Russian furniture the golden age, 1780-1840

• Main Author: Cheneviere, Antoine 1950- (Author)
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Woodbridge Antique Collectors' Club 2001
• Subjects: Furniture > History > 18th century > Russia; Furniture > History > 19th century > Russia
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.
• Item Description: Originally published: London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988
• Physical Description: 312 pages illustrations (some colour) 30 cm
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index
• ISBN: 1851493557; 9781851493555

Soon after her arrival in Russia in 1744 the future Catherine the Great lamented the pitiful scarcity of furniture in the imperial palaces. Within less than a hundred years those palaces, and the grandiose apartments which sprang up alongside them in the burst of building activity that gripped Russia at the end of the eighteenth century, were filled with magnificent furniture, as befitted their sumptuous decor. Russia had enjoyed a cultural renaissance, in which the skills of decorative artists were nurtured as never before, and out of this ferment emerged an autonomous Russian style, distinguished by its exhilarating freedom of expression and ornamentation, its exceptional diversity of forms and materials, and the dazzling virtuosity of its craftsmanship.