It is no secret that New Orleans and the surrounding region have long been a hotbed of creativity, giving rise to the careers of many artists, musicians, and writers, but little attention has been given to the remarkable decorative arts and craftsmen of this area. From the early 18th through the mid-19th centuries, distinctive cabinetmaking traditions developed in the Mississippi River valley through a melding of French, Anglo-American, Caribbean, Canadian, and African influences. Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, 1735 1835 stands as a tribute to the region s cultural diversity and remarkable artistry. Louisiana s earliest colonial furniture hewed closely to French models. Yet an influx of immigrants at the turn of the 19th century refugees from the Haitian Revolution, Anglo-Americans drawn south and west in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase had a striking impact on the region s crafts. The fusion of acculturated European craftsmanship and contemporary Anglo-American fashion produced a novel aesthetic in the New World a Louisiana Creole style. And while highly refined cabinet work emerged from cosmopolitan New Orleans, another tradition was developing to the west, on the Acadian prairies. Informed by distant memories of France and recent memories of Canada, modified by Louisiana s climate and available materials, Acadian furniture stands alongside Creole craftsmanship as an enduring reflection of a time, a place, and a people. This elegant, beautifully designed work boasts more than 1,200 full-color illustrations, a comprehensive catalogue of furniture forms, and contextual essays on cabinetmakers, materials, techniques, trade, and the interiors of early Louisiana homes. Exploring the Art of Louisiana Furniture Louisiana cabinetmakers under Napoleonic rule earned job titles as elite as ebeniste and doreur, building and gilding furniture for plantation owners. The artisans ranks included slaves, free men of color and immigrants from Germany and the Caribbean. But they developed a signature Louisiana style. They inlaid blond swags and customers initials on cypress armoires and modeled sling-back mahogany porch chairs after thrones that Spanish conquistadors had brought to Mexico. On cherrywood bedsteads with tapered posts eight feet tall they attached iron rods for drapes of mosquito netting, essential during Louisiana summers. The Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum and research center, has published the first major study of the woodworkers' products, Furnishing Louisiana: Creole and Acadian Furniture, 1735-1835 . The main authors, the historians Jack D. Holden, H. Parrott Bacot and Cybele T. Gontar, took road trips to study objects in about 40 institutions and 80 private homes. The topic had long been ignored, partly because of some Northern bias among decorative arts scholars. 'In 1949, Joseph Downs, then curator of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, infamously stated that 'little of artistic merit was made south of Baltimore,' ' John T. Magill, a curator at Historic New Orleans, writes in the book's introduction. A decade ago, the Met at last acquired a piece of early 1800s Louisiana furniture: a mahogany armchair with checkerboard inlay that is now tucked into a shadowy corner of the American Wing's mezzanine. The new study covers tables and chairs with elaborately flared and turned legs, and necessities as humble as corn-shuck brooms and painted wood washstands. The text explains how the pieces served their original owners. Ursuline nuns stored their meager possessions in boxy cypress dressers. An armchair with a Spanish Hapsburg eagle embossed on the leather was a favorite lounging spot for James Madison during his retirement in Virginia. The artisans designed and reinforced their wares to endure 'the vicissitudes of hurricanes, floods, war and changes in fashion,' the authors write. An 1820s cypress armoire 'survived the great Mississippi River flood of 1927, leaving a distinct watermark more than halfway up the door panels.' The book reports on provenances as well. In 2003, at Neal Auction Company in New Orleans, an 1810s mahogany armoire inlaid with ribbons and vines brought $140,000 (the presale estimate was $30,000 to $50,000). The piece, which had been displayed for decades at an 1820s plantation, was made by a prolific cabinetmaker whose name is not yet known. Scholars call him the Butterfly Man, because he joined wood slabs with pointy pegs that look like butterfly wings. Next year, Historic New Orleans will organize an exhibition and an online database of Louisiana furniture. The show will probably not travel, said Jessica Dorman, the center s director of publications, given the unwieldy size and heft of the antiques and the reluctance of owners to part with them for long. --Eve M. Kahn, December 9, 2010 --The New York Times H. Parrott Bacot, professor emeritus of art history at Louisiana State University, served as the curator/director