Day 261 - The "Baltimore Room"

 August 16, 2021

Gallery 724, the "Baltimore Room," is another period room.  All signage has been removed (a Covid precaution?),  but through a QR code I'm able to access the Met's website, which discusses period rooms in general as well as the details of particular rooms. 

I learn that the Baltimore Room, which measures perhaps 20 feet by 20 feet,  does, indeed, come from a house in Baltimore (presumably torn down?). But its furnishings represent curatorial choices, based on extensive research, about the kinds of furniture, fixtures, and decorative items that might have appeared in a home of the time and place. (In fact, this room, set up as a dining room, was a parlor in its original setting,)  It's an impressive assemblage of objects that include English glassware, French porcelain (but made for the American market, with patriotic motifs), an enormous sideboard, and two matching mirrors topped with eagles. I learn that Baltimore was known as a center of furniture-making, and I'm impressed by the ingenuity displayed by the maker of the dining table, which actually consists of two tables, each with a dropleaf, that can be pushed together to make one very long table but also, with the leafs lowered, pushed against a wall to save space.

I am beginning to think, though, that I will always respond more to paintings than to home furnishings. And this portrait of  Ms.  Andrew Sigourney (nee Elizabeth Williams) immediately captures my attention.  Actually, when I first see it, I giggle at the enormous turban-like headgear festooned with dark bows (or are those dark curls peeping out?). But when I look more closely, I see that there is much more that makes this painting arresting. It's another work by Gilbert Stuart, this one painted around 1820 and similar in format to the paintings in the previous gallery (about 30 inches high and 26 inches wide). Stuart has made no effort to glamorize or prettify his subject. Her face is thin and unsmiling, her eyebrows heavy;  darker paint is used to depict the deep hollows under her eyes. She looks intelligent, highly serious, and aristocratic. I've come to this gallery after looking at 16th century Italian paintings (the Met is home to a special exhibition on the Medicis), where I learned that the color red was used to denote wealth and status. Stuart has skillfully used that color to make Mrs. Sigourney stand out against the dark ground and to make us take notice. 

The fact that this painting is exhibited in a period room, rather than given pride of place in a gallery (as might well happen in another museum), only underscores the richness of the Met's collection.