NEW YORK, NY.- South Street Seaport Museum announces the release of the next set of collections artifacts for digital visitors to browse, research, and enjoy. In March 2021, the Museum launched a Collections Online Portal, which today features nearly 3,000 pieces on virtual display, allowing audiences to explore New York City’s past through the archives, artifacts, and photographs of the South Street Seaport Museum. This fourth iteration includes over 900 newly digitized works of art and historic objects covering a variety of mediums, historical subjects, and themes relating to the growth and changing physical fabric of New York City. Taken together, they offer a vibrant picture of the history of New York City as a port city, where international trade routes, global cultures, and seafaring, including all aspects of life, art, and work associated with them, come together in the heyday of the rise of New York as a world capital. Now available, the digital galleries can be viewed for FREE at seaportmuseum.org/collectionsonline.

Discover history and works of art from the comfort of your home with the new online database. Featuring items from the 17th century to the mid-20th century, the online collection consists of a searchable database of selected works of art and historic artifacts from the Seaport Museum’s permanent and working collections of over 28,500 objects, encapsulating the rich maritime heritage of New York City.

The four sets of new digital galleries include:

Ceramics Highlights (125)
The Seaport Museum’s ceramics collections are a window into the creation and production of ceramics from the 17th century to the mid-20th century on a global scale. Artifacts included ordinary and ornamental earthenware pieces like jugs, pitchers, and figurines, as well as porcelain imported from China, together with ‘china-wares’ produced in the Western countries. Artifacts also include celebratory transfer printing plates and a wide range of dining and drinking ware produced in factories to be used on board the great ocean liner of the turn of the 20th century.

Drawings and Watercolors Highlights (250)
The Museum’s collection of drawings and watercolors include depictions of New York City’s waterfront and landmarks, renowned vessels, and marine subjects from around the world. Items include a wide range of works on paper, from preparatory studies and sketches, to finished works produced for New York City businesses and maritime publications, as well as unique compositions made by sailors documenting their experiences at sea. These works of art, spanning from the 18th to the 20th century, are often rare and praised for their aesthetic appeal.

Lithographs and Prints Highlights (250)
The South Street Seaport Museum houses an outstanding collection of over 2,500 lithographs and prints. These prints primarily depict New York City scenes, New York Harbor landscapes, the American Civil War, and portraits of celebrated clipper ships and ocean liners. The primary focus of our prints collection is American popular lithographs produced in the mid-late 19th century by New York City firms such as Currier & Ives and Endicott & Co.; however, the Seaport Museum’s holdings also include a growing number of 20th century works on paper.

Wendell Lorang Maritime Postcard Collection (300)
This collection contains 20th century postcards donated by Wendell Lorang in 2005. The collection is organized into five main categories: ocean liners, lake steamers, coastal steamers and ferries, United States Navy warships and battleships, sailors and shipboard activities, and Navy yards, ports and harbors. The postcards cover European countries and United States areas, and while not all of the Museum’s postcards went through the mail and include handwritten messages, many of them do, sharing their uniqueness as historical documents and voices of the past.

Additional virtual highlights of the South Street Seaport Museum collections include the following categories on seaportmuseum.org/collections: Architectural Elements, Manuscripts and Ephemera, Navigational Instruments and Shipwright Tools, Objects Around the Neighborhood, Paintings, Photographs, Printing History, Scrimshaw, Ship Components, Ship Models, Special Collections, Tattoo Collection, Remains of the Old Hotels, Institutional Archives, and Maritime Reference Library.

The South Street Seaport Museum’s collections consist of more than 28,500 works of art and artifacts and over 55,000 historic records documenting the rise of New York as a port city, and its role in the development of the economy and business of the United States through social and architectural landscapes. The Museum’s collections trace the history of New York City’s Harbor and Port, from the East River piers and the waterfront areas of Manhattan, to the city’s other boroughs and the New Jersey shoreline. The Museum also documents and interprets New York international trade routes, global cultures, and seafaring, including all aspects of life, art, and work associated with them.