Readers who know me well know how much I like purging myself of belongings. I’m not a collector and I keep household items forever. Like the cheap glass plates we bought when we were married in 1985. They are perfect. Why replace them? My house is neat and clean, but does displays objects of beauty that bring me pleasure, a few paintings, a sculpture. But nary a tchotchke to be seen. I hate clutter with a passion. So venturing into the 61 galleries of things, thousands and thousands of things owned by rich people over the past five centuries filled me with a nagging sense of dread. Okay, fine. These galleries are part of the project, you have to see them. 

I was treated to extremely entertaining dialogue between fathers and their children on my way in today. As I passed through the Greek sculptures, a gleefully ghoulish father said to his son: “Look at that one – he’s naked! And someone cut off his hand!” And later, approaching Perseus holding the head of Medusa, adorable 4 year old girl: “Why is he holding her head?” Dad, in a matter of fact voice: “Perseus cut off her head.” Girl: “Why did Perseus cut off her head?” Dad: “Because she hurt a lot of people.” And that was the end of that conversation. That little girl better be nice forever.

I began in the Italian Renaissance, and my meh attitude took a 180 as I marveled at the intricate intarsia in a recreated study. Everything is very dark, subdued, and soothing. So much detail was put into every living space. Even though the Renaissance was shifting to a more humanistic approach to art, and the artists’ personalities were able to come forward, there was still much religious iconography. Of the many virgin and child depictions, this one was my favorite. She pulls the baby into her body so intimately, and so the artist pulls the viewer into the elemental representation of a mother’s love. 

I did not expect to laugh out loud in this exhibit, but when you encounter a tapestry entitled “Two Putti Trying to Stop a Monkey Abducting a Child…” Fantastic. And the Italian Maiolica was so pretty.

There are several rooms from that period, including this bedroom from the Palazzo Sagredo. The viewer is able to step part way into the room which features at least a dozen putti (cherubs) on the ceiling, which struck me as incredibly weird and creepy. The Australian teenagers who stepped in with me agreed. “I would literally never sleep.” 

I ended today in the vast British Galleries, recently revamped as of 2020. The exhibit spans the 1500s through the 1800s and is organized by type of object for the most part. This one is tough. So many beautiful things, all intertwined with centuries of enslaved African people. The exhibit does acknowledge this, but to be real, this sentence: “It is also a chronicle of brutal colonialism and exploitation” is embedded in three paragraphs of breathless isn’t this all so beautiful? 

I took my time and went chronologically. There were indeed many lovely things to look at, such as one hundred teapots, which of course exist because of the East India Trading Company, at the time the most powerful corporation in the world, powered in part by slavery and apparently still exists. Britains were enchanted by Chinoiserie and anything deemed “exotic,” to the point of fetish. As traders returned to the gloomy British isles with colorful silks and Japanese lacquered furniture, they became all the rage to the wealthiest citizens. 

Last night I finished watching “Queen Charlotte,” Shonda Rhimes’s latest “Bridgerton” installment. (Don’t judge me!) It is perfectly good escapist television. I appreciate how she fictionalized the story but keeps the basic players accurate. The season ends with Charlotte finally getting an heir, but what was fun to see today was a portrait of George IV, Charlotte’s oldest who does go on to become king. He apparently was a massive proponent of the arts (and a notorious party boy) and is responsible for creating the Buckingham Palace and Windsor castle that the current monarchy enjoys. It was a trip to see how well they cast him in the show. 

As on the Bridgerton set, there is plenty of shiny silver throughout the exhibit. Silversmiths were revered artisans, one group organized as the Worshipful Guild of Goldsmiths, which sounds like something straight out of Monty Python. As fashions changed frequently, people would simply melt down their silver items, and either make new things or turn it into coins and buy something else. A true liquid asset.

Near the teapots is an abolitionist emblem made by famed ceramicist and marketer Josiah Wedgwood, who coined the motto: “Am I not a man and a brother?” Wedgwood sent some of these to Benjamin Franklin in 1788 and they ultimately became the symbol of the transatlantic antislavery movement. Britain was 32 years ahead of the United States, abolishing the slave trade in 1833.