This list encompasses some of the most notable public collections throughout the United States and elsewhere whose holdings in furniture, whether inclusive or locally oriented, are of great interest and beauty.
Birmingham
Birmingham Museum of Art
2000 Eighth Avenue North Birmingham, AL 35203
(205) 254-2566
A notable collection of Chinese furniture and a substantial 18th-century French one.
Los Angeles
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
5905 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 857-6000
Comprehensive art museum containing collections of European and American furniture, with an emphasis on the Arts and Crafts Movement.
The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive Los Angeles, CA 90049
(310) 440-7300
Art museum, housing a collection of European decorative arts from the Renaissance through the 19th century, with an emphasis on the major works of French ébénistes during the Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI periods.
San Francisco
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 379-8800
America’s greatest museum of Asian art houses much fine furniture, especially Chinese.
Hartford
Wadsworth Atheneum
600 Main Street Hartford, CT 06103
(203) 278-2670
Art museum with a strong emphasis on European and American decorative arts, especially 17th- and 18th-century American furniture.
New Haven
Yale University Art Gallery
1111 Chapel Street
P.O. Box 208271
New Haven, CT 06520-8271
(203) 432-0600
Art museum, including the famed Mabel Brady Garvan collection of American antiques.
Woodstock
Bowen House, 1846
Route 169
Woodstock, CT 06281
(860) 928-4074
Neo-Gothic house museum, complete with original furnishings.
Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
Winterthur, DE 19735
(800) 448-3883
The major American decorative arts collection, with 175 period rooms and a museum wing, featuring furniture ranging in date from 1640 to 1860. Plus, 25 miles away, ten house museums, in Odessa, Delaware.
The Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
(202) 647-3241
These grand rooms, furnished with museum-quality American antiques dating from 1750 to 1825, are used for official functions but are open on weekdays for prearranged tours at no charge. Reservations are required and should be made approximately four weeks in advance, due to the large volume of requests.
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
1050 Independence Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20560
(202) 357-4880
This branch of the Smithsonian Institution has a range of Asian art including a collection of Chinese hardwood and lacquer furniture.
Atlanta
The High Museum of Art
1280 Peachtree Street NE
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
(404) 733-4400
Art museum with a fine American antique furniture collection.
Honolulu
Honolulu Academy of Arts
900 South Beretannia
Honolulu, HI 96814-1495
(808) 532-8701; (808) 532-8700.
Excellent collection of Chinese hardwood furniture.
Chicago
The Chicago Art Institute
111 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60603
(312) 443-3600
Superior art museum with much European and American furniture of all periods from about 1600 to the present, as well as a small collection of Chinese furniture.
Bowling Green
The Kentucky Museum
Western Kentucky University
One Big Red Way
Bowling Green, KY 42101-3576
(270) 745-2592
Sizable American furniture collection, not all Kentuckian.
Ellsworth
Colonel Black Mansion, “Woodlawn” (1827)
West Main Street, Route 172
Ellsworth, ME 04605
(207) 667-8671
House museum, with restored garden and carriage house.
Portland
Portland Museum of Art
7 Congress Square Portland, ME 04101
(207) 775-6148
Art museum with decorative arts collection focused on Federal and Empire periods.
Saco
The York Institute Museum
371 Main Street
Saco, ME 04072
(207) 282-3031
York Harbor
Sayward-Wheeler House, c. 1718
79 Barrell Lane Extension York Harbor, ME 03911
(603) 436-3205
House museum with original 18th- early 19th-century furnishings.
Baltimore
Baltimore Museum of Art
Art Museum Drive
Baltimore, MD 21218-3898
(410) 396-7100
A varied art museum with a wing of period rooms featuring antiques from Maryland and elsewhere.
Maryland Historical Society
201 West Monument Street Baltimore, MD 21201-4674
(410) 685-3750
Museum collection including much fine furniture of all periods made in Maryland.
Andover
Addison Gallery of American Art
Phillips Academy
180 Main Street
Andover, MA 01810
(978) 749-4027
Small but select collections of American art and furniture.
