Day 265 - Richmond Room




 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 spelling gave the name more cachet.) The design of the chairs was based on a Roman magistrate's folding chair - again, testimony to Americans' respect for the Roman Republic. I included a picture of  one of two settees that the Met staffers who designed this room placed under two windows situated along one of the walls.  Although their maker is unspecified, the settees echo the shape of the other furniture, making for a harmonious whole.   And I like the idea of being able to sit under the window and gaze out at the passing scene.  (That said, none of the furniture in the room is actually from the Richmond home from which the room was taken; I have no idea whether there were benches under its  windows or not.) 

What I really respond to in this room, though, is the modern wallpaper showing scenes of Paris, which reproduces wallpaper that was sold in the United States in the decade after 1810.  It's fresh and pretty- lots of river and sky.   But it also provides insights into how wealthy Americans liked to show their sophistication - with references to the Old World.  

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