"To Delight the Eye: French Drawings and Paintings from the Collection of Charles E. Dunlap"
2005-12-17 until 2006-03-12
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard
Cambridge, MA, USA

This exhibition of 30 works highlights the extraordinary generosity of Charles E. Dunlap, a Harvard graduate whose gifts and bequest of 18th- and early 19thcentury drawings and paintings provided the Art Museums with some of its most celebrated works by François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, François Le Moyne, Charles-Joseph Natoire, Hubert Robert, and Jean- Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The related publication investigates aspects of Dunlap’s biography, his taste, his sources, his journey as a collector, and his long association with the Art Museums.

Organized by Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Jeffrey E. Horvitz Research Curator in the Department of Drawings. Funding has been provided by the Jeffrey E. Horvitz Foundation, David Leventhal, and Howard Lepow.

The Harvard University Art Museums are among the world’s leading arts institutions, with the Arthur M. Sackler, Busch-Reisinger, and Fogg art museums, the Straus Center for Conservation, and the U.S. headquarters for the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, an excavation project in western Turkey. The Harvard University Art Museums are distinguished by the range and depth of their collections, their groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of their staff. As an integral part of the Harvard community, the three art museums serve as resources for all students, adding a special dimension to their areas of study. The public is welcome to experience the collections and exhibitions as well as to enjoy lectures, symposia, and other programs. For more than a century, the Harvard University Art Museums have been the nation’s premier training ground for museum professionals and scholars. They are renowned for their role in the development of the discipline of art history in this country.

IMAGE
Marguerite Gérard and Jean-Honoré Fragonard,
The First Steps, c. 1780-85.
Oil on canvas,
44.45 x 55.25 cm.
Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums,
Gift of Charles E. Dunlap, 1961.166.
Photo: Photographic Services, HUAM.
© President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of Massachusetts

Other Important Exhibitions in Massachusetts