Pequot Library Offers Art Museum Tours

From Pequot Library: Experience the elegance and extravagance of the Gilded Age (1870-1900) on Wednesday, April 19 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with Pequot Library for a tour of two of New York’s finest museums. Enjoy guided tours of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (MET) American Wing and the Museum of the City of New York’s (MCNY) special exhibition Gilded New York during this day-long outing. The cost is $150 per person, and is all-inclusive, including charter bus transportation, admission to museums, a three course lunch, and all gratuities. Registration by April 3 is appreciated,online at pequotlibrary.org. The Pequot Day Art Trip is part of an on-going series of programs developed in conjunction with the Pequot Founders: Building a Library and a Legacy exhibition on view at Pequot Library through May 7, 2017.

Guests will board a charter bus leaving the Library at 8:45 a.m. and travel first to the MET for a tour of the American Wing. The American Wing was opened in 1924 to display the domestic arts of the 17th–early 19th centuries. Today the American Wing houses more than 1,700 works of fine and decorative art, including sculpture, stained glass, and architectural elements; objects of silver, gold, glass, and ceramics; and 20 historic period rooms highlighting American domestic architecture and furnishings from 1680–1915. A MET docent will highlight decorative arts from the late 19th and early 20th century, giving guests a glimpse at the aesthetic style of Virginia Marquand Monroe (1836-1926), Pequot Library’s founder, and her contemporaries.

After the tour of the MET, enjoy lunch at the Petrie Court Café and Wine Bar, a European-style restaurant and wine bar with views of Central Park.

Conclude the day at the Museum of the City of New York by continuing to be immersed in the lifestyle of New York’s 19th century cultural elite by touring the special exhibition Gilded New York. The MCNY describes the exhibition as an exploration of the city’s visual culture at the end of the 19th century, when its elite “flaunted their money . . . and expressed their high status through extravagant fashions, architecture, and interior design.” A museum docent will illuminate stories of the “new American elite,” while walking guests through the exhibition which displays over 100 objects including costumes, jewelry, portraits, and decorative arts.

The Gilded Age is marked by both an economic and industrial explosion that created great American fortunes. Families such as the Vanderbilt and Carnegies built vast mansions on Fifth Avenue, filling them with collections of artwork and decorative objects to demonstrate their new found wealth and positions in society. While known for fantastic parties and glamorous fashion, these families were also philanthropists, supporting new cultural enterprises such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library. This is also the age of the Pequot founders – Virginia and Elbert Monroe, Mary Catherine Wakeman, and the Reverend William Holman – who shared a vision of a library “free as air to all” for the purpose of education and cultural enrichment. Join Pequot Library staff and be immersed in this lavish world, exploring the cultural and social history of the time, and reflect on the friends and contemporaries of the Pequot founders.

Please visit www.pequotlibrary.org to learn more about this vibrant library, educational, arts and cultural institution. For information: (203) 259-0346 ext. 15. Follow Pequot Library on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Images Courtesy Of Pequot Library