Skip to main content

Period rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Archive Print Item: Bedford Collection B254

Details

Type of record: Book

Title: Period rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Level: Item

Classmark: Bedford Collection B254

Creator(s): Peck, Amelia

Additional creator(s): Willis, Karin L (Photographer); Bedford, John Victor (1941-2019) (Former owner); Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) (Other)

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art : H.N. Abrams

Publication city: New York

Date(s): [1996]

Language: English

Size and medium: 312 pages

Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/729546

Printed items catalogue: https://leeds.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=44LEE_INST:VU1&docid=alma991019889456905181

Description

Includes bibliographical references (page 306) and index.


Superb examples of interior design through the ages are on view in the period rooms at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. From an ancient Roman bedroom excavated near Pompeii to a Louis XVI grand salon from eighteenth-century Paris to the Frank Lloyd Wright Room in the American Wing, these popular exhibition galleries can now be seen for the first time in book form. Thirty-four spectacular installations - some actual rooms taken from historic buildings and some.


Recreations intended to show related works of decorative art in an authentic setting - offer a beautifully photographed grand tour through the history of interiors. From a twelfth-century cloister from the Pyrenees to eighteenth-century French and English parlors and boudoirs to Colonial and early nineteenth-century American dining rooms and libraries, the Metropolitan's collection of period rooms offers a wealth of fine furniture and decorative elements. An introduction.


By Museum director Philippe de Montebello explains the concept of period rooms at the Museum and how they have been developed, installed, and furnished over the past hundred years. Then, each room is depicted both in color photographs taken especially for this book and in lively narrative descriptions that include fascinating information about the original room from which the Museum's example is derived, the individuals who commissioned and carried out the decoration,


And the era that the room represents. Supplementing the stunning photographs of the rooms are historical photographs and engravings and close-up shots of selected ornaments and pieces of furniture, enabling the reader to see details that are often inaccessible to Museum visitors.

Provenance

Leeds University Library copy at Bedford Collection B254: From the John Evan Bedford Library, gifted in 2019. Twenty-first-century pictorial bookplate on front pastedown: John Evan Bedford. Former reference: JDS/4.

Access and usage

Access

This material is not subject to restrictions under Data Protection or other relevant legislation that might limit access. However, other protections, such as donor conditions or conservation considerations, may still apply where advised.

Collection hierarchy

Visitor Basket

Ref No. Item Ref Title