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Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century
During the reigns of Louis XV (1723-74) and Louis XVI (1774-92) fashion and furniture merged ideals of beauty and pleasure through their forms and embellishments. With their fragile surfaces and delicate proportions, tables, chairs, and other pieces of furniture enhanced the elite's indulgence in leisurely pursuits, fostering highly complex standards of etiquette and performance. Men and women restated the splendor of the Rococo and Neoclassical interiors of the period in their opulent costumes. For the eighteenth-century libertine and femme du monde , a refined elegance and delicate voluptuousness infused their world with a mood of amorous delight.
Dangerous Liaisons takes its theme from this era, when trifling in love propelled the energies of elite men and women, providing almost daily stimulating encounters, and when, as has been written, "morality lost but society gained." In Choderlos de Laclos's novel of the same name, Ceacile, a young girl, is praised by her tutor in the worldly "She is really delightful! She has neither character nor principles ... everything about her indicates the keenest sensations." Valmont, her seducer, notes the following morning, "Nothing could have been more amusing." Valmont has won a game in the contest of lovemaking.
The beautifully photographed and handsomely reproduced images on the following pages bring these amorous adventures to life. The vignettes, staged for the widely praised exhibition "Dangerous Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century," held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004, feature eighteenth-century costumes in the Museum's spectacular French period rooms, The Wrightsman Galleries. The artfully composed scenes a woman sitting for her portrait while her husband flirts with her friend; a man being granted an audience with a woman in a peignoir who is having her hair dressed; a vendor embracing the wife of an old man, his back turned, examining a table for sale; a girl receiving more than a harp lesson from her teacher, while her oblivious chaperone reads an erotic novel; a woman giving up her garter as a memento of a very private dinner. The entertaining and knowledgeable texts set the scenes perfectly. [This book was originally published in 2006 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
Dangerous Liaisons takes its theme from this era, when trifling in love propelled the energies of elite men and women, providing almost daily stimulating encounters, and when, as has been written, "morality lost but society gained." In Choderlos de Laclos's novel of the same name, Ceacile, a young girl, is praised by her tutor in the worldly "She is really delightful! She has neither character nor principles ... everything about her indicates the keenest sensations." Valmont, her seducer, notes the following morning, "Nothing could have been more amusing." Valmont has won a game in the contest of lovemaking.
The beautifully photographed and handsomely reproduced images on the following pages bring these amorous adventures to life. The vignettes, staged for the widely praised exhibition "Dangerous Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century," held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004, feature eighteenth-century costumes in the Museum's spectacular French period rooms, The Wrightsman Galleries. The artfully composed scenes a woman sitting for her portrait while her husband flirts with her friend; a man being granted an audience with a woman in a peignoir who is having her hair dressed; a vendor embracing the wife of an old man, his back turned, examining a table for sale; a girl receiving more than a harp lesson from her teacher, while her oblivious chaperone reads an erotic novel; a woman giving up her garter as a memento of a very private dinner. The entertaining and knowledgeable texts set the scenes perfectly. [This book was originally published in 2006 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
128 pages, Paperback
First published April 17, 2006
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About the author
Harold Koda
55 books15 followersHarold Koda (3 January 3, 1950) is an American fashion scholar, curator, and the former curator-in-chief of the Anna Wintour Costume Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
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January 14, 2021Fall in love with ROCOCO (and neoclassicism) today!
(its great that the POINT is that the furniture and fashion SEDUCES you, crafty)
(btw this is free on Google Books, so you too, can virtually be Spotted Sitting on the Steps of the MET)
(its great that the POINT is that the furniture and fashion SEDUCES you, crafty)
(btw this is free on Google Books, so you too, can virtually be Spotted Sitting on the Steps of the MET)
January 16, 2019
This book is so pretty!
I love the concept for the exhibition, I love the ideas they explore and how they explore them. I wish I could have seen it in person.
The catalogue itself is a little clunky. It's picture heavy, but if you want to know what the image is be prepared to flip to the back of the book, because none of them are captioned. The text also makes reference to all of these images, but again, be prepared to interrupt your reading to flip back and forth, because they rarely reference an image next to the text.
On the subject of the text, it is full of interesting ideas, but be prepared for run on sentences and the like. The author also switches back and forth within single paragraphs describing paintings and the staging of the exhibition rooms, so you might have to pay careful attention or risk confusion over what she's talking about.
So it's a very pretty catalogue. Not necessarily a functional one.
I like the pretty though.
I love the concept for the exhibition, I love the ideas they explore and how they explore them. I wish I could have seen it in person.
