so as we come into the American wing on the section that's devoted to the 19th century one of the first things that we come across is this display of four chairs and what I find really interesting about this this display is that it shows us that cleese most share form that we've already met a number of times in our historical style studies but in reinterpreted by four different crafts people here in America during the late neoclassical period and what we take notice of right away is that although all of them are recognisably based on the clues most share the interpretations make each chair very very different and we see in one piece where the quality of the wood the beautiful grain of the mahogany plays the most central role in the design and then another where the painted surface is really central to the design next to that we find a chair that incorporates both the painted surface and upholstery and that becomes central and then the last one where the Greek key motif being brought in in this very wonderful bold way on the back of the chair really gives us the kind of central motif of the design so we can see that even with something as sort of confined just just keeping to one chair form it can it can be interpreted in lots of different ways now what we're looking at here is a peer table by lanlan yay and if you remember back to the lectures lanlan yay is a French immigrant who comes to New York and who sets up their a cabinetmaking business and becomes very very popular with upper-class American families what he's bringing to America is an interpretation of the French Empire style but of course he's modifying it for his American market in part because of a difference in taste and in part because of a difference in what's accessible here in in America after having taken a look at the work of the French cabinet makers a little bit earlier in this tour I want you to kind of bring back the image in your mind of what those gilded bronze mounts look like and hear what you're having an opportunity to do is to compare them to what was available in America at about the same time a little bit later but certainly I'm influenced by the same style so what we see are mounds that are much flatter and much smaller really and in part that's because lanlan yayyyy is importing these mounds from France and then applying them to his pieces of furniture here in America and when he wants to do something really three-dimensional like these beautiful winged women who support the table portion of this console he has to have that made here in America and so what he does because we don't have the possibility of the kind of bronze casting and gilding that was possible in France is that they're carved of wood then they're covered with gesso and then the gilding is done over that and so there's a real difference in terms of the crispness of the figures of the sculptural elements between the work that we see in America and the work that we see in France yet there are so many similarities the interest in the high-quality veneer the use of the gilding at all and the kind of bold form that we see in this console here in this room we have this amazing Arundel mayor that hangs above this Grecian couch and both of these pieces would have been very typical elements in an interior in America in their early years of the 19th century both of them talked about an interest in classicism that carries through up up until about 1840 in America the Grecian couch could have also been called a Meridian and we've met this piece of furniture also in France and there it was called a recomme quite often we can see that the piece is asymmetrical it has that tight upholstery that we see very typically in late neoclassical pieces of furniture and then it has this beautiful curving ends we come down to the bottom of the piece and we have these carved hairy pod feet and we also have the inclusion of this motif that is a cornucopia in America the cornucopia becomes very very popular it's not to say that it isn't used in other countries as well but in America it has a very kind of close place in our heart because it talks so much about abundance and as America tries to sort of establish a kind of national idea of itself abundance is one of the elements in in American culture that becomes really important to us when we're looking at this sofa a little bit closer what we notice is that the surface is in fact painted it looks as if it's a lovely woodgrain with a little bit of gilding on it but when you get closer what you'll see is that even the wood graining is painted on to the surface so you could use a lesser wood than do this really very good quality woodgrain paint that you see on this piece and then you could replicate the gilt mount that one would typically find in a French piece with gilding and what they called pen work which is actually what the little dark lines are and with that you could get some really very delicate detail the the reason for using this starts with the fact that we don't have access to the French guilt mounts for a while the Napoleonic Wars kind of put a stop to that and so we start to develop the kind of painted surfaces in America but eventually we like it so well that it just becomes part of our own style development and here we see a really excellent really excellent example of this just a note about the upholstery this upholstery is actually horsehair it's got a car in a very dark shiny quality to it and it's made from the hairs of a horse's tail and it was very popular in the 19th century in America and actually is still available today in this interior what we're looking at is a Greek Revival parlor in a brownstone so this would have been one half of the sort of public rooms of the interior and you can see the way that they've set it up it's it's kind of looking out at the street and the size of this space is quite standard because of the sort of standardization of the building plots in New York and what is on view here is furniture from Duncan Phyfe from 1837 and then this plaster work that replicates an interior this a little bit earlier but also in that Greek Revival style and you'll notice in the plaster work above the doors that we've got the Greek Paul mats and then on either side of the opening to the room we've got these fluted columns the furniture is really in that kind of pillar and scroll style that becomes popular in the later late neoclassicism in America and it's very closely related to this interest in the designs of ancient Greece one of the important elements in the style is this real love of the grain of the wood and so all of these pieces are made out of really exquisitely grained mahogany and you can kind of make it out the lighting in the room is low so it's a little bit hard to see but it's got a wonderful kind of flame quality to the surface of it and you can see it on the backs of the chairs and especially in the fall front desk and of course take note that fall front desks were popular not just in biedermeyer Germany in Austria or in the French Empire but also in American late neoclassicism we notice here that the furniture is made ensuite so all of these pieces were made to be together in this room and that the set includes a center table it also concludes a console table that sits between the two tall windows at the front of the room this is a very typical arrangement with a mirror above notice that the drapery is really getting much fancier now people are getting wealthier and textile becoming less expensive less expensive enough at least to be able to be used in this way above the drapes themselves we have these valances that are made up of very very deep fringe and tassels and have an almost kind of military quality to them much like we saw in Europe there is a kind of close relationship with late neoclassicism and kind of military campaign style interiors on the floor we have wall-to-wall carpeting which in the 19th century becomes progressively more popular and you'll notice that it's a kind of repeat that includes a classical motif and then the fireplace has got these lovely ionic columns and it's made out of this dark beautifully grained marble again quite typical if we look at the Meridian on either side of the fireplace and that's these two asymmetrical very kind of short sofas what we see are very bold curving forms gone are the kind of delicately carved legs with the cornucopias and now we've got these kind of solid pillar like legs and that's part of where the pillar and scroll name comes for this style we can also see a lot of the scrolling in the center table with its three large scrolling legs and then even in the armchair it also has a very kind of scrolling quality to the arms the other two pieces of seating furniture are the cool shaped stools that are at the window and then these gondola form backs chairs that are around the room and they have very very beautiful woodgrain on their backs altogether the room has a kind of quiet quality in part because of these bold curving forms and also because of the use of the sort of plain upholstery and that's another thing that we see in the late nail classical is the tight upholstery there are no loose questions here and the fact that it has very little pattern on it except reserved for some sort of areas where kind of punctuated the motif the rosette every so often and the of leaves Duncan Phyfe had been the leading cabinet maker a little bit earlier I'm in the federal style and he continues to change throughout his very long career and we can see him here sort of in the last stage of his development as a furniture designer with this suite of furniture