Gilded Mansions: Grand Architecture and High Society
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009.
First Edition. Hardcover.
First Printing.
The Gilded Age (1865-1918) saw the sudden rise of America's first High Society, including such prominent families as the Astors, Whitneys, and Vanderbilts. As an aristocracy based on fortunes recently acquired, these families endeavored to live like Europe's blue-blooded nobility, shedding Puritan restraint as they flaunted their new wealth--especially where their homes were concerned.
They erected French chateaus and Italian palazzos on New York's Fifth Avenue, at Newport, and elsewhere, often taking inspiration from Parisian styles of the Second Empire. They rejected more modest American styles just as they rejected middle-class society, and for interior decoration they turned to such artisans as Tiffany, Herter Brothers, and Allard's of Paris.
Item #902698ISBN: 9780393067545
8-3/4 x 10-1/4", black paper over boards with gilt titles to spine and front board, decorated endpapers, 250 color and black-and-white illustrations.
Tight, clean of owner's marks, crisp corners, near fine in spine-faded dust wrapper and protective mylar.
Price: $65.00