Transcript
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Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: Welcome to Curious Objects, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
Speaker: I'm Ben Miller, and with me, as always, is Michael Diaz-Griffith.
Speaker: Hi, Michael.
Speaker: Hey there.
Speaker: Today's episode is particularly exciting because Michael has taken the lead, traveling down to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia to speak with Ron Hurst, vice president and chief curator down there, as well as a conservator, Chris Swan.
Speaker: So, Michael, how did you like your first taste of solo podcast interviewing?
Speaker: I enjoyed it.
Speaker: And it wasn't because you weren't there, Ben.
Speaker: It would have been twice as lovely if you had been with me.
Speaker: But it was a beautiful, beautiful weekend in Virginia.
Speaker: I got to see a side of Colonial Williamsburg that I hadn't seen during my last trips, which were deep in the winter a couple of years ago for the Antiques Forum.
Speaker: Antiques Forum.
Speaker: And before that, I mean, maybe I've been to a couple of snowy Antiques Forums.
Speaker: And before that, I was there in middle school.
Speaker: A rabid architecture enthusiast sketching everything in sight and not paying attention to anything other than the fenestration on houses.
Speaker: So you've seen a lot of sides of Colonial Williamsburg, but you saw a new one this time.
Speaker: I did, you know, and I have friends who are curators there.
Speaker: So I get updates on Colonial Williamsburg periodically, but a lot is happening right now.
Speaker: They're expanding the museum in a way that we touch on briefly in the interview.
Speaker: And it was exciting to see what's happening and there will be much more to come as well.
Speaker: It's a really dynamic place right now.
Speaker: Now, dear listener, when you think of Colonial Williamsburg, you might think of colonial costumes, outfits, period costumes, and horses and carriages and vintage taverns.
Speaker: And you might be aware that the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is actually a serious heavyweight in the curatorial world.
Speaker: But one thing that I think a lot of people don't know, in fact, I wasn't fully aware of this before you undertook this interview, Michael, is that they have a very deep and impressive collection of British works.
Speaker: And they are actually working right now to bring many more of those to light.
Speaker: And that's actually what you set out to talk with Ron about, right?
Speaker: It is, and it's notable because to the extent that we think about Colonial Williamsburg's holdings of decorative arts, we tend to think about the Southern decorative arts and Colonial Williamsburg's role in bringing that material to light, you know, along with MESDA, the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts.
Speaker: It's been a champion for the South, you know, insisting that there was high style material culture being produced in the South in colonial times and after, of course.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: An argument that's been made ardently for about 50 years.
Speaker: 50 years, yeah.
Speaker: And for the same 50 years, there's been, as we all know, a shift toward social history.
Speaker: So instead of interpreting the material through an aesthetic lens, we discuss its social context and, you know, the economics of history.
Speaker: X material or Y, you know, food way or lifestyle or whatever.
Speaker: And all of that's there.
Speaker: You know, Colonial Williamsburg has been a leader in establishing and evolving that perspective on material culture.
Speaker: But what's fun about this is they've returned to the archives, so to speak, to look at the holdings of British decorative arts that they collected early on in their history.
Speaker: We can talk a little bit, Ben, about why they did that.
Speaker: But the fun thing is it's not really relevant to what they're doing now.
Speaker: They just have the material on hand.
Speaker: And I think it's brilliant that they're showing it because the stuff is wonderful to look at.
Speaker: And it highlights an aspect of the foundation's history, which may not be discussed enough in public, which is, you know, the history of its formation.
Speaker: Which is now relevant.
Speaker: That's art history.
Speaker: And, you know, speaks to the colonial revival.
Speaker: It speaks to a very specific interwar moment in American history when families like the Rockefellers were funding, and before them, the Fords were funding initiatives like this.
Speaker: And it's fun to learn more about that side of the foundation's history today.
Speaker: Yeah, well, and it ties into an area that is personally interesting to me in terms of the history of collecting, which I think we're going to get into actually in an upcoming episode.
Speaker: But the majority of these collections that you spoke with Ron about were brought to the foundation in the early 1900s, really the 1930s.
Speaker: And that was a period when collecting was still a very young vocation.
Speaker: And it's fascinating to think about.
Speaker: I mean, today museum curators have a wealth of knowledge and tradition and experience to draw on in terms of what's suitable to buy and what isn't, what belongs in the collection and what doesn't, to say nothing of connoisseurial questions about authenticity and so forth.
Speaker: But in the 1930s, a curator at Colonial Williamsburg would have had very little foundation to build on in terms of going to England and finding pieces that were interesting to buy and put in the museum.
Speaker: So that's something I think, it's interesting to hear you and Ron talking about that and sort of teasing apart from a contemporary perspective,
Speaker: Why were these decisions made the way they were made?
Speaker: No, precisely.
Speaker: And, you know, Colonial Williamsburg was founded at around the same time as the Museum of Modern Art, for example, which has just reopened.
Speaker: And if you think about it, the curators who are working in Williamsburg are not so different from Alfred Barr at MoMA or Chick Austin at the Wadsworth Athenaeum in that they're building these institutions often at, you know, staggeringly young ages.
Speaker: Like, Ben, we could have been museum directors in the 1930s, okay?
Speaker: I don't know if I want that.
Speaker: No, I don't know.
Speaker: Well, that's a whole other conversation.
Speaker: But, you know, they're really developing the field at the same time that they're developing their institutions and the nature of the curatorial role in American institutions.
Speaker: So this history does speak to that.
Speaker: And I do think it's fascinating that...
Speaker: As Ron discusses with me in the interview, a lot of what Colonial Williamsburg is founded on in terms of a kind of indexical evidence is solid.
Speaker: Some of the buildings that are reconstructed are based on the most dependable form of evidence imaginable, drawings that...
Speaker: period drawings that were interpreted very accurately at the time of Colonial Williamsburg's development.
Speaker: And the buildings that stand today from that period are perfectly historically accurate.
