Newspaper: Clipping featuring illustration of "Ruins of 'Iranistan'"
Wood engraving
P. T. Barnum (associated with)
Frank Leslie (created by)
Discovery Museum and Planetarium (previously owned by)
Frank Leslie (created by)
Discovery Museum and Planetarium (previously owned by)
1858 (Date published)
paper
4" H
X
6" W
Illustration titled "Ruins of 'Iranistan', Bridgeport, Ct., Late the residence of P. T. Barnum. From a daguerreotype by Lewis and Mallory, of Bridgeport." The illustration was published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated News in January 2, 1858. The home burst into flames late on the night of December 17,1857, the cause thought to be smoldering ashes from a workman's pipe falling on an upholstered bench where the men sat to eat their midday meal. No one was living in the house at the time; Barnum was having work done in preparation for the family to move back in. The print shows the former home having burned to the ground, the few remains being the chimneys and the front entry staircase. Fallen timbers from the structure are shown on the foundation. Three gentlemen in top hats are gazing at the damage. Outbuildings on the estate are visible in the distance.
Iranistan was P. T. Barnum's country home from 1848 to 1857, which he described as an "oriental villa." It was located on a seventeen-acre site that was on the eastern border of the town of Fairfield. (Later the area was annexed by Bridgeport.) It was designed in the Moorish revival style by Leopold Eidlitz, and was modeled very closely upon the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England, which Barnum greatly admired and wished to replicate for his Fairfield Avenue home. It cost $100,000. According to Barnum's autobiography, a lot of furniture and artwork was saved from the fire; a number of those items are in the holdings of the Barnum Museum.
A Gift of the Discovery Museum, Bridgeport, Connecticut
2003.009.076