The Age of Comfort cover art

The Age of Comfort

When Paris Discovered Casual - and the Modern Home Began

Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

The Age of Comfort

By: Joan DeJean
Narrated by: Teri Wilde
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Today, it is difficult to imagine a living room without a sofa. When the first sofas on record were delivered in 17th-century France, the result was a radical reinvention of interior space. Symptomatic of a new age of casualness and comfort, the sofa ushered in an era known as the golden age of conversation; as the first piece of furniture designed for two, it was also considered an invitation to seduction. With the sofa came many other changes in interior space we now take for granted: private bedrooms, bathrooms, and the original living rooms.

None of this could have happened without a colorful cast of visionaries-legendary architects, the first interior designers, and the women who shaped the tastes of two successive kings of France: Louis XIV's mistress Madame de Maintenon and Louis XV's mistress Madame de Pompadour. Their revolutionary ideas would have a direct influence on realms outside the home, from clothing to literature and gender relations, changing the way people lived and related to one another for the foreseeable future.

©2009 Joan DeJean (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Anthropology Architecture Europe France Home Design & Renovation House & Home Interior Design & Decoration Social Sciences World Royalty

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Decoration of Houses cover art
Buckingham Palace cover art
Antiques Roadshow cover art
Last Light cover art
Frank Lloyd Wright cover art
David Lynch cover art
The Paper Garden cover art
Leonardo and the Last Supper cover art
Londonwalks cover art
Broad Strokes cover art
Modern Man cover art
Restoration London cover art
A Modern Way to Live cover art
Paris to the Past cover art
A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain cover art
No reviews yet