Advertisement

Annual Report for Fogg Museum.

The annual report of the Fogg Art Museum, issued by the Director, Professor Charles H. Moore, shows that there have been a number of important accessions to the Museum, during the past year.

From Mr. H. G. Curtis '65, the Museum has received a gift of forty seven bronze reproductions of Italian and French Medals of the Renaissance. These Medals rival in their artistic finish the finest coins of the ancients. The chief Italian and the chief French master in works of this class, Vittore Pisano, and Dupre, are represented in this collection. Among the portraits by these and other medalists are those of Alfonzo V of Aragon, Lionello D'Este of Ferrara, Filippe Maria, Visconti of Milan, Leon Battista Alberti, Cosimo de Medici and Lorenzo de Medici. The medals are, for the most part, of considerable size, ranging from 40 or 50 to nearly 200 millimetres in diameter.

The Museum has received from Mr. Charles T. Murray, the water-color drawing of Devonport by J. M. W. Turner, a work of which John Ruskin, who once owned it, wrote--"No more wonderful drawing, take it all for all, exists by Turner's hand."

From Mr. E. W. Forbes '95 the Museum has received, as an indefinite loan, an early water-color by Turner; this loan brings the number of Turner's originals now in the Museum up to five, each one representing a different period in the artist's development.

A number of vase fragments which illustrate early forms of Greek pottery ornamentations have been received from Dr. Oliver Tonks.

Advertisement

The more important additions to the Gray collection are thirteen prints of Turner's Liber Studiorum in the etched state and two plates in the same series in the mezzotint state. The Liber series now contains many choice impressions in mezzotint and forty-one rare etchings.

To the Randall collection have been added, by transfer from the College Library, several mezzotint portraits by Copley and Pelham. 1,124 additions have been made to the collection of photographs, including illustrations of Mediaeval, Renaissance and Modern Architecture, as well as examples of Ancient Greek and Roman Architecture and Sculpture.

To obviate the possible accession of duplicate works of art by the Semitic. Germanic and Fogg Museums, Professor Moore suggests that between them there shall be a common ground of understanding and a common basis for action.

Finally, Professor Moore states the need of more space in the Fogg Museum, especially for the display of paintings and photographs in properly lighted rooms. He announces that plans have been made for two wings one to cost $40,000 and the other $50,000 and that it is hoped money may be forthcoming to build one of these.

Advertisement