Framing History: The Art of Blount Mansion

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

The following article ran August 28 on the Beyond the Mansion site. It is reposted here with permission.

We have a great new exhibit going in here at the Visitor’s Center here at Blount Mansion. It is called Framing History: The Art of Blount Mansion.

In the years since we became a museum in 1926 we have collected many great works of art along with all of the furniture and other items. So we have taken the time to select some of the best of what we have to best represent our collection and are now displaying them for the enjoyment of our visitors and guests.

The majority of the exhibit is portraits. Given the number of famous people associated with the site we have some great ones to share. There are copies of both William Blount and son Willie Blount’s official Governors portraits done by Tennessee artist Sarah Ward Conley. Another is a striking portrait of General Washington’s Chief of Artillery during the Revolution, General Henry Knox. He was Secretary of War in the 1790’s and Governor Blount’s boss. He is also the man whom Knoxville is named for.

Prints make up most of the rest of the exhibit. There are 3 original Mark Catesby prints from the 1730’s. These well preserved examples are from Catesby’s work on flora and fauna. He was one of the first naturalists to discover that birds migrate.

Our prints are from his masterwork, “Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands”. He spent years traveling through the new colonies studying the wildlife and plants. It would be almost 40 years before he would be truly finished with the engravings and publishing. Amazingly he predates John J.Audubon by almost 100 years!

We were incredibly lucky to have Robmat Butler, a preparator from the Knoxville Museum of Art come over and hang the new exhibit for us. His skill and experience made short work of hanging these 26 pieces. From start to finish it was only about an hour. Who knows how long it would have taken us to do it. Many thanks to KMA for the help.

So It is our distinct pleasure to invite everyone out to the opening of the new exhibit on September 5th, 2014. As part of First Friday we will have a small reception here at the Visitor’s Center at 7:00 p.m. Drinks and light refreshments will be served. We hope everyone will come out and have a good time