Plantations: Celebrated Trinkets
Majestic deer antlers. Carefully arranged tea cups. Sculpted bottles of whiskey. Scattered cigar papers. As beautiful as the interior of Lorenzo has been maintained, one point of interest that seems to dissipate from the spotlight are the little attention grabbers that decorate the public gathering areas of the mansion. These celebrated trinkets, along with the detailed ornaments, create a sense of upper class, nationalistic pride that can be traced throughout the American landscape, as each piece of furniture resonates with a historic tradition.
Ideas of decoration respond to the human desire for entertainment, and considering the proper lifestyle associated within plantation living and dining rooms, luxuries of entertainment coincide with their expensive qualities. Customs of consumption are an inherently American trait, as E.R. Billings’ book, simply titled Tobacco, characterizes the typical plantation dweller as “being the fastest-going people on the ‘versal globe’…are, undoubtedly, entitled to take precedence of all nations as consumers.” These collections also provide a past, romanticized lens to the lifestyle of the rich through the implied decisions made when acquiring each piece of decoration to add to an overarching, desirable integrity to the household.
With plantation spaces designated for all sorts of exchanges of information, the presentation of entertainment outlets provides the owner with a chance to display both wealth and class, as guests are provided with a limited, yet pricey, selection of drinks and cigars, collected with choice glassware, ash trays, and various tools such as ice crushers and cigar cutters, that liven up the modernized, trivial nature of having a drink or smoke.
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