An Educated Eye: An Overview
Princeton University Art Museum Celebrates Its 125th Anniversary
"An Educated Eye: Princeton University Art Museum Collections" celebrates the New Jersey institution's 125th anniversary.
The special exhibition An Educated Eye: Princeton University Art Museum Collections (February 23-June 15, 2008) celebrates the venerable institution's 125th anniversary as well as the publication of its first guide book in more than 20 years.
The Museum
Founded in 1882, the Princeton University Art Museum houses more than 68,000 works of art from antiquity to the modern age. Its distinguished collections emphasize the ancient Mediterranean region, Western Europe, China, the United States and Latin America; they abound in Chinese painting and calligraphy, art of the ancient Americas and pictorial photography. The museum maintains an active program of special exhibitions, loans, research and scholarship. Recent critically acclaimed presentations include 2007's Sorcerers of the Fifth Heaven: Nahua Art and Ritual of Ancient Southern Mexico and Treasures from Olana: Landscapes by Frederic Edwin Church.
The Exhibition: What's on View
After a general introduction, the numerous objects in An Educated Eye..., selected for their quality, rarity or importance to the history of art, are arranged according to curatorial department. At the same time, these works will be replaced in the permanent collection galleries by recent acquisitions from the museum's storerooms, amplifying the contents of the special exhibition.
- A rare and well-preserved Silver Cup with Bacchic Scenes (1st Century A.D.) is on view. The author Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.), a victim of Mount Vesuvius' eruption, noted that the craft of producing such refined drinking vessels had declined during his age, making the museum's example extremely valuable.
- The lyrical Winter Landscape (ca. 1120) with its misty mountainous terrain and cloud-filled vista is the only known surviving and signed painted scroll by Chinese artist Li Gongnian (fl. early 12th century), a prison official. The work represents a critical juncture between the monumental Northern Song (960-1127) and intimate Southern Song (1127-1279) artistic styles.
- Northern Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) is represented by his Engraved Passion (1507-1513). The bound devotional sheets with their handwritten text and printed illustrations retain their original cover featuring the coat of arms of Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony (r. 1486-1525), protector of Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1486-1546) and Dürer's first patron.
- Commissioned by the College of New Jersey (later known as Princeton University), George Washington at the Battle of Princeton (1784) was painted by celebrated American artist Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Displayed in Nassau Hall, its production was partially funded by the United States' first President who held the college in high regard.
- The enigmatic Gypsy with a Cigarette (1861-1862?) by French Impressionist Edouard Manet (1832-1883) demonstrates the painter's early preoccupation with Spanish art and culture.
Rounding out An Educated Eye... are African and Olmec works of art.
Source:
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections. Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum, 2007.
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