Arabella Worsham's Gilded Age Dressing Room

A detail of the vanity cabinet door
by George Alfred Schastey
for Arabella Worsham's Dressing Room.
Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Devoted Classicist is a long-time fan of museum period rooms.  For a time, these installations had fallen out of favor due to their cost and space required for a successful display.  But it is heartening to a Traditionalist to see a major institution step forward with a new installation with artifacts that have languished in storage for years:  The Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


A model of the Worsham residence
4 West 54th Street, New York City.
Photo by John J. Tackett for
The Devoted Classicist blog.

Commissioned by Arabella Worsham (later Huntington) as part of a comprehensive interior renovation of an existing brownstone townhouse, the room is a rare surviving Gilded Age commission from now-little known cabinetmaker/decorator George A. Shastey in 1881.  The room comes from Worsham's house at 4 West 54th Street, a property that also included the two flanking lots; the site is now the garden of the Museum of Modern Art.


Alexandre Cabanel's 1882 portrait of
Arabella Worsham, collection of
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Photo by John J. Tackett for
The Devoted Classicist.

Arabella "Belle" Worsham's background is a bit sketchy and possibly 'sanitized' to say the least.  Born Arabella Duvall Yarrington in Union Springs, Alabama, around 1850, she grew up in Richmond, Virginia, a tough but bustling town during the Civil War years.  Her widowed mother owned a boarding house and Arabella was said to have married John Archer Worsham when she was 18 or 19 and soon widowed before having a son.  But married or not, J.A.Worsham was already married and very much alive, owning a gambling card parlor in Richmond frequented by Collis B. Huntington leading up to his 1869 purchase of the eastern leg of his railroad empire which stretched coast to coast.  Although not a drinker or smoker, Huntington loved to gamble and he had an eye for young women although he was married with a wife living on Park Avenue at 38th Street, New York.  Soon Arabella, her son, several siblings and her mother were installed in Manhattan where they bought several properties financed by Huntington but always in Arabella's name, leading up to the purchase of this house.


The Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room.
Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Arabella had the house gutted to the exterior shell and set about having luxurious interiors installed in the latest taste, with expense not being an issue.  The house was one of the first private residences to have a passenger elevator, just one of many innovations for the time.


The Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room.
Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Dressing Room is a high-style example of Aestheticism, a combination of European Renaissance, Islamic, Japanese and Modern styles mixed to create a luxurious private environment for the lady of the house. Satinwood and amaranth (or dark purpleheart) are used to create intricate marquetry in geometric patterns and motifs such as sewing implements and hairdressing tools as well as jewelry plus carved detailing with cherub heads, swags and garlands.


The Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room.
Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A wide, marble-topped lavatory is placed beneath a massive mirror and a secondary gaslight fixture.  The upper walls are covered in teal wallpaper stenciled in gold and silver quatrefoils that shimmer in the subtle lighting.


Built-in fittings in the Worsham-Rockefeller
Dressing Room as installed at
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Photo by John J. Tackett for
The Devoted Classicist.

No detail was left without consideration.  Even the ceiling had elaborately planned decoration.  The silver toiletry set includes combs, hand mirrors, scissors, a needle case and a darning egg.  All the elements add up to create a single Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art.


The ceiling of the Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room
as installed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Photo by John J. Tackett for The Devoted Classicist.

Huntington's wife Elizabeth died in 1889 after a long bout with cancer, allowing Huntington to marry Belle and adopt her son Archer; the ceremony was performed in the home with Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, officiating.  They moved into Huntington's Park Avenue house (and then building a house in 1893 at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street on the site now occupied by Tiffany & Company) and the house was sold fully furnished to John D. and Laura Spelman Rockefeller.  The furnishings and decorations were kept intact until his death in 1937 when parts were distributed to museums before being demolished in 1938.  A Moorish-style Smoking Room was given to the Brooklyn Museum and this Dressing Room and adjacent (Master) Bedroom were given to the Museum of the City of New York.  After it became clear that the latter could no longer display the rooms, the bedroom was given to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and this dressing room was given to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Anabella Worsham's toilette set
as displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Photo by John J. Tackett for The Devoted Classicist.

