Gari Melchers Home and Studio at Belmont will offer daily “Holidays with the Melchers” 30-minute guided tours of the artfully decorated Georgian house throughout December. The museum is open daily, except Wednesdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tours run on the hour, starting at 10:30 a.m. and are included in the regular admission price of $10 for adults. Students 18 years old and younger are admitted free with an accompanying, paying adult, limit two. Current UMW faculty, staff and students are admitted free.

The tour will showcase imaginative decorations and vignettes that interpret life at the Melchers’ cherished Falmouth country retreat. All exterior decorations are provided courtesy of the Rappahannock Valley Garden Club.

The museum gift shop, decked out for the season, will offer a wide selection of books, advent calendars, art supplies and gift items.

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