Galleries & Collections

To enter the MSV Galleries, visitors pass through a lobby with a barrel-vaulted ceiling decorated with gold stars. The stars allude to a Valley legend that the word "Shenandoah" is an Indian term meaning "daughter of the stars."
 

Note

The collections displayed in the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley can be seen year-round. The Glen Burnie Historic House and its surrounding gardens are open on a seasonal basis from March through November. Click here for more information about hours of operation.

 

quickfact

The exhibitions in the MSV Shenandoah Valley Gallery, the Julian Wood Glass Jr. Gallery, and the R. Lee Taylor Miniatures Gallery were designed by The 1717 Design Group, Inc. of Richmond, Virginia.

The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley complex contains five distinguished collections displayed in three locations.

On view in the historic house is the Glen Burnie Historic House Collection, which includes objects original to the earliest Wood and Glass families and the paintings, fine furniture, and decorative objects acquired by Julian Wood Glass Jr. for his ancestral home. The museum's living collection is comprised of the six acres of spectacular gardens surrounding the Glen Burnie Historic House. Finally, the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley Collection, the Julian Wood Glass Jr. Collection, and the R. Lee Taylor Miniatures Collection are each on first-time permanent display in their own galleries in the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley.

The second level of the Museum of the Shenandoah Valley presents four main galleries comprised of eleven gallery rooms. In the Shenandoah Valley Gallery, three gallery rooms explore the sweep of Valley history, and three additional rooms display decorative arts made in the Valley from the mid-1700s to the present. The Julian Wood Glass Jr. Gallery presents the collection assembled by one of the Valley's most significant private collectors, and includes paintings, furniture, and objects illustrating the themes of portraiture, landscape, and the Grand Tour. The R. Lee Taylor Miniatures Gallery is home to a fascinating collection of furnished miniature houses and rooms, also assembled in the Shenandoah Valley, while the Changing Exhibition Gallery displays continually changing exhibitions throughout the year.

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