: Colonial Williamsburg will loan several objects from its
extensive museum collections to the Missouri Historical Society
in St Louis for display in "The National Lewis & Clark
Bicentennial Exhibition." This monumental three-year exhibition
will focus on the Nineteenth Century transcontinental journey of
American discovers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
Objects on loan from Colonial Williamsburg are representative of
items Lewis and Clark took with them on their expedition. The
explorers used numerous tools such as chisels, a whetstone and a
drawknife on their journey as well as a violin for entertainment.
A corn grinder, kettle, a vice and a pair of needlework scissors
were used for trade.
This traveling exhibition can be seen at five venues: the
Missouri Historical Society, St Louis, January 1 to September 6,
2004; Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, November 6, 2004
to March 5, 2005; Denver Museum of Nature and Science, May 6 to
September 22, 2005; Oregon Historical Society, Portland, November
11, 2005 to March 11, 2006; and the National Museum of Natural
History, Washington, D.C., May 12 to September 11, 2006.
The Library of Congress is assembling objects for its own
exhibition on Lewis and Clark, entitled "Rivers, Edens, Empires:
Lewis and Clark and the Revealing of America," July 24 to
November 29, in Washington, D.C. Colonial Williamsburg is loaning
the corn grinder for this display prior to sending it to
Missouri.
Additional objects have been requested for display in museums
across the country. Colonial Williamsburg will lend four guns to
"Three Centuries of Tradition: The Renaissance of Custom Sporting
Arms in America," a traveling exhibition jointly curated by
Colonial Williamsburg master gunsmith Wallace Gusler and Mark
Silver, an independent gunsmith from Michigan.
Loaned objects from Colonial Williamsburg will include a
high-quality German Jaeger rifle by Wagner, circa 1723; a
Virginia rifle by John Shetz, circa 1800-10, which is Colonial
Williamsburg's finest example of an American-made gun; and two
fowling weapons - a silver-mounted one hallmarked 1759 by Barbour
of Newark and another by William Hutchenson, circa 1730 - that
were owned by the family of Lord Dunmore, the last Royal Governor
of Virginia.
The exhibition will be at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts July
12 through October 5, after which it will travel to the Museum of
Fine Arts in Houston from January 25 to April 26, 2004, and to
the Connor Prairie Museum, Fishers, Inc, from June 4 to August
29, 2004.
Colonial Williamsburg also will loan an 1829 painted chest to the
Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville for the exhibition,
"The Art of Tennessee." The chest will be on display September 13
to January 18 at the Tennessee State Museum. The piece is of
particular interest because it was found in Greene County, Tenn.
For information, 800-HISTORY or www.Colonial
Williamsburg.org.
