Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 'The Bather', 1808.
Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop, (inv. 1943.377)

A Private Passion: Harvard's Winthrop Collection

19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University.

In the early decades of the 20th century, Grenville L. Winthrop, a New Yorker and Harvard graduate, assembled a remarkable collection of paintings and drawings by French, British and American artists of the 19th century. They include the finest group of works by Ingres outside France and major canvasses and sheets by David, Géricault, Delacroix, Moreau and Renoir. British works, beginning with Blake and Flaxman, include important Pre-Raphaelite paintings by Burne-Jones, Holman Hunt and Rossetti, and a suite of masterful drawings by Beardsley. The Americans include Whistler, Sargent and Winslow Homer.

Upon his death, in 1943 Winthrop's collection passed to the Harvard University Art Museums in Cambridge, MA. This exhibition allowed a unique opportunity to view this stunning collection, which had not been lent since the collection was bequeathed.

The exhibition was organised in collaboration with the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Exhibition Catalogue

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