House Proud

In the nineteenth century, it became fashionable for aristocratic and upper-class homeowners in Europe to commission watercolor paintings of their domestic interiors and to collect them in albums. "House Proud: Nineteenth-century Watercolor Interiors from the Thaw Collection" commemorates the recent gift of 85 nineteenth-century watercolor interior drawings--the largest collection of its kind in America--to Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum by Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw. Essays analyzing these beautiful, exquisitely detailed watercolors and their significance to the Museum's collection, accompanied by the watercolors and related objects from the permanent collection, document the evolution of the domestic interior in the nineteenth century, revealing the impact of economic, social, and political developments on the concept of the home.