United States of America -- Tennessee -- Davidson County -- Nashville
Meldhaven Home and Gardens (Nashville, Tennessee)
Scope and Contents:
31 digital images and 1 folder.
General:
Meldhaven Home and Gardens is situated on the 129- acre former H.G. Hill estate located six miles west of downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The property was subdivided in 1995 into estate-sized lots and named Hill Place, leaving the existing Hill home, mature shade trees, white rail fencing, and pastoral land bordering the railroad tracks and Richland Creek.
Meldhaven was partially completed in 1998 by the original owner before the current owners purchased the property in 1999. They began remodeling the home and grounds, adding a swimming pool, pool house, brick walls, garden beds, and soil amendments. The gardens feature a number of propagated rare plants, architectural collections, and also contain pollinator, cutting, and vegetable gardens. The entire property incorporates composting and is cultivated using exclusively organic practices.
Along the front driveway entrance to the home, mature trees native to the original Hill property divide a canopy for an understory bed filled with perennials. On the driveway to the Northern side of the property, specimen trees like the holly tea olive, dwarf-grafted umbrella catalpa tree, hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa), china firs, and junipers are interspersed. The loss of a large maple tree facilitated the creation of border and island stumpery beds gathered from a collection of stumps found after years of being submerged underwater. The stumps were placed in beds with architectural rocks, specimen Japanese maples, hellebores, an apricot tree, dwarf bamboo, and ferns. One of the bed features wave walls, with a plaque and a quote by G.W. Carver.
Along the Eastern woodland border sit three beehives shadowed by brown magnolias. Ferns, mosses, and an assortment of perennials are planted along the border, with stumps and rocks interspersed throughout. A path leads to a large compost pile hidden between the border and brick wall. A fountain repurposed from an antique millstone sits nearby. Another path leads to an 18th century pigeonary filled with ferns.
The backyard, swimming pool, pool house, and pergola are enclosed by a brick wall. A sculpture by Tom Rice is surrounded by a bed of shrubs and perennials. White hydrangea blooms near the perennials and shrubs, interspersed with sculptures and architectural pieces. Border beds surrounding the pool include antique planters filled with succulents, a sculpture by Charlie Hunt, a miniature boxwood collection, and containers of exotic plants. The rear wall of the pool house is trellised with mandevilla vines overlooking a pollinator garden. The pergola near the main house shelters a container garden of succulents and cacti during the warmer summer months. During the winter, the greenhouse is used for housing container plants and growing fennel lettuces, fruits, vegetables, and herbs.
Persons associated with the garden include: Stephen Wells (landscape architect, 1999); Lisa Z. Manning (current owner and horticulturist, 2000); Charlie Hunt (sculptor); Keith Merry (ironwork); Tom Rice (sculptor).
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original archival materials by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Gardens, The Garden Club of America collection.
Sponsor:
A project to describe images in this finding aid received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care Initiative, administered by the National Collections Program.
6.15 Cubic feet (consisting of 14 boxes and 1 flat box.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Slides
Notes
Photographs
Place:
Shanghai (China)
Singapore
Date:
1928-2008
bulk 1945-1982
Summary:
The Helen D. Ling Papers, dating from 1928-2008 with the bulk of material dating from 1945-1982, measure 6.15 cubic feet and include biographical material, research, writings, correspondence, printed material, and audiovisual material related to Ling's life and work as a collector and dealer of Asian art.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Helen Ling measure 6.15 cubic feet and date from 1928 to 2008, with the bulk of material dating between 1945-1982. The papers largely relate to Ling's personal life, research, and collections of Chinese objects. The papers include biographical material, research, writings, correspondence, printed material, and audio recordings.
Arrangement:
The Helen D. Ling papers are organized into six series: Series 1: Biographical Material; Series 2: Diaries; Series 3: Research Files; Series 4: Writings and Notes; Series 5: Correspondence; Series 6: Printed Material; Series 7: Audiovisual Material; Series 8: Lectures; Series 9: Sales Records
Biographical Note:
Helen Dalling Ling was born Helen Dalling on July 28, 1901 in Uhrichsville, Ohio, and grew up in Everett, Pennsylvania. Ling was an American collector, dealer, and connoisseur of Asian art and antiques.
