Muscarelle Museum of Art

America's Tapestry opened at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, on June 19, 2026 — the first stop on the exhibition's national tour. It is a fitting place to begin. Williamsburg sits at the heart of the nation's founding story, and William & Mary, long known as the Alma Mater of the Nation, has taken up the work of marking America's 250th anniversary. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the university's Office of Strategic Cultural Partnerships, with support from the Coby Foundation.

The Muscarelle is no ordinary first venue. Its collection is one of the oldest campus-based holdings of art in the country, with roots reaching back to 1732 and particular strength in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century portraits that carry so much of Virginia's early history. In February 2025 the museum reopened as the Martha Wren Briggs Center for the Visual Arts, a privately funded expansion that roughly tripled its size and grew its galleries from five to fourteen.

There is a close connection here, too. Virginia's panel was stitched on-site at the Muscarelle by members of the Williamsburg Rose and Thistle Chapter of the Embroidery Guild of America, alongside community volunteers, under the direction of Catherine Theron. It tells the story of the Wythe County lead mines that supplied musket balls to the Continental Army — and of the enslaved, convicted, and imported laborers who worked them, one of the many overlooked histories these tapestries were made to bring into the light.