The Lightner Museum
75 King St, St. Augustine, FL 32084
March 10, 2022
The Lightner Museum is located in the oldest city in the United States. It is a stunning collection of oddities, beautiful art, and breathtaking artifacts. It took the place of the Hotel Alcazar, a Gilded Age resort hotel commissioned by Henry Flagler.
Exterior #1
Exterior #2
Grand Escritoire
Acajou Mahogany with Ivory Ebony Inlay
Wood Marquetry and Parquetry
Dutch in the French Tradition
Marker Unidentified
1806-1810
This Grand Escritoire is a desk that supposedly belonged to Louis Bonaparte. In 1806 he was made King of Holland by his brother, Napoleon Bonaparte. The cabinet is created to look like a classical piped organ. It has 200 drawers with “mother-of-pearl” drawer pulls that resemble organ stops, and the clock resembles a miniature pipe organ.
Leon F. Comerre
French, 1850-1916
Maid Listening at the Door, ca. 1870
Oil on Canvas
Image in Conversation 1
The Rome Cavalieri is a five-star luxury hotel found in Rome. It reminded me of the Lightner Museum/Hotel Alcazar because many important people stayed there for events. It is also home to one of the most prestigious private art collections. Their collection ranges from 16th century to contemporary art. The hotel also has Nureyev’s (one of the best male ballet dancers of his generation) ballet costumes and Gallé glass. The art in the hotel is diverse, just like the art in the Lightner Museum.
Image in Conversation 2
The Fife Arms in Braemar, Scotland
The Fife Arms
The Fife Arms in Scotland reminds me of the Lightner Museum because of all the art found throughout the hotel. According to their website, they have 16,000 antiques, 100 pieces of taxidermy in a single corridor, and an array of art collections found throughout the entire hotel. I also connected the Lightner to this hotel because before being a museum, the Lightner was the Hotel Alcazar. The hotel Alcazar had huge names coming in to stay there or nearby to enjoy the grand parties, charity balls, and local celebrations at the time; the Fife Arms also had great names that stayed nearby. It is famous for having had Queen Victoria (who has a watercolor painting displayed in the hotel), Princess Diana, and Queen Elizabeth staying nearby in Balmoral Castle during celebrations and events.
ENG 202 Passage
One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII by Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda’s poem, One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII, talks about how his love is different and cannot be described by classic symbols of love. I chose this work to explain the art in the Lightner Museum because when Neruda says, “I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries // the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,” he talks about how he loves unconventionally. When we think of art, we expect it to be conventionally beautiful. Viewing art this way takes away from the objective of creativity. Like Neruda’s love, art does not have to follow man-given guidelines and expectations. Art can be anything that the artist or craftsman wants it to be. In the Lightner Museum, there are many oddities that the average person would say do not qualify as art or belong in a museum. Still, if we look at art how Neruda views his love, we can see that we do not need to put things in a box nor let what we have been influenced to think is correct warp our views on something as beautiful as unconventional art or a different love.
Creative Component
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