Enfilade

Thomas Sully, The Passage of the Delaware, 1819, oil on canvas, 147 × 207 inches
(Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 03.1079)

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Opening soon at the MFABoston:

America at 250

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, opening 19 June 2026

The MFA’s major reinstallation of the 18th-century Art of the Americas galleries will integrate art from across North, Central, and South America, and the Caribbean—including works by Native American and Indigenous makers—to present a broader view of cultural exchange across the continent during a pivotal time in history. The galleries feature more than 400 objects—including icons of the MFA’s collection, long unseen works, and new acquisitions—that range from the monumental to the miniature.

Paul Revere Jr., Sons of Liberty Bowl, 1768, silver (MFA Boston).

A silver bowl. A Founding Father memorialized at monumental scale. A charismatic silversmith considering his craft. A towering mahogany desk and bookcase. Certain paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, and works on paper from the MFA’s Art of the Americas art collection, along with the artists who created them, played a pivotal role in shaping the early history of the United States. Today, as we approach 250 years since the country’s founding, they likewise have a unique ability to recount and reflect that history while also inviting us to reconsider it.

Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of American Independence, the MFA is reimagining its 18th-century galleries on level one of the Art of the Americas Wing for the first time since they opened in 2010. The new display, which opens in June 2026, brings together works from across the Americas—integrating Native and non-native, North, South, and Central American, and Caribbean art—and explores how artists have contributed to, or in some cases resisted, ideas of nationhood and identity. Visitors can immerse themselves in a range of stories and experiences, discovering the interconnectedness of the Americas and its history, institutions, and people.

Gilbert Stuart’s unfinished portrait of George Washington (1796)—the foundational image of the nation’s first president in the public imagination—offers viewers a prescient reminder that democracy is constant work in progress. An early piece of American protest art, Paul Revere’s Sons of Liberty Bowl (1768) honors a group of Massachusetts rebels who paved the way for the Revolution. A ceramic jar (1857) by the enslaved potter and poet David Drake exemplifies literacy as an act of resistance in the decades before the Civil War. Thomas Sully drew on artistic traditions of heroism for The Passage of the Delaware (1819), which portrays George Washington in a dramatic scene of bravery. Meanwhile, a recently acquired work by Alan Michelson, a Mohawk member of Six Nations of the Grand River, offers a contemporary critique of Washington, who was known to the Mohawk Nation as ‘Town Destroyer’. These and the many other works on view reveal a past in dialogue with the present and propose endless possibilities for assessing history as we look ahead to the future.

Excelsior with Allegorical Figures of Liberty and Justice, late 18th century.

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This summer the museum will also present its own unique copy of the Declaration, as Jennifer Schuessler reports in The New York Times (5 June 2026) . . .

“For generations, the institution (formerly the New-York Historical Society) has quietly held a rare, unattributed broadside of the Declaration, one of only a handful with no printer’s name attached. From June 18 to July 5, it will be on public display for the first time, along with a tentative attribution, to a New York City printer named Samuel Loudon.”

From the press release for the exhibition:

Revolutionary Women

The New York Historical, 29 May — 25 October 2026

Curated by Anna Danziger Halperin, Tessa Bangs, Isabelle Held, Rachel Pitkin, and Lauren Cain

Commemorating the nation’s semiquincentennial year, The New York Historical presents Revolutionary Women, a new exhibition on view in the Joyce B. Cowin Women’s History Gallery. Moving beyond the myths and legends that have long shaped narratives of the American founding, this exhibition draws on extensive research in The Historical’s Patricia D. Klingenstein Library to illuminate the lives of the women who helped define the American experiment. Through the close examination of overlooked primary sources—including letters, financial ledgers, and archaeological artifacts such as shoe soles and children’s toys excavated from military camps—Revolutionary Women reconstructs a compelling, evidence-based reappraisal of the 18th century, positioning women as central actors in the political, social, and economic transformations of the era.

“To understand the history of our nation, we must look at what is revealed in the margins of the traditional narrative,” said Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO, The New York Historical. “This exhibition moves past symbolism to center the real expertise and labor of women who navigated a world of blurred allegiances to help found the United States. By unearthing these hidden contributions, we hope to shift how the American Revolution is understood for generations to come.”

