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Ambition's Apex: The Private Art Gallery Of The Aiken-Rhett House, Christine Mathieson

All Theses

This thesis is an analytic in-depth examination of the private art gallery added to the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston, South Carolina in 1858. The goal of the work is to imagine, understand, and contextualize the gallery, delving deeply into the lives, travels, and ambitions of its owners, William and Harriet Lowndes Aiken. Exploring all aspects of the gallery's inspiration and design, as well as the provenance and significance of works of art housed in it, the paper poses two questions: why a gallery; and why this gallery. Answers to these questions are located in socio-historical analysis that focuses on the …