New wing designed by Ennead Architects on the right
and the East India Marine Hall in the centre.
Photo: Apollo
Photo: Apollo
The East India Marine Society, founded in Salem Mass in 1799, was an organisation of sea-captains who sailed around the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. The society’s charter provided for the establishment of a cabinet of natural and other curiosities. Society members brought to Salem objects from the NW coast of America, Asia, Africa, Oceania & India, and by 1825 the society moved into its own building, East India Marine Hall. The original displays collected by Salem’s globetrotting merchants survived.
Salem was also home to the Essex Historical Society (1821), which celebrated community history, and the Essex County Natural History Society (1833), which focused on natural wonders. In 1848, these two organisations merged to form the Essex Institute, bringing together extensive natural specimens, books and memorabilia collections.
In the late 1860s, Essex Institute focused on the collection and presentation of regional art, history and architecture. So it transferred its natural history and archaeology collections to the East India Marine Society’s eventual organisation, Peabody Academy of Science, named after its great benefactor George Peabody (1795–1869). In return, The Peabody transferred its historical collections to the Essex.
The dramatic atrium with a soaring, curved glass roof
Salem was also home to the Essex Historical Society (1821), which celebrated community history, and the Essex County Natural History Society (1833), which focused on natural wonders. In 1848, these two organisations merged to form the Essex Institute, bringing together extensive natural specimens, books and memorabilia collections.
In the late 1860s, Essex Institute focused on the collection and presentation of regional art, history and architecture. So it transferred its natural history and archaeology collections to the East India Marine Society’s eventual organisation, Peabody Academy of Science, named after its great benefactor George Peabody (1795–1869). In return, The Peabody transferred its historical collections to the Essex.
designed by Moshe Safdie.
Gay Travel
In the early C20th, the Peabody Academy of Science changed its name to the Peabody Museum of Salem and continued collecting global art and culture.
With their overlapping collections, consolidating the Essex & Peabody was debated for years. Peabody Essex Museum emerged in Jul 1992, with huge collections: 840,000+ works of art and culture; maritime art and history; American art; Asian, Oceanic & African art; 2 large libraries with 400,000+ books, manuscripts and documents; and Yin Yu Tang, the only complete Qing Dynasty house outside China.
Noting the growing interest in early American architecture and historic preservation, the Essex Institute had acquired many important old houses and was at the forefront of historical interpretation.
Peabody Essex Museum, one of New England's largest museums, offered visitors a dynamic experience of culture amidst its renowned collections of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, African, Oceanic and Indian art, and American decorative art, Native American art, maritime art and photography. The Phillips Library Collection had materials that dated from the 17th-C20th and included manuscripts, maritime journals, museum publications and photographs.
The sea always dominated this historic Atlantic port so the PEM’s Maritime Arts collection is now on the first floor of the new wing. A female ship figurehead, her carved surfaces battered over 200 years of use, overlooked maritime galleries with soundtracks of wind and crashing waves. A mahogany model of the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner, 22’ long, was commissioned by the Cunard Line for the Manhattan offices in the 1940s. A Fijian tattooing stick was donated by a Salem merchant in 1802. 6 paintings by marine artist John Cleveley I from 1759 depicted the Luxborough Galley, a British slave ship destroyed by fire. The few crew survivors eventually resorted to cannibalism to live.
In the Fashion and Design Galleries a crude black leather boot, made in pre-Civil War in abolitionist Mass., was to be worn by a Southern slave. Tiny silk sheaths were colourfully embroidered for the bound feet of aristocratic Chinese women. Male mannequins were dressed for bloody conflicts: a Salem infantryman’s braided uniform was worn in 1810s battles against the British, a Native American’s beaded leather shirt came from wartime c1840.
A room in the new Asian Export Galleries was lined in Chinese wallpaper (c1800) showing hundreds of Chinese labourers and some Western traders. The panoramic setting was Canton’s creamy row of colonnaded buildings, one of the world’s most cosmopolitan parts and where Europeans were allowed. The mulberry paper wallcovering was made for James Drummond, a Scottish leader of the British East India Co. who shipped it home to Perthshire. The soundtrack combined Scottish rain, wind and bagpipes.
