Day 370 - Shaker retiring room

July 19, 2024

I am so happy to have found gallery 734. It’s a good-sized space, perhaps 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, with a light planked floor, part of which is covered by a long, narrow rag rug.  The furniture includes a narrow single bed (I hear a visitor exclaim, “It’s tiny!"),  a very small writing desk, a washstand, a green chest of drawers topped by a couple of covered baskets, a couple of tables, several slatback chairs with rush seats, and a large floor-to-ceiling cupboard; a pegboard runs all around the room. I initially think that, because the bed and the desk are so small, it must be a child’s room.

And then I read the caption and think, “Of course! How could I not have known that?” It’s a “retiring room” from the Shaker colony in Mount Lebanon, New York, and dates from about 1835. I learn that “retiring rooms” served as bedrooms but also as places where community members could rest (and meditate?) before attending meeting;  I imagine that the dancing and singing that were intrinsic to Shaker worship demanded considerable energy.  The caption says that this room probably contained a number of beds, not just the one shown here. Of course the vow of celibacy would explain the small size of the bed, though I find out that the Shakers also adopted some orphaned children and children of converts also could enter the community with their parents.. 

I, along with others of my generation, learned early to love the simple lines of Shaker furniture, which are so in keeping with a modernist aesthetic. The piece I like best is a narrow slatback chair (is it a rocking chair?), which appears to be made of maple (or possibly light oak or cherry). It has a tall back but is low to the ground; a footstool is displayed in front of it. I wonder whether it would be comfortable to lean back against the wooden slats, but it would certainly be nice to sit with one’s legs elevated. 

It is lovely to see this room in contrast to the elaborate decor of the period rooms I've seen most recently. I read that the Shakers rejected excessive ornament as leading to the sin of pride. But they did not reject beauty per se, instead seeing it in simple forms and natural materials. The Met acquired this room in 1972 I wonder whether the men who initially proposed the creation of period rooms several decades earlier would have appreciated the Shaker aesthetic as much as we do today.

A parenthetical: Before I looked for this room, I went to see whether gallery 714 had reopened. It had not. I asked a guard whether the room would be reopened. Her response was, "I don't think so." I am going to take that as authoritative.