Item of the Week: The Norfolk Mace - January 27, 1926

If you’ve visited the Museum on a weekday morning, there’s a good chance that you encountered a school group on tour. Guided by able docents, children of all ages regularly fill the galleries with the hum of excited young voices. One stop on some school tours is the Norfolk Mace, an impressive historic item that many visitors remember long after their first visit to the Chrysler Museum. Recently, while doing some research in the archives, we came across this image from January 27, 1926 when “Children’s Day” brought record numbers of parents, teachers and children to an exhibition at the then Norfolk Art Museum. Note the two Norfolk Police Officers watching over the Mace. As a February 23, 1926 letter [below] from City Manager I. Walke Truxton reveals, at this time, the Mace was stored in a vault at the Norfolk National Bank. Whenever it left the bank police guard was required to go with it. Eighty-four years later, school children are still visiting the Mace here at the Museum. You can find more information about the Norfolk Mace here or by stopping by the Library.

Thanks for a Wonderful Saturday Afternoon !

Special thanks to everyone who attended last Saturday's Workshop in the Library. We certainly enjoyed discussing the Library's resources and learning a bit about the many interesting items being researched. Unable to attend but still want to learn how to get started with your research? Keep an eye on the blog for future workshops or stop by the Library for more information.

Are you ready for some research?

There's still time to join us tomorrow,  Saturday January 23, 2010 at 1 p.m. in the Library
for an introduction to using the Jean Outland Chrysler Library’s resources to investigate mystery items in your personal collection. This workshop is free for Friends of the Library, and only $5.00 for others. We look forward to seeing you there!

New and Notable for 2010

The Jean Outland Chrysler Library is off to a great start this year! We are displaying collections of children’s books and new items near the door to grab the attention of our patrons. The reading room has a fresh coat of paint and we’re working to integrate the generous donations received in the last few months into our collection. We were very happy to have several visits from past interns over the holidays. In the very near future, we will be changing out the rest of our wall displays in order to reflect the coming shows in the galleries. On the 23rd of January, Laura will be hosting the Friends of the Jean Outland Chrysler Library Research Workshop to help our friends learn how to identify and care for their objects at home. If you haven’t been by in a while, we’d love to see you.

Library Assistant Sara Mason

This year in art...

2010 is going to be a big year in the art world. The British Museum opened its doors 251 years ago today. This year marks the 75th Anniversary of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Columbia Museum of Art celebrates its 60th Anniversary. The Galleria Borghese in Rome will be showing Caravaggio and Francis Bacon in concert. The National Portrait Gallery in London will be showing the work of Irving Penn. The da Vinci masterpiece La Bella Principessa will be shown at the Eriksbergshallen complex in Sweden. The long-awaited Maxxi Museum opens in Rome in April. The wardrobe of actress Grace Kelly will be shown at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Picasso is being shown at the Tate, Liverpool, while Gauguin will be shown at the Tate Modern.

This is also a year in which we remember our art history: In 410 Rome was sacked by Visigoths led by Alaric I, destroying much cultural heritage to that point. It has been 500 years since the death of Giorgione, and 350 years since the death of Diego Velázquez. In England 150 years ago, Sydney Paget, illustrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories in The Strand magazine, was born and the British Association met at Oxford University Museum. It has been 100 years since the death of author Samuel Clements, French naïve painter Henri Rousseau and American painter Winslow Homer. It is also 100 years since the birth of architect Richard Seifert, painter Rodrigo Moynihan and art historian Sir Denis Mahon.

Are you curious about up-coming exhibitions world-wide? Did you resolve to bone up on your art history in 2010? Stop by the Jean Outland Chrysler Library and see what we have to offer on your topic of interest.

Library Assistant Sara Mason

My Fall Internship at the Jean Outland Chrysler Library

This Fall we were very pleased to welcome Sarah Fowler, a senior at Old Dominion University , as a Library Intern.  Sarah assisted with a number of projects in the Library. We'll certainly miss her, but you can look forward to reading some of her observations about the Library on this blog in the coming weeks. Here's what she had to say about some of the projects she completed:

"I have been working on a wide variety of projects while interning at the library. I began by working with the books that were in need of conserving. I had to go through a large stack of books and piece together those that had fallen apart. From there I had to try to identify the books. This was challenging because many of the books were in other languages like German or French. My next step was to wrap them in acid free paper and then to search for them in the library’s catalogue. I enjoyed this project because I am interested in conservation.

My favorite project involved a box of old photographs. For this project, I had to go through a box of photographs and try to determine the date on which they were taken and who was in the photograph. The box I was working on contained a collection of photographs from the 1950’s of a meeting of NATO in Norfolk. There were also hundreds of photographs from the collection of W.L. Parker who was a former director of the Board of Trustees for the Chrysler Museum. The subject of these photographs was often historical places and landmarks. For example, he took many photos of Colonial Williamsburg and the campus of the University of Virginia. This was my favorite project because after opening an ordinary box I got to discover a lot of interesting photographs and learn a little about who took them and why."

 - Sarah Fowler, Fall 2009 Jean Outland Chrysler Library Intern

Coming Soon... Art, Books, Wine and Cheese

 In the mood for a lively discussion about a good book? Mark you calendar for the first  meeting of Art, Books, Wine and Cheese on Wednesday, February 17 at 6:30 in the Gifford Room. Art, Books, Wine and Cheese is the new Chrysler Museum book discussion group. Please join us each one Wednesday each month to for great book discussions and light refreshments.

The first book will be Mark Doty’s Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, a poetic meditation on a painting. Keep an eye on the blog for future selections!

Free for Chrysler Museum members and $5 for non-members. For more information, please call (757) 333-6268.

Coming Soon... Library Workshop January 23, 2010