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Doll's House/Dollhouse: Models and Agency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2017

ANNABEL WHARTON
ANNABEL WHARTON*
Affiliation:
Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Models – economic, mathematical, toys, manikins – are ubiquitous. This article probes one model, the Stettheimer doll's house, in order to understand all models better. The Stettheimers, three wealthy unmarried sisters living in New York in the early the twentieth century, attracted a remarkable melange of Camp artists and writers, identified by Arthur Danto as “the American Bloomsbury.” The Stettheimers were involved in many of New York's happenings, including the Harlem Renaissance and the innovative stage productions of Gertrude Stein. Androgyny, excess, racial mixing and theatricality flourished in the Stettheimer milieu. Carrie Stettheimer's doll's house, now housed in the Museum of the City of New York, captured this life. I consider this model for two related purposes. First, and more narrowly, I document the various effects this eccentric doll's house had on the artistic production of those in its vicinity, most notably on the novels of her sister Ettie and on the paintings both of her sister Florine and Marcel Duchamp. Second, I use the evidence of the doll's house's affect to discuss the agency of models in general.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 28 - 56
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2017 

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References

1 Morgan, Mary S. and Morrison, Margaret, eds., Models as Mediators: Perspectives on Natural and Social Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 38–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Max Black, a philosopher, contributed a great deal to model thinking, but he specifically excludes a consideration of scale models. Black, Max, “Models and Archetypes,” in Black, Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962), 219–44Google Scholar. For exceptions to this rule see Eisenman, Peter, Pommer, Richard, and Hubert, Christian, Idea as Model (New York: Rizzoli, 1981)Google Scholar; and Abruzzo, Emily, Ellingsen, Eric, and Solomon, Robert, eds., Models (New York: 306090, 2007)Google Scholar.

3 For a review of the literature on object agency from Heidegger and Brown to Gell and Latour, and for an argument about how buildings (and models) contribute to its understanding, see Wharton, Annabel Jane, “Buildings/Things, Body/Texts, History/Theory,” in Wharton, Architectural Agents: The Delusional, Abusive, Addictive Lives of Buildings (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), 185–219CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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10 One of these, the doll's house of Petronella Oortman, now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, is powerfully brought back to life in the best-selling novel by Burton, Jessie, The Miniaturist (New York: HarperCollins, 2014)Google Scholar. For the canonical study of early modern Dutch doll's houses see Pijzel-Dommisse, Jet, Het Hollandse Pronkpoppenhuis: Interieur en huishouden in de 17de en 18de eeuw (Zwolle: Waanders, 2000)Google Scholar.

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13 Persuasively rendered by Burton.

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18 Ibid., 524, 26.

19 Ibid., 517.

20 Camp has also been commandeered for specifically politically purposes by gay intellectuals. See Meyer, Moe, “Introduction: Reclaiming the Discourse of Camp,” in Meyer, ed., The Politics and Poetics of Camp (London: Routledge, 1994), 1–19Google Scholar; and, more recently, several of the articles in the special issue devoted to Camp of Modernism/Modernity, 23, 1 (2016).

21 Arthur Danto, “Florine Stettheimer,” The Nation, 30 Oct. 1995, 514.

22 For an illustrated inventory of the gifts see Clark, Sheila W., The Stettheimer Dollhouse (San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2009), 46–62Google Scholar.

23 Ettie Stettheimer, letter of 13 March 1918, in Florine and Ettie Stettheimer Papers, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 1916–24, Box 7, Folder 129.

24 Seigworth, Gregory J. and Gregg, Melissa, “An Inventory of Shimmers,” in Seigworth and Gregg, eds., The Affect Theory Reader (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 1–25Google Scholar.

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26 “Died,” New York Herald, 11 March 1889. His brokerage in the oil business fell into a shambles after his death. “Abraham Levy's New Charge against Firm of Stettheimer and Bettman,” New York Times, 19 Oct. 1899; “Business Troubles,” New York Times, June 4, 1898. Rossetta's son and eldest daughter married and moved West.