Speaker: But other things like, you know, paint analysis or the manner in which a given type of room is interpreted,
Speaker: has changed a lot.
Speaker: Best practices have changed, ideas have changed, technology has changed, and the foundation has been really responsive to developments in the field.
Speaker: They've been a leader in the field in evolving all of those practices and perspectives.
Speaker: And it's kind of time to, you know, with a position of Colonial Williamsburg secure,
Speaker: we know that they're a leader in the field to kind of look back at their institutional history and see where they were at that founding moment.
Speaker: And it's, you know, it's not, the ideas that were circulating them were not always the most sophisticated.
Speaker: It was the governor's palace was the best building in the town.
Speaker: So we need to, so it must have been filled with the best British decorative arts available.
Speaker: Therefore, let's go to London and buy high style material.
Speaker: That,
Speaker: You know, the chain of thought that led to that assumption about what would have been in the governor's palace was mistaken.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they know that.
Speaker: And yet it informed generations of visitors.
Speaker: It did.
Speaker: And we touch on that.
Speaker: You know, I think it's so many of us experience colonial Williamsburg through the various colors that have been associated with it through the decades.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I talk a lot about my mother's evolution in interior design on this podcast and elsewhere because she was a minimalist in the 80s, which was maybe anomalous.
Speaker: But by the 90s, we were building historical reproductions as a family.
Speaker: My parents are real estate developers.
Speaker: And they were often reproductions of colonial buildings.
Speaker: And we used colors based on what...
Speaker: CW thought was period at the time.
Speaker: So my mother fell in love with color in the 90s and it happened to be what we thought of as colonial Williamsburg color.
Speaker: And I think a lot of people have experiences like that.
Speaker: Maybe it's their grandmother's house in the 50s or the 70s.
Speaker: When different colors reigned in the in the on the colonial Williamsburg palette.
Speaker: But we all have these interesting cultural associations that whether accurate or not, you know, really inform our perspective on American history and 20th century history.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because these are the ideas that we grew up with.
Speaker: No, I have a vivid mental image of mustard yellows and tans and a very particular color palette.
Speaker: Yeah, and some people have a mental image of faded pastels.
Speaker: The colors that emerged beginning in the 90s through the more sophisticated forms of analysis that we know today are brighter and represent the pigment in the state that it was first seen in, as opposed to the faded state.
Speaker: that was later assumed to be its original state.
Speaker: Anyway, and those bright colors are fabulous, and they're still considered to be accurate.
Speaker: That last iteration of the palette is still with us and still up at Colonial Williamsburg.
Speaker: But it's this material from the archives that they've taken out of storage that I found...
Speaker: a really delightful, refreshing visual history in itself of what colonial Williamsburg has been.
Speaker: And to imagine sites that we may all know, like, you know, a particular landing in the governor's palace interpreted in a totally different way with British decorative arts is kind of fun.
Speaker: It's geeky fun, but it's fun.
Speaker: And hopefully kind of fun.
Speaker: Well, you're not going to find anyone on this podcast who disagrees with that.
Speaker: And this interview definitely sheds light on that alternate history of the way that this beloved place looked and thought in a particular moment in time.
Speaker: Well, let's delay no longer then.
Speaker: It's a crisp, sunny autumn day and I'm wandering around Colonial Williamsburg, the beloved living history museum that interprets the historic area of Virginia's colonial capital.
Speaker: I'm surrounded by restored or recreated buildings from the 18th century, including the magnificent Governor's Palace, which I just visited.
Speaker: It housed the colony's royal governors and two post-colonial governors until 1780.
Speaker: After burning in 1781, the building was reconstructed in the 1930s, and I hope to explore a bit of its history today.
Speaker: But Colonial Williamsburg is about more than buildings, however much I love them.
Speaker: A few feet away from where I'm standing now, historic interpreters embody the 18th century for a group of young visitors who are asking some terrific questions.
Speaker: Horses clock past, fife and drum music hangs in the air, and I've just consumed a bit of history too at a local tavern serving period fair.
Speaker: Lunch was truly delicious, but that's not why I'm here.
Speaker: Today I'm headed to the reconstructed public hospital of 1773.
Speaker: The first building in North America devoted solely to the treatment of the mentally ill, the public hospital was an outpost of Enlightenment ideals about mental health in the Southern Colony.
Speaker: Today, it serves as an entrance to the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, a complex which includes the DeWitt-Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, which we're about to walk into.
Speaker: I'm going to chat with Ron Hurst, Chief Curator and Vice President for Museums, Preservation, and Historic Resources for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Speaker: He'll tell us about one of the museum's new exhibitions, which tackles a topic not often discussed in these revolutionary parts.
Speaker: British masterworks from the museum's vast collection.
Speaker: You can find images at themagazineantiques.com slash podcast, as well as on my Instagram account at Michael D.S.
Speaker: Griffith and Ben's at Objective Interest.
Speaker: Welcome, Ron.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Nice to be here.
Speaker: We're really delighted to be chatting with you.
Speaker: And we'd love to just start the discussion by establishing where we are.
Speaker: I've been walking around today and I've had some coffee at a coffee house.
Speaker: I've experienced
Speaker: a part of the 18th century, but right now we're in a museum.
Speaker: Could you tell us more about it?
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: We are at the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, which in fact consists of the Abbey Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum and the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, together under the same roof because the collections speak to each other so well.
Speaker: Brilliant.
Speaker: And we're going to focus on one exhibition today, but before we go into that, I'd love to hear about what's new at the museums and in particular about the renovation that you guys are doing.
Speaker: Well, it's pretty exciting stuff.
Speaker: We have for 17 years been in the process of planning, fundraising and designing.
Speaker: for a dramatic re-imagining of the museums.
Speaker: Our point of access for the public has been somewhat curious and challenging for 35 years.
