Revisiting Savannah, Part III: Historic Owen-Thomas House

On the east quadrant of Oglethorpe Square in Savannah sits the Owens-Thomas House and Slave Quarters, which is currently owned by the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences.

It was designed by English-trained archtect William Jay, who came to the United States in 1817 -- about a year after construction started -- to oversee the work. He stuck around long enough to design the Telfair Academy, some other Greek revival-style buildings as well as neoclassical homes for the city's most affluent residents. He also did work in Charleston and Columbia, S.C.

The home's first occupants, slave trader Richard Richardson and his wife and six children, made it their home in January 1819, but they weren't there very long. The financial panic that began that year, combined with the yellow fever epidemic and the death of Frances, Richardson's wife, and two of their children, prompted Richardson to sell the home in 1822 and move to Louisiana.

A bank took possession and leased the property until 1830, when Savannah Mayor George Welshman Owens bought it at auction. Owens, also a lawyer and planter, kept up to 15 slaves on the property in separate quarters (he also held 400 others in bondage on his various plantations). The last Owens descendant to live in the property was Margaret Gray Thomas, who died in 1951 and bequeathed the property as a museum to the Telfair Academy.

Today, visitors can pay for a ticket ($20 for adults, $18 for seniors) that is good for a week and can be used for one-time admissions to this home as well as the Telfair Academy museum and Jepson Center for the Arts, which are within 10 minutes of each other in the city's historic district (Telfair and Jepson themselves are a half-block from each other). And unlike a lot of other homes and museums in the city and other communities, tourists are welcome to take photographs inside.

One of the most fascinating points of interest in the Owens-Thomas house is the rare upstairs bridge (shown in the photo leading off the post), which connects the front and back sections of the house. It is not believed to have been part of the original design but was added sometime later.

Today, the open plaza separating the housemaster living area and the slave quarters and carriage house is a beautifully landscaped garden. But in the beginning, it was an unlandscaped open area that slaves used to hang laundry and perform other jobs not permissible indoors. 

Admission to the house for tours requires a three-site pass (Telfair Museum and Jepson Center for the Arts in addition to the Owen-Thomas House. All three are walking distance from each other in the same square). The pass costs $30 for adults, $20 for students and ages 13-25 (with ID); $27 for seniors (ages 65 and above) and active military personnel with ID; and $10 for children ages 6-12. Children 5 and under are admitted free. Admission includes the guided tour of the historic mansion, which departs every 15 minutes and takes about 45 to 60 minutes.

As always, to view a larger, sharper version of a photo, simply click on it. This is particularly helpful if you access the blog using a mobile device. To see all my shots from the Owen-Thomas House and Slave Quarters, follow the link in this sentence.

Photo geek stuff: All shots were taken with my Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di VC PZD lens and bracketed for three exposures to meld into one in post-processing using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software.

The Owen-Thomas House front facade (above) in a shot I took in my first visit to Savannah in March 2017. I was standing in Oglethorpe Square, and as you can see in the foreground, the colorful spring azaleas were in full bloom. Below is a shot of the structure from the backside.

Above and next four below: Scenes from inside the slave quarters. 

Above and below: The garden and fountain in an open area separating the main living quarters from the carriage house and slave quarters (the building in the background). Our tour guide said the garden was developed years after the home was built. The original open area was undeveloped, not at all aesthetically appealing and was where slaves would hang laundry on a line to dry.

Above: Our tour guide for the day. 

Above and below: Closeups of some of the antique items and books adorning the furniture in the house.

The dining room (above) and hallway's ornamental molding and lights (below).
 

The elegant stairway, as seen from the main level (above) and upper level (below). 

Above: The upstairs bridge again, but from another angle. 

Above and below: More antiques, a harp (above) and tea set (below). 

Above: If I remember correctly, this is one of the busts in a nook at the landing halfway up the stairs. 

Above: A final look at room furniture in the house.

