American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection

In 1920, Ima Hogg began an extensive collection of art and antiques that would chronicle America's tastes, styles, and customs from colonial times to the Victorian era. The daughter of a Texas governor, Miss Hogg continued to acquire works for her magnificent Houston home, Bayou Bend, until her death in 1975 at the age of ninety-three. Today Bayou Bend is owned and operated by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and is regarded as one of the country's foremost collections of Americana. This handsome and richly illustrated book documents this extraordinary collection in its entirety for the first time. The volume records over 1,100 superb examples of furniture, paintings, and decorative arts, including many key pieces that have been acquired since Miss Hogg's death. The extensive furniture collection features important high-style examples from America's principal urban centers. Paintings by such prominent artists as John Smibert, John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, and Gilbert Stuart are included, many of which are reproduced here in color for the first time. Exceptional examples of metalwork, including notable pieces by Paul Revere and the celebrated firm of Tiffany & Co., are joined by an extraordinary selection of prints, drawings, textiles, glass, and ceramics. Reflecting more than ten years of research, documentation, and technical examination of the collection by prominent curators and conservators, this beautiful volume will be of great interest to the general public and collectors as well as to students and scholars.