Wild Imagination: Art and Animals in the Gilded Age
Americans’ relationship with animals transformed during the Gilded Age (1870-1914). With a focus on Newport history, the exhibition explores how this exciting, tumultuous period shaped the role of animals in our modern world.
Exhibition was open August 30, 2024 – January 12, 2025.
Take a virtual tour of the Wild Imagination exhibition
In the late 19th century, Americans moved in large numbers from farms to cities, losing touch with a rural way of life and with the closeness to nature and animals that defined it. Nostalgia for a lost kinship with animals pervaded urban, industrial America. At the same time, many were encountering new, “exotic” species through a boom in foreign travel, marine exploration and imperial expansion. More everyday Americans enjoyed natural history pursuits like birdwatching. Pet keeping surged. And while captive animals thrilled spectators at zoos and circuses, which both had their heyday in the Gilded Age, activists launched the nation’s first animal rights movement.
Newporters played a vital, though often contradictory, part in these developments. They fought at the vanguard of the animal rights movement yet set the era’s fashion for furs and feathers as residents of its most stylish summer resort. Newporters pampered their pets but expanded industries like the railroads that ravaged wildlife habitats.
Wild Imagination brings together a menagerie of animal-themed artworks and other objects, from paintings, sculptures, photographs and fashions to fancy dog collars and sea creatures blown in glass. These pieces reflect profound and lasting changes in human-animal relations. They also reveal the individual stories of wondrous creatures that continue to capture our imagination.
In addition to items from the Newport Mansions collections, objects in this exhibition are generously loaned by the following institutions:
Brown University
Castle Hill Inn
Columbus Museum of Art
Harvard University
Historic New England
Maryhill Museum of Art
The Mount, Edith Wharton’s home
Museum at the International Tennis Hall of Fame
Mystic Seaport Museum
National Museum of American Illustration
Newport Historical Society
Newport Restoration Foundation
New-York Historical Society
New York University
Trinity College
Selected objects in the exhibition
Cat in a Crate
S.S. David (American, 1847-1898), c. 1887
Oil on canvas stretched around box
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio: Museum Purchase with funds provided by Loann Crane and the Derby and Howald Funds. 2019.026.
Loïe Fuller in Butterfly Gown
Reutlinger Photography Studio (Paris, 1850-1937), c. 1898
Cabinet card
Collection of Maryhill Museum of Art
Les Trois Amis (The Three Friends)
Charles Chaplin (French, 1825-1891), 1887; Frame made by Jules Allard and Sons (French, active 1878-1907)
Oil on canvas, oak and giltwood frame
Bequest of Mrs. Harold S. Vanderbilt. PSNC.429.
“Tired! How Could I Be Tired, Cuckoo?" Illustration in The Cuckoo Clock
Written by Mary Louisa Molesworth (British, 1839-1921) and illustrated by Walter Crane (British, 1845-1915) (London: Macmillan and Co., originally 1877), 1892
Ink on paper, cloth
Gift of Ms. Elizabeth K. Misener. PSNC.12643.3.
The Spiders and the Flies (Caricatures of Jay Gould and William Henry Vanderbilt)
Charles Kendrick (American, 1841-1914) for Chic (January 25, 1881), p. 8-9
Lithograph
Watkinson Library's Division of Special Collections, Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.
Portrait of Hippodale at Six Years Old
Mariette Leslie Cotton (American, 1866-1947), c. 1910
Oil on canvas, giltwood frame
Gift of Miss. Christina C. Anderson. PSNC.14388.
French Bulldog Figurine
Émile Gallé (French, 1846-1904), c. 1890
Tin-glazed earthenware, glass
Gift of Mrs. Alletta Morris McBean. PSNC.8631.
The Turkey Shoot (or New England Turkey Shoot)
Julian Scott (American, 1846-1901), 1875
Watercolor on paper
Gift of Mrs. Alletta Morris McBean. PSNC.8567.
Coffee Service
Worcester Royal Porcelain Company (English, 1862-present), probably decorated by John Hopewell (English, 1834-1894), 1875-1879
Gift of Mrs. Alletta Morris McBean. PSNC.8550.1ab-.6ab.
Dactylometra, Newport, Rhode Island (detail)
Unidentified Photographer, 1897
Ernst Mayr Library and Archives of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
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Beneath The Breakers Tour
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Fans of HBO’s "The Gilded Age" will love this guide-led tour of locations in four of the Newport Mansions where Julian Fellowes' historical drama series was filmed. Fridays only, May 2 through June 27.
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SOLD OUT for in-person attendance. Virtual attendance is available.
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Young Patron Event: “Rendez-Vous with the Roaring ’20s”
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6:00pm – 8:00pm
Our next Young Patron event invites guests to learn to dance – 1920s style!
Member Guide-led Landscape Tour of The Elms
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11:00am
Learn the history behind The Elms gardens and grounds with Jim Donahue, Curator of Historic Landscapes.
SOLD OUT
Tree Walk at Marble House
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10:00am – 11:00am
Join Jeff Curtis, Director of Gardens & Landscapes, for a guided tour of the specimen trees on the Marble House grounds.
Girl Scout Badge Day at Green Animals
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10:30am – 12:00pm
Daisies, Brownies, Juniors and Cadets will get a chance to explore Green Animals Topiary Garden and earn a badge by completing activities. Presented in partnership with the Girl Scouts of Southeastern New England.
Richard Morris Hunt:
In a New Light
May 30 – November 2, 2025
This exhibition examines the mind, ambition and legacy of America’s Dean of Architecture, who shaped Gilded Age America not only through the buildings he created – including The Breakers and Marble House – but also through his ideas.
The Newport Flower Show: “A Floral Fair”
June 20 – 22, 2025
Themed “A Floral Fair,” the 29th annual Show will combine the elegance of a Gilded Age fête with the good cheer of a summer county fair.
Newport Mansions Wine & Food Festival
September 19 – 21, 2025
Thank you to all of our sponsors, guests and volunteers for another successful Newport Mansions Wine & Food Festival. See you next year for the 20th annual festival, September 19-21, 2025, at Rosecliff. Become a Preservation Society member and receive early access to purchase 2025 tickets before they become available to the general public.
