Bold, Designing Fellows: Italian Decorative and Scenic Artists in Nineteenth-Century America

Arlene Palmer is an independent scholar who was involved at Victoria Mansion for over thirty years, as trustee, research fellow, and, from 2004 through 2018, as curator. Her research of Giuseppe Guidicini's wall and ceiling paintings in the Mansion was the catalyst for this project. After graduating from Goucher College and completing an M.A. in the Winterthur Program of the University of Delaware, Ms. Palmer was a curator at the Winterthur Museum, an adjunct faculty member of the University of Delaware, and an independent museum consultant specializing in glass and ceramics history. Among her many publications in those areas are such major books as Glass in Early America (1993) and Artistry and Innovation in Pittsburgh Glass, 1808-1882 (2004). For Victoria Mansion, she wrote A Guide to Victoria Mansion (1997) and a revised edition in 2012, as well as numerous articles. In 2023, Ms. Palmer's essay about the American sculptor Paul Akers (1825-1861) was published in American Latium: American Artists and Travelers in and around Rome in the Age of the Grand Tour, a special issue of Atti dell'Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome. As trustee and board president of Opera Maine, Ms. Palmer is keenly interested in the history of opera in the United States.