The Dream of a Golden Age: Danish Neo-Classical Furniture 1790-1850

Abstract

Mirjam Gelfer-Jørgensen. Rhodos, 2004. 504 pp., 500 colour and black and white illus. Cloth £84. ISBN 87–7245–898–4. In 1968, the Victoria and Albert Museum held an exhibition entitled ‘Two Centuries of Danish Design’. In the catalogue, the furniture designs of painter and architect N. Abildgaard, the sculptor, H. E. Freund and the architect G. Bindesbøll were described as ‘Danish Empire’ and it was noted that much of their work ‘reveals such independency of spirit that it is tempting to see in these men early examples of what we would now call “furniture designers”.’ (Two Centuries of Danish Design, 1968, p. 31). This little work also emphasized the role of the Royal Furniture Warehouse in encouraging indigenous cabinet-making skills, the crucial importance of foreign influences upon Danish design, the role of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in promoting craft and design, and the idea of design continuum over...