Exhibition note

Opulent buckles that adorned the shoes of affluent early Americans, glowing coins crafted from ore newly mined in the Gold Rush, and a radiant eighteen-karat Gilded Age coffee service commissioned for one of America’s preeminent industrialist families—all these are among the many alluring examples of gold inspiring admiration and inviting discussion at the Yale University Art Gallery in “Gold in America.”

Described as “the first exhibition since 1963 to survey the role of gold in American art and culture,” “Gold in America” presents more than seventy works of gold drawn primarily from the gallery’s exemplary collection of American decorative arts as well as paintings, photography, and natural specimens belonging to the Yale Center for British Art, the Yale...