Our Next Event
Phillip Dodd
With new photography from his upcoming book Mansions of The Gilded Age, Phillip James Dodd not only recounts the stories behind these magnificent mansions, but also the fascinating, and sometimes scandalous, lives of those that called them home. From robber barons and social grandames to literary luminaries and circus impresarios; from selfless acts of generosity and philanthropy to family feuds, sham weddings, tragedy on board the RMS Titanic, and accusations of murder.
Click the image for more information
Genevieve Wheeler Brown
Connecting the accounts of women across centuries, Beyond Blue and White crafts a more complete picture of the female experience through the lens of material culture. We meet female Delftware makers, female Delftware patrons and the female collectors beginning in the 19th century who saw the artistry and craft in these ceramics that others had overlooked.
Beyond Blue and White has been named an NPR Here & Now Editors’ Pick!, The Art Newspaper’s Book Bag Selection and recently received glowing reviews by the Magazine ANTIQUES and The Wall Street Journal.
Click the image for more information
Maia Nuku
Curator Maia Nuku, Evelyn A. J. Hall and John A. Friede Curator for Oceanic Art, was born in London and is of English and Maori (Ngai Tai) descent. Her doctoral research focused on early missionary collections of Polynesian gods and their extraordinary materiality, which sparked an interest in drawing out the often eclipsed cosmological aspects of Oceanic art. She followed up her involvement on the major exhibition Pacific Encounters: Art and Divinity in Polynesia 1760–1860 (2006) at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts with postdoctoral research at Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, where she served as part of a research team exploring Oceanic collections in major European institutions—Artefacts of Encounter: 1765–1840 and Pacific Presences: Oceanic Art in European Museums.Click the image for more information
Helen Molesworth
Cartier: the Jeweler of Kings and the King of Jewelers - Zoom Helen Molesworth is a renowned jewellery historian, gemmologist, and best-selling author, whose 25-year career has spanned the global gem and jewellery industry from auction houses to academic posts. Her passion for gems has led her all over the world, including the ruby mines of Burma, the emerald shafts of Colombia, the sapphire beds of Sri Lanka, and salerooms and collections from Paris to New York. For ten years she was a jewellery specialist for Sotheby's and Christie's in London and Geneva, where she researched and managed such sales as the private jewellery collection of HRH The Princess Margaret in 2006. She has since held roles as Professeur d’Histoire du Bijoux at the University of Art and Design in Geneva and as Managing Director of a gemmological Academy across Switzerland and Asia.
She is now the Senior Curator of Jewellery at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and Lead Curator of their blockbuster exhibition, Cartier. She regularly appears in media and broadcasts on all things bling from BBC Radio to Royal Palace Histories. Helen has a degree in Classics from Christ Church, Oxford, is a Fellow of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London. Precious, The History and Mystery of Gems Across Time, was released with Penguin in 2024 and Cartier with V&A Publishing in 2025.
Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen
Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts
Alice Frelinghuysen’s purview includes 18th- to early 20th-century ceramics and glass; furniture of the Gilded Age and Arts & Crafts Movement; and the work of Louis C. Tiffany. In addition to her permanent displays, including oversight of the 2009 Charles Engelhard Court reinstallation, she has curated exhibitions and authored publications on a wide range of topics. Her long-standing work on Tiffany has resulted in many publications, exhibitions, and lectures. She earned her BA from Princeton University, her MA at the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, and was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow before joining the Museum
Barbara Frelinghuysen Israel
Barbara has served as a consultant to both The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution for their collections of nineteenth-century cast iron, and has sold pieces to the Winterthur Museum, the Smithsonian, Mt. Vernon, and the Baltimore Museum of Art, as well as to many important private collectors. Barbara works toward preserving landmark properties and their antique garden ornaments, and is particularly devoted to the restoration efforts of the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy.
Barbara Israel Garden Antiques has been featured in The New York Times, House & Garden, The Robb Report, The Baltimore Sun, and Martha Stewart Living, among others, and has appeared on Good Morning America, Sunday Morning Today, A&E’s The Incurable Collector, and Antiques Roadshow FYI.
