The Decorative Arts Trust - Fostering appreciation for the decorative arts

On the Water: Salem & the North Shore Fall Symposium

Learn about our Fall Symposium on September 15-19

Learn More

La Dolce Vita in Northern Italy: Genoa, Turin & Milan

Join us for this Study Trip Abroad on October 4-13 or 18-27 with an October 14-17 extension

Learn More

Castle Hill Virtual Tour with Susan Hill Dolan

Save the date for this September 30 virtual tour

Learn More

The Arts and Crafts Movement from John Ruskin to William Lightfoot Price

Register for this Rose Valley conference on November 6 and 7

Learn More

Sabine Hall Virtual Tour with Ralph Harvard

Register to watch the recording of this virtual tour of Landon Carter’s Baroque Virginia treasure house

Learn More

Membership with the Decorative Arts Trust

Your support allows us to achieve our mission of promoting the study and appreciation of the decorative arts

Join or Renew

Collaboration, Partnership, and Support

Help us continue our mission to promote and foster the appreciation and study of the decorative arts

Make a Donation

LATEST NEWS

View

Sep 19

Open

Our Fall Symposium concludes with a trio of optional tours, one of which brings members to magnificent Marblehead. Historian Judy Anderson from Marblehead Architecture & Heritage Tours led members through a few of the nearly 300 houses that survive from before 1775, including the Colonel Jeremiah Lee Mansion.

The Lee Mansion (1768) was built for the wealthiest merchant in colonial Massachusetts and survives virtually intact from 1775, when the family ceased to live there following Lee’s death. Many of the Mansion’s original decorative elements have been preserved, including 1760s Rococo carving based on designs in “The British Architect” pattern book by Abraham Swan and rare 18th-century English hand-painted wallpapers.

For an in-depth look at the Mansion’s stunning wallpapers, see Judy’s new book Glorious Splendor: http://www.marbleheadarchitecture.com/.

To learn more about Decorative Arts Trust symposia, visit https://decorativeartstrust.org/symposia/.

Pictured: Lee Mansion front exterior, cupola, and cornice with mini-brackets in best parlor photos by Judy Anderson. Detail of carving near stair landing, photo by Rick Ashley.

#TravelsWithTheTrust
#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#Art
#History
#Architecture
#Marblehead
#Massachusetts

View

Sep 19

Open

Nina Blomfield is working on her PhD in History of Art at @BrynMawrCollege and received a Dewey Lee Curtis Symposium Scholarship to join us in Salem. This summer, she began her role as the 2021-2023 Decorative Arts Trust Marie Zimmermann Collections Fellow at the @CranbrookCenter for Collections and Research.

Nina was excited to visit the @PeabodyEssex Museum (pictured here) because chapters of her dissertation focus on the use of Japanese interior design motifs by a shipping family in Wiscasset, Maine. The influence of Asian decorative arts on homes in maritime New England provide unmatched examples of cultural exchange. She was thrilled to see objects from PEM’s collection of Japanese export art, as they are one of the few institutions to devote gallery space to transcultural material that often falls between departmental categories.

As well as examining fascinating objects, Nina is reveling in the ability to learn from and connect with curators and conservators as she prepares for a curatorial career.

Read more about PEM’s collection at https://www.pem.org/explore-art.

To learn more about Decorative Arts Trust symposia, visit https://decorativeartstrust.org/symposia/.

@neenyneenyneeny
#TravelsWithTheTrust
#TrustEmergingScholars
#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#Art
#History
#Symposium
#Research
#Salem
#Massachusetts

View

Sep 18

Open

Meet Megan Baker, one of the Dewey Lee Curtis Symposium Scholarship recipients joining us in Salem!

Megan is a PhD Candidate in Art History at the University of Delaware. Her research considers the production and collection of French-influenced objects and artworks in 18th-century North America, specifically pastel painting and its display within the home. This research places special emphasis on Salem, where a large community of Jersey-French merchants and artisans lived and worked from the 17th century onward, including the pastel painter Benjamin Blyth. He worked closely with patrons from important Salem families who owned large numbers of French-influenced objects, such as Elias Hasket Derby.

