New Permanent Exhibition
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New Orleans Museum of Art |
The Fabergé Gallery at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) has been seen by millions of visitors in the past quarter of a century. To replace the Gray collection (which has moved to the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in Nashville, Tennessee), NOMA's Curator of Decorative Arts John Keefe has assembled a selection of Fabergé objects from a number of sources. Starting with a group of Fabergé objects donated to NOMA in 1995 by trustee Paul J. Leaman, Jr., Keefe has borrowed a variety of Fabergé objects from private collectors in Louisiana and Georgia. The largest lender is Dr. Daniel L. Hodges of Lafayette, Louisiana, who in just four years has formed a collection of over one hundred Fabergé objects.
Among the highlights of the Hodges collection is a large photograph frame of 1906 by the workmaster Anders Johan Nevalainen, purchased by the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, to hold a photograph of her son Tsar Nicholas II, which is still in the frame. Another important work from the Hodges Collection is large sculpture of a coiled serpent in silver mounted on a block of turquoise by the workmaster Johan Victor Aarne.
The new display at NOMA also includes a new museum acquisition: a collection of twenty-five miniature Fabergé Easter Eggs, the gift of NOMA trustee Mrs. Charles Ireland, all displayed on a golden tree. The new Fabergé exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art will open on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2007. (Contributed by Mr. E. Bullard Johnson, Director of the New Orleans Museum of Art, 2/07)
