The Big Apple, New York City: Day 2 Part 3 Period Rooms in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Re-creations of palatial rooms with original pieces: 

Beautiful examples of interiors throughout the ages are displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most of  The Met’s Period Rooms are original, although some have been restored (and even unearthed!) and a few have been faithfully replicated.  

Grand Salon from the Hôtel de Tessé, Paris ca. 1768–72:

The museum displays some amazing recreations of palatial rooms with original paneling and furniture. This is the Grand Salon from the Hôtel de Tessé, Paris ca. 1768–72, 

The salon is the assembly room, used for festive occasions. It is here that the greatest formality prevails;  magnificence unfolds; wealth lavished; and the Artist must deploy his taste and his genius. Marbles, bronzes, gilding, sculpture, painting, and glasses come to his aid; tapestries enrich the effect. Rock crystal for the lusters, girandoles, and candelabra; precious statues; the richest of vases; the rarest of porcelains; all combine to improve the room



The oak paneling shown here decorated the largest of the formal reception rooms that were aligned, or laid out en enfilade, on the first floor of the building (the American second floor).

Particularly beautiful are the coffered triumphal arches executed in perspective that frame the four mirrors and are crowned by laurel branches and floral wreaths.  



this room was called the Salle du Dais (Canopy Room) after the  canopy that must have been mounted on the wall opposite the windows. Underneath this crimson damask tent, which was enriched with gold embroidered appliqués of the Tessé family coat of arms, the comtesse or her son  received their guests

Boiserie [wood paneling] from the Hôtel de Varengevilleca. 1736–52:

The room below has Boiserie [wood paneling] from the Hôtel de Varengevilleca. 1736–52. 

 superb carving, partly in high relief, constitutes the chief glory of this room's boiserie, or wood paneling, originally from one of the private residences of eighteenth-century Paris, the Hôtel de Varengeville, which still stands, albeit much altered, at 217, boulevard Saint-Germain. 

 The painted and gilded oak paneling is richly embellished with C-scrolls, S-scrolls, sprigs of flowers, and rocaille motifs, its decoration is still largely symmetrical and thus does not represent the full-blown Rococo style.

Below is the close up view of the vases displayed on the fireplace mantel...Pair of vases ca. 1750, Chinese with French mounts

 These vases of the Ch'ien Lung period were embellished in Paris with scrolled and foliated mounts that were used as bases, handles, and rims, thus adapting the vases to the European Rococo aesthetic. Mounting Asian and European porcelain became a standard and lucrative practice for the Parisian marchands merciers. In this manner, they could enhance a mediocre piece of porcelain or preserve a precious but damaged object. These "makers of nothing and sellers of everything" also invented new models for porcelain by giving some vessels pierced mounts and turning them into potpourri holders.

French Decorative Arts, 1715–89

French interiors during the final decades of the Ancien Régime (the monarchy) are legendary for their elegance and refinement. Furniture and furnishings from 1715—when the young Louis XV became king until the French Revolution in 1789—demonstrate outstanding craftsmanship and high levels of specialization, as well as the increasing demand for luxury and comfort. White and gold paneling, enlivened by mirrors, dominated the formal reception rooms of royal and aristocratic residences, where large sets of richly upholstered chairs lined the walls. Skilled craftsmen and artists embellished cabinets and desks with veneers of imported woods, gleaming Japanese lacquer, brightly colored porcelain, and splendid gilt-bronze mounts. Sets of Asian or Sèvres porcelain and elaborate clocks adorned mantelpieces and the marble tops of console tables and commodes. Flickering candlelight was reflected in the textured surfaces of gilt-bronze wall sconces and crystal chandeliers, giving these rooms great liveliness.

Below is a pair of perfume burners, 1785 French...

The perfume burners on a cabinet...

Close view of the vase on the cabinet...

This vase, of a granite called orbicular diorite found in Corsica and the Ural mountains, may have been turned and polished either in Paris or St. Petersburg, where there was a luxury market for hard stone objects. They were then completed in Paris with gilt-bronze mounts including large handles in the form of rams' heads and finials with a knob of berries above acanthus leaves. 

