Richmond, Virginia is a town with a very complicated history and since neither of us had spent any time there we weren’t sure what we would find. Turns out it is one of those smaller cities that looks much like many others we have seen in our travel. The big difference is Richmond, VA was the home of the confederacy and there are LOTS of Civil war confederate memorials everywhere. By choice we decided to skip those and instead we went to visit the Art Museum.
Richmond has it’s own museum district and many of those museums are free. The big draw for me though was this particular museum has a Faberge collection and I absolutely love Faberge anything. Turned out to be a great choice because for a smallish town they had an excellent and varied collection. The museum was 100% masks and since we went early the crowds were very small. Plus did I mention free 🙂 Here is a pictorial tour of what we saw and although I didn’t include everything it will give you a feel for what they have. I really enjoyed it.
Outside of the museum
Right across the street from a well to do neighborhood
Interior…It is a bit of a maze and easy to miss a section if you don’t use the map
The Asian sections were broken up by country which I appreciated. Many of the sections were from private collections that had been donated over the years. Others were loans from different museums, which I also thought was pretty cool.
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Loved this bath…took up an entire room
Lee only got in trouble once for getting too close to the exhibits 🙂
This is a super cool sculpture of a chariot pulled by 7 horses. Love the way they made that work. It’s amazing this survived to present day.
The layout is in chronological order, but I say roughly because it was definitely not a straight line from one room to another. Still we started with the oldest and as much as possible worked our way up through history.
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I found this statue particularly interesting. It was a saint who had his head chopped off. I don’t think I have ever seen a statue that was holding his own head like this.
When we hit the Faberge section I was thrilled. All the items came from one person’s collection and although the five eggs were definitely the star there were tons of examples of other types of work. That was just as interesting and this area (for me) was worth the visit.
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The eggs all had their own special cases
The detail on the eggs was extraordinary and not really captured by the pictures although Lee did his best. This one was devoted to the Red Cross.
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The inside piece is taken out and displayed in the next picture
This was my favorite
The small paintings that rotated were stunning.
Along with the eggs there were small figurines, religious icons and even furniture. I spent a ton of time in this area.
One of the rare pieces of furniture made
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This is a caviar serving platter
Across from the Faberge area was a silver area. I didn’t find this nearly as impressive although I did like a couple of items.
These salt holders were really cool
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I loved loved this painting
Lee loved this one
I loved this picture. It is supposed to represent a good marriage and the various things in the picture stand for a variety of temptations
This was my absolute favorite though. Again the picture does not come close to showing the delicacy of the rainbow at the bottom of the falls
They had a mummy and keeping in mind how I felt about the skeleton at Jamestown I didn’t stay and gawk much
Here’s the reproduction of the head. This is an odd thing they are doing now.
There was a large African and Columbian art section as well.
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This is a death mask. I really liked how she is smiling in it. Really spoke to me
And I loved these woven foot covers. I own a pair of socks that looks kind of like this
Neither one of us really liked the modern art section that much
Although this Andy Warhol was pretty cool
And I really liked this picture
Most of it was just kind of weird though like this. Seriously. I just don’t get it.
We both loved the Art Deco section though.
One of the most interesting things was a bedroom of a person who was born in Richmond and moved to New York. It was the complete bedroom and very opulent
This couch was amazing
This chair made me do a double take, which is weird because it’s just a chair. But its also a Frank Lloyd-Wright which is why he is so amazing.
But the stain glass window was spectacular
Oh and this desk. Never seem anything quite like that before.
I am really glad we had a chance to go here because the rest of our time in Richmond was not so great. Next up Thanksgiving, and seeing Kat and Bert!
One final note, the winner of our annual calendar was Cindy. She wrote an absolutely lovely email about the impact our blog has had on her and it meant so much to both of us. For the record she won because she was the first to reply, but her email was really lovely and much appreciated. Good luck on your journey Cindy and we hope to see you down the road!
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So happy to see you guys taking the time to “smell the roses”…it’s like we all get to go along for a terrific ride!!!
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Richmond artist
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So glad that you discovered Richmond’s jewel of a museum! The portrait of the young woman is also one of my favorites. Thanks for highlighting so many items that I have not seen, despite growing up in the same city with this museum.