Mementos: Jewelry of Life and Love from Historic New England
Now through January 7, 2018, at the Eustis Estate, Milton, Mass.
You can also explore online exhibitions that showcase the breadth of the Historic New England collection and tell stories of four centuries of life in New England. If you would like to rent one of our exhibitions, there is additional information below.
Now through January 7, 2018, at the Eustis Estate, Milton, Mass.
Now through January 7, 2018, at the Eustis Estate, Milton, Mass.
September 8, 2017, through February 17, 2018, at the Sarah Orne Jewett House Museum and Visitor Center, South Berwick, Maine
Now through October 15 at Governor John Langdon House, Portsmouth, N.H.
Mementos: Jewelry of Life and Love from Historic New England showcases our vast collection of jewelry made and worn in New England from the eighteenth century to today. See authentic items New England’s residents wore and loved. Through original heirlooms and stories that connect with daily life, find out how New Englanders use jewelry to mark important moments. The premiere exhibition at the Eustis Estate in Milton, Massachusetts, is on view from May 17, 2017, to January 7, 2018.
Historic New England appreciates the generous support of the following donors in presenting Mementos: Jewelry of Life and Love from Historic New England: Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Family Foundation, Inc., Dr. Margaret Ruttenberg and Mr. John Ruttenberg and The Derald H. Ruttenberg Foundation, and Mr. and Mrs. Roger T. Servison. Additional support provided by the Felicia Fund and Lee Oestreicher and Alejandra Miranda-Naon.
Learn more and see highlights from Mementos.
The Art of Dining examines how rituals surrounding our relationships to food are at once universal and intimate, have the potential for both community and alienation, and reflect the greater stories of our lives. See installations by regional artists Suzanne Pretty, Julie K. Gray, Adriane Herman, Jo Hatlevig, Tinka Pritchett, Diane Stradling, Rachael Eastman, John David O’Shaughnessy, and Mickey McGarrity. Gray’s Happy Birthday is shown in the gallery above. On view from September 8, 2017, to February 17, 2018, at the Sarah Orne Jewett House Museum and Visitor Center in South Berwick, Maine. Opening Reception: Saturday, September 16, 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. Soup and Baked Goods Event: Friday, November 17, 4:00 – 7:00 p.m.
The Art of Dining exhibition will be closed Friday, October 20-Sunday, October 22, and Friday, October 27- Sunday, October 29, as Sarah Orne Jewett House Museum and Visitor Center will be closed on these dates. Sarah Orne Jewett House Museum and Visitor Center will reopen for winter hours, first and third Saturdays of each month, beginning Saturday, November 4, 2017.
Sea to Shore: Sculpture Inspired by the New England Seacoast features work by members of the New England Sculptors Association (NESA) on view inside and on the grounds of Governor John Langdon House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Lindley Briggs’ Sirena & Consorts in a Sea of Shells is shown in the gallery above. On view from June 2 to October 15, 2017. Join us on first Fridays for Portsmouth’s Art ‘Round Town gallery walk.
The Camera’s CoastThe Camera’s Coast presents seventy images from the Historic New England collection depicting life along the New England coast in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These were years of great social and economic change. Many traditional occupations, from alongshore fishing to shipbuilding to deep-water voyaging, were in decline. As the number of people who could afford vacations grew and improved transportation made it easy for them to flee the city in the summertime, coastal recreation boomed. Boating and yachting blossomed.
Pioneering photographers represented in The Camera’s Coast include Nathaniel L. Stebbins, Henry G. Peabody, Baldwin Coolidge, Emma L. Coleman, and Fred Quimby. Subjects depicted include square-riggers, coasting schooners, fishing vessels and fishing ports, steamships and steamboats, tugs, small boats and large yachts, summer hotels and fishermen’s shacks, beach houses, mansion houses, rusticators, fishermen, seaweed gatherers, lifesavers, and saltmarsh haymakers.
Fee: $2,000 for a three-month period plus one-way shipping.
Lost Gardens of New EnglandLost Gardens of New England draws on the wealth of images – drawings, watercolors, and historic photographs – in Historic New England’s collection. The exhibition uses reproduction material to depict New England gardens, great and small, that no longer exist or only partially survive. Three sections explore major themes of American landscape history: the New Republic, House and Garden Beautiful, and Revival Gardens. Landscape drawings provide insight into how these gardens were conceived and visualized by their creators, either amateur or professional. Photographs capture the gardens and their features in their glory as well as the people who maintained and enjoyed them. The images selected illustrate New England’s rich garden design traditions and offer inspiration to gardeners today.
View our narrated virtual tour of Lost Gardens of New England.
Fee: $2,000 for a three-month period plus one-way shipping.
Mementos: Jewelry from Historic New EnglandThrough heirloom jewels and stories that connect with daily life, Mementos: Jewelry of Life and Love from Historic New England explores how we mark our important moments. See highlights from Historic New England’s extraordinary collection of jewelry made and worn in New England from the seventeenth century to today.
Size: 1,000 square feet, est.
Crates: Six, est.
Shipping: Outgoing
Security: High
Display: Gallery only
Availability: Spring 2018 for twelve-week bookings
The Preservation Movement Then and NowDiscover the history of the preservation movement in New England. This engaging panel exhibition, developed by Historic New England, highlights the unsuccessful effort to save Boston’s Hancock House in 1863, which was the early catalyst for preservation in the region. Learn how the movement evolved to include saving buildings of architectural interest and those associated with historic people and events. The exhibition concludes with an overview of preservation today, which has expanded to include twentieth-century buildings, streetscapes, neighborhoods, and open spaces.
Fee: $2,000 for a three-month period plus one-way shipping.
White on White: Churches of Rural New EnglandWhite on White: Churches of Rural New England presents forty images representing early churches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from photographer Steve Rosenthal. These remarkable small-town, white structures were erected by local builders, joiners, and occasionally by itinerant master carpenters. There were no trained architects or even schools of architecture in America at the time. Their inspiration came from traditional designs and from pattern books. In his photographs, Rosenthal traces the evolution of church styles from the early meetinghouse through the changing patterns of Greek and Gothic revivals.
Rosenthal, a well-known architectural photographer who trained as an architect, has traveled throughout the Northeast capturing what remains of these architectural gems. He began photographing New England Churches in the mid-1960s. The photographs, which appear in this exhibit, are a personal selection taken over the succeeding decades, including images of evocative survivors in the New England landscape.
This exhibit also conveys a preservation story. Several of these churches were restored by their congregations to their original appearance long before the preservation movement took hold in this country. Many others are now threatened by shrinking congregations and high maintenance costs. Some have been damaged by insensitive additions or inappropriate materials. Others have been decommissioned and converted to other uses.
Fee: $3,500 for a three month-period plus one-way shipping.
| Everyone's History | Collection Highlights |
|---|---|
| African American Tourism | Blue Printed Pottery |
| North Shore Fried Clams | Lost Gardens of N.E. |
| Plum Island Aviation | Newbury Furniture |
| Verner Reed Photographs |