Boston
Museum of Fine Arts
465 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115
(617) 267-9300
Comprehensive art museum, with impressive furniture holdings in a range of areas.
Harrison Gray Otis House, 1796
141 Cambridge Street
Boston, MA 02114
(617) 227-3956
House museum, headquarters of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (owners of several other house museums in this listing), this Bulfinch-designed urban residence has been meticulously restored and houses many pieces of fine, high-style Federal period furniture.
Deerfield
Historic Deerfield
Box 321
Deerfield, MA 01342-0321
(413) 774-5581
Famed treasure trove, a 1,000-acre “campus” with 14 house museums and more.
Lincoln
Gropius House, 1938
68 Baker Bridge Road
Lincoln, MA 01773
(781) 259-8098
House museum designed by Walter Gropius for himself, includes original furniture designed by Marcel Breuer and made at the Bauhaus.
Newbury
Coffin House, c. 1654
14 High Road, Route 1A Newbury, MA 01951
(978) 462-2634
House museum with extensions built in 1700 and 1785, exhibiting furniture of three centuries.
Plymouth
Pilgrim Hall Museum
75 Court Street
Plymouth, MA 02360
(508) 746-1620
A small but choice collection of Pilgrim Furniture.
Salem
Peabody Essex Museum
East India Square, Salem, MA 01970
(978) 745-9500; (800) 745-4054
A marine and ethnological museum with a fine collection of New England decorative arts; twenty-three period buildings, some furnished, and America’s only Chinese period building, an 18th-century merchant’s house.
Detroit
The Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, Michigan 48202
Art museum with collections of 18th- and 19th-century American and European furniture.
Minneapolis
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
2400 Third Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55404
(612) 870-3131; (888) 642-2787
Comprehensive art museum with one of the best Chinese furniture collections outside China or Japan. Also good European and American pieces of all periods.
Kansas City
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
4525 Oak Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64111-1873
(816) 751-1278
Comprehensive art museum, with impressive holdings of French, American, and other furniture, mostly displayed in period rooms. Also, an especially fine Chinese furniture collection.
Keene
Horatio Colony House
199 Main Street
Keene, NH 03431
(603) 352-0460
Federal period house museum.
Manchester
The Currier Gallery of Art
201 Myrtle Way
Manchester, NH 03104
(603) 669-6144
Art museum with a small but good collection of American furniture that emphasizes New England and New Hampshire. (Frank Lloyd Wright’s Zimmerman House can be reached by a van from the museum. Reservations are required; call [603] 669-6144.)
Portsmouth
The “Portsmouth Trail” presents six of the city’s historic houses. A 32-page brochure with a map of the trail is available at any of the houses. Hours and admission to each house vary; call for more info.
• Governor John Langdon House, 143 Pleasant Street, (603) 436-3205
• John Paul Jones House, Middle & State Streets, (603) 436-8420
• Moffatt-Ladd House, 154 Market Street, (603) 436-8221
• Rundlet-May House, 364 Middle Street, (603) 436-3205
• Warner House, Daniel & Chapel Streets, (603) 436-5909
• Wentworth-Gardner House, Mechanic & Gardner Streets, (603) 436-4406
Strawbery Banke Museum
Bounded by Marcy, State, Washington and Hancock Streets
(603) 433-1100
Historic waterfront neighborhood featuring more than 40 buildings, dating from colonial times (1695) to the early 1900s, including the Chase House (1762), the Drisco House (1790), the Capt. Keyran Walsh House (1796), the Governor Goodwin Mansion (1860), and the Thomas Bailey Aldrich House (1870).
Freehold
Monmouth County Historical Association
70 Court Street Freehold, NJ 07733
(732) 462-1466
Offering a museum and four local historical houses.
Garrison
Boscobel (1804–08)
Route 9D
Garrison, NY 10524
(914) 265-3638
House museum, with a fine collection of New York Federal and Empire furniture.
New York City
Brooklyn Museum of Art
200 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(718) 638-5000
Comprehensive art museum, including many good American period rooms, and a small collection of Chinese furniture.
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
2 East 91st Street
New York, NY 11128
(212) 849-8400
General design museum, including a comprehensive collection of chairs.
