Day 365 - The Verplanck Room

 July 4, 2024

Gallery 718 is a period room known as the Verplanck Room because its furniture, paintings, and ceramics come from a New York City home, formerly on Wall Street, that was owned by Samuel Verplanck and his wife. The fireplace wall, wainscoting, and cornice, however, all come from a house in Coldenham, New York, near Newburgh, that was built in 1767 and owned by Cadwallader Colden.  (These names seem to embody the Dutch and English elements shaping New York's colonial history!) The Verplanck descendants gave their heirlooms to the Met, and I suppose that as a reward they got this gallery named for them. The room is inexplicably and dismayingly dark, especially because the electronic screen with information about the room's contents stopped working shortly after I arrived. 

The furnishings include an elaborate writing desk with a bookcase on top with mirrored doors, a pie table, a marble-topped table, a wingback armchair, a settee, six side chairs, and - most interesting to me - a felt-topped card table on which the curator has helpfully placed four hands of cards. I can't tell what game is being played - whist, perhaps - but playing cards presumably was a major pastime.  Several paintings line the walls, including what I take to be a pastoral scene (but with swans?), two small oils, both depicting young women wearing diaphanous clothing and little cherubs (or Cupid, perhaps?) , and a barely visible 3/4-view portrait of an unsmiling man. The subject turns out to be Samuel Verplanck, the painter Copley. Do both deserve to be exhibited more prominently?

The Verplancks evidently liked to acquire ceramic objects. These include two large covered jars (Chinese?) that flank the fireplace, along with a large crenellated bowl that sits on the marble-topped table. My attention is drawn especially to the plates and bowls that have been placed on five shelves to the left of the fireplace - if mostly because theiwhite backgrounds make them points of light in an otherwise dark space.  The large plate on the bottom shelf, which shows scattered flowers of various colors on a white field, especially appeals for its simplicity, freshness,  and sheer prettiness.