A Gift to the Nation: The Joseph and June Hennage Collection

On view in the Miodrag and Elizabeth Ridgely Blagojevich Gallery

This exhibition has been generously funded by Cynthia Hardin and Robert S. Milligan and Mary Virginia E. and Charles F. Crone in honor of Ronald and Mary Jean Hurst.

A Gift to the Nation: The Joseph and June Hennage Collection, highlights the focused collecting of the late Joe and June Hennage, who strove to acquire great examples of furniture and silver from important colonial centers including Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Charleston, and the Connecticut River Valley. While the Hennages chose objects to fit within their home, they also actively acquired a variety of forms—tables, high chests, chairs, tea sets, sauceboats and much more—to represent the regional diversity in American furniture and silver. Their collecting was purposeful, but it was also a labor of love. June once said of a particular object, “I decided I would like to own it, which is really one of the great joys of just buying with your heart. You really fall in love with the piece and you have the desire to own it, and then… [you] really go into the research about it.” This exhibition highlights only a fraction of the collection the Hennages bequeathed to Colonial Williamsburg.