AMERICAN FANCY:
AN EXHIBITION

AMERICAN FANCY brings together some of the most wildly ornamented domestic goods ever produced in this country and employs them to explore life here during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In simple terms, the exhibition explores the period's fascination with "Fancy" and with the material goods that reinforced its attributes. It charts outlooks toward the changing balance between imagination and reason--between the benefits received from carefully indulging the senses, and those garnered from restrained, rational behavior.


The widespread popularity of "fancy" was clearly reflected in growing use of the word and in the increasingly whimsical nature of the material goods it was used to define. Its appeal was founded in the widespread belief that the mind operated best when fueled by delightful or stunning images--impressions that elicited positive emotions in the viewer and therefore remained easily within reach of memory and imagionation.

Continued . . .