, 1769.
Wadsworth Atheneum , c. 1769.
Wadsworth Atheneum The mansion is a large wooden house in the
Georgian style, with an imitation stone
ashlar facade, built in 1768 by Colonel Jeremiah Lee, at that time the wealthiest merchant and ship owner in the
Province of Massachusetts Bay. The facade may be based on Plate 11 of Robert Morris' influential patternbook
Rural Architecture (London 1750; retitled
Select Architecture in later eds.). It was one of the largest and most opulent houses of the late-colonial period in America. The mansion is now owned by the Marblehead Museum and Historical Society. It contains a notable collection of early American furniture, and many of the mansion's original decorative finishes have been preserved, including rare 18th-century English hand-painted wallpaper, intricate carving in the rococo style, and a grand entry hall and staircase paneled with mahogany. On either side of its landing are copies of the full-length portraits of Jeremiah and Martha Lee by
John Singleton Copley. The mansion was declared a
National Historic Landmark and listed on the
National Register of Historic Places in 1966. == See also ==