Decorative Arts Department Records

Although never a curator, Alfred Coxe Prime honed his expertise in the field of decorative arts as a collector and author. From 1919 to 1925, he also served as a member of the Museum Committee, and at the time of his death in 1926, museum president Eli Kirk Price described Coxe as an "authority on all branches of Americana."

In 1925 the museum appointed Joseph Downs as an Assistant Curator responsible for decorative arts, which had until then been the responsibility of Dr. Samuel Woodhouse. According to earlier annual reports, Woodhouse had been the curator of Old Pennsylvania Pottery, and an honorary curator oversaw European porcelain. At the time of Downs' appointment, "decorative arts" was not a formal designation; instead, as listed in the 1927 annual report, his curatorial responsibility consisted of "woodwork, ceramics, etc." Other curatorial staff oversaw "Ironwork, armor" and "textiles." With the appointment of Francis Taylor as curator of Medieval Art in 1928, the museum named Downs its "Renaissance and Modern Art" curator of decorative arts. When Taylor left in 1931, Downs once again assumed responsibility for all European and American decorative art. He left the museum in April 1932 for the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Henry P. McIlhenny joined the museum staff in 1934 as Decorative Arts Assistant. Over the next three years he served as Assistant and Associate Curator, and in 1939 he was appointed Curator. McIlhenny took a leave of absence from 1942 to 1946 to serve in the U. S. Navy. In 1964 he was named to the museum's Board of Trustees but also remained with the curatorial department as an advisor. During McIlhenny's wartime absence, Joan Prentice was the Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts. From 1943 to 1946 she served as Associate Curator, and then Curator of Ceramics and Silver from 1946 to 1948.

Calvin S. Hathaway came to the museum in 1931 as Secretary to the Director and Editor of the Museum Bulletin. In 1932 he became the Assistant to the Chief of Decorative Arts, but he left in 1933 to join Cooper-Union in New York. In 1963 he returned to the museum as The R. Wistar Harvey Curator of Decorative Art, a position he held until July 1973 when poor health required him to resign.

David DuBon came to museum in 1958 as Associate Curator and became Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts in 1964. In 1967 the department was split into two sections and DuBon became the Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Decorative Arts while Hathaway headed the department of Decorative Arts After 1700. In 1973 Kathryn B. Hiesinger, who came to the PMA in 1971 as DuBon's Curatorial Assistant, succeeded Hathaway as curator.

In 1974 to clearly define the department's responsibility, which was now separate from American decorative arts as well as European decorative arts before 1700, the department under Kathryn Hiesinger's curatorial supervision became "European Decorative Arts after 1700." It continues to operate as such.