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249 Flanders Road • Bethlehem, CT 06751 | Directions
The Crèche will open Wednesdays through Sundays from 10 a.m.—3 p.m. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Winter Closure: January 7th —Easter Sunday. There is no charge for admission.
Winter Closure: January 7th —Easter Sunday. HISTORY: Given to the Abbey in 1949 by Loretta Hines Howard in memory of her husband, Mrs. Howard also gifted the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a similar Crèche some years later, one that is famously the centerpiece of the Museum’s Medieval Galleries every Christmas. The Abbey Crèche is thought to have been presented to Victor Amadeus the Second, King of Sardinia, on the occasion of his coronation in 1720. After his death in 1732, it became the property of an Italian family of the nobility until it was brought to America in 1948. The Crèche, a remarkable ensemble, contains 68 figures between 14—16 inches high. The figures, whose heads, hands and legs are made of carved wood and terra cotta, are situated in a small village made primarily of the bark of cork trees that evokes the local surroundings of the Neapolitan artists of the time. Dressed in their original 18th-century costumes, the figures vividly portray the Holy Family, as well as children, old and young women bearing gifts, merchants and peddlers, a princess and her whippet, angels, the Three Kings, and peasants and their farm animals. A team from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York undertook a total conservation of the figures and their costumes, as well as a re-design of the Crèche display area several years ago. Because the figures had retained their pristine historical condition, having been spared any prior restoration that would have compromised this, the restoration of the Abbey’s Crèche has made an important contribution to the body of knowledge available to the public and to art historians concerning materials, technology, methods of fabrication and art historical context. The display, which is 16 feet long and 6 feet deep, is housed in the Bellamy Barn, an 18th-century structure, itself of regional historical interest. The Barn once belonged to Joseph Bellamy, one of Connecticut’s earliest and most distinguished ministers. Miss Caroline Woolsey Ferriday, whose family had acquired the Bellamy property in Bethlehem, Connecticut, presented the Barn to the Abbey for the purpose of housing the Crèche. It is a rustic structure perfectly suited for the ambiance of a Christmas Crèche. Neapolitan Crèche Gallery
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