The Baltimore Room in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2011

Baltimore Room
Baltimore, Maryland, 1810–11

This room, installed in Gallery 724, comes from a townhouse for the Baltimore, Maryland, merchant and shipowner Henry Craig (1767–1832). Although it served as the Craig family's parlor, the Museum has furnished the space as a dining room since the American Wing opened in 1924. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, Americans began dedicating a specific room to dining, which they used in conjunction with a formal parlor for entertaining guests.

The geometric shapes found in the interior woodwork and on the inlaid Baltimore-made furniture are excellent examples of the adoption and adaptation of the English Neoclassical style in the early Federal period.

Text by Matthew Thurlow, Research Associate; and Moira Gallagher, Research Associate

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/collection-areas/the-american-wing/period-rooms/baltimore-room