{"id":304237,"date":"2025-11-21T00:54:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T00:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/304237\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T00:54:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T00:54:22","slug":"worcester-art-museum-unveils-global-arms-and-armor-galleries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/304237\/","title":{"rendered":"Worcester Art Museum unveils global Arms and Armor galleries"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Miraculously, it doesn\u2019t feel crowded. The front gallery presents a closely curated selection of some of the museum\u2019s most prized objects \u2014 a vanishingly rare gladiator helmet from 100 CE, a finely crafted helmet from Japan, a child\u2019s breastplate, and Philip\u2019s gauntlets. The rear gallery, by contrast, offers visitors hands-on displays, while presenting most of the collection in \u201copen storage,\u201d a vast array of armaments behind glass that visitors can explore via a dedicated app on wall-mounted tablets. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe front gallery’s central platform presents three distinct styles of armor.Charles Sternaimolo\/Worcester Art Museum<\/p>\n

While the 1,500-object collection, said to be the country\u2019s second largest, skews European, curators have sought to tell a global story, presenting weapons and armor from India, Egypt, Japan, and beyond. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided from the outset that to make it different we were going to focus globally,\u201d said Jeffrey Forgeng, WAM\u2019s curator of arms, armor, and medieval art. \u201cElsewhere, you are looking at European knights in shining armor front and center.\u201d <\/p>\n

To that end, the central platform in the front gallery presents visitors with three divergent displays of armor: a 19th-century Sudanese combination, a suit of 16th-century battlefield armor from southern Germany, and a ceremonial suit of armor from northern India in the late 1700s to 1800s. <\/p>\n

The global story unfolds across freestanding displays and wall cases that ring the central platform. One wall is devoted to finely crafted objects from the samurai\u2019s arsenal: a collection of arrowheads, spearheads, katana blades, utility knives, and tsubas \u2014 ornate handguards that could be swapped out to suit the occasion. <\/p>\n

There is a display of helmets from around the world and through the ages, armor for horses, a golden standard shaped like a fish from southern India, and a suit of chain mail whose circular links are stamped with the names of Islam\u2019s founding figures. There are katars and patas (punch daggers and gauntlet swords), a hand cannon from Japan, and a European ceremonial sword whose hilt is in the shape of a hand. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe front gallery presents many of the collection’s star pieces.Zachary Critchley\/Worcester Art Museum<\/p>\n

Forgeng said that although many of the objects have \u201csurface differences,\u201d arms and armor carry underlying cultural signifiers that transcend \u201cnot only space, but also time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s that sort of legendary past being evoked,\u201d he said. \u201cEverybody instantly gets them at that visceral level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Director Matthias Waschek said the new galleries deliver on a promise WAM made more than a decade ago when it acquired the collection from the city\u2019s erstwhile Higgins Armory Museum.<\/p>\n

Not only has WAM kept the collection intact and in the city, he said, but it has nearly doubled the number of objects on display across two sizable galleries.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still have to pinch myself,\u201d said Waschek. \u201cIn my wildest dreams, I couldn\u2019t have imagined what [the staff has] done here.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the front gallery boasts the stars of the collection, the rear gallery gives a sense of its breadth. Using an innovative \u201copen storage\u201d plan, curators have assembled more than 900 objects in the rear gallery. That may sound overwhelming (a typical gallery at WAM displays just 25 items), but the displays are divided into numbered sections, and visitors can call up information about specific objects using a bespoke app on nearby tablets. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe new galleries present more than 1,000 objects thanks to an innovative “open storage” display.Zachary Critchley\/Worcester Art Museum<\/p>\n

The exhibit has other innovations as well. In addition to a corner with puppets and other materials for young people, the gallery has several freestanding cases where visitors can try out replica arms and armor for themselves, be it donning a helmet, hoisting a sword, or slipping into a gauntlet.<\/p>\n

Waschek said the gallery, which has ample open space, could easily host gallery talks or drawing contests, among other activities. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a spirit of play,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really integrates this idea of interactivity. It could change the model of what museums can do, and it might inform our thinking as we are renovating our other galleries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many objects in the front gallery gleam after conservation treatment; the rear gallery\u2019s open storage, by contrast, displays objects in varying states of conservation. <\/p>\n

William MacMillan, who\u2019s worked as project conservator on the collection for decades, said that arms and armor, an amalgam of different metals, woods, and leathers, present distinct conservation challenges. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a perfect combination of everything that doesn\u2019t want to work together,\u201d said MacMillan, who spent four months cleaning an Italian suit of armor, one postage stamp-size section at a time. \u201cI describe it as holding back the ocean with a broom. All of this just wants to rot away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"VisitorsVisitors can learn about individual objects using a dedicated app on wall-mounted tablets.Zachary Critchley\/Worcester Art Museum<\/p>\n

The second-floor galleries, which will require timed-entry reservations, are part of a broader fund-raising effort at the museum to raise $125 million by 2028. <\/p>\n

Forgeng, who\u2019s curated the arms and armor collection for more than a quarter century, said the new galleries are the culmination of a professional journey that started at Higgins Armory Museum, the now-closed organization that transferred its collection to WAM. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn a lot of ways, the entire 25-plus years that I\u2019ve been curating the Higgins collection has been moving toward this,\u201d he said. \u201cIt feels like [we] finally brought the collection to safe haven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malcolm Gay can be reached at malcolm.gay@globe.com<\/a>. Follow him @malcolmgay<\/a>.<\/p>\n