Upcoming Events
Phillip Dodd
With new photography from his upcoming book Mansions of The Gilded Age, Phillip James Dodd not only recounts the stories behind these magnificent mansions, but also the fascinating, and sometimes scandalous, lives of those that called them home. From robber barons and social grandames to literary luminaries and circus impresarios; from selfless acts of generosity and philanthropy to family feuds, sham weddings, tragedy on board the RMS Titanic, and accusations of murder.
Click the image for more information
Genevieve Wheeler Brown
Connecting the accounts of women across centuries, Beyond Blue and White crafts a more complete picture of the female experience through the lens of material culture. We meet female Delftware makers, female Delftware patrons and the female collectors beginning in the 19th century who saw the artistry and craft in these ceramics that others had overlooked.
Beyond Blue and White has been named an NPR Here & Now Editors’ Pick!, The Art Newspaper’s Book Bag Selection and recently received glowing reviews by the Magazine ANTIQUES and The Wall Street Journal.
Click the image for more information
Maia Nuku
Curator Maia Nuku, Evelyn A. J. Hall and John A. Friede Curator for Oceanic Art, was born in London and is of English and Maori (Ngai Tai) descent. Her doctoral research focused on early missionary collections of Polynesian gods and their extraordinary materiality, which sparked an interest in drawing out the often eclipsed cosmological aspects of Oceanic art. She followed up her involvement on the major exhibition Pacific Encounters: Art and Divinity in Polynesia 1760–1860 (2006) at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts with postdoctoral research at Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, where she served as part of a research team exploring Oceanic collections in major European institutions—Artefacts of Encounter: 1765–1840 and Pacific Presences: Oceanic Art in European Museums.Click the image for more information
Helen Molesworth
Cartier: the Jeweler of Kings and the King of Jewelers - Zoom Helen Molesworth is a renowned jewellery historian, gemmologist, and best-selling author, whose 25-year career has spanned the global gem and jewellery industry from auction houses to academic posts. Her passion for gems has led her all over the world, including the ruby mines of Burma, the emerald shafts of Colombia, the sapphire beds of Sri Lanka, and salerooms and collections from Paris to New York. For ten years she was a jewellery specialist for Sotheby's and Christie's in London and Geneva, where she researched and managed such sales as the private jewellery collection of HRH The Princess Margaret in 2006. She has since held roles as Professeur d’Histoire du Bijoux at the University of Art and Design in Geneva and as Managing Director of a gemmological Academy across Switzerland and Asia.
She is now the Senior Curator of Jewellery at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and Lead Curator of their blockbuster exhibition, Cartier. She regularly appears in media and broadcasts on all things bling from BBC Radio to Royal Palace Histories. Helen has a degree in Classics from Christ Church, Oxford, is a Fellow of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London. Precious, The History and Mystery of Gems Across Time, was released with Penguin in 2024 and Cartier with V&A Publishing in 2025.
Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen
Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts
Alice Frelinghuysen’s purview includes 18th- to early 20th-century ceramics and glass; furniture of the Gilded Age and Arts & Crafts Movement; and the work of Louis C. Tiffany. In addition to her permanent displays, including oversight of the 2009 Charles Engelhard Court reinstallation, she has curated exhibitions and authored publications on a wide range of topics. Her long-standing work on Tiffany has resulted in many publications, exhibitions, and lectures. She earned her BA from Princeton University, her MA at the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, and was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow before joining the Museum
Barbara Frelinghuysen Israel
Barbara has served as a consultant to both The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution for their collections of nineteenth-century cast iron, and has sold pieces to the Winterthur Museum, the Smithsonian, Mt. Vernon, and the Baltimore Museum of Art, as well as to many important private collectors. Barbara works toward preserving landmark properties and their antique garden ornaments, and is particularly devoted to the restoration efforts of the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy.
Barbara Israel Garden Antiques has been featured in The New York Times, House & Garden, The Robb Report, The Baltimore Sun, and Martha Stewart Living, among others, and has appeared on Good Morning America, Sunday Morning Today, A&E’s The Incurable Collector, and Antiques Roadshow FYI.
