A landmark in the field of decorative arts scholarship, this magisterial study evokes an era before mass production and ease of transport homogenized furniture design across America. From the early eighteenth through the mid-nineteenth centuries, distinctive cabinetmaking traditions developed in Louisiana through a melding of French, Anglo-American, Caribbean, and Canadian influences.

A visually stunning book, Furnishing Louisiana presents a comprehensive catalog of furniture forms produced in the upper and lower Mississippi River valley, along with contextual essays on the cabinetmakers who created early Louisiana furniture; the hardware and the woods, native and exotic, employed in their craft; the art of inlay as it developed locally; the import trade at the Port of New Orleans; and the interior of the early Louisiana house. This volume stands as a tribute to the region’s cultural diversity and remarkable artistry.