After Collis Huntington's death, Belle inherited one-third of his estate, $150 million (about $3.1 billion today) making her one of the wealthiest women in the country.  Never really part of New York Society, she bought a 14 bedroom house in Paris that underwent a complete renovation and became even more interesting in collecting art.  Thirteen years later, she married her late husband's nephew, Henry E. Huntington, who had built a lavish estate in San Marino, California, some say to woo her.  But she did not care for the area and never spent more than a month there for the rest of her life.  That estate is now the Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens.  Arabella Worsham Huntington is buried in the San Marino garden in a classical mausoleum designed by architect John Russell Pope.

Apple Core, Baltimore

Evergreen House, Baltimore
Photo by John J. Tackett, April 25, 2012, for
The Devoted Classicist blog.

Last Wednesday was the most beautiful day in Baltimore, Maryland.  As a pre-schooler, my first association with the city's name was through the active children's game "Apple Core, Baltimore," a variation on "Red Rover," if I'm remembering correctly.  But now I associate Baltimore with early 19th century classicism.  I was in town to give a talk, A Devotion to Classicism:  The Enduring Popularity in Decorative Arts -- The South, at Evergreen House Museum & Library and was graciously shown some of the city's highlights.

Homewood House, a five-part Palladian villa in inspiration, was built
starting in 1801 as summer house for Charles Carroll, Jr., and his bride,
Harriet Chew Carroll, as a wedding gift from the groom's father,
Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Photo from HOMEWOOD HOUSE,
by Catherine Rogers Arthur and Cindy Kelly.

Homewood, a particularly outstanding example of architecture and decorative arts, is well known because of its having been recorded with measured drawings by out-of-work architects in the depths of The Great Depression for publication in GREAT GEORGIAN HOUSES IN AMERICA to benefit the Architects' Emergency Committee.  The house has been duplicated, to some degree, many times as exposition pavilions and private homes all over the country.  So I was very familiar with the house despite never seeing it in person.

The main floor plan of Homewood.
Image from HOMEWOOD HOUSE
by Catherine Rogers Arthur and Cindy Kelly.

Pictures do not do Homewood justice, however.  Originally located on 130 acres with distant views to the harbor, the siting of the main house and its relationship to the two surviving brick out-buildings, the barn/carriage house and the privy, is quite unexpected.  The scale of the house is not surprising, but the proportions, both inside and out, are even more impressive in person.

The prinicpal front of Homewood, under repair April 25, 2012.
Photo by John J. Tackett for The Devoted Classicist blog.

An exterior repair project is currently underway.  In stabilzing the entrance portico, grapevine mortar was found behind the marble steps, leading the curatorial staff to believe that there were wood steps first, with the grander marble steps coming soon afterwards.  (The son's insistence on only the finest materials and craftsmanship and the father's reaction to the cost is well-documented).  Also, it was discovered that the portico floor was built on vaults instead of ruble within the foundation walls as expected.  The museum's curator, Catherine Rogers Arthur, graciously showed me the finished attic, now used as administrative offices.  The dormers are not thought to be part of the original design, although they must have come soon afterwards as there was a fireplace.  The Madeira Garret, providing a safe, warm place for the liquor to mellow, is not part of the usual tour but delightful to see as an ususal hold-over from the past.

Wood shingles in a space below the later roof still cover the original rafters.
Photo from HOMEWOOD HOUSE
by Catherine Rogers Arthur and Cindy Kelly.

Also, it was a real treat to be invited to poke my head through a hatch (the advantage of being tall) to see the wood shingle roof in its original configuration below the existing structure, now roofed with sheets of standing seam lead-coated copper.  The original roof had an unusal form intended to collect water for cisterns, but there is evidence that it leaked almost from the beginning.  The second roof was standing seam metal, later replaced by large pieces of slate that proved too heavy for the structure.  During the 1980s renovation, the house was re-roofed in metal.


Homewood in the 1930s with a slate roof.
Photo from HOMEWOOD HOUSE
by Catherine Rogers Arthur and Cindy Kelly.

The interior of the house has been beatifully restored and furnished as part of the Johns Hopkins University museums.  The original estate is now the university's Homewood Campus.

The Carriage House at Homewood as it appeared in 1890.
Photo: JHU Museums.