27 “Florence Stettheimer, who wields a vigorous brush, has good color sense and a supreme disregard for local truth, is showing in the upper gallery at M. Knoedler & Co.’s 556 Fifth Ave., to Oct. 28, a dozen oils in which flowers, young and elderly women and a country mansion figure. A somewhat effective allegorical canvas is called ‘Spring.’ The figures, in the other works, are agreeably handled, but curiously colored, notably a young woman called ‘Morning,’ who has red hair and eyes, and a chalky skin. ‘Aphrodite’ is a statuette surrounded by flowers.” “Miss Stettheimer's Oils,” American Art News, 16 Oct. 1916, 3.

28 Florine Stettheimer, “Florine and Ettie Stettheimer Papers,” Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 1871–1944, Box 6, Folder 109.

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31 Ibid., 102.

32 Ibid., 198.

33 Identified convincingly as a self-portrait by Bloemink, Barbara J., The Life and Art of Florine Stettheimer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 66–68Google Scholar.

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35 Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp’,” 518–19.

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37 An excellently illustrated survey of Florine's work is now available. Mühling, Matthias, Althaus, Karin, and Böller, Susanne, Florine Stettheimer (Munich: Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, 2014)Google Scholar.

38 This figure is identified by Bloemink as the “Hindu poet Sankar” on the basis of a conversation with Donald Gallup in February 1991. I have not been able to identify such a poet, even with the generous assistance of Dr. Satendra Khanna of the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University.

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44 Ettie Stettheimer, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 1916–24, Box 3, Folder 58.

45 Kaitlin Vaughan, “The Stettheimer Dollhouse: A Biography, Part II,” Dolls' Houses Past & Present, 2009, at www.dollshousespastandpresent.com/issue25june2015p8.htm, accessed 3 Nov. 2015.

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51 In the original Italian tale of Pinocchio, the marionette is not so loveable. Collodi, Carlo, Pinocchio: The Adventures of a Marionette, trans. Cramp, Walter S. (Boston: Athenaeum Press, 1904; first published 1883)Google Scholar; Disney, Walt, Pinocchio (RKO Radio Pictures, 1940); MilneGoogle Scholar.

52 For a psychoanalytical treatment of dolls through the medium of literature see Carriker, Kitti, Created in Our Images: The Miniature Body of the Doll as Subject and Object (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

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55 Spielberg, Steven, Poltergeist (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1982)Google Scholar.

56 Noble, John, A Fabulous Dollhouse of the Twenties: The Famous Stettheimer Dollhouse at the Museum of the City of New York (New York: Dover, 1976), 6Google Scholar, claims that documents suggest that dolls were planned for Carrie's house. The documents are, however, not cited. More critically, Carrie never introduced dolls into her house.

57 “Christmas is celebrated year round in the Stettheimer doll house.” Rita Reif, “Tiny Windows on the Past, with Playful Vistas,” New York Times, 22 Dec. 1996. The Stettheimer doll's house was not the only one to which Noble added figures. “As curator, Noble attracted attention in 1977 with an exhibit of historic dollhouses from the museum's permanent collection. One of the houses, dated 1863, included a number of black servants. In an interview with the New York Times, Noble said the house had long been displayed without the dolls, for fear of offending museum-goers. He returned them to the house. ‘Now we show them taking their true place in history,’ Noble said.” Mary Rourke, “Obituary: John D. Noble, 80,” Los Angeles Times, 14 Oct. 2003.

58 Jennifer Dunning, “An Endless Christmas Party for 5-Inch Guests,” New York Times, 25 Dec. 1976.

59 Ettie Stettheimer, Florine and Ettie Stettheimer Papers, 7 April 1906, Box 6, Folder 109.

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62 Maureen Howard and Laurie Simmons, “The Stettheimer Dollhouse,” Nest: A Magazine of Interiors, 1999–2000, 151–63. The conservation of the house in 2001 was funded by the Mary C. Harriman Foundation, the Lachaise Foundation, and the Beinecke Foundation under the auspices of the Museum of the City of New York.

63 The Oortmann doll's house in the Rijksmuseum Museum in Amsterdam fares better. The comparison is, of course, unfair.