Belmont | |
Location | 224 Washington Street, Falmouth, Virginia |
---|---|
Coordinates | 38°19′30.1″N77°28′22.5″W / 38.325028°N 77.472917°W |
Area | 27 acres (11 ha) |
Built | 18th century |
Architect | John Dixon |
Part of | Falmouth Historic District (ID70000825) |
NRHP reference No. | 66000848 |
VLR No. | 089-0022 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 [1] |
Designated NHLD | December 21, 1965 [2] |
Designated CP | February 26, 1970 |
Designated VLR | September 9, 1969 [3] |
Gari Melchers Home and Studio, also known as Belmont, is a National Historic Landmark and historic house museum at 224 Washington Street in Falmouth, Virginia. This much-altered 18th-century house was the home and studio of the popular American artist Gari Melchers (1860–1932) from 1916 until his death. It was given to the state of Virginia by his widow, and is now administered by the University of Mary Washington. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965, commemorating Melchers' influential role in bringing American art to European attention. [2] [4]
Gari Melchers Home and Studio is located just west of the center of Falmouth, on the south side of Business United States Route 17. The property is 27 acres (11 ha), roughly bisected by County Road 1001, which provides access to the main house. The house is a two-story wood-frame structure, its main block five bays wide, with a two-story ell extending it to the left, and a polygon-sided sunroom to the right. The oldest part of the house was built sometime in the mid-to-late 18th century, and achieved much of its present form during the ownership of the Ficklen family, which owned it from 1825 to 1916. In that year it was purchased by Gari Melchers and his wife Corinne, both artists, for $12,000 [5] ($208,000 in 2021 [6] ). The stone studio building on the grounds, and a stone garage, both date to the period of the Melchers' ownership, and the summer house was added by Mrs. Melchers sometime after her husband's death in 1932. [4] After she died in 1955, Mrs. Melchers bequeathed the property to the state; it includes most of the couple's possessions in the house. [7]
Gari Melchers was a popular, if not particularly innovative, painter, who was trained in Europe. In 1882 one of his paintings was accepted by the Salon of Paris, the most prestigious art exhibition of the period. Gari and Corinne Melchers settled at Belmont in 1916. His best known works include the murals depicting War and Peace in the rotunda of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Melchers' work contributed to a general increase of interest in the fine arts in the United States. [4]
Unlike most historic homes in the commonwealth of Virginia, it is not furnished with antiques that correspond to the house's origins. Rather, it is a snapshot of the international tastes and lifestyle of a famous artist, and is fully furnished with the unusual European antiques and objects Melchers and his wife collected. [5] It is also an art museum with about 1,600 works of art, about 500 of which are Melchers’ paintings. Other works of art include his sketches and studies, works by other artists he collected, and paintings by his wife. [5]
Belmont may refer to:
Eanger Irving Couse was an American artist and a founding member and first president of the Taos Society of Artists. Born and reared in Saginaw, Michigan, he went to New York City and Paris to study art. While spending summers in Taos, New Mexico, he began to make the paintings of Native Americans, New Mexico, and the American Southwest for which he is best known. He later settled full time in Taos.
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Julius Theodore Melchers (1829–1908) was a German born American sculptor and teacher who immigrated to the United States leaving Prussia after 1848 and resided in Detroit, Michigan after 1855. During the Gilded Age, he became a "sculptor of great renown in the Detroit area." The Julius T. Melchers House (1897) by Donaldson and Meier is located at 723 Seyburn, in the Indian Village Historic District on which Julius carved the ornate gable. The likelihood that Melchers left Europe, as did so many other in and after the turbulent year of 1848 for political reasons is somewhat supported that he named his son after the famous Italian patriot and revolutionary Garibaldi.
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Falmouth Historic District is a national historic district located at Falmouth, Stafford County, Virginia. The district includes 29 contributing buildings in the historic core of the town of Falmouth. Notable buildings include Basil Gordon Warehouse, Customs House, the Double House, Highway Assembly of God Church, old Post Office, Calvary Pentecostal Tabernacle, the Tavern, Tavern Keeper's House, Union Methodist Church, Master Hobby School, and the Counting House. Located in the district are the separately listed Gari Melchers Home, Carlton, Clearview and Conway House.
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Pinkney Near was the curator of the Cincinnati Museum of Art and afterward the curator of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for thirty years. He was responsible for the VMFA's acquisition of many treasured works of art, including arranging for the museum to purchase from John Lee Pratt the Francisco Goya portrait of General Nicolas Guye and from the collection of Count Karol Lanckoroński of Vienna, Austria, a rare marble sarcophagus dating to the 2nd century B.C. The Guye portrait was long believed to be the most valuable single work of art in the VMFA's collection. The Goya portrait of General Guye is on view prominently in the posthumously created Pinkney Near Gallery at the VMFA.
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