The more than 150-year-old wrought-iron staircase at Gari Melchers Home and Studio at Belmont has been named one of Virginia’s Top Ten Endangered Artifacts. The Top Ten program is a project of the Virginia Collections Initiative and the Virginia Association of Museums.

An independent peer review panel chose the railing, believed to have been forged around 1845, from 25 nominations across Virginia to make the Top Ten Endangered Artifacts list.

Virginia’s Top Ten Endangered Artifacts program, funded by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, aims to raise awareness of the importance of preserving artifacts in the care of museums, libraries and archives throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Gari Melchers Home and Studio at Belmont will be the first stop for a new national exhibition featuring rare paintings by William H. Johnson from the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES). An essential figure in modern American art, William H. Johnson (1901-1970) was a virtuoso skilled in various media and techniques. “William H. Johnson: An American Modern” will be on display at Belmont Saturday, September 10 through Sunday, December 4. It will then continue on a 10-city tour through 2014.

Read the full press release.

Mark your calendars for the opening reception and illustration presentation about William H. Johnson by Leslie King Hammond graduate dean emeritus and founding director of the center for race and culture at the Maryland Institute and College of Art. The reception will take place on Sunday, September 18 at 2 p.m. and includes complimentary exhibition admission.

Aunt Alice, 1940. Courtesy Morgan State University