Existing comment:
The Worsham-Rockefeller Bedroom:
The Worsham-Rockefeller bedroom was originally located in a mid-1860s Italianate brownstone at 4 West Fifty-fourth Street in New York City. The mansion was purchased in 1877 by Richmond native Arabella Worsham who shortly thereafter commissioned a major New York architect and decorating firm to expand the structure and remodel the interiors. Included in that commission, this bedroom is a consummate example of the Anglo-American Aesthetic movement, expressing what one contemporary reviewer described as an effort to "persuade people to ... pursue the paths of true art and taste in furnishing their house."
Arabella Worsham occupied the mansion for only a few years. In 1884, she married Collis P. Huntington and sold the house to John D. Rockefeller Sr. Following Rockefeller's death in 1937, three rooms were removed from the house prior to its demolition. The Rockefeller family gave this bedroom and a dressing room to the Museum of the City of New York and a smoking room to the Brooklyn Museum.
In 2008, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts received the Worsham-Rockefeller Bedroom as a generous gift from the Museum of the City of New York. The acquisition brings added dimension to VMFA's collection not only as the museum's first historical interior but as evidence of the socioeconomic transformations of the post-Civil War period. |