The Museum of the City of New York
On May 13th, we went to the Museum of the City of New York for the field trip this semester. During the whole trip, I found some pieces are interesting and I would like to share them with you.
Chinese News
August 10, 1894
This is the first piece that attracts me. The Chinese immigrants published several newspapers for their community in late 19th-century New York. Since Chinese is my first language, I can understand the whole piece of new easily. It containing news on the First Sin0-Japanese war(1894-95), which is a well-known history in China. I had learned this war when I was in high school, and I am surprised that they have chosen a Chinese new to be one of the exhibits in this New York Museum. On the other hand, an orange color paper was used for news at that time. Comparing to the gray and black newspaper nowadays, orange paper’s news is really interesting for me.
Donna Karan Barbie
Private collection 1996
In the introduction, it mentions New Yorker Donna Karan designed a new look for woman executives of the mid-1980s as white-collar employment surged in the city. It attracts me because it is a toy. In most of the museum, some meaningful or classical collections are collected as the exhibits. However, I rarely see a barbie in a museum. The Barbie dresses fashionable which woman can dress the same in this century. Besides, I think the bag had used the Brooklyn bridge for the bag design, which the color of black and white. The photo was blurry and created a mysterious feeling.
Stettheimer Dollhouse
Carrie Walter Stemttheimer
This exhibit is placed in the middle of the corridor, which is around 28 inches tall. It immediately got my attention and I decided to use this as my trip report. In this dollhouse, the entrance to the house is the foyer and upstairs hall, which is decorated in ecru and vivid malachite green. In the center of the floor, there is a painted oval that is really cool. To the left of the foyer is the kitchen; while the right is the chinoiserie library. In the library, jade and figures are placed on the red and black furniture, which has a mah-jongg set in the middle of the room. It surprised me because mah-jongg is a common game set in China, while it has appeared in this dollhouse that was made between 1916 to 1935. You can find a lot of details thought the whole dollhouse and it is really cool to see these little furnitures.
