Shelburne Museum

Shelburne Museum is one of the nation's finest, most diverse, and unconventional museums of art and Americana. Over 150,000 works are exhibited in a remarkable setting of 39 exhibition buildings, 25 of which are historic and were relocated to the Museum grounds.

Impressionist paintings, folk art, quilts and textiles, decorative arts, furniture, American paintings, and a dazzling array of 17th-to 20th-century artifacts are on view. Shelburne is home to the finest museum collections of 19th-century American folk art, quilts, 19th- and 20th-century decoys, and carriages.

Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960) was a pioneering collector of American folk art and founded Shelburne Museum in 1947. The daughter of H.O. and Louisine Havemeyer, important collectors of European and Asian art, she exercised an independent eye and passion for art, artifacts, and architecture celebrating a distinctly American aesthetic.

When creating the Museum she took the imaginative step of collecting 18th- and 19th-century buildings from New England and New York in which to display the Museum's holdings, relocating 20 historic structures to Shelburne. These include houses, barns, a meeting house, a one-room schoolhouse, a lighthouse, a jail, a general store, a covered bridge, and the 220-foot steamboat Ticonderoga.

In Shelburne Mrs. Webb sought to create "an educational project, varied and alive." What visitors experience at Shelburne is unique: remarkable collections exhibited in a village-like setting of historic New England architecture, accented by a landscape that includes over 400 lilacs, a circular formal garden, herb and heirloom vegetable gardens, and perennial gardens.

It is located in the town of Shelburne, in the U.S. state of Vermont.

History

The museum's collection was begun by Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888–1960), one of the first people to recognize the applied and decorative arts of rural America as collectible. Webb was a collector of American folk art who founded the Museum in 1947. She took the step of relocating historic buildings from New England and New York to Shelburne, Vermont in which to display the Museum's holdings.

Collections

The various authentic New England and New York buildings include houses, barns, a meeting house, a schoolhouse, a lighthouse, a jail, a general store, the reconstructed doctor's office of noted Vermont physician D. C. Jarvis, a covered bridge, and the 220-foot steamboat Ticonderoga, which is a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Over 150,000 art works are exhibited in a setting of 39 exhibition buildings, 25 of which were relocated to the museum grounds. Though having a strong focus on early American and rural work, collection is broad and includes Impressionism, folk art, quilts, textiles, decorative arts, furniture, American paintings, and artifacts.

Buildings

• 1950s House
• Apothecary Shop
• Beach Lodge and Gallery
• Blacksmith Shop
• Circus Building
• Covered Bridge
• Dorset House
• Dutton House
• Electra Havemeyer Webb Memorial Building
• General Store
• Hat and Fragrance Textile Gallery
• Horsehoe Barn and Annex
• Jail
• Kalkin House
• Lighthouse
• Meeting House
• Pleissner Gallery
• Prentis House
• Printing Shop
• Rail Car Grand Isle
• Rail Locomotive
• Railroad Station and Freight Shed
• Round Barn
• Schoolhouse
• Settlers
• Shaker Shed
• Stagecoach Inn
• Stencil House
• Stone Cottage
• Ticonderoga (steamboat)
• Toy Shop
• Variety Unit
• Vermont House
• Weaving Shop
• Webb Gallery

Images

• 
  Ticonderoga Steamboat, built in 1906
• 
  Colchester Reef Light, built in 1871

See also

• List of Vermont museums
• J. Watson Webb, Jr.

External links

• Shelburne Museum website.
• The Influences Behind the Shelburne Museum at Saint Michael's College.
• "Electra's Cultural Jewel at Shelburne Museum" in Vermont Woman Magazine, by Heather Michod, 2004.
• 'Collector's gene' yields a trove of Americana: Electra Webb made Shelburne Museum her monument in The Boston Globe, By Sonja Hakala, September 12, 2004.