Objects of this quality were much sought after by collectors.

Tapestry Room from Croome Court 1763–71:

This is the Tapestry Room from Croome Court 1763–71

 Wall covering, Medallions portraying scenes from classical myths, as well as seat covers are all tapestry commissioned by the 6th Earl of Coventry.

British gallery with state bed, 17th century:

 Cubiculum (bedroom) from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscorealeca. 50–40 B.C. Roman:

Room M of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, functioned as a bedroom.
The rear wall shows rocky terrain with balustrades and an arbor above, a small cave or grotto sheltering a fountain, and a small figure of Hekate below. In the center of the wall, between two columns, a parapet embellished with a yellow monochrome landscape supports a glass bowl filled with fruit.

The side walls of the room are symmetrical. Each wall is subdivided into four sections by a pilaster that defines the area of the couch and by two ornate columns. The paintings depict enclosed courtyards in which we glimpse the tops of statuary, rotundas, and pylons as well as vegetation. These precincts alternate with townscapes combining colonnaded buildings and projecting terraces.

Bedroom from the Sagredo Palace Venice,  1720:

Below is a Bedroom from the Sagredo Palaceca. Venice, 1720 or later;  Italian. In design and workmanship, this bedroom, consisting of an antechamber with a bed alcove, is one of the finest of its period. 



The decoration is in stucco and carved wood. The bed alcove has its original marquetry floor.

 In the antechamber, fluted Corinthian pilasters support an entablature out of which fly amorini bearing garlands of flowers.

 A paneled wood dado with a red-and-white marble base runs around the room. The unornamented portions of the walls are covered with seventeenth-century brocatelle.

  Other amorini bear the gilded frame of a painting depicting dawn triumphant over night. 

 The amorini are beautifully modeled and the arabesques of the doors are exquisitely executed. Above the entry to the alcove seven amorini frolic, holding a shield with the monogram of Zaccaria Sagredo.

The Kirtlington Park Room, an Oxfordshire dining room, England, 1748:

Below is The Kirtlington Park Room, an Oxfordshire dining room widely regarded as one of the most beautiful Rococo rooms from England. 

 At the four sides of the ceiling are panels emblematic of the seasons. The overmantel painting of a landscape with figures is dated 1748. The marble chimneypiece can be attributed by John Cheere (d. 1787) or Sir Henry Cheere (1703–1781). The mahogany doors and shutters are equipped with their original gilt-bronze hardware. The oak floor was probably cut from trees felled on the estate. The newly painted color of the room approximates the original color, as documented by microscopic examination of the various layers of paint.  

The Van Rensselaer Hall. 1765:

Below is The Van Rensselaer Hall, an entrance hall built in pre-Revolutionary America and one of the grandest residences in the colonial era. 
This large entrance hall was originally part of an impressive Georgian mansion built by Stephen Van Rensselaer II and his wife,  Constructed between 1765 and 1768, the house was situated on bluffs overlooking the Hudson River and served as the manor house 



The wall covering, representing the Four Seasons, is hand painted in tempera and imported from England. Timeline: 1765-69.

Van Rensselaer spared no expense and hired master craftsmen for many aspects of the residence. 

 Doorway to Marmion room. Wallpaper: a winter scene in cartouche at left; Naples with Mount Vesuvius in rectangular at right. 

 Detail: English wallpaper, hand painted from a French print depicting Spring...

Marmion Room, King George County, Virginia, 1756:

This impressive seven-sided room, installed in gallery 720, was the principal parlor of Marmion, a plantation house built around 1756 by the Fitzhugh family of Virginia. The room's elaborate painting was executed in the 1770s and is one of the most ambitious decorative schemes to survive from eighteenth-century America.

The Marmion Room has been left unfurnished so that visitors may study all the hand-painted surfaces. The painting on the room's entablature, Ionic pilasters, and dado paneling imitates gold Siena marble, while Rococo-style ornaments embellish the paneled walls. Picturesque landscapes adorn a wall and the spaces above the fireplace and the door entrance.

