Ellarslie Mansion, built in 1848, houses the museum in historic Cadwalader Park, which itself was designed by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, whose most famous work is New York City’s Central Park.

The first floor galleries host exhibitions of contemporary art in all media, offering diverse and exciting visual experiences throughout the year. Their signature exhibition is the annual juried Ellarslie Open, which highlights the artistic talent that abounds throughout the New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania region and far beyond.

Upper and lower galleries display permanent and changing exhibits of decorative arts and historical artifacts to which many visitors return again and again. The second floor galleries feature tableware, sanitary ware, and artware illuminating Trenton’s prolific ceramics industry of the 19th and 20th centuries. The Gilded Age room presents a parlor as it may have looked when Ellarslie was a private residence in the 1860s. We draw from our extensive collection to create rotating displays that illuminate Trenton’s history.