Charles Allis' Bedroom

In the entrance area to the bedroom, Greco-Roman terracotta and ceramic antiquities are displayed in a closet retro-fitted in the 1940's as a display case. The correspondence with the dealer who sold Charles some of the terracotta is amusing. He tells him that if any arrive in Milwaukee broken, they can easily be repaired using liquid glue. One of the oldest pieces is a fifth-century B.C. Greek krater, a vessel that would have been used to mix wine and water at symposiums.

Leon Marcotte, a French-American furniture maker, made Charles’ carved mahogany bed. The bedspread and pillow shams are Battenberg lace and belonged to his mother Margaret. Margery Norris Duke, Charles’ great niece and the second president of the Friends of Charles Allis, donated the lace to the museum. Sarah and Charles also collected quantities of lace and textiles, for which the museum retains the dealers’ correspondence.

The room contains more Hudson River School paintings by William Trost Richards, Homer Dodge Martin, and Alexander Wyant. On the south wall are more paintings by Blakelock. On the north side of the room next to the bed, there is a bronze bear sculpture, resting on a table of petrified wood. The sculpture was purchased at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. (Charles’ father, Edward Phelps Allis, was the lead electrical engineer for this exhibition, and the 3,000 horsepower Reynolds Corliss steam engine the company installed in Machinery Hall powered 20,000 lamps and was switched on by President Grover Cleveland.) To the east is an inlaid marble table, made of red porphyry stone, with mosaic stone inlays.

Photography by Kevin Miyazaki.