At its core, the exhibition cuts through 250 years of mythmaking to reveal the documented realities behind iconic Revolutionary-era women. It spotlights figures such as Deborah Sampson, whose story of military enlistment was amplified in early print culture, alongside Abigail Adams and Phillis Wheatley Peters, who wielded Enlightenment ideals to expose the contradictions of a male-dominated republic. The exhibition also dismantles enduring legends like ‘Molly Pitcher’, revealing the figure likely to have been a composite of several women, including Margaret Corbin (‘Captain Molly’), the first woman to receive a federal pension after being wounded in combat, as confirmed by military and Board of War records. Drawing on rich archival evidence, including a public tribute from George Washington to widows who helped American prisoners, Revolutionary Women replaces folklore with a vivid, verifiable account of women’s central role in the time of America’s founding.

Using the New York region as a microcosm of the broader struggle for independence, the exhibition reveals the breadth of women’s economic and civic influence in a contested landscape. As men went to war, women assumed control of businesses, carried intelligence across military lines, and sustained the conflict through medical and logistical support. Archival materials, including the business records of merchant Mary Alexander, underscore women’s longstanding participation in transatlantic trade networks. Evidence from early ledgers of the Tontine Coffee House—the heart of early New York’s financial district—further documents women such as Rebecca Gomez as active investors and stakeholders, offering a powerful corrective to narratives that have long excluded women from the growing early American financial system.

For women of color and Indigenous women, whose voices were often suppressed by dominant narratives, Revolutionary Women reinterprets traditional sources to foreground their agency and resilience, telling the story of individuals like Elizabeth ‘Mumbet’ Freeman, whose court case, Brom and Bett v. Ashley (1781), set the legal precedent to abolish slavery in Massachusetts. Molly Brant, a Mohawk woman of the Wolf Clan, chose loyalty to the British over the Revolutionary forces, believing that it offered the best chance to protect Haudenosaunee lands from colonial expansion. The letter granting Brant a pension from the British government for her diplomatic service is on view. Meanwhile, soldiers’ orderly books and diaries from the Sullivan Campaign, while recording the destruction of Haudenosaunee lands, inadvertently preserve evidence of Indigenous women’s agricultural knowledge and authority.

Personal relationships are also explored in the exhibition. On display is a love poem written by Patriot Major Aquila Giles, who met his future wife, Eliza Shipton, the niece of a Loyalist, after he was captured. The star-crossed lovers secretly exchanged letters, and eloped in 1780 to thwart their impending separation. A woman’s shoe sole, children’s toys, and other archaeological evidence mark the presence of women and children in military camps and in occupied New York.

In the post-war years, women turned to the emerging legal system to assert their rights and redefine the boundaries of citizenship. Court records and legal depositions, like the property lawsuits of Elizabeth Rutgers, who sued for back rent when her brewery was occupied during the British occupation, demonstrate that women actively challenged the limits of the law.

The exhibition concludes by examining how women played a decisive role in building the social and economic infrastructure of the new nation. In the absence of robust public services, they established philanthropic and educational institutions that bound the city and nation together, while their wealth and labor provided an invisible backbone to the early republic’s economy. Acting as traders, financial participants, and diplomatic intermediaries, women sustained the nation’s daily operations, an often unrecognized foundation that Revolutionary Women brings to light, recasting their expertise as central rather than peripheral to the Revolutionary era. Through materials ranging from a sampler made at the New-York African Free-School to a portrait of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, a founder of the Orphan Asylum Society—Revolutionary Women ultimately challenges audiences to reconsider whose stories endure, and to ask a vital question: How would you tell the story of the Revolution?

Revolutionary Women is curated by Anna Danziger Halperin, director for the Center for Women’s History; Tessa Bangs, Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History and Public History; Isabelle Held, Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Gender and LGBTQ+ History; and Rachel Pitkin and Lauren Cain, both Mellon Foundation Predoctoral Awardees in Women’s History.

