Experience Life in New Orleans in the Mid-1800s

Part of the Lower Pontalba Building on Jackson Square, this row house represents mid-19th century life in New Orleans. Because residents were tenants who lived here for only a few years at a time, the 1850 House furnishings do not represent any single family. Rather it reflects mid-19th-century prosperity, taste and daily life in New Orleans. Some pieces have a history of ownership in Louisiana, while local furniture shops made or sold others. The house comprises several revival styles that were popular in the 1850s, including Rococo revival, Gothic revival and classical revival.

Highlights include a six-piece rosewood and lemonwood bedroom suite in the French taste, made for a Royal Street home and attributed to the warerooms of Prudent Mallard. Also featured are a parlor table, dresser and crib labeled by Irish-born New Orleans manufacturer William McCracken. In the dining room, Senator John Slidell’s Paris porcelain and silverware by New Orleans silversmith Anthony Rasch are illuminated by a Cornelius & Baker gasolier. The walls are hung with paintings by French-trained artists Jacques Amans, Jean Joseph Vaudechamp, Aimable Desire Lansot and François Bernard, all of whom came to New Orleans in the early to mid-19th century.