The Symposium is turning out to be an invaluable opportunity to study collections, hear lectures, and connect with friends in the field. On a walking tour that featured @HistoricNewEngland’s Phillips House (pictured), Megan had the chance to study Salem’s material culture firsthand. In 1800, Captain Nathaniel West and his wife Elizabeth (Elias Haskett Derby’s daughter) hired Samuel McIntire to build a grand country estate for them in South Danvers, MA. Following Elizabeth’s death, Captain West inherited one third of the estate, equal to four rooms of the house, and had those rooms removed from the Danvers house and relocated to Salem. These rooms make up the front four rooms of the present house. The house’s current name refers to the Phillips family, who occupied the home for much of the 20th century.

Read more about the Phillips House at https://www.historicnewengland.org/property/phillips-house/.

To learn more about Decorative Arts Trust symposia, visit https://decorativeartstrust.org/symposia/.

@materialrevolt
@udelaware
@udarthistory
#TravelsWithTheTrust
#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#Art
#History
#Symposium
#Research
#Salem
#Massachusetts
#PhillipsHouse

View

Sep 17

Open

View

Sep 15

Open

Before the Decorative Arts Trust Fall Symposium officially begins on Thursday evening, members are enjoying Pre-Symposium Optional Tours around Massachusetts's North Shore.

One of today's favorite sites was the Stevens-Coolidge House, the early-20th-century estate that served as the summer home of Helen Stevens Coolidge and her husband, John Gardner Coolidge, a diplomat descended from Thomas Jefferson and a nephew to Isabella Stewart Gardner.

@TheTrustees of Reservations feels incredibly lucky to have the Stevens-Coolidge House & Gardens property and archival collections. Curatorial Fellow Katie Grant explored the home’s transformation under the direction of preservation architect Joseph Everett Chandler, who converted a rambling Victorian family farmhouse into a Colonial Revival oasis between 1914 and 1918. Chandler worked closely with the Coolidges to tie together generations of their families’ decorative arts with trinkets and priceless antiques they purchased while traveling the globe. Swipe to see photos of the Morning Room in 1911 and in 1918-23, as well as before and after images of the exterior of the house.

Katie will present the Symposium's Marie Zimmermann Emerging Scholar Lecture about her research on Sunday, September 19.

Read more about the Stevens-Coolidge House at https://thetrustees.org/place/stevens-coolidge-house-and-gardens/.

To learn more about Decorative Arts Trust symposia, visit https://decorativeartstrust.org/symposia/.

Pictured: Historic photographs from the Stevens-Coolidge Place Collection. The Trustees of Reservations, Archives & Research Center.

#TravelsWithTheTrust
#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#Art
#History
#StevensCoolidgeHouse
#HistoricHome
#HouseMuseum
#NorthAndover
#Massachusetts

View

Sep 14

Open

In the mid-16th century, potters from Puebla, Mexico, developed a type of tin-glazed earthenware known today as Talavera Poblana. Due to the migration of Spanish ceramicists, the transpacific trade between the Philippines and Mexico, and the interactions between colonists and Indigenous populations in the Americas, these ceramics combined Hispano-Muslim, Chinese, and Native American designs. One motif present in at least two Talavera Poblana ceramics currently at the @Hispanic_Society in New York City, a crane on top of a nopal cactus, combines a symbol of a threatened but enduring past, the nopal cactus, with an image representing the emerging trade routes with Asia, the crane. This motif memorialized the glorious Aztec past, visualized a nascent colonial identity, and reflected Latin America’s increasingly hybrid society.

Read more about Talavera Poblana ceramics in this new 𝘉𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯 post from Juliana Fagua Arias: https://decorativeartstrust.org/talavera-poblana-post/. Link in bio!

Pictured: Ming-Style Blue and White Jar with Bird on Cactus, c. 1700, México. Tin-glazed earthenware. Hispanic Society of America, Museum Acquisition Fund, 2008, LE2254. Tibor (Jar), c. 1700, Puebla, México. Tin-glazed earthenware. Hispanic Society of America, E993.