Decorative painting was popular with eighteenth-century homeowners, in part because it was less costly than hand-painted wallpapers, architectural carvings, plaster moldings, and other such options for beautifying an interior.  

According to family tradition, an ancestor rescued a starving Hessian soldier during the American Revolution (1775–83), brought him home, and nursed him back to health. In gratitude, the solider painted the interior of Marmion's principal parlor.

 But probably  it was done by a commercial painter. First, he traced a motif onto the wood panel to create an outline. Applying one color at a time, he then used thin paintbrushes to fill in the image. Once the paint had dried, he applied an overlay of darker shades and touches of white to add shadows and details, giving the work dimensionality. When the work was completely dry, the artist added two coats of varnish for protection. 

Room from the Powel House, Philadelphia 1765–66, remodeled 1769–71; American:

The house at 244 South Third Street in Philadelphia from which this room was taken was constructed in 1765–66 by shipmaster and merchant Charles Stedman.

Declining fortunes forced Stedman to sell the house almost immediately after its completion and it was purchased on August 2, 1769, by Samuel Powel for ₤3,150.

Powel was the wealthy young scion of a notable Philadelphia family. Powel would go on to serve as the last mayor of Philadelphia under British rule, and the first after the Revolution.

Educated at the College of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania), he had a seven-year-long Grand Tour of Europe.

He purchased the house on South Third Street five days before his wedding and set about renovating it to reflect the couple's wealth, taste, and refinement.

Located behind the ballroom on the house's second floor, the room may have been used in conjunction with the ballroom for refreshments; or may have been the house's best bedchamber.

Powel employed some of Philadelphia's finest craftsman in the remodeling.

The room's marble fireplace surrounds, the crossetted over mantle, and the verdigris-painted foliate ornament reflected the most up-to-date Georgian taste in Philadelphia. 

He frequently entertained such luminaries as George Washington and John Adams, who referred to the house with its fine decoration as a "splendid seat."

Studiolo from the Ducal Palace in Gubbioca. 1478–82:

Below is a Studiolo from the Ducal Palace in Gubbioca. 1478–82, Italian; terrific specimen of intarsia, wood on wood mosaic...Walnut, beech, rosewood, oak and fruitwoods in walnut base [gallery 501]

 This is from a study, (or studiolo), intended for meditation and study. Its walls are carried out in a wood-inlay technique known as intarsia.  A similar room, in situ, was made for the duke's palace at Urbino.

In the ancient craft of inlay, or intarsia a solid body of one material is cut out to receive sections of another to form the surface pattern. The word derives from a Middle French word meaning "inlaid work".

 The latticework doors of the cabinets, are noteworthy. 

 Woodwork of a Room from the Colden House, Coldenham, New York , American, 1767:

The woodwork in this room came from a large stone house, in Coldenham, New York. According to a date inscribed on one of the stones of the structure, Colden built the structure in 1767. This parlor comes from the front left side of the house. The treatment of its walls exemplifies a well-developed, late eighteenth-century trend of paneling only the fireplace wall of a room and covering the remaining walls with plaster between the dado and cornice.

Staircase from Chicago Stock Exchange Building, Chicago 1893, Cast iron, electroplate copper finish, mahogany railing;
Louis Henry Sullivan, American:

Chicago stock exchange staircase below.

During the building boom following the famous fire of 1871, the Chicago School architects, led by Louis Sullivan, invented a new building type: the skyscraper. One of the masterpieces of the form was the Chicago Stock Exchange building completed in 1894. The staircase installed here (gallery 701) was removed from the Stock Exchange when it was demolished in 1972. The copper-plated ironwork exemplifies Sullivan’s mature ornamental style—a combination of two-dimensional geometric shapes and naturalistic plantlike forms. Sullivan used similar motifs throughout the building, executing them in a variety of media, from stenciled canvas to molded plaster and terracotta.

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