Exhibition Guide

In 1878, taste-maker Clarence Cook touted the use of Asian bamboo furniture, telling readers of The House Beautiful (1878), “Capital stuff it is to fill up the gaps in the furnishing of a country house for a summer.” American manufacturers soon began producing their own versions, using birds-eye maple for lively figured surfaces and hard maple for crisp turnings. R.J. Horner and Company, a New York firm, produced the most elegant examples. Horner’s output is indebted not only to the vogue for all things Japanese that flourished after the American Centennial of 1876, but also the Anglo-Chinese Regency furniture made for the Royal Pavilion at Brighton when John Nash redesigned it between 1815 and 1822.