Tag: Tiepolp

In the beginning – The Met

For some time now I’ve been wondering about the pieces with which art museums start their collections – especially the public museums like The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or the National Gallery in London or DC – by public I mean not old royal collections like the Prado Museum. What was the first piece that seeded these incredibly large collections? So here we go – the first in the series – I’ll start with the Met in New York.

Met ID 70.1 – Roman, Marble Sarcophagus with garlands, Ad 200-225

The Met started as a brainchild of a group of New York businessmen gathered in Paris in 1866 to celebrate the 90th signing of the Declaration of Independence – they wanted to start an art museum in New York similar to the ones found in European capitals. Four years later John Jay, a NY based lawyer who had rallied support from civic leaders, incorporated the museum and acquired the first of 1.5 million pieces on November 20, 1870 – a Roman sarcophagus given by Abdo Debbas, the American vice consul in Turkey. It’s Met ID is 70.1 – interesting that they didn’t say 1870.1 – all 1970 and later acquisitions probably start with the full four digits.

Met ID 71.1 Gaspar de Crayer, The Meeting of Alexander the Great and Diogenes

Just before the start of the Franco-Prussian War in July 1870, one of the founders and trustee of the museum, businessman and philanthropist William T. Blodgett left for Paris on a buying trip and a month later he acquired a collection of 57 pictures called “the Paris Collection,” sold to him by a collector in financial and political hardship. In September, he acquired a Belgian aristocrat, Count Cornet de Ways Ruart’s collection of 100 paintings, and his 3rd and final purchase was 17 more pictures from a collection. These 174 paintings, collectively known as the “Purchase of 1871,” started the collection at the Met. Here are some of them with their Met IDs!!

Met ID 71.34, Bernhard Strigel, Portrait of a Woman (1510-15), Met ID 71.41 Anthony van Dyck, Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-Stricken of Palermo, (1624), Met ID 71.19 Edwaert Colllier, Vanitas Still Life (1662) .
  • Met ID 71.28, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, The Sacrifice of Isaac (mid-1750s)
  • Met ID 71.31, Giovanni Paolo Panini, Interior of Saint Peter’s Rome (after 1754)
Met ID 71.5, Jacob Vosmaer, A Vase with Flowers (1613) & Met ID 71.78 Jan Davidsz de Heem, Still Life with a Glass and Oysters (1640)

Perhaps fitting for a museum in New York that so many of its earliest acquisitions were by Dutch artists.

(Source: The Metropolitan Museum of New York)