AA-2026-CA409C
On the image
A woman in her thirties or forties has settled into a red brocade sofa in what is clearly the good living room — the one with the floral ceramic lamp that nobody touches. She is wearing a white short-sleeved blouse and a full navy skirt, her dark hair pinned up, her lipstick on, which in the 1950s meant the camera was coming out whether she was ready or not. Her hands are loosely clasped in her lap in the way people hold themselves when they have been told to relax and are not relaxing. Behind her, the lamp is a masterpiece of mid-century decorative ambition: hand-painted daisies on a vase-shaped base, paired with a shade trimmed in gold cord, the whole object purchased with the absolute conviction that it was elegant. The sofa, the lamp, the blouse — every object in the frame was chosen carefully by someone who took the living room very seriously, and the camera has preserved all of it with the fidelity of a time capsule nobody meant to bury.
Visually related — by likeness
Woman on Red Brocade Sofa, 1950s Living Room. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-CA409C. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/woman-on-red-brocade-sofa-1950s-living-room.
@misc{aaAA2026CA409C,
title = {Woman on Red Brocade Sofa, 1950s Living Room},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-CA409C},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/woman-on-red-brocade-sofa-1950s-living-room}
}TY - ART TI - Woman on Red Brocade Sofa, 1950s Living Room PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-CA409C UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/woman-on-red-brocade-sofa-1950s-living-room ER -
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