Fogg Museum Report

The report of Professor Charles H. Moore on the Fogg Museum of Art shows the following acquisitions for the year 1898-99.

The collection of photographs has been enlarged by the addition of 1307 prints, making the total number 27,370. They represent the German, Dutch, French and Italian schools of painting, the mediaeval and renaissance architecture of France, Germany and Italy and the architecture of Egypt and Arabia. Fourteen of the photographs of Dutch and Flemish paintings were received from the Art Institute of Chicago. 952 visitors made use of this collection during the past year. The accessions of stereopticon slides were 613 in all, bringing the number of the whole collection at the close of the year up to 2,141. Six water colors and one pen and wash drawing were added to the collection of drawings, and all are characteristic of the early English water color school.

Mr. E. W. Forbes '95 has imported and loaned indefinitely to the Museum several originals which are typical of the various schools to which they belong. As the Museum has hitherto obtained few original works, these acquisitions are of great importance. They are as follows: A Florentine Tabernacolo, an Adoration of the Magi, a portrait of the Procurator of St. Mark, a Meleager, a Battle of Amazons, and a small Aphrodite head. The authors of these works are unknown.

The following etchings and engravings have been purchased for the Gray collection: Statue of the Virgin by Antonio Canal; a portrait entitled, Philon the Jew, and a copy by J. Bretherton; the Virgin weeping over the dead body of Christ, by Marc-Antonio; and a portrait of Cardinal Bentivoglio, by J. Morin.

For the Randall collection have been bought 283 prints after Turner, bound in five volumes and including many illustrations. Among the noted engravers represented by these prints are Allen, Brandard, Finden, Goodall, Armytage and Miller. A few books were added to the libraries of these collections.

Early in the year a portion of the basement was enclosed and fitted up as a workroom for the cleaning, pressing and mounting of prints. The same equipment can also be used for photographs, thus materially reducing the cost and risk of sending photographs away to be mounted.