Exhibition Guide
Faux Bamboo Desk
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A Desk to Make You Look Twice
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Hear What a Reporter Wrote in 1893
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Art Object Info
Why would R.J. Horner and Company, an American furniture maker, scorch and shape maple wood to look like Asian bamboo? This desk demonstrates an appropriation and absorption of Asian aesthetics in response to a mass trend. American magazines of the time declared bamboo the perfect material to furnish a sophisticated summer home.
East Asian-inspired furniture design gained popularity as Chinese bamboo furniture became fashionable in England during the early 19th century. The American consumer became further acquainted with East Asian aesthetics through the militarized initiation of Japanese-American trade in 1856 and the soaring popularity of the Japanese Pavilion at the 1876 Centennial Exposition. The revitalization of American interest in East Asian-inspired aesthetics led to a renewed fad of bamboo furniture at the end of the 19th century.
Faux Bamboo Desk
Why would R.J. Horner and Company, an American furniture maker, scorch and shape maple wood to look like Asian bamboo? This desk demonstrates an appropriation and absorption of Asian aesthetics in response to a mass trend. American magazines of the time declared bamboo the perfect material to furnish a sophisticated summer home.
East Asian-inspired furniture design gained popularity as Chinese bamboo furniture became fashionable in England during the early 19th century. The American consumer became further acquainted with East Asian aesthetics through the militarized initiation of Japanese-American trade in 1856 and the soaring popularity of the Japanese Pavilion at the 1876 Centennial Exposition. The revitalization of American interest in East Asian-inspired aesthetics led to a renewed fad of bamboo furniture at the end of the 19th century.