The brick Carriage House, thought to have originally been a barn, survives with an adapted use by the university.  Although there was also a bath-house, dairy, smokehouse, springhouse, fenced-in well, and icehouse, the brick privy is the only other outbuilding to survive.

The location of the privy at Homewood.
Image from HOMEWOOD HOUSE
by Catherine Rogers Arthur and Cindy Kelly.

The privy, built of brick at the same time as the house but with less refined details, is impressive none-the-less.  The location is unusual, especially when viewed in person, but the siting is apparently the result of a mathematical plan, as shown in the drawing above.

The Privy at Homewood was located to the rear of the Main House,
with the interior divided into two compartments, each with its own door,
presumably for men on one side, and women & children on the other.
Photo by John J. Tackett for The Devoted Classicist blog.

The interior of the privy is also unusually high-style.  The walls are panelled in chesnut and painted "en grisaille" in imitation of stone as noted in HOMEWOOD HOUSE.  The pits below the seats are lined in stone and could be "sweetened" by the periodic addition of lime to neutralize the waste.

The Privy interior with panelled walls painted in imitation of stone.
The seats are painted white, as is the baseboard,
undoubtedly often repainted for sanitary reasons.
Also note the domed plaster ceiling.
Photo from HOMEWOOD HOUSE
by Catherine Rogers Arthur and Cindy Kelly.

The rear of Homewood during a period of repair, April 25, 2012.
This illustrates one of The Devoted Classicist's principal points of residential design:
all elevations are important.
Photo by John J. Tackett for The Devoted Classicist blog.

A nearby landmark is the Baltimore Museum of Art designed by John Russell Pope and built 1927-29 with later additions.  A remarkable example of twentieth century classicism, it has an impressive permanent collection that includes the world's largest holding of works by Henri Matisse and several period rooms, all open free to the public.  (Incidently, the museum's very popular restaurant Gertrude's served the best crabcakes I have ever eaten).

William Woodward Gallery designed by Billy Baldwin in circa 1956 view.
The Baltimore Museum of Art photo appears in the catalog to accompany
the exhibit "Baltimore's Billy Baldwin" by James Archer Abbott,
2010, at Evergreen Museum & Library.
(Contact the Evergreen Gift Shop to purchase a copy).

No post on Baltimore would be complete without at least a menion of one its most notable natives, Billy Baldwin.  Although no longer completely intact, the William Woodward Gallery at the Baltimore Museum of Art in the added Woodward Wing (by architects Wrenn, Lewis, and Jencks) reveals a sensitive and interesting approach to presentation.  Intended by benefactor Mrs. William Woodward, Sr., to showcase her late husband's renown collection of British sporting paintings in a setting that more resembled a Georgian country house hall than a typical museum gallery of the time, Baldwin was brought in to design the installation in conjunction with the patron, architect, and museum director. 

Completed in 1956, the catalog written by James Archer Abbott to accompany a 2010 exhibit at Evergreen Museum & Library, "Baltimore's Billy Baldwin," describes the walls and wood panelled wainscot painted in two tones of the same light fawn color, and upholstery fabric in red silk damask on a sofa and arm chair, with oxblood colored leather seats on the Queen Anne and Rococo side chairs.  A single scroll-arm easy/wing chair read as tribute to the departed Mr. Woodward, noted the catalog.  Baldwin personally selected the furnishings with approval from Mrs. Woodward, and it is believed that many if not all may have come from Woodward houses, according to Abbott who has done extensive research on the legendary decorator. The false fireplace with an 18th century English chimneypiece was a concession by Baldwin who generally thought such a feature was a sign of bad taste, notes author Abbott.  Several Persian carpets also added to atmosphere of a private home.  One of the most innovative features, created with the help of Baldwin's friend Joseph B.Platt who designed Hollywood sets, was a recess around the perimeter of the room's dropped plaster ceiling that concealed the illumination that washed the walls with light. eliminating the usually distracting lighting of the time.  Today, the rugs and some of the furnishings have been removed to allow the room to easily be adapted for use for special events, and the adjacent lobby, also designed by Baldwin, is now a catering pantry.

More highlights of The Devoted Classicist's trip to Baltimore will follow in the next post.