Photo courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection
"Tapestry depicting St. Louis Cemetery #1" 1977, by James Thomas (designer) and Bundy Illsley (weaver)
Ghosts undulate across a woven backdrop of iconic twentieth century tombs in St. Louis Cemetery. The words, “A Mon Cher Fils,” are stitched across a porcelain wreath, built to withstand the elements and forever honor an unknown maker’s son. Candlesticks, the Eucharist, and other Catholic iconography are embroidered on a sampler, stitched by the hands of a ten-year-old Ursuline student in 1815.
Each of these objects to be featured at the Historic New Orleans Collection’s (HNOC) Antiques Forum this August connects the divine with the tangible.
Humans have long sought to understand a higher power, embarking on an eternal quest for knowledge manifested through religious texts, moral codes, and organized rituals. Such belief, tradition, and spiritual practice have allowed us to find purpose, grapple with the hardships and sufferings of life, and build community through shared identities across generations of cultures.
For the eighteenth annual Antiques Forum, this shared human experience will be explored through Catholic statuary, everlasting immortelles, synagogue artifacts, and Afro-Carribean ritual objects—all interpreted by an impressive line-up of scholars and enthusiasts under one theme: Material Belief: Objects of Faith, Spirit, and Tradition.
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Photo courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection
"Immortelle A Mon Cher Fils"19th century, maker unknown,Beadwork with molded porcelain.
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Photo courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection
"Sampler" 1815, by Pauline Fortier Sarpy (embroiderer)
“Religion really underscores everything that happens in the South,” said Amy Williams, program manager of the event. “From our earliest founding, the church has been the center of our social life and pleasure. This is where we celebrate each other, where we join together, where we meet and mourn.”
Beginning on Saturday, August 8, HNOC will showcase artifacts from the museum’s collection through a number of single-object lectures, giving attendees a chance to explore everything from intricate nineteenth-century immortelles (that once captured the attention of Mark Twain in his travel notes taken along the Mississippi River) to Jewish ritual objects, compared and contrasted with African diasporic Vodou, Ifa, and Orisha artifacts.
Among the guest speakers in attendance will be Dr. Lily Higgins from The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, who will highlight some of the earliest embroidered samplers to arrive in Louisiana from the oldest continuously operating Catholic school in the United States.
Also on the docket is professor and director of the historic preservation program at Tulane University, Heather Veneziano, who will explore the city’s rich material traditions surrounding death and mourning, including cemeteries, tombs, immortelles, and all the artifacts involved in the iconic New Orleans second-line funeral parades.
“What’s great about antiques is that anybody can own something historic and anybody can own a piece of the past.
—Sarah Duggan, manager of the Decorative Arts of the Gulf South (DAGS) project
“[The programming is] like a whole visual feast,” said Sarah Duggan, manager of the Decorative Arts of the Gulf South (DAGS) project, an initiative that documents information about pre-1865 material life throughout the region. Duggan will be speaking on Sunday, presenting her research on the historic churches in downtown Natchez, Mississippi.
The forum will wrap with a session on the material culture of multiple Black churches across the region by the esteemed architect and community leader, Dr. Christopher S. Hunter from Texas A&M University. Hunter will discuss how these churches were built, how the spirit of the South carries traditions from West Africa, and how these houses of worship have long served as havens for Black communities to come together for more than just belief.
In a new addition to the Forum’s programming, this year, the HNOC invites the public to a first-come, first-serve, free lecture the Friday before the conference, during which LSU Professor Dr. Michael Mamp will discuss the profound role of ceremonial textiles––including baptismal dresses, wedding gowns, and mourning shrouds—and the evolution of styles throughout the eras, while also offering a sneak peak into the upcoming weekend’s schedule.
For Williams, Duggan, and the rest of the Historic New Orleans Collection, the forum is about much more than examining the material culture of artifacts and religious traditions; it is an intersection between the past and the present, and a reminder of the generations of beliefs, rituals, and craftsmanship that have helped shaped the soul of the Gulf South and the city that New Orleans is today.
“What’s great about antiques is that anybody can own something historic and anybody can own a piece of the past,” said Duggan. “There is history in your backyard, in your community.”
The 2026 Antiques Forum will be held at the Williams Research Center from August 7–9. Tickets are $225; $114.50 for attendees ages twenty-one to thirty and museum professionals. For the full schedule of lectures, speakers, and additional information, visit hnoc.org.