Speaker: Guests who've been here before know that you enter through the reconstructed 1773 public hospital for those of disordered minds, as it was described in the 18th century, and then proceed through a series of stairwells, tunnels, and so forth to get to the galleries.
Speaker: That's confused everyone, including the staff.
Speaker: So we are, through the generosity of a number of donors across the country, adding 65,000 square feet to the complex.
Speaker: Brilliant.
Speaker: And a gorgeous new entry that is at street level that allows you to walk straight into the complex at the gallery level.
Speaker: and also signals to you architecturally that this is a very large facility and that you are welcome to come in.
Speaker: So we won't feel disordered when we enter.
Speaker: Hopefully not.
Speaker: And I think it's a very ambitious moment for the Foundation and for the museums because
Speaker: of this initiative and also I think a sort of new approach to the way that you frame social history.
Speaker: I just read about a really wonderful grant for the excavation of some African-American pottery you have on site here.
Speaker: Can you speak to that quickly?
Speaker: We, you know, we think of ourselves as not simply an art museum, but an art and history museum.
Speaker: And so the excavations that you're talking about actually have stretched to
Speaker: back over time and this is going to allow us to go back and look at the colonel wares in our collection of archaeological materials.
Speaker: These are wares that were largely produced by the enslaved and also by Native Americans in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Speaker: They've not been well understood and we have one of the most complete collections in North America.
Speaker: So we're excited about delving into that, not just from a history perspective, but scientifically.
Speaker: What can analysis tell us about these wares?
Speaker: And the technology available to you for conducting that research has changed dramatically over the years, correct?
Speaker: It has, and we're fortunate that much of that technology is on site in our conservation labs, which are really state-of-the-art in many ways.
Speaker: We have a scanning electron microscope.
Speaker: We have X-ray fluorescence capabilities, FTIR, and that's going to let us take a look at materials and in some cases perhaps even better understand where the clays were coming from.
Speaker: It's an area that hasn't had enough study in the past, so we're pretty excited about it.
Speaker: Terrific.
Speaker: Well, that is very serious work and I think we're excited to discuss it more with you over time.
Speaker: But today we have something a little bit less serious in mind.
Speaker: I'm thinking about your wonderful exhibition of British masterworks, which I just previewed upstairs here at the museum.
Speaker: And, you know, I don't want to cast it as unserious, but
Speaker: Aesthetically speaking, it is rather exuberant and the high style material I just looked at is a whole lot of fun.
Speaker: So I would love to discuss the exhibition with you, Ron, from its rationale to, you know, some specific objects that you find to be very special or representative of the exhibition's aims.
Speaker: Glad to do that.
Speaker: You know, Colonial Williamsburg has collected British fine and decorative art since the 1920s.
Speaker: And we have really wonderful materials.
Speaker: They were originally acquired to furnish buildings in the historic area that is a part of Colonial Williamsburg.
Speaker: And many of them are among the finest of their kind.
Speaker: But we now know that those kinds of materials would never have been in Colonial America.
Speaker: They are, for the most part, objects that have associations with great British country houses, in some cases even with royal collections.
Speaker: And
Speaker: So, as those things began to come out of the exhibition buildings in the 1970s and 80s in favor of things that would have been in this place at the time of the Revolutionary War, they went into storage.
Speaker: And many of them have not been on view for a long time.
Speaker: The way we're approaching the exhibition this time is less from that of social history and more from that as pure art history, beauty, if you will.
Speaker: And they are truly beautiful objects.
Speaker: They certainly are.
Speaker: I think it's interesting that you're able to pull those items out of storage and frame them in the context of art appreciation.
Speaker: After, again, such a hard shift to social history, I think it's fun.
Speaker: It kind of shows the cyclical nature of the work that we all do.
Speaker: We go through various phases.
Speaker: And what I would like to do quickly is cast back to the moment in which those objects were collected, probably in the 1930s.
Speaker: And just tell me a little bit more about what the museum was thinking about when it was going to London, perhaps on buying trips, right?
Speaker: And looking for these extremely high style furnishings for the foundation.
Speaker: Well, it's an interesting period in American history and in the history of material culture studies, because the thought at the time, and in fact, until the 1960s and 70s, is that in the South, where we are today, there really wasn't much in the way of decorative arts manufacture or production.
Speaker: And particularly for buildings like the Royal Governor's Palace, here in what was the
Speaker: most populous and wealthiest colony in America, it was deemed appropriate that you get the very finest British goods.
Speaker: After all, many of these governors were members of the nobility, and so they would have been used to those things.
Speaker: So we really went after the finest.
Speaker: And of course, the buying trips were lengthy.
Speaker: There were wonderful records of them.
Speaker: And they acquired things like a gorgeous tall case clock made in the 1690s by Thomas Tompian for King William III.
Speaker: It would never have been on this side of the Atlantic.
Speaker: That's a major, major work.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: There's also a stellar...
Speaker: Daniel Garnier's chandelier in sterling silver made for the royal household in the 1690s, hung for many years in the governor's palace here.
Speaker: Not likely anybody who ever lived in Virginia saw a thing like that.
Speaker: So many of these things began coming out of the buildings and going into storage.
Speaker: And a lot of what's going into this particular exhibition hasn't been shown publicly for years.
Speaker: The expansion and renovation of the museum is now giving us the additional gallery space to bring them forward.
Speaker: Brilliant.
Speaker: So it's an exciting moment to see works that haven't seen quite literally the light of day in decades.
Speaker: Could you tell us a bit about some of your favorites?
Speaker: Well, I'd be delighted to do that.
Speaker: And the difficulty is in choosing a small number because many of the things going on are our personal favorites.
Speaker: Our 1590s portrait of Queen Elizabeth I,
Speaker: full length in a very good state of preservation, hung for many years in the capital here in Williamsburg.
Speaker: It hasn't been seen publicly probably in 40 years.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: It shows her in all her glory, and it is the face that was generally first thought to be depicted in the Darnley portrait of Elizabeth.
