The Dumbarton Oaks Collection

Abstract

The Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D. C., which Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss have recently conveyed to Harvard University, is a princely gift which includes the residence of Dumbarton Oaks with its gardens, and the recently completed additions to the house containing the research library and collection--a collection which both in content and in underlying conception is unique not only in the United States but also in Europe. For, with the single exception of the Cabinet des Medailles in Paris, this is the first museum in the history of collecting to emphasize in its presentation the purely artistic importance of material which the old historical museums arranged so unattractively in dusty, overcrowded cases that it would tend to frighten and bore any visitor except the scientific specialist. And it is material which our modern art museums-in the choice of their acquisitions necessarily, but unfortunately, disciplined by many not purely artistic responsibilities and considerations-generally do not collect. It would be a difficult task to comment adequately in such a short note as this on the cultural significance and the potentialities of Dumbarton Oaks or on the objects in the collection. Perhaps its characteristic and controlling interest may be expressed in a general phrase: the spiritual and artistic continuity of Mediterranean culture. On a wall which the visitor must pass, has been painted a map more illuminating in its graphic presentation than many words, or than discussions which at the present moment of our knowledge can concern only the expert and specialist. This impressive map shows not only the extent of the Byzantine Empire at the time of Justinian, but the vast territory extending from Spain to Persia, from North Africa and Arabia to the Danube Valley and the Black Sea. It thus stands as a symbol of the whole range of interest of Dumbarton Oaks, as well as of the special emphasis which it gives to the Byzantine and medieval periods. It has been the desire of Mr. and Mrs. Bliss to make Dumbarton Oaks a center for humanistic studies. A specialized research library has already been assembled and has become an indispensable part of the foundation. Among the resources of the library are a copy of the Princeton Index of Christian Art, and the Dumbarton Oaks Census of Early Christian and Byzantine Objects in American Collections. Moreover, either in the house itself or in smaller houses on the estate, living accommodations for resident scholars will be provided. In the gift to Harvard University have been included pictures, sculptures, and objets d'art of other periods than the Byzantine, for example French, Flemish, and German tapestries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a Madonna by Riemenschneider, Italian, Flemish, and German primitives, and paintings by El Greco, Carel Fabritius, Hubert Robert, Daumier, and Degas. These works of art which adorned the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bliss will not go to the Fogg Museum of Harvard but are to remain in Dumbarton Oaks. In these dignified and stimulating surroundings, detached from the curriculum of university life, students may discuss their problems and ideas in an atmosphere where they will be less likely to lose sight of the vision of the Universitas and Humanitas of our humanistic profession, so frequently endangered by the specialization and mechanized perfection which is so inevitably imposed by modern scientific apparatus. Such a background will perhaps appear to some people to be too romantic for a modern scientific institute, or even a little dangerous for the student. But it should be clear that for the really devoted art student, contact with originals will always be the first and last source of inspiration. After all, it did not do the Florentine youths any harm to have the privilege of working and walking in Lorenzo de' Medici's Accademia! The Dumbarton Oaks Collection, as such, is comparatively little known, although students as well as amateurs have always been welcomed in the most liberal and hospitable way. But the attentive visitor at the more important art exhibitions of the last fifteen years has always been attracted by the unusual objects loaned by Mr. and Mrs. Bliss-objects which evidenced a peculiar personal certitude of artistic taste and judgment. Among these may be cited the famous turquoise-colored bronze winevessel in the form of an owl (Ch'ou Dynasty, 1122?-722 B.C.), which was exhibited with other important loans from the Bliss collection in 1929 at the great international exhibition of Chinese Art in Berlin;' or the English embroidery of the early fourteenth century, exhibited in 1930 at the important exhibition of English Mediaeval Art in the Victoria and Albert Museum;2 or, again, the golden jewels and jadeite masks and figures in the exhibition of Pre-Columbian Art, held early in 1940 at the Fogg Museum.3