9Built and furnished between 1858 and 1860, Victoria Mansion was remarkable from the day it was created. It stands today as the final unaltered and fully intact example of the work of three of 19th-century America's towering creative talents, architect Henry Austin, interior designer Gustave Herter, and decorative painter Giuseppe Guidicini. This collection of photographs, most of which are published here for the first time, documents the building's beginnings as a lavish private residence for the Morse and Libby families, its decline and near loss during the early 20th century, and its resurgence and restoration since becoming a museum in 1941. Now welcoming tens of thousands of visitors each year, Victoria Mansion survives as a beautifully preserved document of the highest achievements in American art and architecture on the eve of the Civil War.