By: Nick Harrelson
Historic New England (HNE) was founded in 1910 and is the largest regional historic preservation organization in the nation. HNE has preserved over 100 historic houses across five New England states. In addition to the structures, HNE also preserves thousands of objects. Some came to them with a historic home, and others were donated to HNE for preservation. Many of their collections may be viewed on their public-facing website. However, some of the objects in the museum’s collection may be troubling to modern viewers. Many of the objects were created by Westerners who depicted people of African, Asian, or Native American descent in unflattering ways. Thankfully, Historic New England is reassessing how those objects should be described in their captions for the 21st century. This reworking of some of their collection has been the focus of my work as an intern for Historic New England.
I am responsible for reinterpreting two objects in Historic New England’s collection. The first, a piece of wallpaper border manufactured circa 1920, presents a nature scene featuring Native Americans. The second object is a vase made around 1900 in China, depicting a young Chinese boy playing with a fan. Although these two objects look very different from each other, they both present images of people from cultures different from the wealthy White families who displayed them in their homes in Massachusetts in the early 20th century.
This piece of wallpaper border is from the Simeon Alexander Jr. House in Northfield, MA. It is roughly four by 17 inches. It depicts a nature scene on the banks of a calm flowing river where trees and flowers are in full bloom. A waterfowl flies out of the river and observes this tranquil nature scene. Two men are sitting by a fire and a cooking pot as they watch this scene. These men are mostly naked, wearing only a loin cloth and bands around their heads with a single feather sticking out in the back.
In the mid-19th century, as the United States was expanding West, many White wealthy and middle-class Americans believed that Native Americans were an endangered species, subject to destruction by Anglo-Americans. The painter George Catlin, fearing the extinction of Native Americans, decided to paint portraits of critical Indigenous people so that future generations would know what they looked like. In 1842, Catlin remarked, “I have, for many years past, contemplated the noble races of red men who are now spread over these trackless forests and boundless prairies, melting away at the approach of civilization.”[i] Western art in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as did commercially produced materials such as wallpaper, reflected this thinking. The design on this wallpaper places the two indigenous men on the outskirts of civilization. The only refuge left is the edge of nature, where the wild animals roam.
Depicting Native Americans as part of nature was not only an art motif. Similar ideas also shaped the activities of some cultural and social organizations in the early 20th century. For example, the Boy Scouts of America and the Campfire Girls taught children outdoor survival skills, such as starting a fire using only sticks and no matches, and both groups misappropriated Native culture to do this. At campouts, Boy Scouts and Campfire Girls often wore headdresses and slept in teepees. These ceremonies also included “Indian” dances around a fire pit. Such stereotypical and inaccurate depictions reinforced a message that Native Americans and nature were deeply connected.
The identical pair of Chinese vases that I am reinterpreting were displayed in Roseland Cottage in Woodstock, CT, the home of Henry Bowen and his wife, Lucy Tappan. Bowen operated a dry goods business in New York specializing in delicate lace and linens. He became wealthy and built Roseland Cottage as a summer home in 1846. He was a staunch opponent of slavery and ran an abolitionist newspaper, The Independent. Roseland Cottage was passed down through the Bowen family and was eventually entrusted to Historic New England in 1970. The house contained many delicate decorations, including pieces of art from Japan and China. According to Historic New England, the Bowens redecorated Roseland Cottage in the 1880s, filling it with East Asian art, which was all the rave in the United States. The recent 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia introduced many Americans to art from Japan and China for the first time. Possessing decorative art from Japan or China was a status symbol that only the rich could afford.
The East Asian objects in Roseland Cottage reflected Western views on this part of the world in the late 19th– early 20th century. Scholar Edward Said coined the term “orientalism” to describe Western views and fascination with Middle and Far East cultures. While there is no evidence that the Bowen/Hunt families misappropriated Asian art or even felt superior to Asian people, the families’ display of Asian art on their mantle reveals their fascination with an “exotic” culture. Let’s look at the vases to understand them better.
A close look at the vases can help us understand them. These porcelain vases were made circa 1900. They both depict an Asian boy shielding his eyes from the sun with a fan. They can be identified as boys because grown men did not wear their hair in buns. Similar figures of a boy with buns playing with a fan can be seen as far back as China’s Jin Dynasty (265-420). These vases may even be an homage to that period. The Jin was also known as the Chin, the origin of the country’s name, China. It is possible that the vases were meant to show “original China” to the Western Market.
The vases also have painted flowers that have special meanings in Chinese culture–chrysanthemums on the stem and peonies at the top of the stem. Chrysanthemums hold many meanings, but because the main image is a child, one can assume that it symbolizes a long and prosperous life here. Longevity was assigned to the flower because it blooms in late autumn when many other flowers die. Peonies also have many meanings in Chinese culture. In the context of the different images on the vases, they could represent wealth, peace, or masculinity. Flower symbolism exists throughout human history, but the association of this vase with China prompted me to research flower symbolism in Chinese culture.
Museums today are grappling with how to display and interpret their collections that depict other cultures. In some instances, such as at the British Museum, many collections from “exotic” civilizations were stolen from their original homelands. Moreover, today museums are coming to terms with language that is now considered racist, like Negro and Indian. Historic New England’s work in redescribing their collections reflects these broader efforts to modernize museums and reinterpret collections. When a piece’s provenance is unknown, one must research around an object to better understand it. We ask questions such as: What symbols are present that may have been missed by a Western viewer in the past? What was Western culture like at the time it was collected? Are there similar objects in other collections? Ultimately, we view objects not just as artwork or collections but as historical records. I am grateful for the opportunity to participate in Historic New England’s essential endeavors.
[i]Stephanie Pratt, American Indians in British Art, 1700-1840, (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005), 125.
Notes:
- Berkhoffer, Robert. The White Man’s Indian. New York: Vintage Books, 1978.
- “Chrysanthemum: The symbol of Vitality in Chinese Culture.” CGTN. Accessed Nov. 14, 2024. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2017-10/18/content_33402698_2.htm.
- Deloria, Philip J. Playing Indian. New Havan: Yale University Press, 1998.
- Dirilk, Arif. “Chinese History and the Question of Orientalism.” History and Theory 35, no. 4 (1996): 96-118.
- Liu, Mingyu. “Study on Children’s Hair Styles in Children-Playing Picture of Cizhou Kiln in Song and Jin Dynasties.” Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research 537 (2021): 291-296.
- “Miss Constance’s Room.” Historic New England. Accessed Nov. 11, 2024. https://roselandcottage.org/location/miss-constances-room/.
- Pratt, Stephanie. American Indians in British Art, 1700-1840. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.
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