Speaker: And basically, I think what's happening in this period is that's the face that she approves,
Speaker: So it's the one that's copied again and again, and only the clothing in the background change.
Speaker: In this portrait, she's attired in what appears to be dark blue-green velvet encrusted with rubies, sapphires, pearls, gold, really telegraphing to us her status, her importance, her regal bearings.
Speaker: That's a painting that I think the public is really going to enjoy seeing.
Speaker: A familiar image, but in a location you wouldn't necessarily expect to see it in.
Speaker: Exactly, and highly appropriate because, of course, Virginia was named for Elizabeth the Virgin Queen.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So how was that picture collected?
Speaker: I mean, how did it end up here?
Speaker: It was acquired on one of those early 20th century buying trips to Great Britain.
Speaker: Gosh.
Speaker: And they were legendary for the things that they acquired.
Speaker: One of my personal favorites occurred in 1946 when our then chief curator, James Coger, went on a three-month trip to buy goods after World War II.
Speaker: And he kept a journal, which we still have, going throughout England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, buying everything from 18th century wine bottles to period clothing to amazing fine and decorative arts.
Speaker: And not always getting them in London shops, frequently finding them in out-of-the-way places.
Speaker: And also telling the interesting tale of himself trying to get enough to eat in that post-war year where food was in such short supply.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: No, that was quite a dark time in British history.
Speaker: It was.
Speaker: Austerity and all.
Speaker: And so all of this fabulous material comes here.
Speaker: I know that there are several portraits in the exhibition.
Speaker: I was quite fascinated by the Reynolds, not just because of the name recognition of Reynolds, but because of the subject of the portrait, who had a particularly close relationship with North America.
Speaker: He did.
Speaker: The subject is Isaac Barre, who is a Scot, but of French Huguenot descent, as many East Coast Scots were then.
Speaker: Barret comes to North America during the French and Indian War and fights with the British Army and while here develops an appreciation of American culture and interests.
Speaker: When he goes back after the war, he is elected to Parliament and continues to be a voice in favor of the Americans for the next couple of decades.
Speaker: Indeed, it's he who coins the phrase Sons of Liberty in his speech to Parliament in the run-up to the Revolutionary War.
Speaker: What's wonderful about this particular portrait is that Barret is pointing to a map on a table
Speaker: And his index finger is inches from the outlined colony of Virginia.
Speaker: Ah, nice.
Speaker: Which we think is a terribly appropriate setting.
Speaker: Aside from being in an incredible state of preservation, it's just one of his most striking things.
Speaker: Beret is depicted in a beautiful scarlet suit with gold trim.
Speaker: And of course, Beret was injured during the war and lost his sight in one eye and had a pretty significant scar.
Speaker: So Reynolds very carefully pictures him with the shadows going across that side of the face to give him his best face forward, as it were.
Speaker: That's a very interesting detail.
Speaker: And for our listeners, we'll have images of some of these highlights on the Magazine Antiques website for you to look at so that you are able to see what Ron is describing.
Speaker: There are portraits, but there are also many objects, and they're quite exuberant and special.
Speaker: So if you could tell us about some of the objects that you like, we'd be very grateful.
Speaker: I'd be happy to do that.
Speaker: And again, it's difficult to pick, but for example, there is a French-style armchair that retains its original needlework upholstery.
Speaker: It's one of a set of 12.
Speaker: that were from Glemem in Suffolk, the home of Lord North.
Speaker: And each one has a different pattern of exotic birds worked into the needlework.
Speaker: They're completely in what Chippendale termed the French taste with scrolled feet and asymmetrical decoration, and they survive in fabulous condition.
Speaker: And speaking of Chippendale, there is a monumental library bookcase from Chippendale's shop.
Speaker: that is one of a pair that was supplied to Gnostic Priory in Yorkshire.
Speaker: The other one is still there.
Speaker: And it sat for many years here in the Governor's Palace and has been in storage for a long time.
Speaker: So we're very glad to have that on view again.
Speaker: And that bookcase is, or two bookcases that relate to it, are pictured in the gentleman and cabinetmaker's director, correct?
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And this one appears to have been drawn from two different plates in Chippendale.
Speaker: But as you know, so much of what appears in Chippendale's director is almost...
Speaker: in the realm of flights of fancy.
Speaker: And there was a pretty free mixing and matching of details from one piece to another.
Speaker: As there should be, right?
Speaker: It was a sort of living document.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Not a set of rules that must be followed.
Speaker: Precisely.
Speaker: And we do well to remember that in the decorative arts.
Speaker: I think this one has brass grills too instead of what we might normally expect to see.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: The apertures in the doors on the top are not glazed.
Speaker: They are a series of decorative brass wire grills that are gilded.
Speaker: And so when backed with green silk as they normally were in that period, they're pretty dazzling.
Speaker: And of course, like most of the hardware on period furniture, when it was new, it was polished and then lacquered so it would stay bright.
Speaker: They wanted it to be very dazzling, very reflective.
Speaker: And where was that bookcase when it was floating around on display?
Speaker: Well, it sat for many years on the upper landing of the staircase in the Governor's Palace, where hundreds of thousands of people a year walked by it, handled it, touched it, and yet it survives in very good condition.
Speaker: It's been on view in the museum once or twice since it came out of the Governor's Palace, but it's been in storage for a pretty long time, so we're very glad to get it out again.
Speaker: There have been some changes at the governor's palace in the past year or so around the scheme of wall coverings or the paint colors in some of the rooms that we all know and love.
Speaker: I'm sure there are changes constantly, right?
Speaker: And throughout the decades, I can't imagine how many times the building has been reinterpreted.
Speaker: But if you could speak a little bit to that history, I think it would be quite fun because now I'm picturing it with a bookcase, which I've never seen.
Speaker: Institute there.
Speaker: I know a different landing, right?
Speaker: But I know that there have been many iterations.
Speaker: So what's going on there now?
