Day 302 - Visible Storage and Ralph Earl
June 10, 2022
Anyone who isn't intimidated by its size could easily spend an hour roaming around Gallery 774; scholars of American decorative arts could spend a lifetime there. As noted in an earlier entry, the gallery, known as Visible Storage, has dozens of glass cabinets with multiple shelves, making for hundreds of linear feet of display space, and it contains literally thousands of objects ranging in size from tiny salt dishes and shot glasses to imposing grandfather clocks and cabinets.
There are silver tankards, beakers, cups, bowls, trays, spoons, ladles, coffee pots and teapots, tongs, and salt cellars. There's a similar array of items in pewter. There are copper kettles and brass andirons, sconces, and hinges, along with gold-plated objects (I think) whose functions, other than decorative, I don't recognize. There is glass - molded, blown, cut, etched, clear and colored - fashioned into drinking glasses, bottles, pitchers, bowls, and paperweights. There are ceramics of all kinds, ranging from stoneware to elaborately painted porcelains. There's a shelf with images of George Washington painted on plates or carved in relief on plaques, and a similar shelf with images of Ben Franklin.
There is case after case of furniture: chairs with woven rush seats, side chairs with padded silk seats, drop leaf tables, tables with marble tops, tables with inlaid tops, side tables, writing desks, dropleaf desks. storage chests, chests of drawers, bedsteads, cribs, and mirrors with carved frames -- and multiple examples of most of the above.
Then there are paintings - landscapes, seascapes, individual portraits, family portraits, still lifes, paintings of foreign scenes - dating from the 1700s until the early decades of the 20th century. Among these I recognize a small Albert Pinkham Ryder. There are well executed trompe l'oeil paintings by a Peto/Harnett imitator named Jefferson Davis Chalfant. There are also some rather awful academic paintings of classical figures.
There are silver tankards, beakers, cups, bowls, trays, spoons, ladles, coffee pots and teapots, tongs, and salt cellars. There's a similar array of items in pewter. There are copper kettles and brass andirons, sconces, and hinges, along with gold-plated objects (I think) whose functions, other than decorative, I don't recognize. There is glass - molded, blown, cut, etched, clear and colored - fashioned into drinking glasses, bottles, pitchers, bowls, and paperweights. There are ceramics of all kinds, ranging from stoneware to elaborately painted porcelains. There's a shelf with images of George Washington painted on plates or carved in relief on plaques, and a similar shelf with images of Ben Franklin.
There is case after case of furniture: chairs with woven rush seats, side chairs with padded silk seats, drop leaf tables, tables with marble tops, tables with inlaid tops, side tables, writing desks, dropleaf desks. storage chests, chests of drawers, bedsteads, cribs, and mirrors with carved frames -- and multiple examples of most of the above.
Then there are paintings - landscapes, seascapes, individual portraits, family portraits, still lifes, paintings of foreign scenes - dating from the 1700s until the early decades of the 20th century. Among these I recognize a small Albert Pinkham Ryder. There are well executed trompe l'oeil paintings by a Peto/Harnett imitator named Jefferson Davis Chalfant. There are also some rather awful academic paintings of classical figures.
The gallery is yet more testimony to the Met's wealth, since many of the objects on display here could equally well go in the main galleries. The space offers the museum a solution for what to do when a potential donor insists that the work he or she is giving be on display in perpetuity. Museum officials can readily agree - without specifying where the item will be shown.
Among the paintings I think the museum could be proud to display in one of the American galleries is a 1783 portrait by Ralph Earl labeled "Lady Williams and Child." Earl, I learn, was a native of Massachusetts who moved to England to study with Benjamin West before returning to Connecticut, where he painted portraits of Timothy Dwight and Roger Sherman, among others. He died a debtor and an alcoholic, but I hope this double portrait, which measures approximately 48 inches wide and 58 inches high, provides evidence of his ability. The sheer bow of Lady Williams' head covering and the silky texture of her dress are skillfully depicted. But what Earl really captured is the strong family resemblance between mother and child and their intelligence and good humor. Their bright eyes look out at us, while a slight smile plays on their lips. They are geniality personified.
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