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| Chain Mail Shirt |
On Sunday Laurie, her sister Christie, and myself took a trip to the Worcester Art Museum. I had never been there, and had actually never heard of it until last week. Once I found out about it I knew I would go. Consequently. I didn't attempt to research it so I wouldn't know what to expect. The museum is very easy to get to. It is less than a mile from I-290. GPS puts you right into the parking lot. There is parking in the lot, another lot across the street, and there is on street parking. The cost an adult $18. We went on a Sunday and the museum was not very crowded. It opens at 10 am and we got there at 10:30. There were only a couple people around. When we left a little after noon, the lot across the street was filling up but it was never what I would consider crowded.
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| Roman Gladiator Helmet |
Upon paying our admission we took a floor map. There are four floors of exhibits. Most of the exhibits are on the lower two floors. The fourth floor has modern and Contemporary Art. We spent all of five minutes on that floor. The lower floors have art from Ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt. There is art from the middle Ages through the nineteenth century. The museum is not very big. Each period or location only has one or two rooms dedicated to that form of art. Though not huge, the museum still took us an hour and a half to walk through.
We did see some pretty cool stuff. There was a helmet that had been worn by Greek Hoplites. It had holes in both sides indicating the wearer of the helmet probably died in battle due to a sword going through the helmet. There was also a helmet worn by a Gladiator. Gladiator helmets are very rare in North America. Even in Europe, only the largest most prestigious museums have Gladiator helmets. I was in awe.
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| Hoplite Helmet Notice the hole in it |
In a room dedicated to Ancient Romans were busts of three of the most famous (and infamous) Emperors: Nero, Caligula, and the great Marcus Aurelius. In another room there was a sculpture by Rodin.
One of the greatest collections were from the Medieval period. Much of it donated from John Higgins. Higgins has a museum in Worcester called the Higgins Armory. It is probably the largest museum dedicated to knights weapons and armor in the United States and possibly the world. I went to that museum about twenty years ago. But I digress, this museum had weapons from the times of knights and castles. There was a fine chain mail shirt on display. There were axes, swords, and other weapons. It was all quite impressive. There was even a knight's armor that was a rental. Yes, a rental. Since not all knights had the money to pay for a suit of armor they could rent one for jousting. The armor even had straps to make it adjustable for different size knights.
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| Portrait of George Washington by Gil Stuart |
There were paintings from the Dark Ages, up to Gilbert Stuart. The American section had a large room dedicated to portraits of prominent citizens painted by Stuart and Copley. There was art dedicated to religion. As you'd expect there were plenty of Madonna and Child paintings. All in all, the paintings were very impressive.
As I said, the museum wasn't huge, but it was well worth it. There was something impressive in every room. I loved seeing the Gladiator and Hoplite helmets. But there were also 6000 year old Egyptian artifacts, a Bierstadt painting, a Georgia O'Keeffe, and many more. I am very happy I went, and it was worth the money for sure. Going to the museum has a nice distraction that I can't catch a trout to save my life.
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| Marcus Aurelius |
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| Caligula |
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| Nero |
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| Statue of Mayan civilization I am not sure if I've seen Mayan art before. |
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