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Mirjam Gelfer-Jørgensen, The Dream of a Golden Age 504 pages, 500 illustrations. Price - DKK 900 This new publication addresses an important period in Scandinavian design history when Danish furniture rose to a level that rivalled contemporaneous work in major European capitals and the Americas. In the estimation of many historians, this remarkable body of nineteenth-century work may be considered the foundation for modern Danish furniture in the twentieth century, based on its reliance upon superlative standards of fabrication, superb quality of design and revelation of national aspirations. In the first chapter, the book presents new information on the Danish furniture industry between the years 1790-1850. Gelfer-Jørgensen presents a substantial argument for the historical significance of this material by first addressing the training of Danish designers and craftsmen, the use of an international body of pattern books, the distribution of this furniture in the marketplace and its prominent role in Danish royal, aristocratic and bourgeois households. The second chapter reveals – by utilizing previously unpublished material - the lavish program for furnishing one of Europe’s most ambitious and beautiful royal palaces, Christiansborg. This significant commission provided a powerful impetus for the remarkable revision of taste and form that occurred in this industry in the early nineteenth century. The third chapter tells the fascinating story of iconography in that unique body of work known as Danish Neo-Antique furniture. This material revived many aspects of the furniture of the ancient Greco-Roman republics while simultaneously presenting a clear political program for Danish artists and members of the intelligentsia who felt that this new furniture reflected their enlightened political aspirations that were against the absolute nature of the monarchy. This chapter also provides an overview of the evolution of the Danish Klismos chair in a fascinating international context. Gelfer-Jørgensen proves that the Danish pieces were among the most aesthetically radical of their time. This avant-garde quality was underscored by the use of advanced technology as many Danish chairs were fabricated with some of the most adventuresome laminated construction used in the furniture industry at that time. The fourth chapter reveals the considerable extent to which this material became part of the lifestyles of the educated Danish bourgeoisie. The book is printed with numerous color illustrations of previously unpublished furniture as well as reproductions of Danish Golden Age paintings which reveal these pieces in original interiors. It is bound in a full canvas hardcover and dust jacket. The beautiful layout by the graphic designer Gertrud Jensen has been awarded the prize of the year from the Society of Danish Book Design. The author is the head of The National Art and Design Library in Copenhagen and the assistant director at The Danish Museum of Decorative Art and a member of the board of ICOM-ICDAD. She has published many books on decorative art. She is the founder and chief editor of Scandinavian Journal of Design History.
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