The arts of the ancient world in Chrysler Museum of Art, Asia, Africa, and Pre-Columbian America (particularly Maya ceramics) are well represented.
In first-floor Ancient Worlds area. You will be familiar with Egyptian mummies and ancient Greece and Rome from school, and find all the faces in the Meso-American galleries quite appealing.
There’s also a create-your-own art station for kids right down the hall from these first-floor galleries.
Pre-Columbian Art and Artifacts
The Chrysler’s collection of Mesoamerican ceramics and sculptures represents several major pre-Columbian cultures and contains important pieces created by the ancient Maya.
Greco-Roman Art
Citizens and heroes of ancient Greece and Rome endure through works of art created in bronze, stone, and ceramics. The Chrysler also holds a significant collection of ancient glass.
Egyptian Art
The Chrysler’s Egyptian collection includes the impressive sarcophagus of Psamtik-Seneb, known as a scorpion charmer and source for anti-venom.
African Art
Collected in the first half of the twentieth century, the masks and tribal sculpture in the Chrysler represent a wide range of West and Central African cultures, including Cameroon, Gabon, and Mali.
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, United States
The Chrysler Museum of Art is one of America’s most distinguished mid-sized art museums, with a nationally recognized collection of more than 30,000 objects, including one of the great glass collections in America. The core of the Chrysler’s collection comes from Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., an avid art collector who donated thousands of objects from his private collection to the Museum. In the years since Chrysler’s death in 1988, the Museum has dramatically enhanced its collection and extended its ties with the Norfolk community. The Museum, expanded in 2014 to add additional gallery spaces and amenities for visitors, now has growing collections in many areas. The Chrysler also mounts an ambitious schedule of exhibitions and educational programs and events each season.
In addition, the Chrysler Museum of Art administers two historic houses in downtown Norfolk: the Moses Myers House and the Willoughby-Baylor House, as well as the Jean Outland Chrysler Library on the campus of Old Dominion University.
The Chrysler Museum of Art, One Memorial Place, Norfolk, and its Perry Glass Studio at 745 Duke St., are open to the public Tuesday–Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The Historic Houses on East Freemason Street are open weekends. General admission is free at all venues.