Pretty posies : the colonial revival's influence on the use of flowers in historic interiors

204 Pages·1992·2.7 MB·English

by  Vietzke, Gay Elizabeth

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PRETTY POSIES:
THE COLONIAL REVIVAL'S INFLUENCE ON THE USE
OF FLOWERS IN HISTORIC INTERIORS
Gay Elizabeth Vietzke
A THESIS
in
The Graduate Program in Historic Preservation
Presented to the faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
MASTER OF SCIENCE
1992
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Gail Caskey Winkler, Lecturer, Historic Preservation, Advisor
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Ruth M. O'Brien, Lecturer, Historic Preservation, Reader
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David G. De LLoonngg,, Professor »r AArnchitecture
Graduate Group Chairman
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CONTENTS
1. Introduction 1
2. The Colonial Revival 4
General Attitudes Towards the Past 4
17th- and 18th-Century Sources Cited by the Colonial
Revivalists 12
Louise Fisher at Colonial Williamsburg 23
Flower Use at the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum 3 2
Influence on Smaller Sites and Individual House Museums 3 7
3. Other Factors That Influenced the Interpretation of Period
Arrangements 41
Availability - The Commercial Horticulture Industry 4
Proliferation of Plant Materials Used in the House 5 2
Publications and Household Guides Promoting Use 5 9
Influence of Ikebana on Western Flower Arranging Practices 6 4
4. Conclusions and Recommendations 7 1
Appendices 75
Bibliography 8 2
11

Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary
humanity. Children love them; quiet, tender,
contented, ordinary people love them as they
grow; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in
them gathered. They are the cottager's treasure,
and, in the crowded town, mark, as with a little
broken fragment of rainbow, the windows of the
workers, in whose hearts rest the covenant of
pteace. To the child and the girl, to the peasant
and manufacturing operative, to the grisette and
the nun, the lover and the monk, they are precious
always.
-John Ruskin
From Every Woman her own Flower Gardener by Daisy Eyebright,
4th edition, H.T. Williams, publisher, 1874.
Ill