Thomas Jefferson's art collection copyrighted?

My pal and Institute for the Future colleagues Mike Love writes:

After Thanksgiving my family visited Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville, Virginia. Before entering, the tour guide told us that we couldn't take any photos inside because they "don't own the copyright for some of the works of art." This peeved me in light of the copyright-restricted space post I had read recently about misusing the language of copyright to intimidate people.

In protest I tried to take a no-flash picture of Jefferson's engraved copy of the Declaration of Independence, but was politely told to stop - and reminded that the Thomas Jefferson Foundation doesn't own the copyright to some of his works of art. If they don't own the copyright to his nearly 200 year-old art then who does!?

UPDATE: Jennifer Michaels, a former Motincello tour guide, writes:

I was a tour guide at Monticello from 2002 to 2004, and I can answer Mike Love´s question of, "If they [Monticello] don't own the copyright to his nearly 200 year-old art then who does!?" It´s a great question, and I was always happy to answer it for my own tour groups.

The reason that photographs are not allowed inside Monticello itself is because the home itself is owned by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, a non-profit organization that upkeeps the home, but more than half of the furniture inside the building does not belong to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. When the non-profit organization bought the house in the 1930´s, there was no furniture in it at all. Thomas Jefferson died over $100,000 in debt and the vast majority of his private property was sold at dispersal auction in the 1830´s to recover his debt, which was a huge burden on his surviving family. The TJF curators spend an enormous amount of time just trying to find the furniture, which is literally scattered to the four winds.

When they do manage to find a furniture or piece, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation would obviously prefer to buy it when possible for their own collection. But the TJF can´t afford to buy it all outright, and understandably, some pieces aren´t even for sale, either because the private owners don´t wish to part with it or because it´s part of another museum´s collection. Consequently, the majority of furnishings in Monticello are on permanent contractual loan to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, with the private (or other museum) owners retaining all rights--including reproduction copyright--to the items themselves. So prohibiting photography in the house is actually done to protect private property that belongs to a slew of other people. That´s a very different situation than what´s going on at Victoria and Albert, where the artwork truly is in the public domain.

Furthermore, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation is understandably concerned that if they did allow non-flash photography in the home, visitors would inevitably forget to turn off their flashes and misunderstand the rules and take flash photography anyway. Most of the items in the home are extremely light-sensitive due to their age, to the point that all of the home´s windows are covered with a protective UV film. Imagine if just one out of every 1,000 visitors forgot the rules and took a flash picture in the house; with about half a million visitors to the home each year, that would expose the house to approximately 500 photography flashes a year, which is plenty enough to do damage.

If the Jefferson Foundation were so anti-film, they wouldn´t allow photographs everywhere else on the grounds except inside the house. Because they own the entire outdoor property and have only allowed replica furniture to ornament the outside of the house, there is no copyright conflict with people taking pictures outside the home itself. I always reminded my tour groups as soon as we got back outside that they should turn their cameras on and start snapping away.

Finally, if it makes Mike feel any better, I am almost certain that the engraved, framed copy of the Declaration of Independence that he was attempting to photograph didn´t actually belong to Thomas Jefferson. There are two engravings of the Declaration in the home, and while both are contemporary to Jefferson´s time period, Jefferson´s own engravings of the Declaration no longer exist. So Mike was actually looking at a very similar engraving by the same engraver, but not the one that Jefferson actually owned.