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Collection of Southern Furniture now online

VIDEO CLIPS

Germanic influence in the Back Country

English influence in the Chesapeake

Decorative European influence in the Low Country

The first red chair major display of Southern furniture in more than 40 years, "Furniture of the American South" ended in January 2002 at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. The exhibit highlighted the cabinetmaking traditions and diversity of the South's three principal regions – the Chesapeake, the Low Country and the Back Country. Currently touring other museums throughout the South, Colonial Williamsburg's Southern Furniture Collection can now be seen online and enjoyed by a wide range of people because of the foresight of a generous couple whose love of antique furniture grew into a public gift.

Making important museum exhibits widely available

In 1946, Stanley and Polly Stone of Fox Point, Wisconsin, began collecting decorative arts, a passion they would maintain for the rest of their lives. The Stones housed their collection in a colonial revival brick home they named Chipstone, built on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. More than just inspired collectors, the Stones also had the foresight to establish the Chipstone Foundation, with the dual purpose of preserving and interpreting their collection and stimulating research and education in the decorative arts.

Through the creation of fully accessible virtual recreations of major decorative arts exhibitions from American museums, the Chipstone Foundation hopes to promote new ways to look at old things, thus preserving the legacy of Mr. and Mrs. Stone. It is through this venture that “Furniture of the American South” can now be seen online as it was originally exhibited at Colonial Williamsburg’s DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum.

Award-winning book provides detailed look at collection

In 1997, Chief Curator and Vice President of Collections and Museums Ronald Hurst and former Curator of Furniture Jonathan Prown wrote a comprehensive study of the foundation’s southern collection. "Southern Furniture, 1680-1830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection" was published jointly by Colonial Williamsburg and Harry N. Abrams, Inc. The book was awarded the 1997 Charles Montgomery Prize, an annual award presented by the American Decorative Arts Society recognizing the best publication in the field.

Colonial Williamsburg's "Furniture of the American South" exhibit will be on display at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, N.C., November 22, 2002 through January 26, 2003. The exhibit will move to the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, N.C., from February 14, 2003 until June 15, 2003.

The Chipstone "Furniture of the American South" exhibit will be on display at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, N.C., November 22, 2002 through January 26, 2003. The exhibit will move to the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh, N.C., from February 14, 2003 until June 15, 2003.