'Gun Foundry' Gets a Cleaning

Highlands Current Audio Stories · May 27, 2026 · 6m

1866 painting depicts forging of Parrott rifle In 1866, John Ferguson Weir painted "The Gun Foundry," depicting workers pouring molten iron into a casting pit at the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring to create a Parrott gun. The painting, which lives at the Putnam History Museum, was last cleaned 50 years ago. Kara Mattsen, the director of curation, said the staff noticed "it had gotten a little foggy." It was "dirty, very dirty," said conservator Nadia Ghannam, who on Friday (May 29) will reveal the results of her thorough cleaning, funded by state grants. Ghannam has worked in the…