Speaker: Well, you know, it all lands in the middle of our philosophy that the historic buildings should be presented as accurately as we can possibly make them appear.
Speaker: Our job isn't to teach people how to decorate their homes.
Speaker: It's to talk about life 250 years ago.
Speaker: When the palace was first reconstructed in the 1930s, a decision was made to panel the Great Hall, the staircase, and the upper landing in Black Walnut.
Speaker: We also had tremendous documentation telling us that there were hundreds of firearms and edge weapons mounted to those walls from the 1720s through the Revolutionary War.
Speaker: They're mentioned by a number of observers, and they're even inventoried when they're taken down
Speaker: after the royal governor flees in the middle of the night at the outbreak of the revolution.
Speaker: So Eric Goldstein, our curator of mechanical arts and numismatics, did a great deal of research on this subject.
Speaker: going to the UK and documenting the several installations of that kind that survive in situ.
Speaker: We also looked at all the graphics of them that we could find from the period and what we saw again and again was that those arms were not mounted on dark surfaces, they were mounted on light surfaces.
Speaker: Which makes sense so that you can see them.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So we took the fairly courageous step of
Speaker: putting a barrier coat on the walnut so that anything we apply to it can easily be removed later.
Speaker: And then we painted it one of the well-documented cream colors that we find on woodwork in Virginia in this period and reinstalled the arms.
Speaker: And it was a magical transformation.
Speaker: This sea of...
Speaker: arms that are there suddenly pop off the walls.
Speaker: And of course, that's exactly what they intended in the 18th century.
Speaker: Because this wasn't just decoration.
Speaker: It's a statement.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I'm the governor and you're not.
Speaker: So you can really see them now.
Speaker: And together with the flags, the colors, the gilded coat of arms of the royal household, it's a dazzling display.
Speaker: It seems as if, you know, as research methods evolve and you get closer and closer to what we think is an accurate picture of a given period, that, you know, the changes also kind of seem rational.
Speaker: They seem logical, right?
Speaker: There's a greater contrast between a weapon and a cream wall.
Speaker: Or, for example, if
Speaker: If you have access to interesting colorful pigments, why not paint the walls that color?
Speaker: And when the paint goes up, it's going to be bright and it's going to create a lively atmosphere, not one that looks pre-aged, which is what I think people thought that colonial Williamsburg colors were like in the 70s, for example.
Speaker: I think that's exactly right.
Speaker: And again, technology plays a role here.
Speaker: I think it's pretty clear that early on, as we did paint research in the 30s, 40s, 50s, we were scratching through layers of paint on original buildings to find the color at the bottom and match that.
Speaker: But of course, what hadn't been taken into consideration is that we're looking at two and a half centuries of pigment degradation, soil and dust and smoke accumulation, fading and what have you.
Speaker: So all those gentle, refined, tasteful 1950s colonial Williamsburg colors were copies of faded, dirty, degraded colors of the 18th century.
Speaker: When we analyze them under the microscope, they are brilliant.
Speaker: And it makes sense for so many reasons.
Speaker: Think about the lack of artificial lighting compared to the way we live today.
Speaker: They wanted bright surfaces.
Speaker: They wanted rooms that would reflect the light that was available.
Speaker: That's what we've been doing.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And although your aim is not to generate ideas for interior decoration, it did do that.
Speaker: And I think it's interesting that, you know, my grandmother's house was filled with that sort of 1950s era interpretation of Colonial Williamsburg's colors.
Speaker: And in the 90s, I remember my mother being very excited about some of the brighter colors that were beginning to come to light.
Speaker: And I think that a few of our walls were painted in those colors.
Speaker: It is interesting, especially in the mid-20th century, Colonial Williamsburg's style of the day was a dominant feature in a great many American homes.
Speaker: And curiously, we find that when people are disturbed by changes in the historic buildings, it tends to be because they care so much.
Speaker: And as often as not, when we have the opportunity to explain the research, the science, the historical documents, there's an acceptance.
Speaker: And people continue to be, I think, almost emotionally connected to these sites.
Speaker: They just care a great deal about them.
Speaker: And you've generated that care, I think, through decades of very careful work.
Speaker: So it's an accomplishment to have such emotionally engaged visitors and followers.
Speaker: Something I think about a lot is the ways
Speaker: in which history surprises us.
Speaker: It's one of my pet topics on Instagram.
Speaker: You know, I'll post something that is atypical for its type or discipline.
Speaker: And I'll notice that people will reply with the same kind of shock or surprise that you're describing.
Speaker: You know, no, so-and-so didn't put red in that part of his compositions.
Speaker: And in fact, yeah, he did.
Speaker: We just don't know those pictures as well, right?
Speaker: Or,
Speaker: No, surely they didn't use three clashing chintzes in the 1850s.
Speaker: They liked matching things, you know.
Speaker: No, actually, they also liked clashing things or things that were clashing to our eyes in 2019.
Speaker: And I think it's fun that, you know, in a way you're able to do the work of representing history to show that it's not what we expect.
Speaker: And I think that's true.
Speaker: And I often tell students when I teach,
Speaker: that taste has changed throughout human history.
Speaker: And to verify that, you need only think about your parents' living room, your grandparents' living room, the clothes that you wore in the 1970s or the 1990s that you wouldn't be caught dead in today.
Speaker: It's been evolving since humans began building places to live and figuring out what to wear.
Speaker: And that's part of the fun of it.
Speaker: It's interesting to see what happens.
Speaker: And so often...
Speaker: as a style comes in, it's often a reaction against what was before.
Speaker: So it goes in a completely different direction.
Speaker: That was happening in the 18th century.
Speaker: It's still happening today.
Speaker: So we've just discussed the Chippendale bookcase, which is very grand and striking with that green silk and the gilt hardware.
Speaker: But there are also some objects that I would...
Speaker: probably call even more striking to the naked eye.
Speaker: I'm thinking about a few Rococo elements near to the bookcase in the exhibition gallery.
