Definição e significado de bric-a-brac

  Bric-a-brac for sale at an antique shop in Kabul.

Bric-à-brac (origin French)^[1], first used in the Victorian era,^[2] refers to lesser objets d'art forming collections of curios, such as elaborately decorated teacups and small vases, compositions of feathers or wax flowers under glass domes, decorated eggshells, statuettes, painted miniatures or photographs in stand-up frames, and so on. In middle-class homes bric-à-brac was used as ornament on mantelpieces, cluttered tables, and shelves, or was displayed in curio cabinets: sometimes these cabinets have glass doors to display the items within while protecting them from dust.

Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman, Jr., in The Decoration of Houses (1897), distinguished three gradations of quality in such "household ornaments": bric-à-brac, bibelots and objets d'art.^[3]

  Bric-a-brac shop in Nantucket, circa 1880.

Bric-à-brac nowadays refers to a selection of items of modest value, often sold in street markets. It is also sold in many curio stores and souvenir shacks along the famous U.S. Route 66. During the 1950s-60s Americans found a large interest in bric a brac and as a result it was sold in many "everything shops" such as Sears and Target.^{[citation needed]}

  See also

• Antique shop
• Discount store
• Variety store

  References

Media related to Bric-a-brac at Wikimedia Commons

Look up bric-a-brac in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Bric à Brac.

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