From Permanent to Portable: A Chinese Stele's Journey from a Garden in Maine to the MFA

In 1926, landscape designer Beatrix Farrand designed a garden on Mount Desert Island, Maine, for John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. A Chinese sandstone votive stele dated 576 AD (MFA 1980.678) was featured at a key site overlooking Little Long Pond. A promised gift to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the fragile sculpture was removed from its cement footing, transported to the Museum and remounted for easy portability and installation, using an innovative combination of scaffolding, rigging, garden equipment, off-the-shelf hardware, fillers and adhesives. A sandstone replica of the original was fabricated and installed in the garden location using a reversible method.