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Furnishing Louisiana Honored
/ / urnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian J. Furniture, 1735—1835 was named Best in Show by the Southeastern Museum Conference and received a Gold Award in the Books and Catalogs category of the organization’s publications competition. The book also received the Mary Ellen LoPresti Award for outstanding monograph of 2010, presented by the Southeast Chapter of the Art Libraries Society of North America. Competition included books from premier publishers and institutions across the southeast, including Duke University Press, Louisiana State University Press, the University of Georgia Press, Vanderbilt University Press, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Ring-ling College of Art and Design, Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center, and the Museo de Arte de Ponce.
another venerable tradition in Louisiana: a system of apprenticeship for skilled woodworkers. An example of an early apprenticeship contract, along with a searchable database of local craftsmen, is another exhibition feature.
Certainly nothing brings history to life like face-to-face contemplation of a cultural artifact. As an editor of Furnishing Louisiana, I spent nearly four years reviewing data for inclusion in the book. But no matter how often I read the measurements of a colonial armoire from the Judice Family Collection—93x51x1916 inches—I was unprepared for the manner in which the piece loomed over me when I first saw it. Ninety-three inches is nearly eight feet—that’s almost a foot taller than Shaquille O’Neal, basketball fans. And at more than four feet wide, this armoire has girth as well as height. Among my first thoughts when facing the walnut behemoth was that I finally grasped the premise of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I had no doubt that such a piece of furniture could contain an entire universe.
This is the experience we hope to share with visitors to Furnishing Louisiana. We encourage you to get up close and personal with early Louisiana furniture, some 50 pieces of which—from nearly two dozen collections, both public and private—have been carefully selected for display in The Collection’s Royal Street galleries. Upstairs, furniture will be grouped according to stylistic and cultural influence. Tables will be arrayed to show the evolution of certain styles—how the exuberant hoofed pied-de-biche leg, for example, morphed into
6 Volume XXIX, Number 1 — Winter 2012