Summer 2017

2017 Antiques & Fine Art 131 Visitors to the museum will quickly realize that there is more to the American Revolution than the war. Winning independence was only the “first act” of a larger experiment. The American Revolution is the on-going effort to fulfill the truths stated in the Declaration of Independence: that all people are “created equal” and are born with “inalienable rights.” The revolutionary words of 1776 serve as the guiding principles of the Museum of the American Revolution. The museum’s main exhibit tells the story of the dramatic beginning of the American Revolution. Following a chronological path from the 1760s to the 1790s, visitors can explore the roots of the colonial conflict with Great Britain, the eight years of war, the creation of the Federal Constitution, and the lasting legacy of the Declaration of Independence. Anecdotes are interwoven throughout the experience to personalize the era. For example, Phillis Wheatley’s poetry about liberty and slavery turned heads in the 1770s. Wheatley showed white colonists that enslaved African Americans like herself had souls and minds equal to anyone, and therefore deserved liberty. Visitors can see a rare first edition printing of Phillis Wheatley’s poetry, signed by Wheatley herself, in the museum’s main exhibit (Fig. 2). Of the over four hundred historical objects on display, approximately half come from the museum’s own collection of three thousand artifacts. Highlights of the collection include William B. T. Trego’s iconic painting of the Continental Army’s arrival at Valley Forge (Fig. 3); a linen hunting shirt (one of only four known to survive from the Revolutionary era), a pewter communion flagon used by Reverend George Whitefield, the charismatic Anglican preacher of the first “Great Awakening”; and a drum made by Robert Crosman, famous for his decorative painting on the iconic “Taunton” chests of Massachusetts in the 1720s–1740s (Fig. 4). Also on display are a few of the first printings of the revolutionary state constitutions, some the earliest written republican constitutions in the history of the world. Those constitutions codified republican governments for the new states when the Continental Congress declared the independence of the United States of America. Other objects on display are pieces loaned from fellow institutions and private collections. The museum’s partners include the Philadelphia History Museum, Historic Deerfield, the Concord Museum, Colonial Williamsburg, the Winterthur Museum, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and previous page left to right : Fig. 1 : Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the brand-new, 118,000-square foot building for the Museum of the American Revolution is located on the corner of Third and Chestnut Streets in historic Philadelphia. Fig. 2 : Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral , pamphlet, Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784), 1773, London, England. Leather, paper, and linen. On loan to the Museum of the American Revolution from Dr. Marion T. Lane. The first published African-American poet, Wheatley’s poems were lauded in both Europe and the American colonies as evidence of the artistic and intellectual equality of people of African descent. below : Fig. 3 : William B. T. Trego (1858–1909), The March to Valley Forge, December 19, 1777 , Philadelphia, Pa., 1883. Oil on canvas, 38 x 78 inches. Museum of the American Revolution.