Abstract
Many historic house museums are a hotchpotch of architectural styles, furnishing, and fittings, reflecting the tastes and financial situations of generations of owners, and therefore rarely entirely “genuine” or complete. A few examples have been “frozen” at a point in time and remain an unchanging representation of the lives of the last owners, while others are carefully constructed art installations or pieces of theater. And yet, over centuries, museums have cultivated an aura of authenticity which leads visitors to assume that what we show them is “the real thing,” even if the evidence in front of them suggests the opposite. This case study explores two questions: by allowing historic house visitors to believe that what they are seeing is original (when it is not), are we jeopardizing a relationship based on trust? And conversely, will revealing the truth destroy the aura of realism that attracts our audiences in the first place?
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