Salon Dore Catalogue

This collection of essays presents the results of research conducted in preparation for, and deriving from, the major restoration of the Salon Dore (or gilded room), the unique eighteenth-century French room now in the Corcoran Gallery of Art.  Study of the room began in 1987, the restoration took place from 1989 to 1993, and research and writing continued well into 1996.  From its origins in Paris in 1770 to today, the room's wonderful mirrored, carved, and gilded boiserie (wood paneling) and its ceiling mural have endured a fascinating odyssey.  Beginning as a relatively square salon de compagnie (room for receiving guests) in a distinguished pre-Revolutionary Parisian private residence called the Hotel de Clermont, it was expanded at the beginning of this century into a longer rectangle and re-used as the "grand salon" in Senator William Andrews Clark's mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York.  Subsequently reinstalled as a theatrical "period room" at the Corcoran in 1927, the restoration returned to the surfaces (if not the structure) of the Salon Dore as much as possible to their eighteenth-century appearance and opened up the room to visitors, allowing the artistry of the carving and gilding to be viewed at close range as was originally intended.

Paperback: 111 pages