365 Days at the Met

September 20, 2021 Gallery 729  was taken from a house in Haverhill, Massachusetts. It measures roughly 20' by 20', dimensions that seem appropriate for a parlor, and that was the room's original use. At the Met, however,  it's been furnished as a bedroom that showcases Federal period furnishings, especially a grand four-poster bed with a canopy. I'm pleased to see that most of the pieces were actually made in New England. The cream-colored walls above olive paneling harmonize nicely with the dark and lighter rose tones of the canopy, window sashes, bed bolster, and easy chair. It's a room that invites repose.  One item that attracts me is what I take to be a small writing desk, topped by a two-drawer box and a mirror. It's pretty, but the mirror, I think, must distract the sitter from writing. It makes more sense when I learn that the piece is actually a dressing table. The object that really arouses my curiosity, though, is an oval panel of inlaid wood abo...

 September 9, 2021 Today's visit to gallery 728,  the Richmond Room, was a humbling experience, a reminder of how little I know about American decorative arts in general and furniture in particular.  I've always associated the gilded ornamentation and marble-topped tables with Victorian furniture; instead, the items in this room date from 1810 or so, what's referred to, I gather, as the Federal period. The furniture and the wall paneling in the room, which measures roughly 25' by 20', are made of mahogany, a wood that denoted luxury and wealth. The description on the Met's website is oh so politically correct, but also a needed reminder that the harvesting of mahogany led to deforestation in the Caribbean and involved grueling labor on the part of enslaved men. I do, though, like the graceful curved lines of the mahogany dining chairs, which were designed by Duncan Phyfe. (Phyfe, I learn, was born Duncan Fife in Scotland; I suppose he thought that altering the s...

 September 3, 2021   I had to force myself to go to the museum after physical therapy. I stopped on 57th Street for what must have been just a few minutes but felt like an eternity, wavering between turning back to take the subway home or heading toward Madison to take the uptown bus.  I dug a hard boiled egg out of my bag, ate the egg and had some water, and felt energized enough to continue. And I'm so glad I did! Today's destination, gallery 727 is a narrow rectangular space hung with 10 samplers made between about 1775 and 1830 by girls in Pennsylvania and Delaware. And while they are not Great Works of Art, they are of considerable interest as sociological and cultural artifacts.  I say "girls" advisedly. We know who the makers are - they customarily included their names, suggesting to me that they were proud of their handiwork, along with the year the sampler was made. Other records confirm their birthdates, so we know that the girls who made these samplers ran...