In 1925, Ling attended an American Baptist Foreign Mission picnic where she met Tien-Gi (Ti-Gi) Ling, a Chinese research chemist who was studying for his master's and subsquent doctorate in industrial chemistry from Brown University and Cornell University, respectively. Ling traveled to Shanghai by herself in 1928 to see if she could live in China, as marrying Ti-Gi would strip her of her American citizenship. Content in Shanghai, she and Ti-Gi married several months after her arrival in the spring of 1928.
The pair lived throughout South China, Hong Kong, and Singapore where she held various positions including as an English teacher and secretary. The couple had one son, James G. Ling, in 1930. Ling became interested in antiques prior to moving abroad, and eventually opened an antique shop in Shanghai in 1938 called the Green Dragon. When the Lings moved to Singapore in 1951 after escaping the Communists in Shanghai, Helen Ling opened another shop under her own name which she operated until her death on May 15th, 1982. Ling was very active in the field of Southeast Asian art, regularly giving lectures and was regularly featured in publications on her expertise in Asian art. She co-founded and served as the first president of the Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, Singapore in 1971. Ling was thrust onto the global stage when her friend, Jim Thompson, co-founder of Thai Silk Company Limited disappeared while visiting her and Ti-Gi at there home, Moonlight in 1967. Thirty-four Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery collection items were once part of Ling's personal collection, and were either sold or donated to the museum after her death by her family.
Provenance:
Gift of Ann S. Ling.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Helen D. Ling Papers, FSA.A2019.04. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Ann S. Ling.
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection in 2017 was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF). Processing of an accretion in 2022 was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's American Women's History Initiative (AWHI).
4 Linear feet (consisting of 8 legal document boxes)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Photographs
Notes
Correspondence
Place:
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Date:
1979-2015
Summary:
The Shirley Z. Johnson Papers, dating from 1979-2015, measure 4 linear feet and include an inventory, correspondence, and research files related to Johnson's collection of Chinese textiles.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of Shirley Z. Johnson measure 4 linear feet and date from 1979-2015. The papers largely relate to Johnson's collection of textiles. The papers include inventories, object files, correspondence, and research files.
The inventories and object files document Johnson's textile collecting and include book lists, images, documentation, and research organized by individual object.
The correspondence files include letters, notes, emails, news clippings, interview notes, museum object lists, press releases, and notes related to the holdings of museums, art dealers. They also contain information related to imperial robes and the individual Yan Yong, a scholar and Deputy Director of the Court History Department and the Head of the Division of Textiles at the Palace Museum in Beijing, China.
Research files comprise printed material, articles and speech drafts, and notes related to Chinese textile research. Topics represented in the records include sumptuary laws, symbolism in religious traditions in China, rank badges in various Chinese military branches, and instructions for dating textiles.
The original container numbers established by the creator are documented with their corresponding files.
Arrangement:
The Shirley Z. Johnson papers are arranged in six series.
Series 1: Inventories
Series 2: Correspondence with Collectors
Series 3: Correspondence with Dealers
Series 4: Correspondence with Museums
Series 5: Correspondence with Curators
Series 6: Research Files
Biographical Note:
Shirley Z. Johnson is a scholarly collector, antitrust attorney, and autism advocate.
Ms. Johnson's first Asian art collection consisted of imperial Chinese textiles about which she wrote an article in Arts of Asia, (1995). Some textiles have been given to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery (Freer|Sackler), others have been loaned to it and, as of 2019, have been promised as a gift. Her interest in Chinese textiles began in 1979 when she visited China and purchased four pieces: two from Chinese people seated on the ground among the stone animals leading to the Ming tombs and two rank badges from an antique store on Lui Li Chang street in Beijing.
