Home » Visual & Performing Arts » Museums » 18th CENTURY MUSEUMS by Mary Haegele

18th CENTURY MUSEUMS by Mary Haegele

© Mary Haegele

Eighteenth Century Museums

by Mary Haegele

Few museums survive from the earliest times. Wars, and looting in particular, have taken their toll of museums of the past.There are some museums however, that have magnificent collections today because of past brilliant curative direction. This article looks at museums from the 18th century or museums that have substantial collections of 18th century artifacts.

The British Museum deserves a mention here. It was founded in 1753 in London and is the oldest, continuous operating museum in existence. Housed in its collections are ten distinct repositories - coins and medals, Egyptian, Japanese, Greek/Roman, Medieval, Oriental, Prehistoric and Western Asiatic antiquities as well as prints and drawings and of course the conservation department. http://www.british.museum.ac.uk

The United Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Canterbury was founded in 1717 and is the oldest grand lodge in the world. Once shrouded in secrecy, the freemasons found that the secrecy surrounding their pledges and rites created mistrust. Since the 1980's, Masons have been very open about most of their rituals and lodge doings. The Kent Masonic library and Museum at St. Peter's Place in Canterbury, Kent tries to dispel prevailing myths about the freemasons. Here you will find stained glass windows from the old Freemasons Hall in London as well as other artifacts and a vast collection of books collected since the 18th century. http://www.btinternet.com/~ckp/library.h...

The first permanent English colony in North America was at Jamestown, Virginia. The National Park Service maintains over one million artifacts from archaeological digs here. These artifacts span the 17th and 18th century. http://www.cr.nps.gov/csd/collections/co...

The largest collection of Limoges porcelain from the 18th century to present times is housed in the Adrien Dubouchen national Porcelain Museum. http://www.ceramique.com

The Vatican Museums (Musee Vatican) are housed at the Vatican in Italy http://www.christusrex.org/www1/vatican/... There are five museums all together as well as various other collections. Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758) was the first pope to organize the Vatican's collection of artifacts. Collecting of artifacts began in the 16th century.

Besides museums that had their origins in the 18th century there are many museums that set aside space for mini collections of certain periods. For example, the Museum of the city of New York has an extensive women's shoes that is representative of the type of shoes worn by upper class women in the 18th century. These shoes are mostly of silk or satin and you can easily see where some of the heel ideas for modern shoes originated.

The National Gallery of Art http://www.hga.gov/collection/srchexpd.h... is an award winning site. If you key in the dates 1700-1799, every artist works in their holdings for this period will be available to you - over thirty paintings.

The copyright of the article 18th CENTURY MUSEUMS by Mary Haegele in Museums is owned by . Permission to republish 18th CENTURY MUSEUMS by Mary Haegele in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.