Curriculum Materials: Art in America
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Image 2b Foxon, Connecticut Questions: |
The Furnishings
Because all the furniture was lined up against the wall when not in use, to allow easier movement through the house, the Connecticut Room appears very formal. Most of the room's furnishings are simple and functional but contain decorative details of European style from the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Incorporating even the smallest details of familiar styles was one way for colonists to maintain ties, however loose, to their homelands.
The four-post bed on the left and the green draperies
surrounding it are copies of 18th-century furnishings. The
thick mattress of the bed would have been filled with straw
or down. Textiles were very costly, so a bed like this,
with cover and curtains, would have been the most valuable
piece of furniture in the house. In the middle of winter
when the upper bedrooms were cold, the entire family
probably slept in this one bed.
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