Next up: Exhibit of classic French impressionism and post-impressionism at Jepson Center

Previously in the series: 

Part I: First visit to Six Pence Pub

Part II: Congregation Mickve Israel

Winter trek, Part IV: The Telfair Academy

When we decided to devote a full day to touring the three attractions that comprise the Teflair Museums -- the Telfair Academy, the Jepson Center for the Arts and the Owens-Thomas House -- we were a little disappointed to learn the Owens-Thomas House was temporarily closed for repair work.

Lee Ann and I had had our eye on the Owens-Thomas House since our first visit, but weren't able to include it into our schedule ... until this trip. Alas, perhaps another time. We decided to go ahead and check out Telfair and Jepson anyway (access to all three places comes with the purchase of one ticket), and both of us enjoyed each stop.

The Telfair Academy, the oldest public art museum in the South, houses displays you'd find in a typical classic art museum -- older paintings and sculptures. It was designed by British architect William Jay and built in 1818-19 for Alexander Telfair, son of Revolutionary War patriot and George Gov. Edward Telfair.

Alexander's time at the new home wasn't very long; he died on Oct. 8, 1832, after which his sister Mary Telair took it over. She bequeathed the estate to the Georgia Historical Society, which took possession after her death in 1875 before converting it into the museum it is today.

The Telfair's permanent collection are works acquired largely by the academy first director, Carl Brandt, who served from 1883 until his death in 1905, painter Gari Melchers, who served as Telfair purchasing agent from 1906 to 1916.

I came to really appreciate Brandt and Melchers' decisions; they inspired me to photograph a lot of the paintings. I offer below a sampling of some of the academy's works available for appreciation. I have never studied the art of photographically reproducing works of still art. I'm sure there is a skill required for taking such pictures -- e.g., finding the perfect angle and avoiding glare (direct or reflective) from nearby artificial or natural/window light -- so as to reproduce them in optimum form. In the case of paintings or anything that is framed, that would include reproducing and representing the frame itself without having to impose harmful crops or have it appear in a skewed or unnatural order.

My primary goal was to avoid glare, which annoys me most when I see photographs of art taken by people in a hurry. I succeeded most of the time with framed paintings, but it sometimes required doing something detrimental to the frame. I apologize for that.

To see a larger, sharper version of an image, simply click on the image. To view a full gallery of photos I took at the academy, click on the link in this sentence.

Photo geek stuff: All photos here were shot with a Canon 6D and Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Di PZD VC lens. All compositions were bracketed for three exposures, very few of which were melded into one frame using Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software. The vast majority of images in this post were processed as single frames.

Above: This display introduces the Telfair family responsible for the home and, ultimately, the museums. 

Above: Outside near the entrance to the Telfair on this day was this staffer, kindly stopping to pose for a picture, dressed in period garb.

Above and next three below: Rooms on both sides of the entry hallway feature rooms decorated as the Telfair most likely looked in its days as a home.

A view of the underground floor (above) of the museum, with a focus (below) on the sculpture in the center background. The original of this copy of Hermes Belvedere (unknown artist) is at the  Museo Pino-Clementino Museums in the Vatican. 

Above: French painter Alfred Smith's 1904 oil of an elevated view (from a nearby bridge) of a quay and road in his native Bordeaux. The museum obtained the painting in 1908.

Above: American Edward Redfield painting this winter scene in Center Bridge, Pa., circa 1920, the year the museum acquired it.

Above: Artist Julian Story was born in England in 1857. In 1888, he painted this battle scene representing the aftermath of the Battle of Crecy in August 1346 during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). Edward, the dark-armored Price of Wales, pays homage to slain King John of Bohemia, whom Edward admired as an adversary. King John lay in a white tunic under his white steed. The king chose to fight in the war in support of France -- despite being completely blind -- and perished along with an estimated 4,000 other soldiers in the battle. In 1889, the painting won Story a third-class medal and honorable mention at the Paris Salon and a silver medal at the Paris Universal Exposition. Telfair's then-director, Carl Brandt, purchased the painting at the exposition that year. 

