By Alicia Nemiccolo MacLeay '97

Since 1910 the Boston-based Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA) has preserved New England's cultural and architectural heritage by collecting historic buildings, landscapes and more than 100,000 objects. Its vast collection of New England art and artifacts from the 17th century onward, ranging from early stuffed animals to furniture masterpieces, is the largest in the country. But until this summer, viewing it required visiting SPNEA's 35 historic house museums located across New England.

Come July 18 you can save yourself the footwork by visiting the Colby College Museum of Art for the national opening of SPNEA's Cherished Possessions: A New England Legacy. The exhibit of 175 fine and decorative arts objects forms a picture of life in mid 17th- to late 20th-century New England. From a 1735 high chest from Boston to a 1770 silk wedding dress made in London to an 1891 pastoral photograph each object tells a story about the changes in taste in America, says Daniel Rosenfeld, the Carolyn Muzzy Director of the Colby College Museum of Art.

Each item in Cherished Possessions was selected based on its ability to tell a story in the context of the region and the nation. Items include a Japanese high chest that was twice rescued from house fires before 1770, a dress that belonged to Deborah Sampson, who fought in the American Revolution dressed as a man, a girandole, or branched candleholder, shaped like the Mt. Auburn Cemetery chapel in Cambridge, Mass., and small butterfly stools from 1956. The only two known surviving American-made wax figures from 1720 to 1725 will be shown in their original glass bell jars on wooden stands.

Cherished Possessions is organized chronologically, from 1540 to 1970, and around several thematic sections, including religion, community, the Revolution, slavery and abolitionism, and modernism. Rosenfeld says the exhibit's quality is "extraordinarily high." Given the public's widespread interest in decorative arts, the exhibit will have something for everyone. Not only does it offer the museum an opportunity to show items outside the College's own collection, it also explores the cultural and historical context in which Colby's own 17th- to 20th-century American art would have been seen.

Cherished Possessions will remain on view through October 27 at Colby and will travel through 2005 with stops in Fort Worth, Honolulu, New York and Grand Rapids, Mich.