Back

Classic Furniture

Craftsmanship, Trade Organisations and Cross-Cultural Influences in East and West

(經典家具:工藝、貿易組織和跨文化在東西方的影響)

Florian Knothe

ISBN : 978-988-19023-9-9


Film, Media, Fine Arts Distributed for HKU Museum and Art Gallery 香港大學美術博物館

September 2016

64 pages, 8.25″ x 12″, color illus.


Paperback
  • HK$100.00

This publication presents a selection of essays on Chinese and European furniture making, stylistic influences and workshop practices during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Single chapters focus on the similarities and differences in cabinetry in East and West, and the overwhelming impact of chinoiserie on the design of furniture in early modern Europe. Individual masterpieces by cabinetmakers in France, England and Germany further exemplify the wide-reaching effect of an ‘exotic’ stylistic vocabulary and the development of an eighteenth-century fashion in the decorative arts.

Florian Knothe trained as a furniture maker and conservator. Previously he worked as a furniture historian for the Huntington Collection and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the US, and has published widely on European furniture and decorative arts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In recent years, this focus has shifted towards European and cross-cultural influences in China and the reception of artistic styles in East and West. As Director of The University of Hong Kong Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG), he is responsible for the development of cross-cultural and interdisciplinary art exhibitions and educational programming, and he also teaches courses in art history and the social sciences.