Our first floor galleries host exhibitions of contemporary art in all media, offering diverse and exciting visual experiences throughout the year. Our 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. Recent art exhibitions include Music to My Eyes, curated by Joan Perkes and Carol Cruickshanks; NEXT: Reimagining the Future Through Art, curated by Diane Ciccone and Jane Malloy, TAWA at 45, curated by Liz Aubrey and Mary Yess, and Ellarslie Open 40. 

Upper and lower galleries display permanent and changing exhibits of art, decorative arts and historical artifacts, to which many visitors return again and again. The second floor galleries include the current exhibition In the Beginning: Early Acquisitions of the TMS Collection, and galleries featuring 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 are able to draw from our extensive collection of fine arts, decorative arts, industrial memorabilia and historical objects to create rotating displays that illuminate aspects of Trenton’s history.

Molly’s Museum Shop, a go-to for shoppers and gift-givers, features an array of fine and decorative arts, unique gifts and accessories, and historic items and Trenton memorabilia.

The museum is located in Ellarslie Mansion, an Italianate villa built in 1848. The mansion is the centerpiece of Cadwalader Park, which was designed by the famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, whose most famous work is New York City’s Central Park.