NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND (September 22, 2025) – The Preservation Society of Newport County will host The Newport Symposium: The French Influence in Newport on November 6–7, 2025, a two-day program exploring how French culture shaped Gilded Age Newport. French art, architecture, design, and cuisine permeated the lifestyles of America’s elite as they looked to the French aristocracy for inspiration.
Richard Morris Hunt, the first American architect trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, modeled the architecture of Alva Vanderbilt’s Marble House after the Petit Trianon at Versailles. Horace Trumbauer’s inspiration for The Elms came from the 18th-century Château d’Asnières, while Stanford White’s design for Rosecliff incorporated elements of another Versailles palace, the Grand Trianon. Furniture maker and interior designer Jules Allard et Fils furnished Newport’s summer “cottages” with treasures inspired by and imported from France, and French chefs created magnificent culinary confections. Through lectures, tours, and special access experiences, the symposium will trace these transatlantic connections that defined the Gilded Age.
The 2025 symposium will feature distinguished voices from across disciplines:
- Mathieu Deldicque, Chief Curator and Museum Director, Château de Chantilly
- Dr. Justine De Young, Associate Professor and Chair, History of Art Department, Fashion Institute of Technology
- Bob Shaw, Production Designer, HBO’s The Gilded Age
- Natalie Larson, Interior Textile Historian, Historic Textile Reproductions LLC
- Becky Libourel Diamond, Food Culture Historian
- Margot Bernstein, Ph.D., Curator of Private Collection
- Nadia Albertini, French Heritage Society Scholar, embroidery & textile designer
- Leslie Jones, Director of Museum Affairs and Chief Curator, The Preservation Society of Newport County
- Laura Bergemann, Conservation Research Fellow, Preservation Society, and doctoral candidate, Vanderbilt University
- Théo Lourenço, Curatorial Research Fellow, Preservation Society.
Speakers will lead tours across our properties and others that relate to their talks, including Marble House, The Breakers, Chateau-sur-Mer, The Elms, and Ochre Court. Symposium registration will also include special access to the “Richard Morris Hunt: In a New Light” exhibition at Rosecliff, which offers an unprecedented and intimate view into Hunt’s cultural vision, collecting practices, and his influence on America’s cultural development.
About The Newport Symposium
Founded in 1993 by The Preservation Society of Newport County, the Newport Symposium has been an annual convening of fine and decorative arts experts and enthusiasts from across the country and the world since 1993. Attendees listen to stimulating lectures, experience behind-the-scenes study opportunities and gather to network and discuss the future of our history. The Newport Symposium is made possible by the generous support of Russell Morin Catering & Events and Kirby Perkins Construction.
The Preservation Society of Newport County, Rhode Island, is a nonprofit organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. It is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the area’s historic architecture, landscapes, decorative arts and social history. Its 11 historic properties – seven of them National Historic Landmarks – span more than 250 years of American architectural and social development.
For more information, please visit www.NewportMansions.org.
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Media contact:
Michelle DiLello, Blue Medium Inc.
michelle@bluemedium.com
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