Period Rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

From a twelfth-century cloister from the Pyrenees to eighteenth-century French and English parlors and boudoirs to Colonial and early nineteenth-century American dinings rooms and libraries, the Metropolitan's collection of period rooms offers a wealth of fine furniture and decorative elements. An introduction by Museum director Philippe de Montebello explains the concept of period rooms at the Museum and how they have been developed, installed, and furnished over the past hundred years. Then, each room is depicted both in color photographs taken especially for this book and in narrative descriptions that include information about the original room from which the Museum's example is derived, the individuals who commissioned and carried out the decoration, and the era that the room represents.
Supplementing the photographs of the rooms are historical photographs and engravings and close-up shots of selected ornaments and pieces of furniture, enabling the reader to see details that are often inaccessible to Museum visitors.