Now through December 11, more than 20 examples of Louisiana-made furniture from the 18th and early 19th centuries are on display at The Historic New Orleans Collection’s Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street in the French Quarter. The pieces are on loan from Magnolia Mound Plantation in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while that facility is closed for improvements.
Examples on display include elegant armoires, Campeche chairs, children’s furniture, and a rare writing table. Accompanying the furniture are several photographs of furnished rooms at Magnolia Mound by Steve Gross and Sue Daley from their publication Creole Houses: Traditional Homes of Old Louisiana (Abrams, 2007), illustrating how the structure and its contents are usually displayed. The exhibition is free and open to the public and is presented in anticipation of The Collection’s forthcoming book Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, 1735–1835 (Winter 2010).