From the press release for the exhibition:

The Declaration of Independence: Rare Americana from the Collection

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 5 May — 13 September 2026

Declaration of Independence (Dunlap Broadside), 1776, printed in Philadelphia by John Dunlap (New York: The Morgan Library & Museum, PML 77518).

In honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Morgan Library & Museum presents a select group of important materials relating to the history of the founding of the nation in the rotunda of the historic library from May 5 until September 13, 2026. Placed in conversation with each other, the six works in this installation provide a snapshot of a robust area of the Morgan’s collection that speaks to the vitality of the country in its nascence.

The centerpiece of the installation is a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence. Known as the “Dunlap Broadside,” this artifact of the nation’s founding was typeset by John Dunlap on the night of July 4, 1776 for distribution to “the several Assemblies, Conventions & Committees or Councils of Safety and to the several Commanding Officers of the Continental troops.” Among the rarest of the rare in this category, it is one of only twenty-six recorded copies surviving today. As a foundational document it is put in context with other important works from the period. Thomas Paine’s radical polemic Common Sense, for example, published earlier that year, gave the nation’s founders a solid rationale for a break from monarchical rule based on the principles of reason.

Also included are correspondences from key figures of the Revolutionary period. A letter dated June 29, 1776, from Patrick Henry, written upon his appointment as Governor of Virginia, reveals the combined sense of humility and anxiety he felt regarding his ability to lead the infant commonwealth through the war effort to combat the “Tyranny of the British King.” Another letter from Martha Washington to her sister Anna Maria ‘Nancy’ Dandridge Bassett, dated August 28, 1776, shows us a window into life on the home front, as she reports on the massive troop movements through Philadelphia toward New York.

In addition, the installation features a life mask of George Washington. In 1785, the French sculptor Jean Antoine Houdon (1741–1828) visited Washington at his Mount Vernon residence. To make a mold of the future first president’s visage, Houdon had Washington lie down and then applied a protective layer of grease followed by a layer of plaster. Once hardened, the mold was removed, and plaster was poured into it to make this positive cast. Houdon brought this ‘life mask’ with him to France and apparently used it while working on the marble statue of Washington for the Virginia State Capitol.

From the press release for the exhibition:

Microhistories of the Andes

San Antonio Museum of Art, 24 May 2026 — 23 May 2027

Curated by Kristopher Driggers

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Peru, late 18th century, oil on canvas, 45 × 31 cm (San Antonio Museum of Art, 2003.45).

Named one of the must-see shows this spring by The New York Times, the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) presents Microhistories of the Andes, an exhibition that closely examines individual objects to draw out larger stories about their culture of origin. Curated by Kristopher Driggers, Curator of Latin American Art, Microhistories of the Andes will be on view in the Golden Gallery from 24 May 2026 to 23 May 2027. The exhibition explores Andean cosmologies, cultural conceptions of agricultural practices, objects of devotion and spirituality, and the histories of materials across land and time.

Microhistories of the Andes highlights textiles, ceramic sculptures, paintings, metalwork, and feather arts from the Andean region, including recent acquisitions, such as a gift from Hank Lee in memory of Margie M. Shackelford, and gifts from prominent collectors such as Lindsay and Lucy Duff.

“Microhistories of the Andes poses a question to our visitors: How do singular objects become the starting point for telling broader stories about the past?” Driggers said. “At art museums, we are used to thinking of artworks as exemplifying broader narratives. With its framing, this exhibition brings our attention to the way we move from objects to the larger human stories behind them, with SAMA’s collection as the starting point—including recent gifts to the collection and works that have not been seen in many years.”

Featuring ancient objects from as early as the first millennium AD to more recent objects from the twentieth century, this exhibition examines the cultural context in which they were created. Additionally, highlighting objects from different countries across the Andean region provides a comprehensive look at the region’s diverse history and landscapes, including mountainous, desert, and tropical areas.

From the press release for the exhibition:

In Focus: Three Rare Treasures of Imperial China

Im Fokus: Drei seltene Schätze des Kaiserlichen China

Sponsel Room, Residenzschloss, Dresden, 1 April — 29 June 2026

Dragon Vase with Imperial Seal Mark, China, 1735–96 (Dresden: SKD).