Speaker: Can you tell us a little more about those?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: There's a remarkable pier table that is almost entirely carved in gilt wood with a marble top.
Speaker: And it features almost all of the elements that we think of in the Rococo style.
Speaker: Asymmetry, Asian influences, some elements of geometry.
Speaker: And so there are scrolled legs with Asian faces.
Speaker: There are Rokai shells that are springing out of the base with long spines that project into space.
Speaker: And the entire surface, now that it's been cleaned, is this amazing...
Speaker: brilliant gold and thinking about that in period lighting with flickering candles it almost had a sense of movement I suspect.
Speaker: And in that Rococo period
Speaker: when anything was okay, is probably exactly what they have in mind.
Speaker: And we've topped it in this installation by an equally exuberant and completely asymmetrical pier glass that has carved birds, flowers, shells, bellflowers dripping down the sides.
Speaker: And it's in fact one of a pair that's in the collection.
Speaker: They must have been stellar in the country house that they were made for.
Speaker: Indeed.
Speaker: And if you don't mind my asking, where were they when they were on display in the historic area?
Speaker: I do.
Speaker: That pier table was acquired in the 1930s and was installed in the dining room at the governor's palace.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And it is a period, of course, that is very much still set in the colonial revival.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: When more was more.
Speaker: And so in photographs of the room, you see this amazing Rococo pier table.
Speaker: You see a Jacobean court cupboard.
Speaker: You see neoclassical objects.
Speaker: The windows are dripping and cut in voided velvet with fringe and tassels.
Speaker: It is more Edwardian than it is colonial, but gorgeous.
Speaker: And of course, that's the period when you're seeing books with titles like the 100 most beautiful rooms in America.
Speaker: And they were beautiful.
Speaker: There's no question about it.
Speaker: They just weren't very 18th century.
Speaker: The Rococo pier glass that I mentioned is one of a pair, and there were three such pairs, and they all hung in the ballroom at the governor's palace, so that it was almost like the hall of mirrors
Speaker: sort of a small Versailles wannabe.
Speaker: And again, glorious and described in the period as a very, very beautiful room, but not accurate.
Speaker: Not accurate.
Speaker: It's interesting.
Speaker: It seems as if they overestimated the 18th century denizens of Williamsburg in thinking that they had the most supreme examples of the British decorative arts in Virginia.
Speaker: And they also underestimated
Speaker: the denizens of Virginia in thinking that they weren't capable of making high-style objects themselves or in the South, generally, right?
Speaker: And I mean, you've discovered that high-style objects were indeed created in the South.
Speaker: They were.
Speaker: They were.
Speaker: And that's really one of the discoveries that led eventually to the creation of these museums.
Speaker: As we began to really understand what was being made and used in this particular town,
Speaker: It became clear that about 60% of the furniture here in the third quarter of the 18th century was made here.
Speaker: And about 30% of the furniture being used here was British and only about 10% was coming from the Northern colonies.
Speaker: So we, with our penchant for accuracy, began refurnishing the buildings.
Speaker: All those wonderful pieces from Britain and other places came out and went into storage.
Speaker: And there was serious thought about whether it made sense to deaccession them or should we instead build a decorative arts museum?
Speaker: And our then chief curator, Graham Hood, who was brilliant, prevailed in the notion of building a museum and that led to the creation of the Newt Wallace Museum.
Speaker: And it is a wonderful museum that is only going to become more impressive upon the completion of its renovation.
Speaker: I'm going to enter into the museum with Ron, and I think we're going to look at a couple of objects up close.
Speaker: So stay tuned, and we'll be back after this message.
Speaker: Curious Objects is sponsored by Freeman's.
Speaker: Since 1805, Freeman's has been part of the Fabric of Philadelphia, helping generations of clients in the buying and selling of fine and decorative arts, jewelry, modern design, and more.
Speaker: On January 22nd, Freeman's will hold its Decorative Arts and Design Auction, the first auction to be held at their new location on West Gerard Avenue in Philadelphia.
Speaker: Featuring pieces from the Art Nouveau movement and hailing from private US collections, the auction highlights include a dining table once owned by Barbara Streisand,
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Speaker: After hearing so much about the material from the exhibition, I had to take a closer look, so Ron walked me over to the gallery where British Masterworks was being installed.
Speaker: As we began our tour, I noticed something curious though.
Speaker: A live conservation demonstration right across from the objects he and I had been discussing.
Speaker: Stepping over to the demo, which featured a gorgeous Baroque chandelier, I overheard furniture conservator Chris Swan discussing the craft of gilding with members of a tour group, some of whom may never have encountered the conservation process before.
Speaker: In a way, it was analogous to the living history interpretations that come to life every day just beyond the museum's walls.
Speaker: I was intrigued and asked Klaus to tell me more about the setup.
Speaker: Well, I'm really impressed by this display you have here of a chandelier that's being gilded in public in front of the visitors who are in the museum looking at exhibitions and perhaps not expecting to come across a live scene of conservation in action.
Speaker: So could you tell us a little bit about what's happening?
Speaker: Yeah, so this is a project that doesn't require solvents and tooling and all of that, so it lends itself nicely to this kind of a display and work in front of the public like this.
Speaker: So we're set back a little bit just because when we get to the gilding part, we don't want the air movement to be kicking our gold around.
Speaker: So we have a close-up TV to give you a little more of an attraction to that surface.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And essentially this is, you know, a great carved wood, Baroque, very highly ornamented obviously chandelier that was intended to be, had all the bling that you would expect from the wealthy aristocrats in the 18th century.
Speaker: And it really has suffered from our study of materials and
Speaker: um later regildings and having been scraped back to the near the wood in most cases and for our listeners you know what we're looking at here is formally masterful but the surface is incredibly dull okay i'm just going to be very frank it's compromised but that's why you're working on it right so
Speaker: So, you know, we've been through our usual assortment of materials analysis to sort of figure out what this history is of this surface, this compromise, and figured out by the cross-section analysis and some other analytical techniques that we have these later regildings and this later scraping back and so on.
Speaker: On that, and of course, the strong visual evidence of just how it presents the decision with the curators to regild it.
Speaker: And part of that hinges on our ability to do it physically.
Speaker: So part of our training is in the knowledge of materials technology and in the actual craft skills to do carving or joinery or gilding, whatever that is, in this case, gilding.
Speaker: So it's an understanding of the final appearance of this object being burnish and matte, for example, to match the great, like the pure glass and some other things on view that we're pretty convinced that this object is one of those ilk that had that presentation.
Speaker: So we have, in a sort of preservation-minded way, put a barrier coat of a high-grade acrylic resin on the existing old surviving materials to sort of delineate the old from the new.
Speaker: And on that, we're building the new layers that will enable that burnish-mat gilding presentation to really come into its full potential.
Speaker: So technically, the treatment that you're applying now will be reversible.
Speaker: Yes, so the barrier coat, like I said, is an acrylic resin, and we have adapted slightly the traditional recipes of gesso and gold with a slightly more stable and reversible adhesive, Aquazol resin in this case, to create an equivalent that will give us the same appearance but be a little more predictable and a little more distinguishable as well as reversible from the original material.
Speaker: So that's kind of a conservation-minded way of...
Speaker: approaching a project like this.
Speaker: Thoroughly impressed by the demonstration, I turned back to the exhibition with Ron.
Speaker: We haven't done the lighting in here yet, so it's a little wonky.
Speaker: Can you tell us a bit about the wall color?
Speaker: You know, when we mount an exhibition here at the art museums, we have a wonderful design team led by Rick Hadley,
Speaker: And we always let the art direct the color of the gallery.
Speaker: And so in this case, knowing that there was going to be a great deal of gilt wood and a number of objects that had a fair amount of red, like the portrait of Isaac Barret and the upholstery on the seating furniture, we looked at a number of colors in this beautiful crimson rose to the surface.
Speaker: And the next time this gallery is mounted with another exhibition, it's likely to be a completely different color.
Speaker: We like color in this museum.
Speaker: Well, and we like that you like color, and we're not particular fans of the white cube at the magazine antiques, so it's good to see a museum with plenty of color in it.
Speaker: This Windsor chair, or we're calling it a Windsor chair because I haven't studied it before, but it's quite a high style object.
Speaker: And I'd like for you to explain to me what's going on because I see some Chippendale in the splat.
Speaker: I see these beautiful cabriol legs.
Speaker: I see a lot going on here, but I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at.
Speaker: It's really an interesting hybrid and it represents a whole body of work that was done in the Thames Valley in England.
Speaker: It's an amalgam of more traditional splat-back chair design and construction and Windsor chair making.
Speaker: So here we have a Windsor cut seat, we have turned spindles in the back and yet we also have a carved splat-back chair crest rail and splat.
Speaker: and cabriol legs in the front.
Speaker: There is an entire body of these.
Speaker: The work was first understood by Bill Cotton, the late English furniture historian.
Speaker: And we've had this one for a very long time, and I think it's one of the handsomest examples of this work I've ever seen.
Speaker: It's gorgeous.
Speaker: No, it's absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker: And so its presence in this exhibition tells me you're pretty certain that it would not have appeared on a veranda, portico, or in a hall.
Speaker: in Williamsburg in the 18th century.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: We know that Windsor chairs were here.
Speaker: They tended to be made in multiples of six.
Speaker: And in our period, they are almost invariably painted green.
Speaker: They tended to live in the passages of grand houses and then be hauled into the garden.
Speaker: And they were considered to be very stylish, although today we think of them as going with red check curtains in the kitchen.
Speaker: That was not how they were seen and that's another one of those windows into the past that surprises us.
Speaker: A green painted Windsor chair was considered to be very stylish in 1765.
Speaker: And there are references in the period to that being chosen because green was quote, easy on the eye.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: And it isn't necessarily matched with the rest of the decor.
Speaker: It's in some ways thought of as one of the neutrals of the day.
Speaker: I'm looking at, this is the chair with the original upholstery?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Is that it?
Speaker: Could you tell us a bit about the scene that's represented on the upholstery?
Speaker: The needlework here has a long tradition of having been done by Lady North.
Speaker: But we really think it's probably professional work because there were 12 of these.
Speaker: They were all different patterns, but they all featured exotic birds.
Speaker: Parrots, parakeets, and of course it's this period when there is so much interest in things from Asia, from South America, from India.
Speaker: And so here you see a combination of exotic birds, a parrot here with a basket of fruit, and just to sort of complete the round robin, a classical sculptural head at the bottom, which you always find with parrots and baskets of fruit, of course.
Speaker: Naturally.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: In the wild.
Speaker: In the wild, yes.
Speaker: And when you look at the needlework itself, you see the same kinds of asymmetrical framing in the needlework design that you see in the arms, legs, and skirts of the chair.
Speaker: So they really were designed to go together.
Speaker: And there were 12 in the set originally.
Speaker: So imagine the amount of work that goes into this incredibly fine stitching.
Speaker: With multiple stitches to the inch.
Speaker: And they've survived in great condition.
Speaker: And, you know, it really makes a contrast with chairs that are covered in tapestries or needlepoint that's been cut up.
Speaker: But I was interested that you said there was a tradition that came with this chair of Lady North having done the needlepoint herself, and now you see it as the work of professionals in a workshop setting, probably, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We're shifting our understanding of its production from really the context of its patronage to, you know, a setting where working class people or trained artisans are making this work.
Speaker: You know, it's their daily labor.
Speaker: And I think that's an interesting thing for our listeners to kind of take note of.
Speaker: I think so too.
Speaker: And curiously, so often the stories like the one of Lady North stitching these dozens of square feet of needlework covers tend to be a product of looking at the past through rose-colored glasses.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And as often as not as we dive into those stories, we find that there's a different story there.