#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#Art
#History
#Ceramics
#TalaveraPoblana
#Earthenware
#MexicanArt
#LatinAmerica
#LatinxHeritage
#LatinxHeritageMonth
#HispanicHeritage
#HispanicHeritageMonth

View

Sep 13

Open

Interior designer Thomas Jayne joins Benjamin Miller for a new episode of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘦 ANTIQUES's #CuriousObjects podcast, proudly sponsored by the Decorative Arts Trust. Ben and Thomas discuss the history of interiors from the Greeks to the present day, what to budget first, and the spirit of “democratic decoration” that historically has animated American interiors.

Listen at https://www.themagazineantiques.com/article/curious-objects-how-to-make-a-modern-home-with-antiques-featuring-thomas-jayne/.
⁠⁠
Pictured: Curious Objects host Benjamin Miller (left) and interior decorator Thomas Jayne, in Jayne’s Manhattan studio. Photograph by William Cullum.

@jaynedesignstudio
@thomasjayne
@antiquesmag
@objectiveinterest
#JayneDesignStudio
#InteriorDesign
#Design
#Podcast

View

Sep 10

Open

How do bodies and objects relate, and how can this expand the way we think about the decorative arts? Read our latest 𝘉𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯 post for a survey of three recent books that explore the complex intersection between human bodies and historic objects: https://decorativeartstrust.org/bodily-things-post/. (Link in bio!)

Pictured:
Advertisement for Chicago Metropolitan Mutual Assurance Company (detail), 𝘌𝘣𝘰𝘯𝘺, December 1954, 89. From Kristina Wilson’s 𝘔𝘪𝘥-𝘊𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘺 𝘔𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘉𝘰𝘥𝘺: 𝘙𝘢𝘤𝘦, 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘋𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘯, published this year by @princetonupress.
Unknown, Madame Bonaparte drawing the Portrait of the First Consul, 1801–4. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY. From Amelia Rauser’s 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴: 𝘈𝘳𝘵, 𝘍𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘐𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 1790𝘴, published by @yalebooks in 2020.
Ashley’s sack. Middleton Place Foundation. From Tiya Miles’s 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥, published this year by @penguinrandomhouse.

#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#Art
#History
#FashionHistory
#Books

View

Sep 9

Open

View

Sep 8

Open

Join the Decorative Arts Trust and the @RoseValleyMuseum at a one-of-a-kind, two-day conference celebrating the Arts and Crafts Movement in Rose Valley, PA! "The Arts and Crafts Movement from John Ruskin to William Lightfoot Price" begins on Saturday, November 6 at 11:00 am with the long-awaited public dedication of the William Lightfoot Price Historical Marker across from where Price built his groundbreaking Thunderbird Lodge.

When architect Price came to Rose Valley at the turn of the 20th century, there were 12 small houses, one larger stone house, and two old mills. By the time of his death in 1916, Price had transformed Rose Valley and the Greater Philadelphia region with dozens of impressive residences and buildings in the Arts and Craft style that would influence contemporaries and inspire admirers for years to come.

After local and state leaders gather to laud the impact of Price’s ingenuity, conference attendees are invited to the Hedgerow Theatre to hear lectures by distinguished speakers from across the country. Presenters will share research on acclaimed 19th- and 20th-century English and American architects, designers, and thinkers including John Ruskin, Frank Furness, and Price. Saturday concludes with tours of the Thunderbird Lodge (home of the Rose Valley Museum) and nearby historic architecture. Sunday’s conference schedule includes lectures about influential artist and textile designer William Morris, innovative craftsman C. R. Ashbee, the three Ardens in Delaware, and John Ruskin’s European travels. The program concludes with a lively panel discussion of the current Arts and Crafts Movement. Light refreshments will be served and luncheon provided throughout the conference.

Visit the Rose Valley Museum's website for more information and to register: https://rosevalleymuseum.org/event/john-ruskin-to-william-lightfoot-price/. (Link in bio!)

Pictured: Rose Valley Museum at Thunderbird Lodge. Photo by Carl Finkbeiner.