Previous Events
This lecture will explore two parallel stories. We will look at the history of a French period room, called the 'French Salon' at the MFA and recent research and scholarship as part of its reconstruction at the museum between 2019-2021.
Click the image for more information
Bonus lecture courtesy of CT Ceramics Circle
Hanns Weinberg (1900-76) fled Germany in 1938 and settled in London, where in 1945 he opened The Antique Porcelain Company – a large shop in New Bond Street that sold carpets, furniture, sculptures, and predominantly porcelain. He became the most important dealer of antique porcelain in England and America in the second half of the twentieth century, with shops opened in New York in 1957 and in Zurich in 1972. The Antique Porcelain Company sold porcelain to every significant collector and to many important museums, from the Getty to the Met and the Louvre. In addition to porcelain, Weinberg also dealt in Renaissance jewels, gold boxes, Chinese jades, French furniture and more. This richly illustrated lecture will discuss some of the most significant objects that passed through Weinberg’s hands and which today are in some of the greatest collections in the world.
Click the image for more information.
Anne Higonnet, the Barbara Novak Professor of Art History at Barnard College, Columbia University. the widely reviewed Liberty, Equality, Fashion; the Women who Styled the French Revolution
Click image for more information
Note Time: 2:00
Drawing on over 40-plus years working with major museums and public and private collections, frame historian and consultant Suzanne Smeaton will share a range of stories of specific frames and interesting 'behind the scenes' details regarding their design, how they were selected, who made the choices, how they were removed or repatriated. Examples include the quiet, unassuming black frame by a known maker that encloses a Rembrandt portrait, an Italian Renaissance frame that went empty for years and ended up enclosing a masterpiece, a frame that was chosen for John Singer Sargent's 'Madame X' and how and why it was selected, frames designed by artists for their own artwork and many more.
Click image to learn more.
Art and science meet in the garden. Plants were perhaps the first object of man’s curiosity, and women have long been at the forefront of that inquiry. Maria Sibylla Merian, who with her daughter left Europe for Suriname in 1699 to study and draw the metamorphosis of insects (and their relationship to their floral habitat), stands at the beginning of a series of women as scholars, artists, patrons and collectors through to the modern era. Using books, prints and watercolors as our guide, we’ll explore how these pioneering women advanced science and art alike to deepen our engagement with the natural world.
Click the image for information
Santi Jewels: Pairing Museum-Worthy Gems with Contemporary Settings - Zoom Meeting
Krishna Choudhary is a tenth-generation jeweler from Jaipur, India.
Krishna Choudhary 2019 opened Santi Jewels, located in a private salon in Mayfair. Santi Jewels is characterized by elegantly understated pieces adorned with dazzling gems and multiple references to Mughal jewelry.
Born in a farmhouse in Wisconsin, Georgia Totto O’Keeffe is celebrated for her paintings of flowers –although factually recorded, they are so large, seen so close up, and so sumptuously colored that they verge on abstraction. She loved the vast American Southwest region where she found solitude as well as inspiration for the colors and picturesque shapes of the rocky landscape depicted in her paintings. Visit the two adobe homes in New Mexico of an artist described as a “loner.” Join Dr. Janetta Rebold Benton for this richly illustrated PowerPoint lecture tracing O’Keeffe’s life story, examining her creative process and sources of inspiration, as well as her complicated relationship with the gallerist and photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
Beginning in the 1930s, a concerted effort began in France to rescue the centuries-old tradition of tapestry-making from economic collapse. This talk charts the revival of tapestry as a compelling modern art medium in France during and after the second world war, consider the trans-Atlantic nature of the revival, and follow the bumpy path towards recognition of tapestry as an original mode of artistic expression – a story still unfolding today.
Beginning in the 1930s, a concerted effort began in France to rescue the centuries-old tradition of tapestry-making from economic collapse. This talk charts the revival of tapestry as a compelling modern art medium in France during and after the second world war, consider the trans-Atlantic nature of the revival, and follow the bumpy path towards recognition of tapestry as an original mode of artistic expression – a story still unfolding today.
