Fore & Aft – Philadelphia Collects Maritime
2008 Loan Exhibit
Sponsored by:
 
Curated by Independence Seaport Museum
In celebration of The Philadelphia Antiques Show's
move to its new home at The Navy Yard and the City's
rich maritime history, the 2008 Loan Exhibit, curated
by Independence
Seaport Museum, features a never-before-seen
assemblage of maritime art and antiques culled from
public and private collections across the region.
Philadelphia's essential role in America's
maritime history has been quietly preserved through
the centuries by individual citizens and collecting
institutions scattered throughout Philadelphia, areas
inland, and up and down the Delaware River Valley.
The Loan Exhibit brings together, for the first
time, selections from these far-flung collections
that include fine art, sailor-made crafts, industrial
maritime artifacts, and fragments, fixtures and fittings
from historic vessels that have sailed the world.
The artifacts, located, researched, and arranged
by Independence Seaport Museum Curator Craig Bruns,
reveal insights into the seafaring lives of sailors,
captains' roles as cultural and civic heroes,
shipboard experiences of passengers and cargos, commodities
traded via ocean routes around the world, and naval
battle power.
The survey of these public and private collections,
viewed as a single exhibit, endeavors to spark a
remembrance and recognition of Philadelphia's
sometimes forgotten past as a principal colonial
port city, illuminate how deeply the maritime world
reaches into our everyday world, and serve as a reminder
of the wealth of regional maritime material available
for future exhibits.
It also highlights the connections between individual
pieces across disparate collections and how they
come together into a pleasantly surprising cohesive
whole that conveys the story of the Delaware River
and the people who lived and worked along it.
The Loan Exhibit is dedicated to the memory of Independence
Seaport Museum founder J. Welles Henderson (1920-2007),
who appreciated that Philadelphia's maritime history
was central to the founding of the city and the nation
and believed Philadelphia should join the ranks of
other port cities with museums celebrating that maritime
heritage.
For more information, read the loan exhibit articles
from past Shows:
Phila.
Empire Furniture: Bold, Brash, & Beautiful
(2007) |
|
From
the 18th century urban centers of Northern
Europe, a new-founded interest in the architecture
of the cultures of ancient Egypt, Greece, and
Rome began as early as 1750. By the late 18th
and early 19th Century in both Europe and America,
classically inspired architecture was complemented... Read
article • View
PDF |
The Schuylkill Villas (2006) |
|
A villa,
by definition, is “a country estate;
the rural or suburban residence of a wealthy
person.” In Philadelphia, by the early
18th century, a prosperous merchant class had
begun to emerge, gentlemen whose wealth afforded
them a lifestyle that emulated their British
forebears... Read
article • View
PDF |
Vaulting Ambition: Gothic
Revival in Phila, 1830-1860
(2005) |
|
The Gothic
style dominated the architecture of Europe
between 1100 and about 1500 A.D. It was, basically,
an architectural style, wherein the slender
masonry of the walls and the vaults was embellished
with lancet windows, moldings, paneling, tracery,
ribs, leafage, crockets, and pinnacles... Read
article • View
PDF |
Folk Art on Fire (2004) |
|
Philadelphians
living in the second half of the eighteenth
century were accustomed to a life fraught with
physical dangers. Infant mortality approached
30%. Skeletal injuries carried a high rate
of amputation and, before anesthesia or antibiotics,
a 25% risk of death. Yellow fever regularly
killed hundreds of urban dwellers and drove
survivors... Read
article • View
PDF |
Patterns of Pride: Historical
Blue Staffordshire (2003) |
|
One of the
most interesting categories of American antiques
is historical Staffordshire china, produced
exclusively by English potters from 1820 to
1850 in the district of Staffordshire, northwest
of London, for the American trade... Read
article • View
PDF |
This Glorious House
- Stenton (2002) |
|
Stenton,
the country house of James Logan (1674-1751),
is one of the finest historic house museums in
the Philadelphia region. Administered by the
Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania since 1899, it is celebrated
for its distinguished architecture and collections. Learn
more... |
Needlework Treasures (2001) |
|
The
Philadelphia Museum of Art, from its beginnings
during the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, has
become a preeminent international arts institution,
with impressive collections in a multiplicity
of media. In honor of the Museum's 125th anniversary,
the 2001 loan exhibition features rare and unusual
American and European needlework. Learn
more... |
It's About Time
(2000) |
A
Millennium is in essence a celebration of the
passage of time, which has been calculated
and recorded in a thousand ways in as many
years. Within that period, we have come from
natural means (sun, wind, sand, and water),
to marvelous man-made mechanical devices, and
back to elemental forces. Learn
more... |
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