Albany Institute Of History And Art

Founded in 1791, the Albany Institute of History and Art is one of the nation's oldest cultural institutions. Today, it boasts outstanding collections largely focused on New York State's Upper Hudson Valley. These include Hudson River School landscape paintings, portraits by Ezra Ames and Charles Loring Elliott, sculpture by Erastus Dow Palmer, landscape and interior paintings by Walter Launt Palmer, and Albany –made silver and other crafts. This comprehensive overview of the Albany Institute of History and Art's American art and decorative-arts collections, presents color plates and essays on about 130 objects (of a total exceeding 20,000). Dating from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the 1990s, each object in this volume was chosen for its national significance, artistic merit, and relevance to the Institute's mission: collecting and interpreting the art, history, and culture of New York State's Upper Hudson Valley through four centuries.

Introduction to the influential cast-iron stoves manufactured in Albany and Troy in the nineteenth century

Overview of the life, work, times, and legacy of renowned Albany potter Paul Cushman (1767-1833)

Published to accompany an exhibition held in Sept. 2002 by the Albany Institute of History and Art.

Beautifully illustrated introduction and overview to the collections of the Albany Institute of History and Art

Borders and Scrolls provides a fascinating glimpse of domestic wall painting in the historic Northeast. It looks in detail at how and why Americans in New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut decorated the walls of their houses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Wallpaper was just too expensive for even well-to-do merchants and farmers, who turned to craftsmen to stencil and freehand paint the walls around them. Much of this exquisite domestic art does not survive today: houses were remodeled, some torn down; walls have been repainted, papered over, or removed. Striking examples of those that remain are found in this richly illustrated volume, which reveals intricate technical processes, schools of design, similar designs and techniques on other objects and media, and engrossing histories and stories surrounding the houses, families, and craft painters. Margaret Coffin is the author of Death in Early America: The History and Folklore of Customs and Superstitions of Early Medicine, Funerals, Burials, and Mourning and The History and Folklore of American Country Tinware, 1700–1900.

From the Nile to the Hudson, the story of how two Egyptian mummies joined an American museum collection. In 1909, two mummies, one dating from the 21st Dynasty and the other from the Ptolemaic Period, arrived in Albany, New York. Purchased from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo by Albany businessman Samuel Brown for the Albany Institute of History & Art (AIHA), they have been on continuous exhibition since then and are the most popular, celebrated, and best remembered of the museum’s collections. The story of their discovery in the tombs at Deir el-Bahri and their subsequent purchase by Brown, transport by steamship from Cairo to New York City, and steamboat travel to Albany was covered extensively by the Albany newspapers, and visitors from school-aged children to senior citizens often recount stories about their first encounter with the Albany mummies. The Mystery of the Albany Mummies tells the fascinating tale of these two mummies, from their initial mummification in ancient Egypt, to their acquisition by the AIHA in 1909, and finally to 2013, when the mystery of their identities was uncovered through the intersection of historical scholarship, science, and technology. In the book, which draws on the Institute’s 2013–2014 exhibition “GE Presents: The Mystery of the Albany Mummies,” scholars from around the world use new scholarship, scientific methods, and medical technology to determine the ages, sexes, occupations, and lifestyles of these two ancient denizens of the AIHA. Peter Lacovara is Director of the Ancient Egyptian Archaeology and Heritage Fund, and was previously Senior Curator of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian, and Near Eastern Art at the Michael C. Carlos Museum and Assistant Curator in the Department of Ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. He is the author of many books, including The World of Ancient Egypt: A Daily Life Encyclopedia. Sue H. D’Auria is an Egyptologist who worked for nearly two decades in the Egyptian Department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and was an Associate Curator at the Huntington Museum of Art. She has edited several books, including Offerings to the Discerning Eye: An Egyptological Medley in Honor of Jack A. Josephson.