2025

Opening April 21, 2025

We will begin our Liberty 250 celebrations ahead of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence next year with the opening of our newest exhibition, Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation. The exhibition will commemorate the major battles and events of the Revolutionary War using personal letters, artifacts, and works of art from the Museum’s permanent collection. The first segment of this multiyear exhibition will focus on the years 1775-1776.

In the course of the Museum’s recently completed multi-year review of our framed artworks and a remediation of their storage space, several paintings have been uncovered and will now be seen again (or in some cases for the first time) by the public following essential conservation treatments. One such painting is by the artist John Mackie Falconer (1820-1903) of the original Declaration House in Philadelphia, PA, where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. The painting and its frame were conserved in 2024 thanks to the Americana Corner Preserving America Grant program.

Originally owned by Jacob Graff, the house provided Thomas Jefferson and his enslaved valet Robert Hemmings with living and working space between May 23 and September 3, 1776, while Jefferson attended the sessions of the Second Continental Congress in 1776. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence from the 2nd floor of the house. The painting is a depiction of the original house before it was eventually demolished in 1883. Today’s Declaration House was reconstructed in 1975 by the National Park Service to celebrate the U.S. Bicentennial.

One the Museum’s treasures will also be relocated to our Mesick Gallery for the duration of the exhibition. Plan of City of New York in North America by Bernard Ratzer, a British engineer, is one of the best depictions of the City before the Revolutionary War. It provides a birds-eye view of lower Manhattan Island, eastern New Jersey, and western Brooklyn. At the bottom of the map is a detailed panoramic view of New York harbor as seen from Governors Island. Ratzer also included the City's important landmarks, many of which are listed in the legend or key. Ratzer was recruited by the British Army and commissioned as a Lieutenant and rose the to the rank of Captain working for the Army as a surveyor and draftsman, mostly surveying the New England coast.