NEW RESEARCH
In addition to the Decorative Arts Trust’s support of scholarship through the Emerging Scholars Program, we eagerly promote the research, exhibitions, and projects undertaken by colleagues at museums around the country in our member magazine, The Magazine of the Decorative Arts Trust. We invite you to enjoy the online versions of magazine articles featured below.
See more stories about recent research in The Decorative Arts Trust Bulletin.
Portraiture and Meaning: Studying 18th- and 19th-Century Painting at the Smithsonian
BY PATRICK JACKSON
My research at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) centered around a portrait of the Onondaga Iroquois chief Ossahinta by the Syracuse, NY, painter Sanford Thayer.
Ceramics and the Environment in the Late-Twentieth-Century American West
EMERGING SCHOLARS > SUMMER RESEARCH GRANTS by Matthew Limb, PhD. Candidate, University of California, Santa Barbara In the summer of 1974, Studio...
Harriet Joor: Artist of Newcomb Pottery and Designer of the Arts and Crafts Movement
During nearly 50 years of operations, perhaps no other designer would come to more fully embody the aims of Newcomb Pottery than Harriet Coulter Joor (1875–1965). A talented and influential artist during her Newcomb years, Joor eventually established a successful independent career as an art instructor, professor, and freelance designer of ceramics and home furnishing textiles.
Buying and Selling Philadelphia: The Story of the Legendary 1929 Reifsnyder Sale
BY EMELIE GEVALT
In the spring of 1929, just months before the stock market crash that would plunge the country into the Great Depression, the American antiques market surged to an astonishing peak with the sale of the Howard Reifsnyder collection.
Chasing Southern Dreams: Two Gentleman Silversmiths in New Orleans
BY LYDIA BLACKMORE
A SOUTHERN SILVER PITCHER RECENTLY ACQUIRED by The Historic New Orleans Collection represents the artistry, skill, and assimilation of two German craftsmen in the Crescent City less than a decade before the Civil War
The Kneeland and Adams Shop Research Project
By CHRISTINE RITOK & KEVIN G. FERRIGNO
The Decorative Arts Trust recently awarded a research grant to Historic Deerfield in support of a project focused on the 270-page ledger kept by Hartford, CT, cabinetmaker Lemuel Adams (1769–1850). Furniture historian Kevin G. Ferrigno discovered the ledger at the University of Miami (FL). The document provides an unprecedented record of the cabinetmaking business in Hartford during the 1790s…
Savannah’s Green-Meldrim House Acquires Important Family Collection
By TANIA JUNE SAMMONS
Collectively, the assemblage of objects and manuscripts—the Norris ledger, furniture, ceramics, silver, family photographs, and other archival materials—tell a local, national, and international story that enrich our shared understanding of the past and elevates the Green-Meldrim House to one of the most well-documented mid-19th-century dwellings in the country.
George and Martha Reunited
By TONY INSON
I have a passion for collecting early-19th-century Americana in the classical taste. My interests include furniture, silver, and glass, but the one area in which my collection is particularly focused is French porcelain produced for the American market.
New Research on the Tudor Place Tableau
By GRANT QUERTERMOUS,
Curator, Tudor Place Historic House & Garden
Among the most fascinating objects found in the collection of Tudor Place in Washington, DC, is an 18th-century wax and shellwork tableau handcrafted by Samuel Fraunces as a gift for Martha Washington.
Trust Grant Underwrites Conservation of Winchester Clock
By A. NICHOLAS POWERS,
Curator of Collections, Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Earlier this fall, the Decorative Arts Trust followed settlers down the Great Wagon Road to explore the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. In addition to the marks the Valley’s decorative arts indelibly made on Trust participants, the Trust’s generosity will, in turn, have a lasting impact on the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley’s growing collection of regional decorative arts.