'My purple will be too sad for that melancholy room': Furnishings for Interiors in London and Paris, 1660–1735

This article charts the changing use of particular textiles for bed and wall hangings by the 'middling sort' in London between 1660 and 1725, using some 1470 inventories of City freemen, filed in the Court of Orphans. It also tracks the, sometimes surprisingly dramatic, changes in colour preference. Both the materials and colour are then compared with data on bourgeois interiors in Paris. Having established what choices were made, the questions of how and why they were made are explored, including a discussion of certain economic, technological, social and cultural factors that may have influenced such decisions.