Victoria Mansion

Purpose: Sustaining Cultural Heritage Victoria Mansion's furnishings comprise one of the most important collections of mid-nineteenth-century decorative arts and design in the nation. They represent more than 90 percent of the original contents of the house and include furniture by the renowned New York designer Gustave Herter. The mansion itself is also uniquely important as Herter's earliest and only commission in the United States. The museum has benefited for almost 20 years from the services of a professional curator, formerly of Winterthur Museum, working as a volunteer. She has set up professional practices and standards for collections management and accomplished much of the cataloging, organizing, and researching of the collections. The grant will enable the museum to pay this curator to raise her level of involvement from 200 to 700 hours a year (with half of her time still donated), which will make possible the conclusion of several projects, including storing collections, creating a textile furnishings plan and photo archive, researching aspects of the collection, and tracking original objects not yet in the museum. The grant will also support the computerization of collection records, allowing greater access to information by a broader audience.