Walters Art Museum

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Walters Art Museum is a public art museum located in the Mount Vernon section of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded and opened in 1934, it holds collections from the mid-19th century that were amassed substantially by major American art and sculpture collectors, including William Thompson Walters and his son Henry Walters. William Walters began collecting when he moved to Paris as a nominal Confederate loyalist at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, and Henry Walters refined the collection and made arrangements for the construction what ultimately was Walters Art Museum.

After allowing the Baltimore public to occasionally view his father's and his growing added collections at his West Mount Vernon Place mansion during the late 1800s, Henry Walters arranged for an elaborate stone

palazzo-styled structure to be built for this purpose in 1905–1909, located a block south of the Walters mansion on West Monument Street/Mount Vernon Place, on the northwest corner of North Charles Street
at West Centre Street.

The mansion and gallery were also just south and west of the landmark

medieval ivories, illuminated manuscripts, Renaissance bronzes, Old Master European and 19th-century paintings, Chinese ceramics and bronzes, Art Deco jewelry, and ancient Near East, Mesopotamian, or ancient Middle East items. Dorothy Miner
became its first Keeper of Manuscripts in 1934 and held the post until her death in 1973.

In 2000, "The Walters Art Gallery" changed its long-time name to "The Walters Art Museum"[1] to reflect its image as a large public institution and eliminate confusion among some of the increasing out-of-state visitors. The following year, "The Walters" (as it is often known locally) reopened its original main building after a dramatic three-year physical renovation and replacement of internal utilities and infrastructure. The Archimedes Palimpsest was on loan to the Walters Art Museum from a private collector for conservation and spectral imaging studies.

Starting on October 1, 2006, the museum was enabled to make admission free to all, year-round, as a result of substantial grants given by Baltimore City and the surrounding suburban

world-wide web and the Internet on Wikimedia Commons.[3] This was one of the largest and most comprehensive such releases made by any museum.[3]

Permanent collection

Ancient art

The Walters' collection of ancient art includes examples from Egypt, Nubia, Greece, Rome, Etruria and the Near East. Highlights include two monumental 3,000-pound statues of the Egyptian lion-headed fire goddess Sekhmet on long-term loan from the British Museum; the Walters Mummy; alabaster reliefs from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II; Greek gold jewelry, including the Greek bracelets from Olbia on the shores of the Black Sea; the Praxitelean Satyr; a large assemblage of Roman portrait heads; a Roman bronze banquet couch, and marble sarcophagi from the tombs of the prominent Licinian and Calpurnian families.

Art of the ancient Americas

In 1911, Henry Walters purchased almost 100 gold artifacts from the

Inca peoples of South America
.

Asian art

Highlights of the

Buddha
(late 6th century AD). It is exhibited in a gallery dedicated solely to this work.

The museum holds one of the largest and finest collections of

Siam/Thailand
) bronze, scrolls, and banner paintings in the world.

Islamic art

Persia); a 13th-century candlestick made of copper, silver, and gold from the Mamluk era in Egypt; 16th-century mausoleum doors decorated with intricate wood carvings in a radiating star pattern; a 17th-century silk sash from the Mughal Empire in India; and a 17th-century Turkish tile with an image of the Masjid al-Haram ("Great Mosque of Mecca"), the center of Islam in Mecca, (modern Saudi Arabia
). The Walters Museum owns an array of
Walters Art Museum, MS W.613 contains five Mughal miniatures from an important "Khamsa of Nizami" made for the Emperor Akbar; the rest are in London, Great Britain
.

  • Early Qur'an page in Kufic script, 9th century
    Early
    Qur'an page in Kufic script
    , 9th century
  • Mamluk-era in Egypt candlestick base, c1240, brass with silver, gold and copper inlays
    Mamluk-era in Egypt candlestick base, c1240, brass with silver, gold and copper inlays
  • The Death of Darius, Mughal miniature from Akbar's Khamsa of Nizami, 1595, MS W.613
    The Death of Darius,
    MS W.613
  • Detail of an 18th-century ceremonial jeweled Turkish rifle
    Detail of an 18th-century ceremonial jeweled Turkish rifle
  • Inside of Qur'an cover, 19th century, sub-Saharan Africa
    Inside of
    Qur'an cover, 19th century, sub-Saharan Africa

Medieval European art

Henry Walters assembled a collection of art produced during the Middle Ages in all the major artistic media of the period. This forms the basis of the Walters'

Ethiopian Orthodox Church
art outside Ethiopia.

