Antique Blog

The Gettysburg Cyclorama

The Gettysburg National Military Park Cyclorama Center was the home of the "Battle of Gettysburg" Cyclorama, a 360 degree circular oil-on-canvas painting that depicts "Pickett's Charge," the climactic Confederate attack on the Union center on July 3, 1863. Completed and exhibited in 1884, it is one of the last surviving cycloramas in the United States.

Cycloramas were a very popular form of entertainment in the getlate 1800's, both in America and Europe. These massive oil-on-canvas paintings were displayed in special auditoriums and enhanced with landscaped foregrounds and life-size figures. The result was a three-dimensional effect that surrounded the viewers who stood on a central platform, literally placing them in the center of the scene. Most cycloramas depicted historic events such as great battles, religious themes or scenes from great works of literature. Hundreds were painted and exhibited in Europe and America during the 1800's, yet most were lost or destroyed as their popularity died out with the introduction of a more entertaining art form, motion pictures.

The "Battle of Gettysburg" Cyclorama at Gettysburg National Military Park is one that has survived. This fantastic painting brings the fury of the final Confederate assault on July 3, 1863 to life, providing the viewer with a sense of what occurred at the battle long touted as the turning point of the Civil War. The culmination of the battle was captured on canvas by the French artist Paul Philippoteaux, a professional cyclorama painter and artist. Philippoteaux was not present at Gettysburg, but came to the United States in 1879 when he was hired by a group of entrepreneurs to paint this monumental work for a special display in Chicago. Philippoteaux came to Gettysburg in 1882 armed with a sketchbook, pencils, pens, and a simple guide book to help him locate the site of the climactic charge. The artist spent several weeks on the battlefield, observing details of the terrain and making hundreds of sketches. To help him recall the landscape with accuracy, Philippoteaux hired a Gettysburg photographer to produce a series of panoramic photographs for his use. These images are some of the earliest detailed photographs of Cemetery Ridge, the Angle and the "High Water Mark", and the field of Pickett's Charge. Philippoteaux was also lucky enough to interview a number of veterans of the battle, who helped with suggestions on how to depict the chaos of battle.



Armed with a vast amount of information and ideas, Philippoteaux returned to his studio where he immediately set about laying out the great work. A team of assistants helped him sketch out every detail including soldiers, trees, crops, fences and stone walls, and then began applying tons of oil paint. The phenomenal work took over a year and one-half to complete. The "Cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg" opened to the public in Chicago in 1883, complete with a three-dimensional earthen foreground littered with the relics of battle, stone walls, shattered trees and broken fences. Visitors were awed by the painting's spectacular realism. Veterans of the battle, including General John Gibbon whose troops threw back Pickett's Division on July 3, wrote of its splendor.

Philippoteaux's "Battle of Gettysburg" received such public acclaim that he was contracted to paint a second version of his monumental work, which opened in Boston one year later. Once again Philippoteaux's "Battle of Gettysburg" cyclorama received critical review and hundreds of visitors crowded the specially-built cyclorama building on Tremont Street to view the incredible painting and listen to a lecture on the battle and the personalities involved in this monumental event. The painting was exhibited for nearly twenty years before waning public interest caused the theater to be financially inoperable, and the Gettysburg Cyclorama shut its doors.

Hearing that the Boston cyclorama was up for sale, a Gettysburg-area entrepreneur purchased the painting and moved it with the props and accoutrements of its foreground to Gettysburg. The painting arrived in good condition, though several of the panels were ripped and torn, and some had rotted around the bottom from moisture in the soil of the foreground. Repairs were made to the rips by taking portions of the skyline, the upper portion of which was evidently discarded, and stitching them into place where they were over painted by artists as each panel was hung. The cyclorama opened for public exhibition just in time for the 1913 Anniversary celebration of the Battle of Gettysburg in a specially constructed building on Baltimore Street, where it remained for approximately forty years. Purchased by the National Park Service in the late 1940's, the painting was moved to the new park visitor center in 1962.. The artistic work underwent a massive restoration project that required hours of hand labor to repair water damaged portions of the painting and two large sections faded by years of direct sunlight. The project was completed and the cyclorama re-opened for public viewing in 1962 with the dedication of the National Park Service Visitor Center, which is the Cyclorama Center today. The Gettysburg Cyclorama is 359 feet long, 27 feet high and weighs an estimated 3 tons.

The Gettysburg Cyclorama closed in November 2005 to under go a projected nine million dollar rehabilitation project that began in 2003. Conservation specialists will repair unstable sections of the canvas and restore original details lost in the numerous repair and preservation attempts. Eventually it will be hung in its own unique viewing auditorium with a restored skyline and foreground, in the new National Park Service Visitor Center and Museum at Gettysburg, scheduled to open in late 2007.

