Day 363 - Paneling and hearth from Ulster County




June 23, 2024

Gallery 714 is closed. (Will this project ever get done?) Gallery 715 is really a large ell, perhaps 20 feet long and 11 feet wide, off of gallery 713. Its centerpiece is a fireplace wall that was taken from the Benjamin Hasbrouck House,  built around 1750 in Ulster County, New York.  The wall is paneled in gumwood, a native tree whose handsome dark wood was used almost exclusively in New York State.  The cast iron fireback at the center of the fireplace depicts an armed soldier. The space's other contents include a gateleg table, a large and imposing "kast," also of dark wood (this time cherry with white pine), and a rather awful painting of Christ healing a blind man by a New York-born artist of Dutch descent, Gerhardus Duyckinck. The caption says that Dutch settlers liked to look at paintings of religious subjects and often hung them in their dining rooms; I suppose the aim was to steer thoughts and conversation away from worldly things toward spiritual concerns. But at dinner?

In this space, unlike the previous one, I can get right up close to the 64 square Dutch tiles, each about 5 inches on a side, that line the fireplace. They did not come from the Hasbrouck House, and perhaps that's why the museum doesn't provide further information about them, but I find this omission disappointing. I spend quite a while looking at them, so much so that a museum guard comments on my interest and then comes over to look at them as well. The tiles depict a variety of subjects. Most are men and include: soldiers with halberds and muskets, musicians playing drums and a wind instrument, two angels with horns (Gabriel?), a semi-nude man holding a shield and arrow (Mars?, Cupid?), three soldiers mounted on spirited horses that have reared up on their hind legs, a prelate wearing a long robe and a pendant cross around his neck. A few of the figures are women; one, simply dressed, holds a large bag of edibles, while another is clearly a gentlewoman, as evidenced by her large ruff and the muffler she carries. There are also scenes from everyday life: a man wielding a hoe, another holding what appears to be a large fish. There's no particular rhyme or reason to the tiles or to their arrangement. But I think they are charming. 




 

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