A Museum of One's Own: Private Collecting, Public Gift

by Anne Higonnet

When French revolutionaries sacked royal holdings at the end of the 18th century, they began the largest transfer of artistic goods in world history. By 1850 many "repossessed" treasures had come to rest in a new institution, the public museum, where they were assigned educational tasks. Anne Higonnet's book begins at this turning point in the history of art, but it looks instead at another new institution, the collection museum. Emerging in London with the Wallace Collection, the collection museum spread rapidly in Gilded Age America. To the discontent of many Europeans, cash-flush Americans like J.P. Morgan and Henry Clay Frick went on collecting campaigns that netted masterpiece after masterpiece, along with the furniture and fittings of dozens of aristocratic residences. From the outset, these collectors planned to present their trophies to the public as museums in which they could dictate each and every detail of the arrangements. Drawing on a decade of research, Higonnet weaves letters, auction records, and photographs into an engrossing account of the founding of both renowned and obscure collection museums. She also explores how these collectors stoked the tremendous values accorded paintings by Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velazquez, Gainsborough, and Reynolds.

Genres: Art

241 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2009

Reviews

[Rosa King]

The hardcover version of A Museum of One’s Own, published in 2009, is beautifully designed and illustrated with many photographs of the collections Ms. Higonnet covers, as well as the buildings in which they are housed. The book is well researched and written. It is insightful and addresses with objective sensitivity the range of motives, circumstances and conditions that led American and European founders to acquire great works of art, and make their private collections public. I was particularly interested in the later chapters of the book that cover female collectors, and how their motives and methods of collecting were vastly different from their male counterparts. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about collection museums of the late 19th and early twentieth centuries, but I am disappointed to say it is very difficult to find a copy of this book. Ultimately, my local library was able to locate it through an interlibrary exchange between college libraries. There are some copies available through third-party sellers on Amazon and eBay, but they are absurdly expensive. It would be great if the author or publisher considered reprinting this worthy book so more readers could enjoy it.

[Kristi]

Higonnet explores the unique museum genre: the collection museum. She argues that collection museums, which were founded in American between 1890 -1940 by incomparably wealthy Americans, are personal reflections of the collector/founder. Unlike the "tomb"-like atmosphere of survey fine art museums, collection museums are invigorated by the personal energy of the collector. Collection museums refer simultaneously tot the activity of collection, as well as to the amassed objects which make up the singular collection. In Higonnet's paradigm fine art collections are the supreme form of collection museums, in which the collector sought personal immortality through the acquisition and presentation of timeless beauty. These institutions negotiate a liminal space between private and public.
This volume is beautifully illustrated with numerous full-color, high-quality images.