Moving Rooms: The Trade in Architectural Salvages

by John Harris

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Book cover for Moving Rooms

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Since at least Tudor times there have been architectural salvages: panelling, chimney pieces, doorways, or any fixtures and fittings might be removed from an old interior to be replaced by more fashionable ones. Not surprisingly a trade developed and architects, builders, masons, and sculptors sought out these salvages. By 1820 there was a growing profession of brokers and dealers in London, and a century later antique shops were commonplace throughout England.

This fascinating book documents the break-up, sale, and re-use of salvages in Britain and America, where the fashion for so-called “Period Rooms” became a mainstay of the transatlantic trade. Much appreciated by museum visitors, period rooms have become something of a scholarly embarrassment, as research reveals that many were assembled from a variety of sources. One American embraced the trade as no other--the larger-than-life William Randolph Hearst--who purchased tens of thousands of architectural salvages between 1900 and 1935.

 



Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
  • ISBN10 0300124201
  • ISBN13 9780300124200
  • Publish Date 23 August 2007
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 4 March 2021
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Yale University Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 240
  • Language English