Museums face this inescapable dilemma: for the sake of making works of art publicly accessible, the museum displays them de-contextualized from their cultural setting and functionality. Yet sometimes, museums such as the The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) will go to greater than usual lengths to give its visitors a more immersive experience. This is the pleasant case of a current Met exhibition: Artistic Furniture of the Gilded Age.
The exhibition evokes a time when America was being forged, when great fortunes were made, and the arts flourished.
Following the Civil War (1861–1865), the likes of railroad magnates William H. Vanderbilt (1821–1885) and Collis P. Huntington (1821–1900), as well as co-founder of the Standard Oil Company, John D. Rockefeller Sr. (1839–1937) had made enough money to afford more philanthropic pursuits.
