Gari Melchers Home and Studio Museum Shop

In the main hallway at Belmont, Gari Melchers‘ last home in the village of Falmouth, on the door into the library, hangs a small framed, hand-lettered sign.  In its way, this saying epitomizes the spirits of Gari and Corinne Melchers and their life at Belmont. Since many visitors to Gari Melchers Home and Studio comment [...]

Tags: Belmont, Corinne Melchers, Falmouth, Gari Melchers, Gari Melchers Home and Studio, Magnet, The Spirit of the House, Virginia

The holidays have filled the Gari Melchers Home & Studio Museum Shop  with warm and fuzzy creatures.  Mimicking the critters that inhabit the grounds at Belmont, these creatures will bring some cheer to your holiday decorating. To all those crazed, birdseed-stealing clowns that perform acrobatics off trees, bird-feeders and backporch railings, Earl the Squirrel is their hero.  Along with his [...]

Tags: Belmont, Gari Melchers, Museum Shop, ornaments

“I must say that I find television very educational.  The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book.” Groucho Marx I admit it. I’m a bibliophile.  As Thomas Jefferson said (and I agree), “I cannot live without books.”  I get a little nervous if the pile beside my bed [...]

Tags: American Leonardo, art thefts, Belmont, book, books, Claribel Cone, Cone Sisters, Corinne Lawton Mackall, Etta Cone, Gari Melchers, Gari Melchers Home & Studio, Ghent Altarpiece, Hiriam Bingham, Jackson Pollock, Mrs Gari Melchers, Thomas Hart Benton

At Belmont, looking northwest In southern Stafford County, on the heights above the Rappahannock River, sits Belmont, the former home of the American artist, Gari Melchers.  After the artist’s death in 1932, his widow Corinne arranged to bequeath the estate to the Commonwealth of Virginia.  Due to Mrs. Melchers’ foresight and generosity, visitors from all over the world can [...]

Tags: Belmont, bird-calls, Corinne Melchers, Gari Melchers, Gari Melchers Home & Studio, Melchers, Melchers Museum Shop, Monsieur Morel, Oiseaux de Quelle est Belle, Rappahannock River, Stafford County, Virginia

By all accounts, Gari and Corinne Melchers were very social people.  A quick glance through their correspondence and personal photographs gives evidence to this fact.  Whether neighborhood children for ice cream at the general store or entertaining heads of state, the couple enjoyed the company of all people. While in Paris, Gari Melchers probably entertained American artist, Mary [...]

Tags: Belmont

Hyacinth, Buttercup and Daisy Gari Melchers was quite fond of seeing his cows in the front pasture at Belmont.  His artistic nature enjoyed the small bucolic tableau they presented.   The story goes that  Melchers would sometimes telephone home from the Fredericksburg train station and ask that the cows be in the field when he and his guests made [...]

Tags: Belmont, cow creamers, cows, Falmouth, Fredericksburg, Gari Melchers, painting

  In less than a month, with the coming of Labor Day, summer ends and one of my favorite exhibits at Gari Melchers Home and Studio closes.  The exhibition, Belmont Through a Lens: Photographs by Frances Benjamin Johnston, is a collection of photographs Johnston produced in the late 1920′s.  She had been commissioned by Mrs. Daniel [...]

Tags: Belmont, Belmont Through a Lens, Devores, Falmouth, Frances Benjamin Johnston, Gari Melchers, Gari Melchers Home & Studio

Saturday morning was so lovely on the lawn at Belmont, I took the opportunity to show some new items from the Museum Shop as Gari and Corinne Melchers might have used them. On the south end of lawn sits the Summer House which was built in 1932 under Mrs Melchers’ direction.  A way to enjoy [...]

Tags: Belmont, Chatham, Corinne Melchers, Dovecote, Gardens, Gari Melchers, Gari Melchers Home & Studio, Long Walk, Rappahannock River, Resurrection Lily, Summer House

Gari Melchers in bow tie, hat and gloves. Gari Melchers enjoyed an international reputation as one of the best figure painters of his era (1860-1932).  The subjects of his portraits, as well as the guests in his home, included a president, a prime minister and such household names as Vanderbilt and Mellon.  He represented the United [...]

Tags: Belmont, bow ties, Gari Melchers, Gari Melchers Home & Studio, Melchers Museum Shop

As these hazy, hot and humid days linger, it  is difficult to maintain one’s fashion sense. But, taking a cue from an earlier era, the use of pith helmets certainly can keep the heat off one’s head, while also adding a certain je ne sais quoi! The Day Campers from Dawning Point Learning Center model [...]

Tags: Belmont, Gari Melchers, Gari Melchers Home & Studio, Melchers Museum Shop, pith helmet