The Conspirators

Perhaps Lew Wallace's best-known painting (not that he was famous for art), The Conspirators made the journey from storage to the Study


Movers from Red Ball Moving carry in the custom-made box containing The Conspirators.


Museum staff and volunteers lift the oil painting atop the bookcases in the Study.

Museum Director Larry Paarlberg and Collections Manager Amanda McGuire examine the placement before descending their ladders. The current location not only shows off the painting but also what some of Wallace's artwork would have looked like next to the original colors of the Study interior.

Back Home in Indiana

Lew Wallace's Artifacts are finally back in the Study! Museum staff and volunteers will now spend days unpacking artwork and arranging furniture to reflect Wallace's use of the building.



The furniture, including the grandfather clock, are not in place, but at least they are in the building!

Movers from Red Ball Moving Company, generous supporters of the Museum, prepare to move Il Pensiero (The Thinker) to its pedestal.

Museum Director Larry Paarlberg adjusts the "Girl with Goats" majolica vase in its corner. The colors in the ceramics blend well with the newly restored wall in the southeast corner of the Study!





Associate Director Amanda Wesselmann and Grounds Manager Deb King unveil "The Turkish Princess," a gift to Wallace from Sultan Abdul Hamid II. She is now back in her familiar place above the bookcases.

Uncovering the Past

It's always thrilling to scrape away the covering of years and unveil more of what General Wallace's surroundings looked like when he lived among them.  The past weeks have offered exciting glimpses into both the interior and exterior of the General's study, through the tireless work of some true professionals.

Brian Fick and Mary Yeager of Acanthus Arts in Indianapolis have been hard at work conserving the beautiful decorative paint in places inside the study, and it's been amazing to watch the original colors begin to blossom.  The anteroom just inside the front door is swathed in deep jewel tones, and the dome now has a wide stripe of original paint uncovered down to the bookcases.  Visitors can now see not only the musical motif in the southeast corner of the dome, but the stylish method by which the paint fades from a deep green to a light silvery tone at the dome.

The colors of the plaster frieze just under the dome are being replicated according to the paint analysis done by Matthew Mosca of Washington D.C. in March.  It's easy to see how brilliant General Wallace's dome would've looked when all of the electric lights were on!

Outside, archaeologists from Weintraut & Associates in Zionsville are working with students from the University of Indianapolis to uncover General Wallace's backyard reflecting pool.  Over weeks of painstaking work, they have found the brick perimeter topped by capstones lying just inches below the surface of the lawn.

Keep an eye on this blog for further developments as we continue to work in restoring General Wallace's "pleasure house for his soul" to its original splendor!

Paint Restoration Continues

Exciting work continues here at the Study as our conservators, Brian Fick and Mary Yeager from Acanthus Arts in Indianapolis, uncover and restore more incredible decorative paint inside the historic building's dome.

Brian is spending his day 30 feet in the air, uncovering layer by layer of paint to get to the original design, described by Ella Kostanzer in 1900 as the "implements of war."  So far, he's uncovered a beautiful musical motif in the corner, featuring a drum flanked by  skin-covered mallets, with a fife and sheets of music behind, accented with laurel leaves.  We believe there might be musical scenes in each of the corners, with more military-themed decoration along the sides of the dome.  Here's a progression of the work so far:

We'll continue to update as the restoration progresses.  Many thanks to the Montgomery County Community Foundation for providing the funds for this fascinating project!

Ella Was Right

Ella Kostanzer visited the General's Study around 1900, and described, among other things, a scene on the domed ceiling that contained "implements of war". Because she is the only one to recount this detail, staff and visitors alike have long hoped she was right but didn't want to rely on her testimony too heavily. Today, a pair of paint conservators arrived on the scene to attempt to expose some of that original design.

Sure enough, there appear to be shields and laurel leaves in a design that incorporates not only the shades of green found in the paint analysis, but also rust colors and silvery grays as well. This is part of a 3-foot-wide path the conservators plan to expose from the skylight to the tops of the bookcases. What a wonderful discovery!

LEW WALLACE ACADEMY ANNOUNCES OPEN ENROLLMENT

2010 Youth Academy students learn what it was like to
undergo surgery on the Civil War battlefield.

Crawfordsville, Indiana, May 25, 2011—Amanda Wesselmann, Associate Director of the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum and Coordinator of the Lew Wallace Youth Academy, announced today that enrollment into the weeklong day camp, held this year from July 5-9, is now open to the public.  In 2008, the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum won the National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the highest honor this country gives to museums, largely because of the impact the Academy made on the Montgomery County community.

The Academy, which is in its seventh year after six tremendously successful seasons, has already enrolled exceptional middle school-aged students from schools and home school organizations from throughout Montgomery County, and only a few positions remain.  The Academy promotes in its students the qualities of leadership, character and lifelong learning that General Lew Wallace embodied throughout his life.  This year, Academy students will investigate new disciplines related to the Wallace legacy: in the day dedicated to “The Food That Lew Knew”, participants will meet a local sheep farmer and her livestock, and discuss the processing of food from farm to table, complete with sampling the types of cuisine Lew Wallace tasted. They will also prepare wool for felting and spinning, and create their own project to take home.

“We chose our wide variety of subjects not to have one specialty for everyone, but to illustrate that each student can excel in many things,” said Wesselmann.  “Our diverse faculty has designed hands-on group activities that will build on students’ interests, and pique new ones.”

2010 Youth Academy students excel in African drumming.

Applicants for the Academy must be entering 6^th through 8^th grade or equivalent and able to attend the entire camp from July 5-9, 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  Parents are responsible for arranging transportation to and from the Academy.  The cost to the family is only $25 per child.  Scholarship opportunities are available for families experiencing financial hardship; contact the Museum to make arrangements.

This program is made possible through our generous sponsors, including Tipmont REMC, Union Township Board of Trustees, Sugar Creek Kiwanis, Character Counts, American Legion Byron Cox Post 72, Clements Plumbing, INFBPW/Crawfordsville, Montgomery County Retired Teachers Association, Psi Iota Xi - Gamma Xi Chapter, Teachers Credit Union, Brian Keim, and Roberta Berry.

For registration forms, contact Amanda Wesselmann at 765-362-5769 or awesselmann@ben-hur.com, or stop by the Carriage House Interpretive Center at the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum, 200 Wallace Ave., Crawfordsville.  Registration forms and $25 fee are due by June 30.

Overheard at International Museum Day 4

This is from a Crawfordsville native:

"The Study was very much a part of my youth as my family lived just a few blocks away on Wabash Avenue, I went to school at Wilson from kindergarten through the middle of fourth grade, my Scout Troop met in the Carriage House during some of my early years, and when I was still living in Crawfordsville and preparing to walk in the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon in 2004 and 2005 walking around the blocks near the Study was a regular part of my early-morning training route. So I have fond memories of time spent in the Study and on the grounds during my youth and part of my adult life."