The Institution as Collector
Affiliated Society or Committee Name: Society for the History of CollectingBoth the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrate their 150th anniversaries in 2020. Yet these two institutions began in very different ways. While the Boston museum was an outgrowth of that city’s Athenaeum, with an already extensive collection of works of art, New York’s museum was founded without a single object in its collection. These examples are a starting point to consider the ways in which museums act as collectors. The history of collecting is more usually positioned as driven by individuals or families. While house museums have garnered attention as expressions of their founders’ biographies and interests, municipal or encyclopedic museums have not in a comprehensive way. The papers in our session explore the means by which a museum's identity is formed and expanded through its collections, as well as how that identity is understood and responded to by donors and dealers alike.
Field of Study:
Europe
North America
Modern (1800-present)
Early Modern (1450-1800)
Asia
Chairs:
Elizabeth A. Pergam,Society for the History of Collecting - eapergam@gmail.com
and
Adriana Turpin,Society for the History of Collecting - adrianaturpin@gmail.com