In the second of a series of blogs on the beginnings of museum collections, I decided to write about our nation’s museum – the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. The museum and its founding collection was a gift of Pittsburgh industrialist and later Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. It was in 1928, that Andrew Mellon first expressed interest in starting a national art museum, and in December 1936 he offered his personal art collection, now known as the Mellon Collection, as well as funds to build the museum. Sadly, he died in March 1937 just as the construction of the museum was starting. It was built however according to his vision.
The Mellon Collection comprised of 125 paintings, 25 of which Mellon purchased from the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia) in 1931. The young, and poor, socialist government of the Soviet Union needed money which it raised by selling off priceless treasures to millionaires like Andrew Mellon, Calouste Gulbenkian (who founded the Gulbenkian museum in Lisbon), and Marjorie Post (owner of General Foods, Inc.).
The works acquired by Mellon and gifted to the National Gallery included Rembrandts, Van Dyck, Reubens, Botticelli, Velazquez, Hals, and a Chardin. Quite unbelievable that Stalin’s government would have permitted this kind of a cultural drain – but it certainly has enriched our National Gallery beyond imagination!!
(Sources: National Gallery of Art, The Washington Post).
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