Speaker: But it's not a bad story.
Speaker: It's an equally interesting story.
Speaker: And so in a case like this, this beautiful textile was the work of people who were putting food on the table, keeping a roof over the family's head.
Speaker: And these professional needleworkers were not only women, but men.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And they were working in large shops.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's an aspect that I think most people don't understand about the past.
Speaker: No, and I think that the fact that men were producing this work would be surprising to many.
Speaker: And it also, you know, casts light on the different gender norms than we would perhaps expect there to be in the period, right?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Labor didn't necessarily fall along the gendered lines we'd expect in the 21st century.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And we've known about these things, but we've tended not to think about them.
Speaker: And we're trying to do more and more looking in that way.
Speaker: We've all known, for example, there were women silversmiths.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: As often as not, they ended up being women whose husbands had been silversmiths and who died.
Speaker: They took over the business.
Speaker: And
Speaker: They were running the real money side of the business and often working at the bench as well.
Speaker: I have plenty of evidence here in Virginia of women upholsterers in the 18th and early 19th centuries who were running businesses, feeding their children, taking care of their employees.
Speaker: So everything is not always the way we've seen it in Hollywood movies.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: History surprises us and you're telling that history.
Speaker: Well, Michael, I think my favorite part of that interview was when you talked about the antique English silver, the chandelier, the Garnier chandelier, which was mysteriously hung in the governor's palace for decades without anybody realizing that this was in fact...
Speaker: An unbelievably important and rare piece of English decorative arts.
Speaker: So that was a, I mean, what a story that is.
Speaker: And you'd think how many museums have these hidden treasures that maybe even they aren't aware of.
Speaker: It's true to this day.
Speaker: But this was a lot of fun.
Speaker: I learned a lot from it.
Speaker: And I didn't have to do any work.
Speaker: So much the better.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And well, you just had to listen to me yammer on.
Speaker: But no, I think even returning to the topic of silver, you know, Ron discussed women silversmiths whom we don't discuss enough.
Speaker: And it was in the context of this discussion about the ways in which history surprises us that
Speaker: I really was delighted by.
Speaker: I mean, I think about that a lot.
Speaker: And I think you do, too, on this podcast.
Speaker: But it was fun to hear from Ron, who is such an expert, about the ways that he's been surprised.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the way that his colleagues have been surprised.
Speaker: And, you know, curation...
Speaker: like science demands that when your research yields something you're not expecting, you go with it.
Speaker: You don't insist on your point of view, no matter what you listen to the evidence.
Speaker: And in the context of a museum and specifically a living history museum in an extremely applied way, they go with it.
Speaker: And that means that the place evolves sometimes rapidly.
Speaker: but always in a way that attempts to be congruent with history and its own unique demands as opposed to what we think it wants.
Speaker: I think it's very difficult for a large institution like Colonial Williamsburg to be agile.
Speaker: Do you remember the Super Bowl commercial that they aired?
Speaker: I think it was the year before last.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it generated a lot of buzz.
Speaker: And a lot of people asked, well, come on, why are you spending your money this way?
Speaker: You know, is this really the best use of resources to put an ad up in the middle of the most expensive airtime in the world?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And I have to say, I liked it.
Speaker: I liked the ad itself, which I thought was very interesting.
Speaker: And I encouraged listeners, if they haven't seen it before, to go and YouTube it.
Speaker: But more than that, I liked the idea of a museum widening its scope, trying to think in new ways about its own position in the American fabric.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And, you know, it's fascinating to think that even on the curatorial level, you know, that's a process that somebody like Ron Hurst, who's an eminent scholar, widely revered in the field, that even he has to go through this self-questioning and this questioning of his own assumptions.
Speaker: Yeah, that's refreshing to hear and to see something like that happening at a place like Colonial Williamsburg is surprising and encouraging.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: And I think that there's in all senses a progressive history to be found in a way that institutions like Colonial Williamsburg have interpreted the past.
Speaker: And
Speaker: You know, I think there was this one comment by Ron that, you know, we're trying to do more and more looking in that way in reference to who was doing the labor in the 18th century.
Speaker: And I love the humility of that comment.
Speaker: You know, the way he uses we instead of I as a leader in a prominent institution.
Speaker: And also the modesty of looking, you know, it's not...
Speaker: In a way, our curator friends and maybe even we, you know, we have a little platform.
Speaker: It's small, but mighty.
Speaker: We can try to shape.
Speaker: It's a very large platform.
Speaker: We can.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: We're important people here.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You know, we can try to shape views, but ultimately this is really just about looking at something that
Speaker: making a judgment, offering our best and most accurate assessment and asking for others to look along with us and see what they think.
Speaker: And I liked the way that he framed that.
Speaker: It was, it was appealingly modest.
Speaker: And I think kind of right for our times that we're trying to look at material culture in new ways to think openly about it, to follow the evidence where it leads and
Speaker: and not be constrained by our own assumptions.
Speaker: It's a perspective that really does allow for surprise to enter the frame.
Speaker: And I think that the more surprises we find, in a way, the closer we get to something, a narrative, an atmosphere, a feeling that's closer to history.
Speaker: History was...
Speaker: alive and i love the idea that we approach this living thing with humility and that we continue to be aware that real life experience was fraught and complicated and didn't necessarily lend itself to being understood all at once in 1935 and we're still kind of getting the hang of it and that's the story of history
Speaker: I think that's a good note to end on.
Speaker: Thanks so much, Michael.
Speaker: It's been a pleasure listening to this.
Speaker: Thank you, Ben.
Speaker: It was a lot of fun, as always.
Speaker: And thank you, listeners, for tuning in.
Speaker: Today's episode was edited and produced by Sammy Delati.
Speaker: Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
Speaker: You've heard a great deal today from Michael D.S.
Speaker: Griffith, and I'm Ben Miller.