The fate of the other Gettysburg Cycloramas has been less fortunate. The Chicago painting was eventually sold and was in private ownership until its donation to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The painting has survived, though it is in desperate need of restoration and a permanent home. Two more versions of the Gettysburg Cyclorama were painted and exhibited, including one shown in Denver, Colorado. One of these was cut up for use as tents by native Americans on a Shoshone Indian Reservation after the turn of the century. The fate of the other painting is unknown.

When the National Park Service acquired the painting in 1942, it already had been subjected to moisture, rot, and even fire. It had been cut into sections for display in a New Jersey department store in 1910 and undergone several, unsuccessful, attempts at restoration.Flawed hanging, fluctuations in humidity and temperature, and multiple relocations over the years have put added stress on the canvas, created new seams and bends and caused paint to chip. Portions of the canvas have been lost: The painting currently measures 359' x 27'. The adhesive applied to the canvas during the last major attempt at restoration -- 40 years ago -- has become unstable and is accelerating the painting's deterioration.

More recent minor attempts at repair have addressed only the most critical problems, but have had no long-term effect.

The Conservation Process

The painting is being conserved, returned as close as possible to its original state, and will be moved into a new gallery with proper conditions for its preservation. When the painting was first displayed in the 19th century, the experience was said to be so realistic that battle veterans wept. Recreation of the original diorama and the lost optical illusions will enable viewers to lose themselves -- once again -- in the scene. A sophisticated audio system will recreate the battle sounds, heightening the sense of being in the midst of Pickett's charge.


Conservation of the painting, the largest project of its kind ever undertaken in North America, is proceeding in two phases. The first is being performed in the current building, and includes cleaning the painting surface; removing overpaint, inserts and grime; dismantling the canvas; and removing the lining and wax from the canvas back. The second phase, to be performed in the new gallery, will include shaping and lining the painting sections and mounting them on a new support system, which will maintain even tension throughout the canvas.

The conservation team is being directed by two of the nation's premiere conservation firms: Olin Conservation, Inc., of Great Falls, Va., and Perry Huston & Associates, Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas. The team's extensive conservation experience includes the panorama Mesdag, at Den Haag, the Netherlands; murals at the U.S. National Archives, the Library of Congress and the Department of Interior headquarters in Washington, D.C.; and large paintings at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and Chickamauga-Chattanooga National Military Park.

Joan of Arc Exhibition

The French medieval heroine Joan of Arc is the subject of a new exhibition at the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven.

Presented originally at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from November 2006 to January 2007, the exhibit focuses not only on the historical figure but also on the manner in which Joan of Arc has been characterized or portrayed through time: a bold warrior, a pious maiden, a fashionable courtier, a loyal subject, a condemned prisoner.

Famed American writer and Connecticut resident Mark Twain had great admiration for Joan of Arc and conducted 12 years of research before writing Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.

“I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well,” Twain recounted. “And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure afforded me by any of the others.”

As an illiterate peasant, Joan followed an unlikely path to fame. Late in France’s Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), she had a vision in which God instructed her to reclaim her homeland from the increasing domination of England. With some effort, she persuaded Charles VII, the uncrowned heir to the French throne, that she should lead his troops in battle.

Joan’s incredible successes eventually included escorting Charles to Reims for his coronation, which ended a dispute over succession to the throne. Within a year however, the king’s enemies captured Joan, put her on trial, and burned her at the stake in a public execution May 30, 1431. Only 19 at the time of her death, Joan was exonerated in a second, posthumous trial 25 years later. Pope Benedict XV declared her a saint in 1920.

Titled Joan of Arc: Medieval Maiden to Modern Saint, the exhibition runs from May 1 through September 3, 2007, and features more than 200 works, including paintings, sculpture, prints, illustrated books, posters, and popular art on loan from more than 20 public and private collections in the United States and France. Its two guest curators, Laura Coyle and Nora Heimann, also presented the Corcoran exhibit. Both have a personal fascination as well as a professional expertise in Joan of Arc.

“Joan of Arc was without a doubt one of the most intriguing women who ever lived, and her image is as varied as it is powerful,” said Laura Coyle. “Not long after her death, literary and visual representations of her began to circulate widely and set important precedents for how she would be portrayed in the centuries to come. Several types of images of Joan became popular, but exactly what she stood for varies depending on the time and the place.”


