Renaissance Revival furniture in an age of nation-building
Date
2025
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
In the two decades before the American Civil War, French cabinetmakers found willing patrons of Renaissance Revival furniture in New York and New Orleans. Often brokered or manufactured by immigrants, the design of these highly-carved oak pieces borrowed liberally from early modern European furniture. Romantic nationalism generated the Renaissance Revival. Emboldened by furniture of this style, certain Americans used these objects to claim the importance of class hierarchies or racial capitalism in their own performances of nation-building. To address these issues critically, this thesis employs three case studies that use both traditional methods of furniture connoisseurship alongside analyses of visual culture, built environments, and literature to ground Renaissance Revival furniture in antebellum society. First, I show how New York-based French cabinetmaker Alexander Roux created a transnational maison, leveraging his identity to provide Americans with Renaissance Revival furniture. Second, in the Hudson River Valley, I explore how Henry Winthrop Sargent and tastemaker A. J. Downing used Renaissance style library furniture to affirm the superiority of Sargent’s Massachusetts pedigree. Lastly, in the Mississippi River Valley, I explain how cotton broker Frederick Stanton and his upholsterer Henry N. Siebrecht created a Renaissance style library interior to assert Stanton’s mastery as an enslaver and capitalist.
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Keywords
Furniture, Interiors, Nationalism, Racial capitalism, New Orleans