George Chinnery's art showed tousle-haired Harriet Low (1833), a Salemite who dressed down to sneak into Chinese territory where all foreign women were forbidden. Augustus the Strong’s tall, blue-and-white Chinese porcelain vase (1710s), was from a set that cost him a whole regiment in a trade with Prussian royals. Consider Dutch sculptor Bouke de Vries’ glass-walled Memory Vessel 2015, packed with shards of an C18th Chinese blue-and-white porcelain jar!
Architect Moshe Safdie designed the imaginative glass and brick building expansion for Peabody Essex Museum in 2003 to expand Salem's architectural history. The dramatic Atrium with a soaring, curved glass roof was the central gathering place. It allowed natural light into the Atrium, creating an airy space and walkways that led visitors into galleries, studios and the Morse Auditorium. The result was an inspired structure for viewing art and culture from around the world.
PEM devoted galleries in the new Safdie wing to its Native American holdings and Americana. The Navajo photographer Will Wilson used antique equipment to create high-tech talking tintypes, portraying descendants of Salem’s indigenous tribal members and recording their stories of resilience since Europeans first arrived.
The new granite-clad addition to the building, designed by Ennead Architects New York, was noteworthy. Ennead’s new atrium was dominated by a Hawaiian symbol of prosperity and strength which was displayed in Salem since 1840s.
In the early C20th, the Peabody Academy of Science changed its name to the Peabody Museum of Salem and continued collecting global art and culture.
With their overlapping collections, consolidating the Essex & Peabody was debated for years. Peabody Essex Museum emerged in Jul 1992, with huge collections: 840,000+ works of art and culture; maritime art and history; American art; Asian, Oceanic & African art; 2 large libraries with 400,000+ books, manuscripts and documents; and Yin Yu Tang, the only complete Qing Dynasty house outside China.
Noting the growing interest in early American architecture and historic preservation, the Essex Institute had acquired many important old houses and was at the forefront of historical interpretation.
Peabody Essex Museum, one of New England's largest museums, offered visitors a dynamic experience of culture amidst its renowned collections of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, African, Oceanic and Indian art, and American decorative art, Native American art, maritime art and photography. The Phillips Library Collection had materials that dated from the 17th-C20th and included manuscripts, maritime journals, museum publications and photographs.
The sea always dominated this historic Atlantic port so the PEM’s Maritime Arts collection is now on the first floor of the new wing. A female ship figurehead, her carved surfaces battered over 200 years of use, overlooked maritime galleries with soundtracks of wind and crashing waves. A mahogany model of the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner, 22’ long, was commissioned by the Cunard Line for the Manhattan offices in the 1940s. A Fijian tattooing stick was donated by a Salem merchant in 1802. 6 paintings by marine artist John Cleveley I from 1759 depicted the Luxborough Galley, a British slave ship destroyed by fire. The few crew survivors eventually resorted to cannibalism to live.
In the Fashion and Design Galleries a crude black leather boot, made in pre-Civil War in abolitionist Mass., was to be worn by a Southern slave. Tiny silk sheaths were colourfully embroidered for the bound feet of aristocratic Chinese women. Male mannequins were dressed for bloody conflicts: a Salem infantryman’s braided uniform was worn in 1810s battles against the British, a Native American’s beaded leather shirt came from wartime c1840.
A room in the new Asian Export Galleries was lined in Chinese wallpaper (c1800) showing hundreds of Chinese labourers and some Western traders. The panoramic setting was Canton’s creamy row of colonnaded buildings, one of the world’s most cosmopolitan parts and where Europeans were allowed. The mulberry paper wallcovering was made for James Drummond, a Scottish leader of the British East India Co. who shipped it home to Perthshire. The soundtrack combined Scottish rain, wind and bagpipes.
George Chinnery's art showed tousle-haired Harriet Low (1833), a Salemite who dressed down to sneak into Chinese territory where all foreign women were forbidden. Augustus the Strong’s tall, blue-and-white Chinese porcelain vase (1710s), was from a set that cost him a whole regiment in a trade with Prussian royals. Consider Dutch sculptor Bouke de Vries’ glass-walled Memory Vessel 2015, packed with shards of an C18th Chinese blue-and-white porcelain jar!
Architect Moshe Safdie designed the imaginative glass and brick building expansion for Peabody Essex Museum in 2003 to expand Salem's architectural history. The dramatic Atrium with a soaring, curved glass roof was the central gathering place. It allowed natural light into the Atrium, creating an airy space and walkways that led visitors into galleries, studios and the Morse Auditorium. The result was an inspired structure for viewing art and culture from around the world.
