Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

24 January 2024 / 9.30am -5.30pm (EST)

This symposium is part of the Furniture History Society's Early Career Development programme and will present current research by emerging scholars in the fields of furniture history, the decorative arts and historic interiors. The range of papers reflects the broad interests of the speakers from Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Italy and the United States. 

Programme summary:

• Cynthia Kok (Rijksmuseum,Amsterdam) - Ebonyworkers in Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam
• Bridget Griffin (The Attingham Trust, London) - Crafting Connections: Mapping the Lives and Trade Networks of British and Irish Immigrant Furniture Makers in North-Eastern Port Cities of Early America
• Grace Ford-Dirks (Philadelphia Museum of Art) - Exploring the Lives and Meanings of an Eighteenth-Century Caribbean Armoire
• Noah Dubay (Bard Graduate Centre, New York) - Comfort, Convenience and Convalescence: How the Fauteuil de Malade Changed Eighteenth-Century France
• Geoffrey Ripart (Bard Graduate Centre, New York) - The Road from Rome to Paris: Sourcing Rare Marbles at the End of the Ancien Regime and the Rise of French Taste for Objets d’Art made from Stone, 1760- 1810
• Laura Jenkins (The Courtauld Institute of Art, London) - From Galerie to Ballroom: Gilbert Cuel at 1 West 57th Street
• Romana Mastrella (University of La Sapienza, Rome) - Collecting Fireplaces in the Eighteenth Century
• Justine Gain (Ecole de Louvre, Paris) - When the Furniture Matches the Architecture: The Birth of French Eclecticism through the Oeuvre of Jean-Baptiste Plantar (1790-1879)
• Karolína Kourilova (Masaryk University, Brno) - Design Behind the Iron Curtain: Furniture Industry Development in Post-War Czechoslovakia
• Melania Andronic (University of La Sapienza, Rome) - Columbus Rational Furniture: A Chair is Made for Sitting! 

For further information and to reserve your seat, please click here

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If you have any questions about this event or the Early Career Development programme in general, please email: grants@furniturehistorysociety.org

The day is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Oliver Ford Trust. 

Images on banner above (from left to right): 1) Detail of the fireplace (Rome 1785), by Luigi Valadier in the Sala della Flora on the first floor of the Villa Borghese in Rome. 2) Detail of a cabinet attributed to Herman Doomer (Amsterdam c.1640-50), a Rogers Fund and Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 2011. The Met, New York. 3) Detail of a drawing by Jean-Baptiste Plantar in Album d'une centaine de dessins d'architecture (Paris c. 1855), held online by the Institut National d’histoire de l’art. 4) Detail of the Galerie Doree at the Hotel de Toulouse (now Banque de France), decorated by Robert de Cotte and Francois-Antoine Vasse in 1713-1717. Photo credit: Guilhem Vellut.