The Frick Collection
I East 70th Street
New York, NY 10021-4967
(212) 288-0700
Fine French furniture, displayed as if in a domestic setting, amid a great painting collection.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028-0198
(212) 535-7710
One of the great art museums of the world, with many period rooms and displays of furniture from an amazing range of times and cultures.
Museum of American Folk Art
61 West 62nd Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) 977-7170
Folk art of all sorts, including American country and idiosyncratic furniture.
Museum of Modern Art
II West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019
(212) 708-9400
The original modern art museum, with a comprehensive design department featuring virtually all styles of modern furniture.
Tarrytown
Historic Hudson Valley
150 White Plains Road
Tarrytown, NY 10591
(914) 631-8200
Headquarters for six historic landmarks, including:
• Philipsburg Manor, in Tarrytown, an early 18th-century farm restored to working status, whose manor house is furnished with period furniture and decorative arts.
• Montgomery Place, in Annandale-on-Hudson, an early 19th-century mansion furnished with period antiques, some original to the house.
• Van Cortlandt Manor, an 18th-century stone house in Croton-on-Hudson, with a collection of period furniture, most of which is original to the house, plus a restored 18th-century tavern nearby.
• Sunnyside, in Sleepy Hollow, restored home of the author Washington Irving, a 17th-century Dutch colonist’s cottage remodeled by Irving in 1835.
• Kykuit, the Rockefeller country retreat in Pocantico Hills, furnished with Nelson Rockefeller’s collections of fine furniture, ceramics, and sculpture.
• Union Church of Pocantico Hills, with stained glass windows by Chagall and Matisse.
Winston-Salem
MESDA (Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts)
P.O. Box 10310
Winston-Salem, NC 27108-0310
Old Salem Visitors Center
Academy Street
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
(336) 721-7360.
Premier southern museum of decorative arts.
Philadelphia
Philadelphia Museum of Art
26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA 19130
(215) 763-8100
A major art museum, including Japanese, Chinese, medieval, and 18th-century French period rooms, and important Philadelphia and Pennsylvania-German furniture and decorative arts collections.
Pittsburgh
Carnegie Museum of Art
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-4080
(412) 622-3131
Art museum with a chronological installation of European and American decorative art from the 17th century to the present.
Newport
Preservation Society of Newport County
424 Bellevue Avenue
Newport, RI 02840
(401) 847-1000
Caretaker of many of the 19th-century Newport mansions, including The Breakers, Rosecliff, and The Elms, which feature opulent examples of the interior design of America’s wealthy industrialists.
Providence
Rhode Island School of Design Museum
224 Benefit Street
Providence, RI 02903
(401) 454-6100
Art museum with furniture from medieval to Post-Modern, with particular strengths in American, and especially Newport, work of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Charleston
The Charleston Museum
360 Meeting Street
Charleston, SC 29403
(843) 722-2996
Owner of two house museums:
• The Joseph Manigault House (1803), 350 Meeting Street, Charleston, a grand neoclassical town house furnished with a collection of American, English, and French furniture of the period.
• The Heyward-Washington House, 87 Church Street, a town house furnished with a fine collection of Charleston furniture, plus a rare separate kitchen building that is open to the public.
Historic Charleston Foundation
P.O. Box 1120
Charleston, SC 29402
(843) 723-1623
Owners of several historical buildings, including:
• Nathaniel Russell House (1808), 51 Meeting Street, Charleston, one of America’s best neoclassical house museums.
• Aiken-Rhett House (1818–58), 48 Elizabeth Street, Charleston, a house museum, a fine example of an “urban plantation.”
Dallas
Dallas Museum of Art
1717 North Harwood
Dallas, TX 75201
(214) 922-1200
Art museum with a substantial collection of 18th- and 19th-century American furniture.
Houston
Museum of Fine Arts
1001 Bissonnet (at Main)
Houston, TX 77005
Comprehensive art museum, including good 20th-century furniture
Bayou Bend
One Westcott Street
Houston, TX 77007
House museum with the remarkable Miss Ima Hogg’s American decorative arts collection, including a wealth of furniture.
