New York’s Brooklyn Museum has finished renovating two rooms from an historic home in Saratoga Springs, New York. The late 19th-century Parlor and Library of the Colonel Robert J. Milligan House have been conserved and refurbished for the first time since they were installed in the museum in 1953. The Brooklyn Museum acquired the rooms as well as their furnishings in 1940.
The rooms have been repainted and bold carpeting has been added to the Library’s previously bare wood floors. The museum has also restored and installed the Parlor’s original chandelier by Cornelius and Baker of Philadelphia and decorated the rooms with recently acquired objects and several Victorian furnishings original to the rooms but not previously on view in Brooklyn. Each room illustrates a revival style popular in interior decoration in mid-19th century America -- the Parlor exhibits the Louis XV Revival style while the Library depicts the Gothic Revival style.
The Milligan House was completed in 1856 and is still standing in Saratoga Springs.