#TravelsWithTheTrust
#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#Architecture
#ArtHistory
#Art
#History
#ArtsAndCraftsMovement
#RoseValley

View

Sep 2

Open

“It was not a Virginia-style house....This was in the Baroque taste, sort of a little wild and crazy house, with elaborate decoration.” - Ralph Harvard

There is still time to register to watch the recording of the Sabine Hall Virtual Tour: https://decorativeartstrust.org/sabine-hall-tour/. Registration starts at $10, and you don't want to miss Ralph Harvard's fascinating tour of Sabine Hall, Landon Carter’s c. 1738 Baroque Virginia treasure house!

Sabine Hall was a bold precursor to the sedate Virginia style, reflecting Baroque Europe, rather than Wren’s Britain. The exterior is enriched with muscular Italianate stonework with details taken from from William Salmon’s 1724 pattern-book 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘰 𝘓𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘴, a period copy of which we had on hand for reference.

We entered directly into the vast central “hall,” an unabashedly grand paneled saloon 18’ wide by 38’ long. Set to one side is a broad elliptical arch, which frames the splendid flying staircase with its twisted walnut balusters and sweeping rail. The woodwork here is also academically grounded in Salmon’s book. Family portraits, marble busts, fine antiques, and ancient relics ring the room.

Read more about this virtual tour in the 𝘉𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯: https://decorativeartstrust.org/sabine-hall-post/. (Link in bio!)

@theralphharvard
@margize
#SabineHall
#TrustVirtual
#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#History
#Architecture
#InteriorDesign
#HistoricHome
#VirtualTour
#Virginia

View

Sep 1

Open

Join us in welcoming Jessie Dean, the Decorative Arts Trust's new Membership Coordinator!

Jessie has a strong background in member outreach stemming from roles at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, and the Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative.

Learn more about Jessie in this 𝘉𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯 post, link in bio: https://decorativeartstrust.org/jessie-dean-post/.

Jessie will have the opportunity to meet members in person during the Fall 2021 Symposium in Salem and the North Shore in September.

#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#Membership
#Nonprofit

View

Aug 30

Open

View

Aug 24

Open

View

Aug 19

Open

Join Ralph Harvard for a virtual tour of Landon Carter’s Sabine Hall, a Baroque Virginia treasure house, on August 26 at 1:00 pm ET.

Sabine Hall was one of a small handful of large Baroque houses built in Virginia before 1740. Landon Carter, youngest son of Robert “King” Carter, completed the unusual mansion in 1738 and furnished it in a grand style. The voluptuous exterior was embellished with extravagant stone and brick work, and the sumptuously detailed interior had ornate stone chimney pieces and two vast entertaining spaces each over 500 square feet. With its commanding scale, prominent location, and familial connections, it quickly became a social and political powerhouse. Sabine Hall was updated by the Carter family in the 1770s, the 1820s, and again in the early 20th century. The property remains in the hands of Carter descendants with many original portraits, furnishings, and ceramics as well as evocative remnants of its colonial-era gardens. A current project focuses on the restoration of the fragile ‘Aquia’ freestone that ornaments the exterior. Ralph Harvard, a Trust governor who has studied the structure extensively, will lead us through an exclusive tour of the home and grounds.

Register at https://decorativeartstrust.org/sabine-hall-tour/. (Link in bio!) Registration starts at $10. The Decorative Arts Trust is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and greatly appreciates your support!

Pictured: The land front of Sabine Hall, 1738 with Aquia stone lintels, sills, and centerpiece. The roof was lowered and a portico was added in 1829.

@theralphharvard
#TrustVirtual
#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#Art
#History
#Research
#Architecture
#Design
#VirtualTour
#SabineHall
#Virginia

View

Aug 17

Open

Reminder: September 30 is the application deadline for Curatorial Internship Grants!

The Decorative Arts Trust underwrites curatorial internships for recent Masters or PhD graduates in partnership with museums and historical societies. These internships allow host organizations to hire a deserving young professional who will learn about the responsibilities and duties common to the curatorial field while working alongside a talented mentor. The Trust’s internship program seeks to provide mutually beneficial opportunities that will nurture the next generation of museum curators while providing essential staffing for the host. The Trust encourages projects that advance diversity in the study of the decorative arts.

