ABSTRACT
Hitomi Nabae’s “Travelling Curios in a Playful Spirit: Henry James’s American Museum” examines how James matures the idea of art in a time of expansion of global commercialism and tourism. Tracing James’s conceptualization of art from Mrs. Gereth’s possessive act of preserving a private collection in The Spoils of Poynton (1896) to Adam Verver’s philanthropic act of opening a public museum in The Golden Bowl (1904), Nabae observes how art objects and curios also “travel,” changing ownership. A new type of art dealer and historian depicted in The Outcry (1911) furthermore gives clues to understanding the changing art market at the turn of the twentieth century. References to James’s friend Mrs. Gardner and her opening a museum in 1904 also play a crucial role in James’s fashioning of Mr. Verver, whose dream is to build a museum in “American City.” Importantly, Mr. Verver’s dream becomes real when he discovers a powerful female counterpart, Charlotte Stant, as her sociable and playful spirit frees him from his maniacal act of collecting. Ultimately, the couple’s collaboration through marriage creates a new museum, offering a new space for the public to learn and enhance their understanding of art in a mobile era of modernity.
