Valentine Richmond History Museum

The Museum of the Life and History of Richmond

     Mann S. Valentine Sr. (1786-1865), his son Mann S. Valentine II (1824-1892) and grandson Granville Valentine (1860-1943) exemplify the Valentine Richmond History Museum’s theme that people create their own histories by what they chose to save and collect.  As exhibit curator Jane Webb Smith explains, “The individual histories people developed were often transformed into museums.”  Certainly the Valentines were collectors.

The senior Mann amassed a fine arts collection and the next two generations gathered archeological material.  Their collections were exhibited privately and publicly.  Granville took the histories and the items his family collected and established the Valentine Museum in 1898, then reorganized it in 1930.

Five interpretative periods in the history of the Valentine family are covered in the exhibit “Creating History.”  Over the years the Valentine Museum changed its definition of culture and its interpretation of history to reflect the changes in social assumptions and interpretations of the past.  Items from the collection of each generation are included. Another exhibit showcases the Valentines’ nationally-acclaimed costume and textile collection.

Valentine Museum docents also conduct tours of the adjacent Wickham House.  John Wickham, prominent Richmond attorney, had this elegant neoclassical, 17-room mansion built on the highest hill in the city in 1812 at a cost of $70,000.   Now a National Historic Landmark, the house has been restored to its 1820s splendor. 

On entering the house you'll see 18-inch brick walls overlaid with stucco to look like marble.  The cantilevered staircase winds upward to an opening shaped like an artist's palette.  The banister is carved with magnolia seed pods, dogwood blossoms and periwinkle.  The oval ladies' parlor is unusually beautiful.  On its walls are paintings of scenes from Homer's Iliad, done during Wickham's residency and subsequently overpainted.  Only recently discovered, they have been carefully uncovered and restored.  The restoration also re-created mantels of carved Italian marble and period window treatments.

Mr. Wickham conducted his law practice from his very masculine library.  His most famous case was the successful defense of Aaron Burr in his trial for treason before Chief Justice Marshall at the Virginia State Capitol. The dining room has the original Wickham porcelain dining service, that arrived intact from China in 1814.

The grandeur on the first floor is not matched on the second floor.  The upstairs rooms were bedrooms and work space for the 31 people who lived in the house (the extended family and servants).  It was here that Mrs. Wickham bore many of her 17 children.  There are also work areas in the basement.

The garden is the oldest in continuous use in Richmond.  It is maintained in accordance with the original landscape specifications.  Within the garden you'll find the sculpture studio of Edward V. Valentine, a noted 19th-century artist and brother of Mann Valentine.  You'll see the tools of his trade and both completed and unfinished work.  Valentine's best known piece is the "Recumbent Lee" in the Lee Chapel on the Washington and Lee University campus (see selection).

The Valentine, the Museum of the Life and History of Richmond, and Wickham House are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. and Sunday from NOON to 5:00 P.

Directions: From I-95 take Exit 74C, Broad Street west.  Continue on Broad Street to 11th Street, then turn right.  Follow 11th Street to Clay Street and turn left.  Make another left on 10th Street and the Valentine Richmond History Center parking lot will be on your left.  From I-64 take Exit 43, 5th Street south.  Continue on 5th to Marshall Street and take a left.  From Marshall take another left on 11th and left again on Clay Street.  Make a last left on 10th Street and the parking lot will be on your left.