For application details, visit the link in our bio: https://decorativeartstrust.org/cig/.
Please share!

Pictured here is Nina Blomfield, the 2021-2023 Decorative Arts Trust Marie Zimmermann Collections Fellow at the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research. (Photo by Kevin Adkisson.) She will assist with the care and interpretation of Cranbrook’s Cultural Properties and is researching the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Smith House (also pictured) and its rich collection of 20th-century decorative arts. See https://decorativeartstrust.org/cranbrook-curatorial-internship-grant-post/ and https://center.cranbrook.edu/staff-bio-nina-blomfield for more information.

@cranbrookcenter
#TrustEmergingScholars
#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#Grants
#Curator
#Internship
#Museum
#History
#Nonprofit

View

Aug 16

Open

Join us August 23 at 1:00 pm ET for a virtual dialogue that explores new perspectives on Hyde Hall in Cooperstown, NY. Long admired as a Neoclassical country manor house, Hyde Hall was built for the prominent landowner George Clarke between 1817-1834. Carlene Bermann, Master's Candidate in the Cooperstown Museum Studies Graduate Program, will focus on the broader context of Hyde Hall and the Clarke family.

Exploring more inclusive interpretative strategies for historic homes, Carlene will address the important educational role such sites play in connecting to larger regional, national, and international stories of social and economic inequality, legislative policy, and systems of environmental manipulation. Hyde Hall’s legacy encapsulates the Clarkes’ impact on agriculture, economics, politics, and rent laws, in addition to their ownership of enslaved individuals on Jamaican sugarcane plantations.

After her lecture, Carlene will be joined in conversation by fellow innovator of historic house interpretation, Erik Greenberg, PhD, from the Newport Restoration Foundation. The program will end with a live Q&A from the audience.

See the link in our bio to register for this Pay What You Can program:
https://decorativeartstrust.org/bermann-dialogue/

Pictured: Hyde Hall staircase. Sugar bowl and sugar tongs, c. 1850s.

@bermanncn
@coopgradprogram
@nptrestoration
@hydehall_1817
#TrustVirtual
#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#Art
#History
#Architecture
#Museum
#Restoration
#Interpretation
#Research

View

Aug 13

Open

Chairs are often designed with the sitter’s dimensions in mind. With a mind to subverting convention, designer @AraThorose used the circumference of his thigh as the dimension for the tubular design of 7𝘔 𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘳 pictured below.

Click the link in our bio to read more about Thorose and other Cranbrook Academy of Art graduates in our new 𝘉𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯 post on 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘌𝘺𝘦𝘴 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥: 𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘈𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘚𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 1932:
https://decorativeartstrust.org/cranbrook-retrospective-post.

@cranbrookartmuseum
#DecorativeArts
#MaterialCulture
#ArtHistory
#MuseumFromHome
#Exhibition
#Artist
#Art
#Design
#Furniture
#Chair

IN THE FIELD

Exploring the Charles and Ray Eames House

GRANTS AND SCHOLARSHIPS EMERGING SCHOLARS PROGRAM AND PRIZE

CALENDAR OF EVENTS UPCOMING TRIPS, LECTURES, AND PROGRAMS

ONLINE LEARNING RESEARCH FROM THE FIELD, EXHIBITIONS, BOOK REVIEWS, VIDEOS, AND PUZZLES

BULLETIN CURRENT REPORTS AND HAPPENINGS

On the Water: Salem & the North Shore Fall Symposium

La Dolce Vita in Northern Italy: Genoa, Turin & Milan

Castle Hill Virtual Tour with Susan Hill Dolan

The Arts and Crafts Movement from John Ruskin to William Lightfoot Price

Sabine Hall Virtual Tour with Ralph Harvard

Membership with the Decorative Arts Trust

Collaboration, Partnership, and Support

SIGN UP FOR E-NEWS

Thank you for subscribing!

SIGN UP FOR E-NEWS

You have Successfully Subscribed!