The Heckscher Museum Places Bald Eagle

By Patrick Keeffe

The Heckscher Museum of Art, on behalf of the Town of Huntington, has placed a preserved Bald Eagle from its legacy collection on long-term loan to the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, housed on the William K. Vanderbilt II estate known as Eagle’s Nest. The loan is the result of collaborative efforts among leadership at the Town of Huntington, The Heckscher Museum of Art, and the Vanderbilt Museum.

The eagle, which measures 23 inches seated on its mount, was likely one of the initial Heckscher family gifts and is part of the Museum’s legacy collection. In speaking about the legacy collection, Dr. Michael Schantz, executive director and CEO of the Heckscher Museum, said “it included a vast collection of fine and decorative art and diverse cultural objects — specifically, collections of lace, minerals, shells, tools, armaments — as well as numerous Egyptian and American Indian pieces. Objects of this nature are not part of the Museum’s educational and collecting focus as the emphasis is on fine art, not natural history or ethnographic artifacts.”

The eagle has been in archival storage for decades, Schantz said: “We found the perfect home for it as The Heckscher Museum leadership wanted to keep this majestic bird local and have it be useful to the mission of another institution. We are pleased to place this fine specimen on long-term loan at the Vanderbilt, where it will be used as an educational tool in a way not possible at The Heckscher Museum of Art.”

Stephanie Gress, the Vanderbilt’s director of curatorial affairs, said, “The eagle will join numerous other birds in the Vanderbilt’s natural-history collection, and become an important part of education programming.” The eagle is on display in the Vanderbilt Mansion Library.

The Vanderbilt natural-history collection includes 569 birds, and the Bald Eagle will be number 570. Gress said 550 birds are exhibited in various parts of the museum. The Bird Room is home to 323, with the remainder on display in the Memorial Wing, Habitat, Sudan Trophy Room, Stoll Wing and Library.