The exhibition In Focus: Three Rare Treasures of Imperial China presents objects from different imperial dynasties from among the holdings of the Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault) and the Porzellansammlung (Porcelain Collection) of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. The Ru Bowl, the so-called Dragon Vase, and a tiny snuff bottle (barely five centimetres tall) exemplify the aesthetics and exceptional craftsmanship of their respective eras. The items from the Porzellansammlung have attracted a lot of media attention in recent weeks. The public will now be given the opportunity to discover what makes them so special.

The Porzellansammlung of the SKD holds the largest collection of early modern porcelain from China and Japan outside of Asia. It preserves a cross-section of that which was collected in Europe in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. From the mid-19th century onwards, the Electoral and Royal collection amassed by August the Strong and August III—the historical core of the museum—was expanded, by means of exchanges and purchases, to include ceramics from all over the world, including the Ru Bowl and the Dragon Vase.

Originally created exclusively for the Chinese imperial court, these are outstanding examples of Chinese ceramic art, the likes of which were unknown in Dresden during the Augustan period. It was only in the early 20th century that such imperial pieces became available to European collectors. The Ru bowl, in particular, is regarded as one of the most beautiful and extremely rare ceramic products of the Song Dynasty (960–1279) and the crowning glory of any collection of Chinese art. In exhibiting these two objects along with the snuff bottle from the Grünes Gewölbe, the SKD are presenting three exceptionally rare and precious Chinese imperial artefacts from different dynasties. The small snuff bottle is an original from the imperial workshops of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, where European influence led to the development of new enamelling techniques and such vessels became highly sought-after luxury objects. These outstanding pieces are exemplary of the aesthetics and exceptional craftsmanship of their time.

In a recent agreement signed with the Hong Kong Palace Museum, the SKD have committed to conducting more in-depth research into their holdings of East Asian art in collaboration with experts from the Palace Museums in Hong Kong and Beijing. The exhibition In Focus: Three Rare Treasures of Imperial China highlights how mutual respect, as well as the pursuit of precision both in art and in scholarly research, form a strong bond between China and Germany.

The Ru Bowl

Ru Bowl, Brush Washer, China, 1100–25 (Dresden: SKD).

This small, glazed stoneware bowl from the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127), which at first glance appears unremarkable, is one of the rarest and most precious objects of Chinese ceramic art. The vessel, which is around 900 years old, was used as a brush-washing bowl and is one of only 89 known Ru wares in the world; it is also the only specimen of its kind in Germany. It was part of a private collection acquired by the Porzellansammlung in the 1920s. These first ceramics made exclusively for the Chinese imperial court are named after their place of origin, the Ru Prefecture in the northern province of Henan. The production of imperial Ru wares went on for only a little more than 20 years, ending when the Northern Song Dynasty was driven south in 1126. The few pieces that were produced and salvaged soon became mythologised as reminders of the empire’s former grandeur and are now considered the pinnacle of any collection of Chinese ceramics. This perfectly preserved Dresden bowl is striking in its exceptionally simple elegance. With its gently shimmering, delicately crackled glaze in a particularly beautiful bluish-green hue, it is reminiscent of winter colours and brittle ice.

The Dragon Vase

The so-called Dragon Vase was commissioned for the court of Emperor Qianlong (reigned 1735–1795). Painted with nine brightly coloured dragons soaring across the sea and sky, this monumental piece is one of the rarest masterpieces of imperial porcelain art from the Qing Dynasty. Its dynamic decoration combines technical perfection with rich symbolic meaning and reflects the splendour and political ideals of the court under Emperor Qianlong. In Chinese culture, the number nine (jiu) also signifies ‘eternity,’ whilst the dragon is the most important symbol of imperial power. The motif of nine dragons therefore reflects the desire for eternal imperial rule. On this vase, the dragons appear amidst waves and clouds, two elements traditionally associated with these mythical creatures. Flying amongst the clouds are red bats. In Chinese, the word for bat (fu) sounds the same as the word for ‘luck’ or ‘blessing.’ Along the foot and beneath the rim runs a band of heart-shaped ruyi heads; these derive from the ruyi sceptre and the lingzhi mushroom. According to Daoist beliefs, these symbols represent immortality and the fulfilment of wishes. Vessels of this kind, adorned with imperial symbols, were often given as precious gifts to high-ranking dignitaries. Like the Ru Bowl, the Dragon Vase also found its way into the Porzellansammlung during the 20th century.

