Join the Historical Activities and the Van Cortlandt House Museum & Collections Committees for a lecture and reception with J. Keith Doherty -
Royal Aspirations: Imitation and Artifice in New York’s Earliest Mansions.
Individual Lecture Tickets: $50 each
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Royal Aspirations: Imitation and Artifice in New York’s Earliest Mansions
In the early eighteenth century, a growing class of merchant-aristocrats in New York began to desire lavish country homes of the sort occupied by European royals. Lacking the fine building materials and specialized craftsmen necessary to build faithful reproductions, they found a variety of creative ways to approximate them. Stucco veneers incised to resemble carved stone blocks, oilcloth floor coverings featuring trompe l’oeil depictions of marble pavements, and imitation relief programs in papier-mâché are just a few of the decorative devices that Manhattan’s elite used to express their worldly aspirations. This talk will discuss the various ways they were used in several surviving colonial homes in our area.
