Women's Painted Furniture, 1790-1830

This is beautifully illustrated, full-scale study of women's painted furniture, a long-lost art that sheds light on women's lives in the early republic. In this long-awaited tribute to women's painted furniture, author and artist Betsy Krieg Salm rediscovers a style of early American decorative art still largely unknown to curators, antique dealers, art historians, and the public. She documents the socioeconomic, cultural, and aesthetic history of this art form, which includes items such as sewing and work boxes, face screens, and tables. Salm carefully chronicles the process itself, including a selection of cabinetmakers and woods, varnishes and paints, and specific tools and techniques used by these women artists. Salm analyzes the styles, designs, and patterns of more than 200 pieces of women's painted furniture. Treating these objects as documents of women's daily life, she shows the close relationship of painted furniture motifs to those of needlework and other decorative arts of the period. Thanks to her work, this art form may now achieve the recognition it deserves in the broader genre of American women's art. "Women's Painted Furniture" presents a comprehensive collection of images, most of which are not available elsewhere. Primary sources used by the author include genealogies of artisans and chemical analysis of antiques, recipes, patterns, instructions in methods and technique, and the original, mainly English, sources of artistic inspiration for painters and needle workers.