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The Brooklyn Museum

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New York City and Brooklyn

The Museum has a long-standing interest in acquiring objects made and retailed in Brooklyn and New York City. The earliest such works in the collection are utilitarian and decorative objects made long before the arrival of Europeans by the Native American populations in what is now Brooklyn and Manhattan. Brooklyn-made ceramics are a particular focus of the Museum’s decorative arts collections. In the nineteenth century New York City and Brooklyn, which were separate cities until 1898, became important manufacturing and retail centers. As New York City became more densely populated, real estate became more valuable, and fear of devastating fires increased, many manufacturers were banned from what is now Manhattan and relocated to outlying areas, in particular Brooklyn. Greenpoint consequently developed as a manufacturing center and the home of two of the most important American potteries of the nineteenth-century—Union Porcelain Works and the Faience Manufacturing Company.

New York City and Brooklyn have long been rich sources of subjects for artists who have recorded the built environment and the urban milieu with its varied populations in a wide range of styles. Cities provide intense visual and sensory stimulation with densely clustered buildings, commerce of all kinds, amusements, transit and traffic, and, especially, great crowds of people in motion whose dress and demeanor offer an observer clues to social and economic stature as well as ethnicity.

The Museum’s curators are always on the lookout for new objects being made in New York and Brooklyn, as well as for objects that lead to the rediscovery of forgotten local manufacturers.

31 objects are included in this theme. They are arranged into 4 groups:
Made in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Scenes
Made in New York
New York Scenes

Made in Brooklyn
01.522 Native American, Northeast (unidentified)
Knife, pre-17th century

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01.874 Native American, Northeast (unidentified)
Hammerstone, pre-17th century

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1994.156.1 Ray Komai
Side Chair, ca. 1949

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1995.143.1a-c Union Porcelain Works
Water Filter, ca. 1885

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1998.91 George W. Shiebler & Co.
Yachting Trophy, ca. 1904

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1999.1 Edward Lycett
Ewer, ca. 1885

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Brooklyn Scenes
97.13 Francis Guy
Winter Scene in Brooklyn, ca. 1819-1820

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42.404 Reginald Marsh
The Bowl, 1933

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56.22 George Benjamin Luks
Prospect Park, ca. 1902 - 1910

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77.11 Georgia O'Keeffe
Brooklyn Bridge, 1949

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87.31 Randy Dudley
Gowanus Canal from 2nd Street, 1986

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1991.45 Louis Lozowick
Coney Island, 1935

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Made in New York
76.63a-f Herter Brothers
Cabinet, ca. 1875

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85.213.2a-b Elsa Tennhardt
Ice Bucket, Part of Five-piece Set, Patented 1928

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85.213.3 Elsa Tennhardt
Stem Glass, Part of Five-piece Set, Patented 1928

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85.213.4 Elsa Tennhardt
Stem Glass, Part of Five-piece Set, Patented 1928

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85.213.5 Elsa Tennhardt
Stem Glass, Part of Five-piece Set, Patented 1928

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85.213.6 Elsa Tennhardt
Stem Glass, Part of Five-piece Set, Patented 1928

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86.81 Kimbel and Cabus
Pedestal, 1865-1875

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1992.208 George Jacob Hunzinger
Armchair, Designed: 1869; Patented: March 30, 1869

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1994.165.1a-d Russel Wright
Coffee Urn, ca. 1935

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New York Scenes
18.26 Jerome Myers
The Old House, ca. 1908-1915

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23.60 John Sloan
The Haymarket, Sixth Avenue, 1907

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30.1109 Bertram Hartman
Trinity Church and Wall Street, 1929

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40.339 George Benjamin Luks
Street Scene (Hester Street), 1905

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41.1085 William Glackens
East River Park, ca. 1902

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51.96 George Wesley Bellows
A Morning Snow--Hudson River, 1910

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62.68 Frederick Childe Hassam
Late Afternoon, New York, Winter, 1900

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66.85 Willard Leroy Metcalf
Early Spring Afternoon--Central Park, 1911

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66.127 George Copeland Ault
Manhattan Mosaic, 1947

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67.205.1 George Wesley Bellows
Pennsylvania Station Excavation, ca. 1907-1908

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