Survey for Collection Managers and Registrars about Developing a Preventive Conservation Major at Winterthur

As collection managers and registrars, we are charged with a wide array of responsibilities in administrating the balance between preservation and access for collections. Preventive conservation has grown expansively since the 1980s. With it came new technologies, new procedures, and … Continue reading

Crossing Wright’s Ferry on the Susquehanna, 1787

If this post already sounds familiar, see my post on the 1811-13 watercolor by Secretary to the Russian Consul-General Pavel Petrovich Svinin (MMA 42.95.37) of crossing Wright’s Ferry, near Columbia, Pennsylvania. While at Winterthur this summer for a research fellowship, I … Continue reading

A Philadelphia Servant, 1787

  A pie lays broken in the street, a distraught servant teased by the chimney sweeps who caused her to drop it. She’s likely on her way back from the bakery to which her mistress sent the pie to be … Continue reading

Catering to Clients in an 18th Century Philadelphia Shop

I spent July at a Research Fellowship at Winterthur Museum, Library, and Garden. This mainly meant identifying manuscripts and object collections that might have something to tell me about my research topic: working women’s dress, as illuminated through the study … Continue reading

Transportation Tuesday: Winterthur’s Train Station

You had to know that the DuPonts would have had their own train station for their 2400-acre estate outside of Wilmington, DE. I’m living at Winterthur for the month while participating in a preventive conservation exchange and researching how 18th … Continue reading

Museum Monday – Working at Winterthur

I’m in residence at Winterthur Museum, Library, and Garden working on my 18th century runaway project and participating in a preventive conservation exchange. I’m extremely grateful to have this time to focus on my projects and to work with the … Continue reading

Museum Monday: Developing Staff Resources for Managing Collections

My colleague and friend Rob Waller of Protect Heritage Corp. recently sent me a book he collaborated on in 1996, Developing Staff Resources for Managing Collections. It examines institutional responsibilities to protect its collections through development of staff and how … Continue reading

Fun with Fraktur – Women’s Dress in a Drawing from Winterthur Museum

I’m not a Pennsylvanian German scholar, but I love considering the depiction of 18th century dress in the ebullient art form of fraktur. What is real? What is fancy? Can we trust depictions of women when they hold gargantuan sprigs … Continue reading

Having Dinner with Robert Jocelyn

I’ll have the Scollop of Oysters, hartychokes, cold lobster, and olive pudding! Winterthur has in their collections the Dinner Book of Robert Jocelyn, First Viscount of Jocelyn and one time Lord Chancellor of Ireland. The book includes drawings of his … Continue reading