photograph of the piece of furniture. These were made especially for this book, and following are additional color and black-and-white photographs of details of each object and of related pieces, totaling more than 800. In the readable and interesting entry texts, each artifactis examined in the historical context of its manufacture and use, along with a description of its aesthetic and symbolic functions.