Beginning around 1992, she became interested in Japanese metal work, when she spotted a piece she liked of the Meiji period (1868 – 1912) at Orientations Gallery in New York. Thereafter, she collected metal art of that era until 2006, when she began collecting work of living metal artists. She gave her collection of Meiji metal work to The Walters Art Museum in 2019 (along with Japanese cloisonné and prints) and has promised her collection of contemporary metal art to the Freer|Sackler, along with extensive archives relating to each piece and interviews with about 100 metal artists beginning in 2006.
She served on the Board of The Textile Museum from 1989-2003 and on the Board of the Freer|Sackler from 2004-2012 and from 2017 to 2021.
Ms. Johnson had published several articles on Asian art: "Tomobako: Functional Beauty," Impressions, 42 Part One 2021; "Japanese Metal Art: An Enduring Tradition," Arts of Asia, May-June 2017; "Chinese Ancestor Portraits in the Sackler's Collection," Arts of Asia, July-August 2003; "A Textile Collector's Approach to Collecting," Arts of Asia, July-August 1995.
Her legal specialty was antitrust law. She worked as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, was counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Antitrust Subcommittee, and entered private practice in 1976 until she retired in 2009.
She graduated from the University of Michigan law school in 1965 with a Juris Doctor degree and was a member of The Order of the Coif. Previously she received a bachelor's degree in Political Science, summa cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
In 2004, she founded a unique social skills program for children with autism at the West Burlington, Iowa School District involving classroom guidance, luncheon and after-school groups and a summer camp. Each activity involved both autistic and neurotypical children. The program was called the TRI Project, standing for Intense, Inclusive, Individual.
Provenance:
Donated by Shirley Z. Johnson in 2015. Addition donated by Shirley Z. Johnson in 2019.
Restrictions:
Collection is restricted until 2140.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
Shirley Z. Johnson Papers. FSA.A2016.06. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Shirley Z. Johnson, 2015.
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests
Collection Citation:
William Mitchell Trial Scrapbooks, Acc. 1992.0013, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Phoenix kingdoms the last splendor of China's Bronze Age edited by Fan J. Zhang and Jay Xu ; with contributions by I-fen Huang, Guolong Lai, Colin Mackenzie, John S. Major, Haicheng Wang, Jay Xu, and Fan J. Zhang
17 Items (gelatin silver photographic prints, 14 x 8.5 cm. each)
Container:
Box 297
Type:
Archival materials
Photographs
Place:
China
Date:
1910
Scope and Contents:
Photographs taken by Charles Lang Freer with a portable camera, at Longmen in Henan Province in October and November of 1911. The photographs show views of the caves and temples at Logmen, as well as the workers and soldiers that accompanied Freer. According to an inventory list of photographs transferred to the Smithsonian, there were originally 45 negatives and 112 photographs in this set.
龙门
Charles Lang Freer's own photographs taken at Longmen
Local Numbers:
FSA A.01 12.05FP
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
14 photographic prints of locations in China, taken by the Geologist Bailey Willis in 1903-1904 during a Carnegie institution funded geological expedition through China. Scenes include pagodas at Wutaishan and Tang dynasty Nestorian monuments outside of Xi'an. Documentation is sparse, but the photographs appear to have been sent to Charles L. Freer by Willis in November of 1908. At the time, Freer was considering purchase of a modern replica of the Nestorian Stele. His examination of Willis' original photograph of the stele confirmed that the replica was not worth acquisition.
大秦景教流行中國碑
Photographs of China by Bailey Willis
Biographical / Historical:
Bailey Willis (1857-1949) was a geological engineer who worked for the U.S. Geological Survey. He was born in New York and studied at Columbia University. Willis surveyed regions of Appalachia and the Northwestern U.S. He visited Mt. Rainier in 1882, and later contributed to its designation as a National Park. is publications on the region's geology garnered international attention from scientists. In 1903, he led an expedition funded by the Carnegie Institution to northern China, an area previously unexplored by geologists. In 1949, Willis published his recollections of the expedition in his book "Friendly China."
Local Numbers:
FSA A.01 12.05WP
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
