Corner-Cupboard (encoignure) c. 1745 - 1749

Curator: Oh, what a delightful little confection! It's all swoops and curves and shimmer. A certain *joie de vivre*, wouldn't you say? Editor: It's certainly eye-catching. This is a corner cupboard, an *encoignure*, crafted sometime between 1745 and 1749. Its creation is attributed to the workshop of Jean Desforges, a master ébéniste working in Paris during the height of the Rococo period. Curator: The gilding just explodes! So much gleaming brass ornament on that dark, lacquered wood. What's the deal with those vaguely Asian-looking scenes on the doors? Editor: Precisely. That’s what we call "chinoiserie"—a European interpretation of Asian motifs and aesthetics that was incredibly fashionable then. The market for imported goods from China shaped decorative arts in the West. European artisans, Desforges included, reinterpreted them for European tastes, thus exoticizing other cultures for local elite. Curator: Exoticizing is definitely the word. It makes you wonder about the labour behind acquiring the real Chinese pieces this tries to imitate and, honestly, all the extraction required for those gaudy gold details! Editor: The question of accessibility to Asian art is a pertinent one. Many trade restrictions during the era of Colonialism greatly increased the value, and therefore power, of objects appearing in aristocratic collections and settings, where they become markers of privilege and power. Corner cupboards were, and continue to be, quite practical—to nest them into the architecture of a room saves space; yet this cupboard exists foremost as a celebration of class distinction and status. Curator: I suppose this tells a larger story about the power of art and design to both express status and, perhaps inadvertently, underscore structural inequalities of race, labor and class. I'm actually feeling differently about the gold now. Editor: Agreed. What first seemed merely decorative can prompt quite profound conversations, if you just let it!