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Hart House, ca. 1890. Ipswich, Massachusetts.
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Seventeenth-Century Style
The Metropolitan's curators chose the Hart room to represent seventeenth-century interior woodwork because, as described in the 1924 Handbook of the American Wing, "it shows a more definite effort toward decorative effect than any contemporary room still in existence." The decorative effect of this essentially medieval room, based on those in houses left behind by the Puritans in England, is found in the contrast of the massive, dark oak timbers against the whitewashed plaster ceiling and walls. The main timbers (the central ceiling summer beam and the wall girts) were subtly ornamented. The beam edges were chamfered, or smoothed, with a decorative plane and the fireplace wall was sheathed in vertical pine boards with elaborate bead-molded edges. This type of sheathing illustrates the first stage in the evolution of the fireplace wall as the main decorative feature of a colonial room. Similar moldings and chamfered corners ornament the furniture.
The room has been installed at the Museum as a multipurpose living space, though the center has been left unfurnished to accommodate visitors. The furniture is from the second half of the seventeenth century—contemporary with the woodwork—and largely from Massachusetts. Stylistically, it reflects late Renaissance and Mannerist designs from northern Europe and England. Essentially rectilinear in form, the furniture is sturdily built of weighty stock, as is the room's framing. The modes of embellishment favored in this period were low-relief carving, applied ornament, and turning. Two chests are mentioned in the 1674 inventory of Hart's estate; the carved chest under the window, in the style associated with Ipswich joiners William Searle and Thomas Dennis, is the kind of piece that Hart might have owned. The larger cupboard would have been more costly and Hart did not have one. The inventory also lists ceramics and a variety of metal utensils, such as those displayed in the room. The multifunctional chair table expresses the early settlers' need for versatile space-saving furniture. The high-post curtained bed is covered with reproduction handwoven and handsewn hangings and coverlet. Such textiles were extremely valuable at the time and were generally imported from Europe. The most popular fabrics for draping beds were made of wool, usually dyed red or green.
Some elements of the room have been reproduced to create a more complete picture of the seventeenth-century style or have been modified for the room's new environment. The small casement windows with diamond-shaped leaded panes are reproductions of those typically found in seventeenth-century New England homes. Small windows were the norm, since window glass, which was imported from England well into the eighteenth century, was extremely expensive. Such small windows also helped to retain the heat thrown from the large but inefficient fireplaces. The fireplace replicates the local brick and clay mortar type built in Ipswich at the time. The flooring installed at the Museum is of oak rather than the wide-plank pine used in the seventeenth century, as oak is better able to withstand the wear of many visitors.