H. Richard Dietrich III will discuss decorative arts, showcasing highlights from the Dietrich American Foundation over its history, paying particular attention to furniture and also items related to the China trade, with an exhibition opening in June at the Lyman Allyn Museum of Art in New London, called China from China: Porcelain and Stories of Early American Trade. The foundation was established in 1963 and focuses on 18th and early 19th century American fine and decorative art, with a range of collecting areas, including furniture, silver, ceramics, paintings, books and manuscripts, as well as whale trade related art and artifacts. The foundation works with museums and cultural institutions to support their collections primarily through loans of objects, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art as its closest partner.
Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.
Mellissa Huber, Associate Curator, The Costume Institute, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
This behind-the-scenes look at the recent Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition Women Dressing Women explores the considerable impact of fashion created by and for women tracing a historical and conceptual lineage across over one-hundred years of design. Women’s progress in fashion is charted through the critical premises of Anonymity, Visibility, Agency, and Absence/Omission, celebrating the work of well known, forgotten, and emerging designers alike—all drawn from the incredible permanent collection of The Costume Institute.
Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.
Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Picture: Melissa Huber
James Haag,
Managing Director, Verdura
Fulco di Verdura, a Sicilian Duke, will forever be associated with Coco Chanel, Cole Porter, Greta Garbo, Babe Paley, Tallulah Bankhead, and scores of legendary twentieth-century women who preferred style over status.
The presentation will trace Verdura’s design legacy from turn-of-the-century Sicily and 1920s Paris to 1930s Hollywood and the unfolding café society style revolution in 1940s and 1950s New York.
Verdura’s women of style will be profiled, as well as the enduring mark his work has left on modern fine jewelry design.
As a special treat, Jim will provide an intimate glimpse into Verdura’s role in the styling of the television show, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, for which they loaned over 100 iconic pieces, including vintage jewelry owned by the original swans.
Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.
Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Picture:VINTAGE GOLD AND DIAMOND "FEATHER HEADDRESS" TIARA
VERDURA, 1957
Verdura Museum Collection
Yellow gold and platinum tiara designed as a feather headdress, composed of 36 leaves, half diamond with gold veins and have gold with diamond veins, set with 1,223 diamonds.
Dr Rebecca Tilles, Senior Project Manager of Exhibitions at L'Ecole School of Jewelry Arts
Lecture on Zoom
Guests Welcome: There is no charge for lectures on zoom.
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Marjorie Merriweather Post in her Icon Room at Tregaron, Washington, D.C., 1950
Philip Hook, Board Member and Senior Director of Impressionist & Modern art in Sotheby’s London
Philip Hook takes the lid off the world of art dealing to reveal the brilliance, cunning, greed and daring of its practitioners. In a richly anecdotal narrative he describes the rise and occasional fall of the extraordinary men and women who over the centuries have made it their business to sell art to kings, merchants, nobles, entrepreneurs and museums.
From its beginnings in Antwerp, where paintings were sometimes sold by weight, to the rich hauteur of the contemporary gallery in London, Paris and New York, art dealing has been about identifying what is intangible but infinitely desirable, and then finding clients for whom it is irresistible. Those who have purveyed art for a living range from tailors, spies and the occasional anarchist to scholars, aristocrats, merchants and connoisseurs, each variously motivated by greed, belief in their own vision of art and its history, or simply the will to win.
Guests Welcome: There is no charge for lectures on zoom.
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Lecture on Zoom
Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com
Philip D Zimmerman, Author, Museum and Decorative Arts Consultant
An interest in early American furniture--has been constant throughout my career. My book on the furniture and other collections of two important houses (1771 and 1774) owned by the Historic Odessa Foundation in Odessa, Delaware. Each house retains many original furnishings and was actively preserved at a very early date. The resulting connections between objects and interpretive possibilities are extraordinary and have already spawned several smaller publications. Other furniture topics, notably the work of William Savery of Philadelphia, occupy my time and energy.
Afternoon tea will be served after the lecture.
Guests Welcome: Guest Fee $30 (guest fees can be paid online please click here)
Reservations: Greenwichdecorativearts@gmail.com