Hey, Look! A Flying Pig!
Posted on March 16, 2009
Filed Under Museums & tours | Leave a Comment
Posted by Sierra
When you think of Colonial Williamsburg, “Revolutionary City,” you probably think, “An art museum? When pigs fly!” Yet that is exactly what I’m going to write about.
When we went to Williamsburg, one of the things we did was go to the Dewitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum/Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum. I took the free audio guide tour. It talked about 16 or so objects in the museum. Here are my notes on some of those objects:
Memory Pot: Memory pots are made of lots of different little trinkets and knickknacks held together by something like cement. Objects on the pot may include thimbles, buttons, and shards of glass.
Blunderbuss: A funny name for a gun, blunderbuss means “thunder gun.” It did best at close range and was loaded with anything from shards of glass to clumps of ground.
Tompion Clock: This clock is special because it was made for King William III. It could run three months without being wound. Other famous owners include King George III and Queen Victoria.
Stamp Act Teapot: Reading “No Stamp Act,” this teapot is a bit like a “bumper sticker” of the 18th century.
Portrait of Deborah Glen: Deborah Glen was from a fairly wealthy family. She married at 18. In the portrait she is wearing clothes that were in fashion at the time.
Room from the Shaw House: Built and lived in by farmer Colonel Alexander Shaw and his wife, Sarah McIntosh Shaw, the house was made to look expensive. Normal wood was painted to look like fancy wood, and the top of the wall is a painted design made to look like wallpaper. Over the fireplace is the in-the-wall painting, “Vue of New York.” (Pictured at the top.)
Face Pitcher: This huge jug with a face is mysterious. It’s too big to have been used to carry water, since it wouldn’t be movable when full. Was it an advertisement for a pottery store? Or a house decoration?
Portrait of George Washington: This full-length portrait was done by Charles Peale. There are only eight copies like this that Peale made, each with a different battlefield as the background.
So those are some of the objects in the art museums of Williamsburg. If you’re ever in the neighborhood, I suggest you stop by.
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