The inventor of interiors: old professions in search of a name

Abstract

The focus here is on the visual and written records of three professional groups – upholsterers, cabinet-makers, and architects – that each made claims to the art and business of interior decorating. After a brief history of these groups in the pre-revolutionary era, the chapter examines their new status quo and quest for legitimacy in the nineteenth century and in the aftermath of the abolition of guilds and trades. To secure clients, they emphasized artistic skill over practical requirements or commercial interests. Dramatically different images and writings about the professions developed as a result. If the trade literature was filled with practical advice specific to each profession - including educational opportunities, union requirements, and claims to the status of rightful interior decorators over other professional groups - the more widely-circulating pattern books or illustrations in popular journals included a portfolio of images with minimal information. The latter favored creativity over practical considerations, blurring boundaries between professions and proposing unified, themed interiors where every element occupied a unique and pre-established position within a larger whole. Going beyond the requirements and expectations of their own trade organizations, together, upholsterers, cabinet-makers, and architects helped define the new profession of the proto-interior designer.