Drawing Room

Before entering the MFA’s collection, this elegant room resided in an important, but short-lived, Gilded Age mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City, built by banker William Salomon and furnished by Jules Allard and Son—a French decorating firm with offices in New York. After Salomon’s death in 1919, the mansion was dismantled and sold off piecemeal before being demolished in 1924. The firm of French & Company purchased the room and sold it to wealthy Boston art collector Mrs. Harriet J. Bradbury, who in turn donated it to the MFA. Initially thought to be a genuine 18th-century French interior, the room’s status has changed over time. At one point we decided it was an early 20th-century imitation. But the recent reinstallation of this period room gave us the opportunity to closely examine the decorative wood paneling ('boiserie'), which revealed that both beliefs are true. While some are genuine 18th-century panels, others are 20th-century reproductions, making the room a skillful hybrid of the two time periods.