Abstract The famous Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg (1743–1828) assembled a vast collection of plants, animals, shells and minerals during his eight-year journey to South Africa, Batavia (Indonesia) and Japan. At the Cape of Good Hope he collected unique material about South African nature and the culture of its indigenous peoples. After his departure from South Africa for Batavia and Japan, Thunberg maintained contact with several Swedish acquaintances in the Cape Colony who acted as his intermediaries there. They arranged for his collection to be shipped from South Africa to Sweden, forwarded to him in Batavia letters received after he left the Cape, and sent curiosities and naturalia to Uppsala for his collection over the space of many years. In return, Thunberg gladly provided help with their personal affairs in Sweden. Based on eighty-four preserved letters to Thunberg, this article analyses his relationship with this network of Swedes in the Cape Colony and its significance for his work and his collection.

Abstract This article introduces two newly discovered nineteenth-century sources by the Fabriano-born man of letters Camillo Ramelli (1804–1855), preserved in the family archive, and retraces the provenance of two late altarpieces by Carlo Crivelli (c.1430–c.1495). Originally housed in the now destroyed Church of San Francesco delle Logge in Fabriano, these works were dismantled and dispersed at the end of the eighteenth century. The principal panels of the Becchetti altarpiece (1491) and the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece (1493) are now in the National Gallery in London and the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan respectively, while several of their ‘minor’ elements are held in four other European museums. Until now, knowledge about both altarpieces was limited to information dating from the period close to their transfer to their current locations. This study contributes new insights into their early nineteenth-century provenance – that is, shortly after their removal from the altars for which they were made. It further enables a deeper understanding of the Becchetti chapel’s original Renaissance architecture, and the ways in which the panels forming the predellas and pilasters of the two altarpieces were separated from the main sections at a very early stage. This confirms a pattern observed in the fate of other Crivelli works during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. At a historical moment when taste for Crivelli’s work had yet to be firmly established, certain developments in provincial contexts suggest the emergence of collectors and dealers capable of appreciating this Renaissance master’s art, though their activities were probably not devoid of speculative intent.

International audience

Abstract This is the first of a three-part study of the development and fate of an art collection that probably had its origins with the family of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector of England, in the sixteenth century. Documented from the eighteenth century, it was expanded by several generations of Seymour’s descendants. After the art enthusiast Henry Danby Seymour inherited the collection in 1849, it came into the public realm through exhibition loans. In the later nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries it was dispersed through sales. The first part of this survey describes highlights of the collection, its likely origins and its development in the ownership of Danby Seymour’s great-grandfather, grandfather and father in England and France, from the eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. The second part will explore Danby Seymour’s stewardship of the collection; and the third will describe its fate from Danby Seymour’s death in 1877 until its final dispersal in 1945.

Abstract The Metropolitan Museum of Art began life as a display hall for privately owned collections. Reflecting New York City’s art market and collectors, loan exhibitions featured the works of contemporary European and American painters and an eclectic selection of objects. Loaned works of fine art were the museum’s chief draw, and their owners' names were their guarantee of authenticity and value. The museum arranged painting displays into ‘modern’ or ‘Old Master’ works, providing minimal art-historical context. Rarely, though, did groups of paintings become donations. Instead, gifts of decorative art collections nurtured the museum’s growth. By 1905 it was a storehouse, not yet a steward, of its holdings.

Abstract The paintings and engravings featured in household settings of the viceregal Andes have received little scholarly attention. However, the astounding number of two-dimensional works of art catalogued in inventories of household goods in Santiago, Chile, from 1650 to 1750 attests to this city’s role as a vibrant colonial hub before the nineteenth century. Inventories from viceregal wills and dowries provide valuable insight into the robust artistic collections that graced the residences of Santiago and nearby haciendas. A striking characteristic of these inventories is the information they reveal about the origins of many individual pieces and series of works, offering a window into provenance trends over time. Specifically, these records document a shift in taste toward works of art from Cuzco, Peru, at the close of the seventeenth century, and a shift away from those of European origin.

Abstract This study contributes to the history of the classification of prints in the nineteenth century, taking the Albertina in Vienna, one of the world’s most important collections of prints and drawings, as its subject. After the 1822 death of its founder, Duke Albert of Saxony-Teschen, the Albertina collection was reorganized, resulting in 749 large-format volumes. This study analyses the reorganization in the context of traditional classification systems, specifically regarding artists’ oeuvres and regional ‘schools’. It focuses on the tripartite system (engravers, designers and etchers) devised by Franz Rechberger (director of the museum, 1827–41), which reflected a new understanding of artistic authorship and technical differentiation, and altered traditional divisions by prioritizing place of activity over stylistic categories. This article additionally examines the emergence of the category ‘Austrian artists’ in this period, exemplified in the 220 volumes from Vienna’s Hofbibliothek, now held in the Albertina, which document efforts to define Austrian printmaking as distinct from the German school.