Knights of Columbus Museum
1 State Street
New Haven, CT 06511
203-865-0400

Co-curator Nora Heimann, who has been researching and writing about Joan of Arc for 17 years, said, “Our exhibition seeks to tell her remarkable story. It also endeavors to demonstrate how history, in turn, has changed Joan of Arc, as her image has been made and remade throughout the ages to suit the mutable fashions and desires of others.”

The Knights of Columbus Museum hosts some of the country’s most impressive exhibits of religious art and history. It was ranked by USA Today as one of the “10 great places to explore religion in artistic detail.” During the exhibit, the museum is open Mondays-Saturdays 10-5 (Wednesdays until 7) and Sundays 11-5; admission and parking are free.


Haskell Coffin poster: Joan of Arc Saved France. Women of America, Save Your Country, 1918; poster (Library of Congress)."


Henry Van Dyke. "The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France". Harper's Magazine, Dec. 1918, v. 138, n. 823, p. 1-13.
Gift of Adelaide Brooks Baylis

And So to Bed: The American Bedroom, 1750 - 1920

This is the current exhibition from the DAR in Washington D.C. running from May 4, 2007 - October 6, 2007


It has been a part of all of our daily routines since the beginning of time, but how was going to bed different in times past? The DAR Museum exhibition “And So To Bed: The American Bedroom 1750-1920,” which runs from May 4 – October 6, 2007, explores the evolution of the bed and the bedroom. Changing ideas of style, privacy, health, and hygiene altered the design of bedrooms, beds, bedding, and bedclothes. All of these will be traced in the DAR Museum exhibit highlighting furniture, textiles, and costume, sure to appeal to not only enthusiasts of these items, but anyone who has ever thought about going to bed.

The many decades between 1760 and 1920 witnessed revolutionary changes in the concept of the bedroom and the rituals surrounding how one prepared to go to bed or wake in the morning. This exhibition, a result of more than two years of planning and research by DAR Museum curators Alden O’Brien and Patrick Sheary, will examine the ways in which changing fashion, interior décor, and technology combined to create the modern master bedroom suite.

“When we envisioned an exhibit examining the early-American bedroom, one of our curators immediately came up with the title ‘And so to bed…’ from the words that 17th century English diarist Samuel Pepys used to end each day’s journal entry,” explains Diane Dunkley, DAR Museum Director and Chief Curator. “The exhibit theme is a great opportunity for us to showcase many of our beautiful and interesting collection items in the gallery as well as highlight the DAR Museum’s period rooms which feature five bedchambers.”

On exhibit is a reproduction Colonial American bedstead with decorative hangings and a beautiful circa 1750 indigo resist-printed cotton quilt (the earliest quilt in the DAR Museum collection). However, not everyone in early America slept in such elaborate and expensive beds. Examples of bed linens of the time show the variety of qualities from coarse to fine and an interactive display lets visitors pick if they would prefer to sleep on a mattress filled with materials used in the 1700s such as moss, straw, dried corn husks, wheat chaff, or feathers.



Until the 20th century, nightgowns were made to be sturdy, not seductive. Those women who had the luxury of spending the morning at home wore informal, but fashionable, loose gowns while they breakfasted and attended to undemanding tasks like letter-writing. Both simple and decorative sleepwear and morning wear, for women and men, are on display in the exhibit, as well as other clothing accessories like nightcaps and slippers, including Thomas Jefferson’s slipper socks.

During the 18th century, almost no one had a room devoted specifically to washing. One bathed, when necessary, either outside or in the bedroom from a washbasin and pitcher. So the exhibition would not be complete without a look at the evolution of the bathroom. Early items such as a bathing tub, wash stand and images of early “shower baths” are on display, as well as unusual “bed steps” – a piece of furniture to assist owners climbing into a high bed that could also be made to conceal the identity of a chamber pot.

A replica 1920s bedroom concludes the exhibit by showing how the bedroom evolved to incorporate new styles of furniture and sleepwear. It also examines how mattress technology of the mid-19th century popularized steel springs and cotton felt stuffed mattresses which led to the individually wrapped coil springs that are the standard of today.

While many of us may take for granted the significance of the bedroom, it is the place where most of us start and end each day. With the DAR Museum’s examination of close to two centuries of bedroom accessories and custom, visitors can glimpse into the more personal practices of early-American society to compare and contrast to how we carry out our own bedroom routines today.

The DAR Museum was founded in 1890, concurrent with its parent organization, the National Society Daughters of the Revolution. The DAR was one of many historical and genealogical societies founded in the years following the nation’s centennial in 1876. The DAR Museum collects quilts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The collection is particularly strong in early quilts and counterpanes, including wholecloth, framed medallion, and whitework bedcoverings dating from the late eighteenth century through the first decades of the 1800s.