Day 369 - The Powel room

 July 15, 2024

Gallery 722, the Powel room, named for the Philadelphia family that resided in it during the last decades of the 18th century,  is the last room on this floor, but quite possibly the first that a visitor less intent than I on seeing the rooms in numerical  order might view. Its electronic display is quite comprehensive and discusses not only the details of this particular room.but also a number of aspects of the period room project more generally.. The text emphasizes the boldness of the museum's decision to collect and install period rooms, but it also highlights for me the limitations of the period room approach, exemplified by the Powel room.

Chief among these is the fact that, while the handsome woodwork is original, as with most of the other period rooms, none of the furniture or other objects in the room were actually owned by the family that lived there. In this instance,  authenticity seems to have been flouted:  While I admire the patterned Chinese wallpaper, a contemporary document describes the room, a back parlor or guest bedroom, as having been painted blue. 

I learn that the men who first developed the American Wing in the early 1900s had ideological as well as aesthetic purposes in mind. The  museum's president regarded the galleries as presenting models of good taste and encouraged the production of furniture based on American historical models. Not for him, I would guess, the furniture emanating from the Vienna Secession and other European movements. For the trustee who served as the Wing's de facto curator, the objective was to help new immigrants, who were largely from Southern and Eastern Europe, assimilate and learn about American traditions - that is, the traditions of the Northern European colonists he held dear.  This seems to me reminiscent of the appeal to an imaginary past of  American conservatives today. And of course, when we are talking about "good taste," we are talking about the taste of members of the social and economic elite.

The display illuminates aspects of the Rococo style in which the room is decorated; examples include the ornate carved mantelpiece and the curving furniture legs. The style originated in Italy, became popular in France during the 1730s,  migrated to England the following decade, and was introduced to the American colonies through imported objects, immigrant craftsmen, and pattern books. I'd always heard of Chippendale, but was reminded that he was not only a cabinetmaker and designer but also published a book of plates showing his Rococo designs - a catalogue, as it were. I also learned that in the 1770s, Philadelphia was the largest city in the colonies, and its wealth made it a magnet for English artisans who brought the Rococo style with them.