May 21, 2014“We strongly advocate the use of different styles in different rooms, to avoid the monotonous effect invariably produced by the fanatic apostles of the so-called Eastlake or Modern Gothic. For the same reasons it will be necessary for articles of luxury, as Easels. Hanging Shelves, Cabinets, etc., to use motifs from the Mooresque, Byzantine, Japanese, etc., though diametrically opposed to the prevailing style of the room.” – August Fiedler
April 21, 2014The two honorees were awarded prizes for their contributions to the built environment during a public ceremony which took place at the John B. Murphy Memorial Auditorium on March 29.
March 21, 2014The Tiffany Girls faced their toughest critic since the old master himself during a recent twilight tour at the Driehaus Museum. Susan Vreeland, author of the acclaimed bestselling novel, Clara and Mr. Tiffany, was the featured speaker at the Driehaus Winter Book Club this March. She also gave two lectures at the museum on the Women’s Department at Tiffany Studios. Vreeland provided some valuable insights as she accompanied “Clara Driscoll” and “Agnes Northrop” on a historic reenactment through their temporary studio and showroom in the Nickerson Mansion.
February 18, 2014Happy 166th Birthday to Louis Comfort Tiffany born February 18, 1848.
January 30, 2014The Driehaus Museum is excited to introduce its first Book Club series. We begin the series with Sally Sexton Kalmbach’s book Jewel of the Gold Coast: Mrs. Potter Palmer’s Chicago. The Jewel of the Gold Coast book clubs take place on January 30th and February 5th. Here is a brief selection from the book, as well as a conversation with Anna Wolff, Driehaus Museum Educator.
December 24, 2013As the Nickerson and Fisher families looked forward to their holiday seasons, they and other Gilded Age families would have enjoyed games, toys and books in their spare time.
October 14, 2013For the Museum Store, L’Esperance Tile was commissioned to craft two custom tiles inspired by the J. & J. G. Low Art Tile Works tiles found in the Driehaus Museum—which, with their embossed natural details, jewel-toned colors, and sheen, are among the most stunning surviving elements of the this 1883 mansion.
October 05, 2013Cyrus H. McCormick was many things. A native Virginian who became one of Chicago’s great industrialists, he was also a famous penny-pincher, generous philanthropist, stolid Presbyterian, and patent hound. He moved to Chicago in 1847, where he set up the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company factory and prospered.
October 04, 2013The Driehaus Museum has three sister institutions in Europe, each simply resplendent and embodying the highest ideals of preservation and classical architecture, just as we strive to do here in Chicago.
September 28, 2013The lamps are lit, the windows are aglow, and the flowerform vases are arranged like small, beautiful glass gardens.
September 10, 2013“For the last five years Mr. Nickerson has been considered one of the choice fish in the social swim,” wrote a New York Telegraph correspondent, “and all sorts of bait have been thrown at him.”
August 06, 2013As we draw nearer to the opening of the Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibition, this work—created by one of the artists he employed—is a fitting one to stop and enjoy for a moment. On view in the Drawing Room on the mansion’s first floor, it is an elegant and simple painting with quite a history behind it, one which has only recently come to light.
July 12, 2013The Driehaus Museum Store is celebrating its grand opening this Saturday, July 13. Here is a sneak peek of just a few of the beautiful items you’ll find inside, as well as a conversation with Corie Walcott, the Driehaus Museum Store Coordinator.
July 08, 2013Help Wanted: The Summer Servants’ Tour, the Driehaus Museum’s first living history tour, debuted in 2012 and has become one of our most popular programs.
June 28, 2013Edward J. Burling was, arguably, the first great architect in this city of great architects.
June 17, 2013This fanciful blown-glass work by Tiffany Studios always stirs the curiosity of visitors to the Reception Room. Despite appearing to be just an objet d’art to admire, it is designed to serve a function—as a humidor, used to preserve tobacco in an airtight space.
June 08, 2013The Driehaus Museum officially turns five years old today.
