This is the first volume devoted to presenting 100 treasures from the collections of the Preservation Society of Newport County across its house museums and landscapes.

The Preservation Society of Newport County (PSNC) has in its care nine historic houses (1748-1902)—The Breakers, Marble House, The Elms, Chateau-sur-Mer, Rosecliff, Chepstow, Hunter House, Isaac Bell House, Kingscote, and The Elms—which together with their gardens, interiors, furnishings and archives constitute a unique cultural museum spanning the Colonial period through the Gilded Age.

Traditionally associated with high-value materials and luxury goods, the term “treasures,” in this context denotes cultural significance. Surprising and overlooked objects across a range of media illuminate under-represented stories: a fine mahogany chair owned by Newport merchant Christopher Champlin, at Hunter House, is now a cornerstone of the Preservation Society’s broader efforts to reflection on Newport’s major role in the transatlantic slave trade; the T. Downing Pickled Oyster Jar, Chateau-sur-Mer, is a stoneware vessel from the renowned New York oyster house of famed African American restauranteur Thomas Downing (1791-1866); and a letter, recently discovered in Marble House, was written by the Vanderbilts’ long-serving butler Yussuf Azar, the first person of Egyptian heritage to settle permanently in the United States.

Providing written context and interpretation for the catalogue are forty authors from a diverse array of disciplines and areas of study, including experts in Chinese, Japanese, French, and American decorative arts, as well as historians of Black and Indigenous experience in Rhode Island, conservators who provide technical knowledge, and artists and artisans with experiential perspectives.