PEM devoted galleries in the new Safdie wing to its Native American holdings and Americana. The Navajo photographer Will Wilson used antique equipment to create high-tech talking tintypes, portraying descendants of Salem’s indigenous tribal members and recording their stories of resilience since Europeans first arrived.
The new granite-clad addition to the building, designed by Ennead Architects New York, was noteworthy. Ennead’s new atrium was dominated by a Hawaiian symbol of prosperity and strength which was displayed in Salem since 1840s.
TravelPulse
Maritime Art Gallery, the finest collection in the country, frames the sea as an enduring source of opportunity and peril, and encourages engagement with the wider world.
P.E.M
East India Marine Hall
Opened in 1825, modernised recently
P.E.M
The newest version of Peabody Essex Museum reopened in 2019. Crowds of local politicians and visitors gathered around a massive iron anchor, salvaged from a C19th ship and donated a century earlier. Weighing two tons, it had been repaired offsite and hoisted back on to its original stone pedestal. Visitors with Pacific Island origins brought greetings from their ancestors.
Peabody Essex Museum is America’s longest continuously operating museum, a large cultural site in a smallish coastal town (c45,000 people). 250 workers oversaw an expansion programme that cost $125 million, in addition to the main campus in Central Salem. The 2019 exhibition, The Story of Salem, was successful: juxtapositions of materials and eras, selected from the 1.8 million objects and artworks, were installed throughout.
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10 comments:
Is this the same Salem as the witch trials?
We hear about the great museums in New York but little else about museums in the US. Thanks for the museum focus outside major cities.
Train Man
yes indeed and the two museums are very close geographically.
As you can see from the Salem Witch Museum post, I found it unpleasant but extremely important to visit. However I knew almost nothing about the Peabody Essex Museum.
https://melbourneblogger.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-witches-of-salem-were-all-hanged.html
Andrew
The Museum itself says it has extraordinary collections — 840,000 works of art and culture featuring maritime art and history; American art; Asian, Oceanic and African art in one of the major collections in the entire U.S.A. Plus it has two large libraries with 400,000 books, manuscripts and documents.
Not bad for a small town, that most overseas visitors would be hard pressed to locate on a map. Well worth visiting!
That facade of the museum is so beautiful.
roentare
I had a lot of trouble finding photos of the original building but see https://connollybrothers.com/2021/02/connolly-pem-pair-on-renovation-at-oldest-continually-operating-museum/ for some idea.
But I had no trouble finding the drawings from the major modernisation programme. Safdie Architects planned a disparate group of buildings with new gallery spaces in small house-like pavilions. I assume the dramatic glazed atrium and interior street is what you found beautiful... me too!
See the exhibition "Let None Be Excluded: The Origins of Equal School Rights in Salem"
on view until April 2024.
In the 19th-century, Salem residents celebrated the city’s early public school system for welcoming and educating all children. Despite the system’s success, the Salem school committee decided in 1834 to establish separate schools for Black children. This angered Black residents who launched a near-decade long struggle for the educational rights of their children. Their valiant efforts convinced the Salem school committee to abolish racially separate public schools in 1844. Salem was one of the first US municipalities to do so.
This exhibition features documents that capture the impassioned activism of young Black leaders. These youth, as agents in their own education, sparked the national equal school rights movement by tethering education rights to democracy and racial equality. Their spirited words and actions changed the course of our schools and our nation.
P.E.M
thank you for the reference to the specialist exhibitions, as seen in https://www.pem.org/whats-on/exhibitions/2022-12-21/7. I think it is an excellent idea that each exhibition is kept open to the public for two years or so, especially in the post-Covid era.
I would also like to see the "Power and Perspective: Early Photography in China Exhibition"
Thank you for this post Hels. Very interesting and I have never heard of this Museum or of George Peabody.
Rachel
true. I have been to Boston quite a number of times and love all the architecture and other facilities. And we even went on a day tour of Salem's witch museum etc.
But I too knew _nothing_ of Peabody or the museum dedicated to honour his name. The Essex Institute focused on collecting regional art, history and architecture, sending its natural history and archaeology collections to the East India Marine Society’s organisation instead: the Peabody Academy of Science. George Peabody was a wealthy sea merchant who was a VERY special donor.
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