May 20, 2013Henry Flagler and Henry Plant had much in common. Both came from humble American beginnings; were undereducated relative to their future self-made success; adopted New York City as home;
May 15, 2013We are so inspired by the image of Robert Redford as the lovelorn Jay Gatsby, standing on a Newport mansion’s balcony—an image that combines a character of the Lost Generation with the architecture of the Gilded Age—that we decided to show the 1974 film in our own Gilded Age mansion as the first of our new Mix and Mingle at the Movies program series.
May 07, 2013The gleaming White City of the World’s Columbian Exposition made Daniel H. Burnham, architect, into a city planner.
April 24, 2013Last week we welcomed Erin Feher, the journalist and author of a forthcoming book about San Francisco’s residential architectural heritage, to the Museum as part of the Nickerson Lecture Series.
April 20, 2013You Asked… What is the story behind the peach-colored mansion catercorner to the Driehaus Museum?
April 16, 2013Remember last week, when we told you that our second-floor galleries are intended to someday play host to decorative arts exhibitions? Well, the time has (almost) come.
April 11, 2013Today’s blog is part of an occasional series dedicated to answering visitors’ questions.
April 04, 2013A beautiful Romanesque house was completed for John and Frances Glessner in 1887, just five years after the dust had settled from construction on our Nickerson mansion.
March 24, 2013Louis Majorelle made a splash at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 at a precise and brief moment in European art history.
March 19, 2013It’s become a Nickerson Lecture Series tradition to welcome a local scholar for the first lecture of the season.
March 01, 2013In the late 1970s, celebrating women started with International Women’s Day on March 8.
February 25, 2013Named for the man who commissioned the historic mansion the Driehaus Museum lives in today, the Samuel M. Nickerson Lecture Series is one of our most popular programs.
February 18, 2013It’s not just the entertainment industry that has an awards season.
February 11, 2013The Driehaus Museum has three sister institutions in Europe, each simply resplendent and embodying the highest ideals of preservation and classical architecture, just as we strive to do here in Chicago.
February 04, 2013Remember The Polar Express? Jumanji? The Mysteries of Harris Burdick?
January 28, 2013Patenting his electric lightbulb would, more than Edison’s 1,093 other inventions, cement his spot as American inventor extraordinaire.
January 21, 2013This inkstand from the Driehaus Collection packs some of the most eye-catchingly elaborate designs and materials into a small and functional space.
December 23, 2012Each year since the Driehaus Museum opened in 2008 has come with its own sense of growth and accomplishment. But by all accounts, 2012 was a particularly wonderful, milestone-filled year.
December 17, 2012The following blog post by WBEZ architecture critic Lee Bey, originally titled “New ‘Lost Chicago’ Book Explores the City That Once Was,” was published November 29, 2012, on his blog,.
December 11, 2012This was a corner room on the floor just below the children’s, and the beauty of it was this window—an oriel window,—projecting beyond the wall, as such windows do, and so exactly at the corner that you could see, so to say, three ways at once when you were standing in it . . . a charming watch tower.”
December 04, 2012I have always been struck, while reading Anna Karenina (or, more recently, while watching Leo Tolstoy’s 1873-1878 tale played out by Jude Law and Keira Knightley in sumptuous costumes in this year’s film version) by the similarities it shows between upper-class late 19th-century Russia and late 19th-century America.
November 19, 2012This Herter Brothers dining table is a significant piece in our collection, for its beauty as well as its history.
November 14, 2012Typically (and stereotypically), the Gilded Age is known for: 1) Money and industry, and 2) People who made a lot of money in industry.
November 06, 2012The White House’s first work of art was acquired in 1800. It was a painting, and it depicted, perhaps not surprisingly, that most beloved forefather of forefathers, George Washington.
October 29, 2012One might be surprised to discover a giant black spider attacking a Gilded Age fine and decorative arts museum. But yes, at the corner of Erie and Wabash, a colossal arachnid is navigating the exterior of the historic Nickerson Mansion.
October 25, 2012Last week the Driehaus Museum welcomed Anna Tobin D’Ambrosio, director and chief curator at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute in Utica, New York, and the final lecturer of the 2012 Nickerson Lecture Series season.
October 22, 2012Next week 119 years ago, with a crisp chill entering the air, the closing ceremonies concluded, the crowds began piling into Pullman cars to head back to their own parts of America, and the World Columbian Exposition’s dismantling began.