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January 18, 2024
Wednesday Lectures Begin January 24
Beth Carver Wees, Curator Emerita of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Sheila Smithie, Fellow of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain, kick off the 2024 lectures at the Morse. On Wednesday, January 24 at 2:30 p.m., Wees and Smithie will give a talk titled "Marcus & Co.: A New York Jeweler in the Victorian Era.” The story of Marcus & Co. begins with the rich aesthetic of the Victorian landscape. Herman Marcus (1828–99) trained in Dresden under a court jeweler during the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, personally delivering bespoke jewelry to the young queen and her husband, Prince Albert. Marcus emigrated to the United States in the 1850s and established himself as a jeweler in New York City. The lecture, free and open to the public, takes place in the McKean Pavilion, 161 West Canton Avenue (just behind the Museum).
On January 24, Beth Carver Wees and Sheila Smithie lecture on Marcus & Co.—pictured above is a brooch by the jeweler.
Films Return February 2
In February, join us for the 2024 Winter Friday Film Series: The (Other) History of Britain. This season we will time travel through 500 years of scandals, executions, and turmoil with our comical host Tony Robinson to learn about those who weren’t necessarily making the headlines: the commoners. On February 2, we will visit the Tudors; February 9, the Victorians; February 16, the Georgians; and on February 23, we will conclude with the World War II generation. The films are free to the public and held in the McKean Pavilion, 161 West Canton Avenue (just behind the Museum). Doors open at 11:30 a.m. and the films begin at noon. Books related to the film series are available at the Winter Park Library.
Shelf clock, c. 1900
Glazed earthenware
Wileman & Co., The Foley Potteries, Fenton, Stoke-on-Trent, England, 1860–1966
Designer: Frederick Alfred Rhead, English, 1856–1933
13 5/8 x 5 x 2 3/4 in.
(PO-055-67)
Shop Introduces Limited Release Miniature Lamp
Inspired by Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Peony design lampshade and the O’Brien design base, the miniature Tiffany lamp reproduction stands 4 1/2 inches tall. Flawlessly packed in a small Tiffany Studios-inspired wooden crate, this enamel and resin ornament is the perfect start to an unrivalled collection of miniatures from the Morse Museum. The lamp reproduction, sculpted with a profusion of peonies, may be displayed as a miniature, or hung as an ornament. Preorder today by contacting the Museum Shop at 407-645-5311 ext. 121 or museumshop@morsemuseum.org. Pick up available on or after Monday, February 12. Shipping is available.
Start a collection of miniature Tiffany lamp reproductions from the Morse Museum.
FROM THE COLLECTION
The Yankee Peddler, 1851
Oil on canvas
William Tolman Carlton, American, 1816–88
36 1/4 x 46 3/4 in.
(2023-007)
Boston portraitist and genre painter William Tolman Carlton studied in Europe prior to 1840 and was, by then, already exhibiting paintings at the Boston Athenaeum. By the 1850s, the Yankee peddler was a near-ubiquitous motif in American culture, and Carlton’s genre painting, on view in Fascinating Clutter: American Taste during the Reign of Victoria, is playfully representative. Here, a peddler sits atop an opened horse cart before a rustic house on a village’s outskirts. He extends a key to a woman who, hand on her cheek and smiling at the viewer, appears pleased with the bevy of goods. To the right, two men engage in happy labor while at left, children pass a newspaper and an unfolded sheet of cloth to delighted elders in the thresholds of the home. Richly colored and replete with visual relays and topical allusions, Carlton’s painting also serves as an illustrative artifact of America’s market revolution—the time in which domestic homemakers and laborers became consumers of a growing variety of ready-made commodities that transformed life, labor, and desires in Victorian America.
The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art
445 N. Park Ave. | Winter Park, FL | 32789
