The Stirrup Gallery has 14,000 years of history donated to Davis & Elkins College
Where can you learn about the Roman Empire, marvel over a collection of brilliantly colored butterflies from Peru and get an up-close look at tools used by Native Americans? Open the glass doors to The Stirrup Gallery in Myles Center for the Arts where a world of days gone by awaits.
Originally established in 2013 as a home to the 10,000-plus North American treasures of The Darby Collection, The Stirrup Gallery has continued to grow to include eight additional collections – the Lincoln Collection, Howard-Sudbrink Collection, Eleanor Gay Collection, Foster Collection, Senator Davis Collection, Swezy Collection, Gary North Collection and J. Richard & Dotty S. Kendig Collection.
The Darby Collection begins with the Stone Age and the hand ax, and ends with the delicate, beautifully crafted glass, wooden and metal objects of the early 20th century. This is the legacy of prodigious collector Hosea M. Darby, a native son of Preston County, West Virginia, and successful Elkins architect and builder, who gave his home and collection of more than 10,000 items to Davis & Elkins College in 1943. The Darby Collection is the showpiece of The Stirrup Gallery.
Other items in The Stirrup Gallery’s numerous collections include Senator Davis's 18 karat gold Tiffany and Co. pocket watch from the mid-1800s and a unique Sicilian wedding cart which is completely covered with paintings; pottery from 1500 B.C.; Wedgwood Jasperware; Trajan coins from 98 and 117 CE; Conibo tribe artifacts; portraits of President Lincoln by the famous artist E.A. Burbank; Native American artifacts; and an Egyptian bronze Osiris statuette circa 760 B.C., Mezzo American pottery whistles circa 1000 A.D. and pre-Columbian figurines.
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