Day 203 - Gaming room

January 6, 2020

If gallery 546 was memorable for its simplicity and harmony, gallery 547, a room from a Bordeaux mansion (possibly the Hotel de Saint-Marc) built between 1782 and 1784, is striking for the amount of stuff in it. High-class, expensive stuff, but stuff.  In an oval space perhaps 20 feet long and 15 feet wide are arranged any number of donations to the museum, including five tables (most notably, a card table and a backgammon table), eight chairs, a niche with a life-size statue of a female classical figure,  two statuettes framing a mantel clock above a fireplace,  other statuettes topping two of the tables, silver candlesticks, porcelain bowls and dishes, and an oak wine cooler, not to mention playing cards and dice. Really, there is no place for the eye to rest. But I suppose a room furnished in this way would have been intnded for recreation, not for rest. Sill, it's a reminder that clutter creates stress. The gray-green walls may have been intended to induce a sense of calm, but to me, they're dark and mildly depressing.

One sight that makes me smile, however, is a set of six ice cream bowls. Maybe digging into ice cream was a way of alleviating stress, then as now!