The Snuff Bottle

Snuff Bottle, China, 1661–1722 (Dresden: SKD).

For a long time, this delicate snuff bottle was regarded as a European piece in the chinoiserie style. It was not until 2013 that it was recognised as a rare and early example of Chinese enamel art from the Qing Dynasty. It has been possible to trace its origins to the imperial palace workshops in Beijing, where only works of the highest quality were produced for the imperial court.

Under the emperors Kangxi (r. 1661–1722) and his son Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735), the imperial workshops saw a period of significant artistic and technological innovation. Since the end of the 17th century, Jesuits had been bringing enamel objects from Europe as gifts to the imperial court, where they were greatly admired. The art-loving Emperor Kangxi subsequently took steps to recruit European artists who were familiar with the techniques, thereby promoting their further development in China.

The use of snuff, which was believed to have healing properties, had been introduced to China by European missionaries, envoys, and traders. Since the large snuff boxes commonly used in Europe proved impractical in China’s more humid climate, the use of small, tightly sealable vials soon became predominant. Particularly during the reign of Emperor Qianlong (r. 1735–1796), they were manufactured in a wide variety of shapes and designs and became sought-after collectors’ items.

From the press release for the exhibition:

WORN

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 27 March 2026 — 21 March 2027

Curated by Vanessa Jones

WORN at the Rijksmuseum is an intimate display of fashion garments that have been worn, altered and reused—with a focus on wear, repair and craftsmanship. On view are 24 garments and accessories dating from 1640 to 1930. All of them have been cherished for centuries, from the 17th-century mules with richly embroidered patterns to an 18th-century dress worn by multiple generations of the Six family.

WORN presents garments and accessories from the collection of the Rijksmuseum that were repeatedly re-worn and adapted. The display invites visitors to truly look—up close, slowly and with careful attention. Take time to discover the repairs, the crisscross patterns of darned stitching, the slight signs of wear on the fabric, and even traces of sweat. Every detail tells how these pieces were cherished, worn and carefully preserved for generations.

A 19th-century blue taffeta dress with a woven pattern shows how garments were altered multiple times. The dress consists of a skirt with several bodices that were swapped depending on the occasion. One of the bodices was taken apart and reassembled several times, to ensure the dress lasted even longer. Another garment that gained a second life is the citrine-yellow floral dress owned by the Six family: beneath the 18th-century exterior lies a 19th-century interior structure. Members of later generations wore the dress in 1896 and again as late as 1925, after the interior was modified with a modern corset with steel boning.

Every 12 months, the Rijksmuseum presents a new display in the Special Collections galleries of objects from its large and varied costume collection. The display design for WORN is by the French architectural firm Wilmotte & Associés.

Fan Design with Republican Assignats (French revolutionary money), ca. 1795, etching, a small portion printed in red, sheet: 29 × 50 cm (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 38.91.56).

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While focused on the 19th-c, the exhibition includes a handful of 18th-c. examples:

Fanmania

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 11 December 2025 — 12 May 2026

Curated by Ashley Dunn and Jane Becker

The hand-held fan was an unexpected muse for some of the most innovative artists in 19th-century Europe. Fans became hugely popular across many levels of society during this period, serving as functional and fashionable objects of adornment and communication. Well-known French Impressioniscts such as Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro not only featured this feminine accessory in their work but also adopted it as an experimental format for their art. Fanmania investigates why avant-garde artists incorporated fans into their work and sheds light on themes of gender, courtship, consumerism, and appropriation. Artists were attracted to the semicircular form for myriad reasons, including fascination with fans from Asia and Spain, commercial ambition, and their interest in formal and technical innovation. Displaying more than 75 artworks from across The Met collection, this multimedia exhibition features painted and printed fans from Europe and Asia as well as artworks that depict women wielding fans to explore the phenomenon of ‘fanmania’.

More information is available from the press release»