Art Collecting and Gifts to Museums questions why private collectors donate their collection, or parts of it, to museums and examines what the implications of this gifting process might be. Presenting case studies from Europe, North America, East Asia, and the South Pacific, this book is concerned with both elite and popular collections and examines the act of donating art from the collector’s point of view. Demonstrating that art museums depend on donations from private collectors, Paul van der Grijp emphasizes that it is crucial to understand the psychological, sociological, economic, and educational motivations for gifting works of art to institutions. Taken together, the chapters argue that collectors donate to museums because the latter represent an imagined community, to whom those collectors would like to bestow a sacred gift. Private collectors are, Van der Grijp maintains, motivated to ensure the immortality of their collections and, ultimately, to preserve some memory of their own lives in the process. Art Collecting and Gifts to Museums will be of interest to researchers and students engaged in the study of museums, culture, art, anthropology, history, and sociology.

By 1850 cash-flush Americans like J.P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Henry E. Huntington, Arabella Huntington, and Mildred and Robert Bliss went on collecting campaigns that netted masterpiece after masterpiece, along with the furniture and fittings of dozens of aristocratic residences. From the outset, these collectors planned to present their trophies to the public as museums in which they could dictate each and every detail of the arrangements. Drawing on a decade of research, Higonnet weaves letters, auction records and photographs into an engrossing account of the founding of both renowned and obscure collection museums. She also explores how these collectors stoked the tremendous values accorded paintings by Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velazquez, Gainsborough and Reynolds. Also references the Hertford family, Sir Richard and Lady Amelie Wallace, Le duc d'Amale and others.

Promised to Colby College in 2007, the Lunder Collection comprises more than 500 works of art, including paintings, sculptures, prints, and photographs. Special strengths of the collection include 19th- and 20th- century American art, as well as the Lunder-Colville Collection of Chinese Art and more than 300 works by James McNeill Whistler. The Lunder Collection: A Gift of Art to Colby College is a richly illustrated volume featuring more than 265 collection highlights. Conceived as the companion to the 2009 publication Art at Colby: Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Colby College Museum of Art, the catalogue includes seven essays on the collection’s major areas, The Lunder Colville-Chinese Art Collection, Art through the American Centennial, the art of James McNeill Whistler, art of the Gilded Age, art of the American West, American Modernism, and art after 1945, as well as seventeen reflections on specific works or groups of work in the collection. Selected contributors include Elizabeth Broun, Barbara Haskell, Erica Hirshler, Virginia Mecklenburg, Kenneth Myers, Martha Tedeschi, Thayer Tolles, William Truettner, and Adam Weinberg.

This monumental new book is the first to celebrate the greatest and most iconic paintings from the encyclopedic collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, one of the largest, most important, and most beloved museums in the world. This impressive volume's broad sweep of material, all from a single museum, makes it at once a universal history of painting and the ideal introduction to the iconic masterworks of this world-renowned institution. More than 1,000 lavish color illustrations and details of 500 masterpiece paintings, created over 5,000 years in cultures across the globe, are presented chronologically from the dawn of civilization to the present. These works represent a grand tour of painting from ancient Egypt and classical antiquity and prized Byzantine and medieval altarpieces, to paintings from Asia, India, Africa and the Americas, and and the greatest European and North American masters. The Metropolitan Museum of Art includes and introduction and illuminating texts about each artwork written specially for this volume by Kathryn Calley Galitz, whose experience as both curator and educator at the Met makes her uniquely qualified. European and American artists include Duccio, El Greco, Raphael, Titian, Botticelli, Bronzino, Caravaggio, Turner, Velázquez, Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Brueghel, Vermeer, David, Renior, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, Degas, Sargent, Homer, Matisse, Picasso, Pollock, Jasper Johns, and Warhol. The artworks are arranged in rough chronological order, without regard to geography or culture, offering a visual timeline of the history of painting, from the earliest examples on pottery jars made over five thousand years ago to canvases on which the paint has barely dried. Freed from the constraints imposed by the physical layout of the Museum, the paintings resonate anew; and this chronological framework reveals unexpected visual affinities among the works. For those wishing to experience the unparalleled breadth and depth of the Met's collection, or study masterpieces of painting from throughout history, this important volume is sure to become a classic cherished by art lovers around the world.

Twelve distinguished curators discuss the questions & challenges faced by museums in acquiring & preserving contemporary art.

An engaging explanation of Oceanic art and an important gateway to wider appreciation of Oceanic heritage and visual culture

The Metropolitan Museum of Art houses one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of works of art from antiquities to modern and contemporary material. Their preservation is a responsibility shared by the many individuals employed at the Museum who oversee and have direct contact with the collection on a daily basis. The Care and Handing of Art Objects—first published in the 1940s and continually updated—offers a guide to the best practices in handling and preserving works of art while on display, in storage and in transit. It explains many of the fundamental principles of conservation that underlie these methods. One of its goals is to make the complexities of caring for a collection readily accessible. The first part offers basic guidelines for the preservation of the diverse types of materials and art objects found in the Met. Each chapter addresses the physical characteristics specific to the particular category, and the environmental, handling and housing factors to which one should be alert to prevent damage and ensure their preservation. Written by experts in the respective specialty, it addresses the Museum’s vast holdings summarizing the most critical preservation issues, many of which are amplified by photographs. As the table of contents makes evident these range from paintings on canvas and works on paper and photographs to furniture and objects made of stone, wood and metals to arms and armor, upholstery, ethnographic materials and many others. Part II succinctly describes factors that affect the collection as a whole: among them, current environmental standards for temperature, relative humidity, light exposure, storage and art in transit. Based on Museum protocols it addresses emergency preparedness and response, and integrated pest management. For easy reference, it includes charts on storage and display conditions, on factors contributing to deterioration, and a glossary of conservation terms, principles, and housing materials referenced in the individual chapters. Drawing upon the knowledge of conservators, scientists, and curators from many different departments, as well as technicians and engineers whose expertise crosses boundaries of culture, chronology, medium and condition, The Care and Handing of Art Objects is primarily directed to staff at the Met. It is, no less, an invaluable resource for students, collectors, small museums, museum study programs, art dealers, and members of the public who want to enhance their understanding of how works of art are safeguarded and the role environment, handling and materials play in making this possible.

The intensely expressive art of the Middle Ages was created to awe, educate and connect the viewer to heaven. Its power reverberates to this day, even among the secular. But experiencing the full meaning and purpose of medieval art requires an understanding of its narrative content. This volume introduces the subjects and stories most frequently depicted in medieval art, many of them drawn from the Bible and other religious literature. Included among the thirty-eight representative works are brilliant altarpieces, stained-glass windows, intricate tapestries, carved wood sculptures, delicate ivories, and captivating manuscript illuminations, all drawn from the holdings of the Metropolitan Museum, one of the world's most comprehensive collections of medieval art. Iconic masterworks such as the Merode Altarpiece, the Unicorn Tapestries, and the Belles Heures of the duc de Berry are featured along with less familiar work. Descriptions of the individual pieces highlight the context in which they were made, conveying their visual and technical nuances as well as their broader symbolic meaning. With its accessible informative discussions and superb full-color illustrations, How to Read Medieval Art explores the iconographic themes of the period, making them clearly recognizable and opening vistas onto history and literature, faith and devotion.

Presents the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago in Illinois, featuring over 7000 objects spanning five centuries of Western and Eastern civilizations. Provides information about exhibitions, events, the collection, educational programs, and membership. Posts contact information via mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail.