If these drawers could speak...
An exhibition on The Painted Furniture of French Canada 1700-1840
Hull (Quebec) May 28, 1997 — The Canadian Museum of Civilization (CMC) presents the exhibition The Painted Furniture of French Canada 1700-1840 in The Gallery beginning May 29, 1997. More than 80 pieces of furniture and other articles are on display, including cupboards, sideboards, chairs, chests of drawers, armchairs and chandeliers. While many of the pieces come from the Museum's collections, private collectors have also loaned items for the exhibition. Whether reflecting the styles of Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Louis XV or Chippendale, these unique pieces were created by French Canadian cabinetmakers who were successful in adapting the furniture — in style and composition — to the physical, social and economic conditions of their country.
Eighteenth-century French-Canadian furniture has been prized by collectors for years. These pieces of furniture are the priceless legacy of what seems a distant period in our history; not only can we admire their beauty and craftsmanship, we can also learn much of the period from what they have to tell us.
While the form of these pieces is representative of a specific period, the countless layers of paint and varnish applied to them to adapt them to given styles and decors are also of capital importance. "Unhappily, many pieces of colourfully painted furniture were unpardonably stripped over the years, victims of the trend for unpainted furniture," laments John Fleming, guest curator of the exhibition, and author of the book The Painted Furniture of French Canada 1700-1840, published in 1994. For Fleming, the sight of a stripped piece of furniture is as upsetting as the vision of the "skinned" figure at the exhibition entrance doubtless is to visitors.
In addition to the furniture on display, visitors can view two excellent short films from the NFB: Il était une chaise, a film made in 1957 by Claude Jutra and Norman McLaren that shows a chair rebelling against its users, and Crac, a 1981 animated film by Frédéric Back that recounts the history of Quebec and Canada through the life of a rocking chair.
The exhibition also features demonstration components sure to fascinate visitors. In the conservation laboratory, visitors can chat with a restorer and watch as he works on various pieces of furniture related to the exhibition. In the reconstruction of an interior from the latter half of the eighteenth century, a cabinetmaker demonstrates how woodwork was sculpted and the principal techniques of furniture construction. During the fall and winter of 1997-98, the Museum will offer workshops on the restoration, construction and care of antique furniture.
In addition to a magnificent book on the exhibition, the Museum is for the first time publishing the exhibition texts at a very affordable price. As well, the public can visit the Web site introducing the exhibition at the Virtual Museum of New France's address — www.mvnf.muse.digital.ca — for convenient and accessible documentation on the antique furniture of French Canada.
Museum goers rarely have the opportunity of admiring this type of furniture on such a grand scale. Now they can discover and appreciate The Painted Furniture of French Canada 1700-1840 from May 29, 1997 to March 15, 1998 in The Gallery of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Information (media):
Media Relations Officer: (819) 776-7169
Senior Media Relations Officer: (819) 776-7167
Fax: (819) 776-7187
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