Taste and Power - Furnishing Modern France (Paperback, Revised)

Louis XIV, regency, rococo, neoclassical, empire, art nouveau and historicist pastiche: furniture styles march across French history as regimes rise and fall. In this social history, the author explores the changing meaning of furniture from the mid-17th century to the early-20th century, revealing how the aesthetics of everyday life were as integral to political events as to economic and social transformations. The book aims to demonstrate how furniture served to represent and even generate its makers' and customers' identities.