Slideshow

November 20, 2007 through January 6, 2008
Experience for yourself what noted American novelist Henry James meant when he proclaimed Hill-Stead “an exquisite palace of peace, light and harmony." Enjoy a rare glimpse into the holiday environment of a well-to-do New England family at the turn-of-the-20th-century. View dozens of rarely exhibited decorative art objects, books, prints and photographs from the Alfred Atmore Pope collection, exhibited among original furnishings. Admire the dining room table elaborately set with such items as an English dinner service, cut crystal, gold candelabras and a yellow jasperware Wedgewood tea set. The Pope collection of English lusterware pitchers and select pieces of silver tableware, usually stored in locked cabinets, may also be on view. You are likely to spot a punch bowl in the Drawing Room and a fireside game of checkers in progress. Decorative swags festoon the mantles and green wreaths accent 42 interior windows. Gifts sealed with wax, straight pins and stamps peek out from beneath the boughs of ornamented evergreen trees. Personal Pope family items and postcards from museum archives are displayed on bedside tables, and evening frocks from Theodate Pope Riddle’s closet are laid out on canopied beds, as if ready to be worn by ladies of the house.