Day 6.234: What's hiding at the Hyde Collection?

Exile #2 has been trying to find a way to get us to the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls for some time.  The fact that the current Georgia O'Keefe exhibition is coming to an end in two weeks was the final straw that got us in the car this morning for a long-overdue visit.

The O'Keefe exhibition is impressive indeed - and the related 15 minute video about her life and collection of photographs by her husband (including several portraits of her) are a great accompaniment.  However, the rest of the museum is equally impressive.

Here are a few shots of the outside (and one of the beautiful courtyard).  The house was the private home of Charlotte Pruyn Hyde and her husband Louis Fiske Hyde.  Charlotte's two sisters lived in the next two houses and they shared an estate featuring these terraced gardens which it is hoped to restore.

From the terrace, there is evidence of the paper mill that made the sisters' father Samuel Pruyn's fortune:

We asked them, but three children were not convinced they would choose to live in such close proximity to each other once they are grown up!

The permanent collection is still arranged as in a private house - with pictures hanging in guest bedrooms and the library for instance as they probably did during Charlotte's time - but what a collection it is!  There are works by Rembrandt, Rubens (an amazing modern-looking portrait painted in 1620), Picasso, Botticelli, and Cézanne to name a few.

The kids also had fun in the "Artist's Studio" kids' corner:

as a break from the perfectly-understandable "don't touch" nature of the rest of the museum.