The catalogue itself is a little clunky. It's picture heavy, but if you want to know what the image is be prepared to flip to the back of the book, because none of them are captioned. The text also makes reference to all of these images, but again, be prepared to interrupt your reading to flip back and forth, because they rarely reference an image next to the text.
On the subject of the text, it is full of interesting ideas, but be prepared for run on sentences and the like. The author also switches back and forth within single paragraphs describing paintings and the staging of the exhibition rooms, so you might have to pay careful attention or risk confusion over what she's talking about.
So it's a very pretty catalogue. Not necessarily a functional one.
I like the pretty though.
May 23, 2022
Dangerous Liaisons was an exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004 that focused on the relation between 18th century fashion and furniture. How the rooms were laid out for pleasure and socialising, often becoming a form of titillation.
This book features photos and information from that exhibit. Something as simple as a chair was placed with such care, the first impression of a room as important as that of a person. Not only that but complex rules concerning conducting yourself in company would have made just drinking tea or getting dressed overwhelming. It was fascinating and makes for stunning visuals!
This book features photos and information from that exhibit. Something as simple as a chair was placed with such care, the first impression of a room as important as that of a person. Not only that but complex rules concerning conducting yourself in company would have made just drinking tea or getting dressed overwhelming. It was fascinating and makes for stunning visuals!
November 19, 2019
I enjoyed this book, it was very fascinating to see how constructed every aspect of 18th century elite life was, from the clothes they wore, to the chairs they sat in, to the way they sat down and stood up with grace. Very interesting, I learned a lot that I didn't know before. There were two chapters left out but I was able to read most of it for free on google books which was also nice.
January 15, 2018
Beautiful catalog, essential for 18th century studies.
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July 9, 2024This is perhaps the first time i found myself more interested in the texts than the images in an art book.
May 1, 2016
Awhile back I got really into French fashion just before the Revolution and how it impacted the cultural life of the court. I found this particular book through a Tumblr post and the magic of ILLs, and it was quite worth it.
Dangerous Liaisons is not the French novel, but actually one of those books museums put together to show off their exhibits. This one took place at the Met in New York in 2004, and after having read the book I really wish I'd been able to see the exhibit itself. It placed costumes of the pre-Revolutionary Rococo period in representative interiors, with mannequins designed to show representative activities. The book also showed several paintings of the period and compared them to the exhibit's rooms.
The photography is amazing, and the curators' essays that accompanied them were really informative, drawing parallels between the design of furniture and clothing and the activities that might accompany them. For example, furniture could be designed to force people close together, assisting with flirtation, or could be very light and fragile, demanding grace and elegance from people maneuvering around it, particularly in large and bulky clothes. It's cool! I'll talk about this a little more when I talk about Fashion Victims, though.
Overall, this is really a lovely book, but unless you're a specialist in the period and subject, probably not worth owning. Get it from your local library or on ILL if you're interested, though. It will reward you.
Dangerous Liaisons is not the French novel, but actually one of those books museums put together to show off their exhibits. This one took place at the Met in New York in 2004, and after having read the book I really wish I'd been able to see the exhibit itself. It placed costumes of the pre-Revolutionary Rococo period in representative interiors, with mannequins designed to show representative activities. The book also showed several paintings of the period and compared them to the exhibit's rooms.
The photography is amazing, and the curators' essays that accompanied them were really informative, drawing parallels between the design of furniture and clothing and the activities that might accompany them. For example, furniture could be designed to force people close together, assisting with flirtation, or could be very light and fragile, demanding grace and elegance from people maneuvering around it, particularly in large and bulky clothes. It's cool! I'll talk about this a little more when I talk about Fashion Victims, though.
Overall, this is really a lovely book, but unless you're a specialist in the period and subject, probably not worth owning. Get it from your local library or on ILL if you're interested, though. It will reward you.
August 24, 2009
Must have been a neat exhibition. Wish I could have seen it in person. There weren't enough pictures in this book, or enough detail shots. I also found the mannequins to be distracting and stiff. I think it could have benefitted from more poseable and true to life mannequins. I enjoyed the idea that furniture was built intentionally for flirtation and to show off the owner's body and clothes. That was interesting!
June 10, 2012
I particularly enjoyed the in-depth discussion of eighteenth century dress and furniture in paintings, even though that was just a backdrop for the book's discussion of the MET exhibit. I wish I could have seen this exhibit in person.
March 17, 2008
Assisted with the Exhibition
August 27, 2015
The photography in this book is amazing. Whether you're a historical fashion researcher, a costumer, or a writer, this book will be helpful to you.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews