This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Louisiana
“American” style. Yet the continued presence of vernacular pieces, even in the homes of the wealthy, reflects a curious—and undeniably Creole— juxtaposition of European opulence and humble, primitive craftsmanship. An analysis of inventories from several representative areas of settlement in Louisiana provides a glimpse inside the homes of a cross-section of early Louisiana residents, rich and poor, worldly and isolated.
La Nouvelle Orleans
The epitome of Creole high culture in New Orleans can still be seen in the townhouses and suburban villas where the arbiters of 18th- and 19th-century taste lived and entertained amidst a tantalizing blend of European opulence and provincial hominess. While small residences remained common, elegant brick townhouses of two and three stories rose in great number, particularly after the fires of 1788 and 1794, when the Spanish-colonial government enacted the city’s first building codes. The typical Creole townhouse was a multi-use building, with retail and warehousing concerns usually occupying the ground floors, living quarters occupying the floor(s) above. Rooms in the living quarters were arranged en suite, with reception and dining rooms customarily having central positions, bedrooms and cabinets to either side—much like the floor plans of larger country residences. Balconies featuring iron grillwork were located at the level of the living areas, providing pedestrians some protection from sun and rain. Passageways ran through the ground floor, from the banquette [sidewalk] to enclosed courtyards at the rear of the house. The secondary buildings that formed the lateral and rear perimeters of the courtyards
were—like the main residence to which they depended—two or three stories in height, housing kitchens, coach houses, stables, and servants’ quarters.
One such townhouse was built by Jean-Franijois Merieult. A native of Normandy, Merieult (1762-1818) settled in New Orleans around 1788 as a commission merchant and during the Spanish period served as a junior judge of the Cabildo. In 1792 he purchased property on Royal Street and began construction of the mansion that stands there to this day—the building was one of very few to survive the great fire of 1794. In the inventory of Merieult’s succession proceedings, held in 1818, the property was described as:
A main house, of bricks, with a roof of tiles, consisting in the first floor of 6 stores, coach-house, stables, cellars, pantry, 2 kitchens, woodshed, a courtyard 84/24 feet, and in the 2nd floor, a living room, 2 bedrooms in front of a corridor,
2	cabinets at the end of it, a dining room, a small “dark” room, another antechamber or corridor along which are 2 other cabinets, a bedroom which opens, in the back, on a terrace, a small cabinet at the end of the corridor, a small pavilion adjoining the dining room, and a passage to the stairs going to the courtyard. . . .
By the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Merieult was quite prosperous; according to a contemporary source, he was “rich and wishes to be thought so.” Merieult’s collection of worldly goods was so extensive that appraisers required several days to complete the inventory. As evinced by the invoices due at the time of his demise, the last three years of Merieult’s life were marked by improvements, repairs, and
Punkah, ca. 1820, courtesy Neal Auction Company. The punkah has its origins in the Near East.
Though its exact moment of arrival in the Americas is unknown, evidence suggests that the punkah existed in the South at least by the first quarter of the 19th century. Traditionally hung over the dining table, the fans long pull cord was operated by a slave seated nearby, or perhaps just out of sight. Having a servant dedicated to the operation of a fan for the comfort of diners indicated the wealth and status of the homeowners and visually reinforced the master-slave relationship.
Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, 1735—1835
by Jack D. Holden, H. Parrott Bacot, and Cybele T. Gontar with Brian J. Costello and Francis J. Puig
edited by Jessica Dorman and Sarah R. Doerries
photography by Jim Zietz design by Tana Coman
hardcover * 552 pages
9" x 12" • 1,200 color images
$95.00
available at The Shop at The Collection and major independent and online booksellers
The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly 3
IN PRINT