Above: One of the academy's most profound pieces is this circa 1895 oil on canvas -- by Italian artist Cesare Laurenti. The work is symbolically divided in half by a section of the frame. Laurenti explained the meaning of La Parabola to Telfair director Carl Brandt: It is, he said, "the presentation of human life ... the race toward pleasure until clouds of weighty thoughts and sorrow come to disturb the serenity of the young soul." He went on to explain that the first part (on the left) represents a lively feast in which two young men invite the crowd to participate in music and other merriment, and one of the men is about to kiss the cheek of the woman as she prepares to cross the threshold into the house. The second part, on the right, is at the door of a church where inside, "suffering souls seek relief." The man, dressed in priestly garb, represents faith.

Above: Dutch painter and American immigrant Anthony Johannes Thiem had a knack for capturing reflections, and this work, Rain in the South, is one such example. It was part of the Johnson Collection on loan from Spartanburg, S.C., and on display on the upper level. 

After a successful early career as an impressionistic landscape painter in the Northeast, American Lawrence Mazzanovich moved in mid-life to Tryon, which is near the South Carolina border in south central North Carolina, to get a fresh start. The result was a series of softer and gentler works often focusing on the rolling hills of the Piedmont and hazing mountain peaks, such as this undated piece, View from Tryon, also part of the Johnson Collection. I included it here because even in my short time in North Carolina, I am familiar with the Tryon name. It is the name of a major east-west thoroughfare in Cary and the southside of Raleigh.

Artist J.J. Shannon, best known for his society portraits, was born in New York City in 1862 but went to London at the age of 16 and soon became one of the top portrait painters in England, where he lived for the rest of his life. He often painted with fellow expatriates George Hitchcock and Gari Melchers (who purchased works for the Telfair from 1906-1916). Shannon's portrait of Hitchcock (above) shows the artist (before 1909) in a garden surrounded by poppies. 

Flowers were among Hitchcock's favorite subjects, as illustrated in Hitchock's work below, Early Spring in Holland. Hitchcock was born in 1850 in Rhode Island and move to Europe in 1879, bouncing around several locales before settling in 1883 in Holland, where he and Melchers founded the Egmond School in North Holland, to which Shannon and Walter MacEwon (second photo below) were attracted. 

Above: Walter MacEwon, born in Chicago in 1860, got into painting on a quirk of fate. A destitute painter acquaintance came to him seeking a loan, and MacEwon agreed, taking the borrower's paints and brushes as collateral. The borrower never returned, so MacEwon began to dabble in the craft. In 1877, he went to Europe and within three years had established studios in Paris and Holland. He returned to the United States in 1939 when war broke out in Europe. He died four years later. This work, The Lacemakers, was painted circa 1895-1900 and was a gift to the Telfair from Mr. and Mrs. George A.S. Starke and family in 1992.

Above: I finish with a portrait that I would think the Telfair Museums treasures and reveres immensely because of both the subject and artist. The Telfair's board of trustees commissioned its first director, Carl Brandt, to paint this portrait of the museum's founding benefactor, Mary Telfair, and he finished it in 1896. Brandt chose to paint Mary as she appeared 15 years before her death. Brandt integrated two key symbolic features into the painting. 1) Mary's left hand rests on the pages of an open book, a tribute to her intellect and love of literature. 2) A profile likeness of the god Apollo appears on the face of the cameo at her throat (to best appreciate this, you'll have to click on the image and enlarge it), symbolic of her love of poetry. Her feet rest on a red cushion probably to offset how, at 5 feet tall, her feet would not naturally reach the floor.


Next up: Jepson Center for the Arts, Savannah

Previous posts in this series: 

Savannah at night

Savannah in daylight

American Prohibition Museum