ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to unpack entanglement, in order to understand how the social, cultural and aesthetic contexts ‘took form’ in the early modern period in the houses of the Tallinn elite (merchants, including town councillors), and on the other hand – what was the agency of the houses and objects themselves and how did they perform in the urban context of the city during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The political turmoil and economic problems that characterised the entire start of the early modern era did not allow the city’s elite to undertake radical transformations when it came to their stone homes. The beam paintings were certainly the most enduring part of the interior décor in Tallinn dwellings, and the last ones, which were painted in the mid-eighteenth century, imitated marble. The identity of early modern Tallinn merchants and town councillors was defined by their social standing.
