ABSTRACT
The approach to the modern period room faces similar challenges and dilemmas as in the nineteenth century, but the efforts, interpretations, and results are quite new. While Adriana Turpin’s chapter in this volume examined the historical processes that shaped the emergence of the period room during the nineteenth century, this chapter explores ethical and practical questions raised in creating a “period room” model for the temporary exhibition Beauty and Duty: The Art and Business of Renaissance Marriage at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine (March 27–July 27, 2008). Beauty and Duty centered on the variety of functions served by one special type of household furniture: the Italian Renaissance marriage chest, the cassone. As a public proclamation of the new union, the cassone accompanied the bride in her transition from girlhood under her father’s roof to her married life within her husband’s home. Installed in the couple’s bedroom, the cassone helped to define the roles of wife, mother, pious educator of children, and trusted steward of household resources, through its decoration, contents such as devotional books, and its ample storage space secured with lock and key. By focusing on the cassone, the exhibition helped to elucidate the process of shaping a new household and the object’s part in mapping expectations for a wife’s duties and behavior within that evolving space.