Bennington
The Bennington Museum
West Main Street
Bennington, VT 05201
(802) 447-1571
Local history museum with a small but excellent collection of Vermont-made furniture.
Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg
Williamsburg, VA 23187
(757) 220-7286
The famed “outdoor museum,” consisting of 88 restored buildings in the historical center of the town, numerous museum and gallery buildings, and, eight miles distant, Carter’s Grove (1737), a house museum.
Milwaukee
The Chipstone Foundation
7820 North Club Circle
Milwaukee, WI 53217
(414) 223-3035
A splendid collection of American antique furniture of all periods, though the small size of its display space means much of it is on loan throughout the country.
The Milwaukee Art Museum
750 North Lincoln Memorial Drive
Milwaukee, WI 53202
(414) 224-3200
Art museum with expanding collection of American furniture, from the 18th through the 20th centuries.
Toronto
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen’s Park
Toronto, Ontario M5S2C6
CANADA
(416) 586-5549
Leeds
Temple Newsam House (16th and 17th centuries)
Temple Newsam Road (off Selby Road)
Leeds LS15 0AE
Palatial house museum.
Harewood House
Harewood, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS17 9LQ
Palatial house museum.
London (and vicinity)
Ham house (1610–70s)
Ham Street
Richmond upon Thames, Surrey TW10 7RS
House museum with original furniture and art, plus a textile collection.
Kenwood (remodeled in 1760, by Robert Adam)
Hampstead Lane
London NW3 7JR
Museum of the 18th century, with much furniture, some of it original to the house.
Strawberry Hill (1753–76)
St. Mary’s College
Waldergrave Road
Strawberry Hill TW1 4SX
House museum, Horace Walpole’s famous neo-Gothic creation.
The Victoria and Albert Museum
Cromwell Road
South Kensington, London SW7 2RL
World’s largest, and possibly best, museum of decorative arts.
The Wallace Collection
Hertford House
Manchester Square, London SW7 2RL
Art museum whose French furniture collection is said to be the best outside France.
Paris
Château de Bagatelle
Bois de Boulogne
Decorative arts collections in an 18th-century folly designed by François-Joseph Belanger, built by a French nobleman to pay off a bet with Queen Marie-Antoinette.
Le Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Palais du Louvre
107, rue de Rivoli
The decorative arts wing of the Palais du Louvre, with its magnificent collection of medieval and Renaissance furnishings.
Musée national des Arts Asiatiques
Guimet 6, place d’Iéna
19, avenue d’Iéna, 75116 Paris
Fine collection of Chinese furniture.
Weil am Rhein
Vitra Design Museum
Charles-Eames-Strasse 1
Though maintained by a commercial furniture manufacturer, this collection “dedicated to history and current trends in industrial furniture design” is well worth seeing.
Florence
Museo dell’ Opificio delle Pietre Dure
Via degli Alfani, 78
The great collection of Italian pietra dure work, including furniture.
Amsterdam
Rijksmuseum
Stadhouderskade 42, Amsterdam
A great art museum, with lots of great furniture as well.
Beijing
Central Academy of Arts and Design
Department of Environmental Art Design
No. 34 Dong San Huan Bei Lu
Beijing, People’s Republic of China 100020
People’s Palace
Beijing, People’s Republic of China
Some of the remains of the Imperial Chinese household furnishings.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong Museum of Art
10 Salisbury Road
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Small collection of huang hua li furniture on display.
The Tsui Museum of Art
4, Henley Building
5 Queens Road Central, Hong Kong
Chinese hardwood furniture in period rooms.
Shanghai
Shanghai Museum
Renmin Dadao 0201
People’s Square
Shanghai, People’s Republic of China
Home of the famed Wang Shixiang Collection of Chinese furniture, plus a good
collection of other furniture. This site also houses the remarkable miniature wood
furniture recently excavated from a Ming dynasty tomb.
Taipei
National Palace Museum
Taipei
Collection of Qing dynasty zitan furniture.
Singapore
The Asian Civilizations Museum
39 Armenian Street
Singapore 179939
Late Ming and early Qing hardwood furniture.