Dear Melinda and all interested in historic house
museums,
First, I think it is essential for clarity in our
thinking and our presentation to our visitors to realize that "frozen in time"
can have different meanings. I think we need to distinguish "house and
collections as assembled by the original inhabitants"
from "recreations" using contemporary, or recreated
pieces. Although "period rooms" in a museum, rather than a home,
environment tend to fall into the latter category, obviously, they also may be a
transferral, as faithful as possible, of a single house's room arrangement
and furnishings into a museum. These distinctions do *not* imply value
judgements, but I think they are an important part of our presentation to
the visitors so, because of their own daily experience of their own homes, they
do not assume automatically that what they are seeing is exactly what really
existed in a certain place at a certain time. This, of course, is especially
important when they are visiting historic house museums.
Having said this, our late-19th-century historic
house museum, the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum (Milan, Italy), is "frozen" in its
entirety. I could even say "doubly frozen" because to their way of thinking, the
creators of the house, the noble Bagatti Valsecchi brothers, consciously
re-created (as opposed to merely invoking) the lives of Renaissance princes by
combining Renaissance art and decorative arts with Neo-Renaissance re-creations
for which, as for the house, itself, they themselves did careful research. The
house was written up in contemporary "life style" magazines as a prime example
of good taste, and was much visited as such, and as an art collection
(the guestbooks include the names of some leading art historians of the
day, as well as the Italian queen). After the death of one of the brothers in
1914, the remaining brother commissioned an extensive documentary photographic
campaign of the house to show it as the two devoted brothers intended it to be
seen (whether it remained like this during the hubbub of daily life is another
question <grin>). These photographs (published in a limited book edition)
were used as the basis for the organization of the once-family home into the
historic house museum. Almost down to every single tiny detail, everything has
been put back exactly as the brothers wished the house and its furnishings to be
seen. When this was not possible, the "gestalt" approach was chosen, for
example, some of the original fabric wall coverings have not survived, and
recreating them would have been a falsification, as well as too expensive,
so the choice was made to paint the walls in mottled tints invoking the
original colors of the walls -- known from the matching and still existent
bed furnishings -- so that the visitor could experience what the overall
ambiance of the room would have been like, and the guides inform them of this
choice. Curiously, while this methodological approach offers great veracity, it
also may limit enlivening the rooms with "life displays" of any kind which help
the viewer empathize with life in the house. Each methodological approach has
its benefits and its limitations.
We also are the secretarial seat for DEMHIST-ICOM's
international committee for historic house museums which addresses issues
similar to this one, as well as other problems and solutions unique to historic
houses. For more information on DEMHIST, its conferences, and publications,
click on the DEMHIST-ICOM icon on our home page.
Hope you visit our site, and let me know (at work,
please) what you think! All the best,
Star Meyer