The Walters' medieval collection features unique objects such as the Byzantine agate Rubens Vase that belonged to the painter

Abbey of St. Denis are rare surviving examples of portal sculptures that are directly connected with the origins of Gothic art in 12th-century France (accession nos. 27.21 and 27.22). An ivory casket covered with scenes of jousting knights
is one of about a dozen such objects to survive in the world (accession no. 71.264).

Many of these works are on display in the museum's galleries. Works from the medieval collection are also frequently included in special touring exhibitions, such as Treasures of Heaven, an exhibition about

Cleveland, Ohio), the Walters Art Museum, and the British Museum in London
in 2010–11.

Works in the medieval collection are the subject of active research by the curatorial and conservation departments of the museum, and visiting researchers frequently make use of the museum's holdings. In-depth technical research carried on these objects is made available to the public through publications and exhibitions, as in the case of the Amandus Shrine (accession no. 53.9), which was featured in a small special exhibition titled The Special Dead in 2008–09.

  • Hunnish set of horse trappings, 4th century
    horse trappings
    , 4th century
  • French Gothic ivory Box Lid with a Tournament, 14th century (Walters 71274)
    French Gothic ivory Box Lid with a Tournament, 14th century (Walters 71274)
  • Leaf from Barbavara Book of Hours, Milan c. 1440
    Leaf from Barbavara
    Book of Hours, Milan
    c. 1440
  • 15th century Nottingham alabaster panel of the Resurrection of Christ
    15th century
    Resurrection of Christ
  • German chandelier, red deer antler and wood, 15th century
    German chandelier, red deer antler and wood, 15th century

There are also Late Medieval devotional Italian paintings by these painters at the Walters:

Niccolo di Segna (Saint Lucy), Orcagna, Olivuccio di Ciccarello, Master of Panzano Triptych and Giovanni del Biondo
.

Renaissance, Baroque and 18th-century European art

The collection of European Renaissance and Baroque art features holdings of paintings, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, metal work, arms and armor. The highlights include

bozzetto" of Risen Christ, Tiepolo's Scipio Africanus Freeing Massiva, and The Ideal City attributed to Fra Carnevale. The museum has one of ten surviving examples of the Sèvres pot-pourri vase in the shape of a ship
from the 1750s and 1760s.

19th-century European art

William and Henry Walters collected works by late-19th-century French academic masters and

Ingres (a second version); Claude Monet's Springtime; Alfred Sisley's panoramic view of the Seine Valley; and Édouard Manet
's realist masterpiece, The Café Concert.

Henry Walters was particularly interested in the courtly arts of 18th-century France. The museum's collection of

Tiffany and Co. of New York City
.

The Walters' collection presents an overview of 19th-century European art, particularly art from

Sisley
.

Drawings

Buildings

Charles Street – Old Main Building (1905–1909)

Sculpture Garden (central Great Hall) of the Walters Art Gallery (now Walters Art Museum) in the original Main Building of 1905–1909

Henry Walters' original gallery was designed by architect

Baroque periods, French decorative arts of the 18th and 19th centuries, and manuscripts and rare books are now exhibited in this palazzo-style structure.[4]

Centre Street Annex Building (1974)

Designed by the

Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson & Abbott, in the "Brutalist" poured-concrete style prevailing in the 1960s, (one of the few others in the region of this extremely modernistic style in the city – such as the recently razed Morris A. Mechanic Theatre in downtown Charles Center on the southwest corner of Charles and Baltimore Streets from 1967), this annex building (which has several horizontal lines paralleled with features in the 1909 structure) to the west along West Centre Street and rear of the original main gallery, extending to Park Avenue, opened in 1974. It was substantially altered in 1998–2001 by another firm of Kallmann McKinnell and Wood, Architects, to provide a four-story glass atrium, with a suspended staircase at the juncture between the older and newer buildings with a new entrance lobby along Centre Street. The new lobby, which also provides easier ground-level handicapped access along with enhanced security provisions for both collections and visitors is also providing a café, an enlarged museum and gift store and a reference library.[5] The ancient, Byzantine, medieval, Ethiopian, and 19th-century European collections are housed in this building, with its large display walls and irregular corridors and galleries. Also here is the museum's famed art conservation laboratory, which is one of the oldest in the country.[1]

Hackerman House (1850/1991)

Photo of the Hackerman House

This

East River), when it was briefly acquired by the city in the late 1950s and then being considered to be razed for an unfortunately poorly-conceived and planned northern expansion of the Gallery engendered local preservationists' protests before being finally re-sold to the Gladding family of a well-known public-spirited local Chevrolet
auto dealership, who promised to restore and preserve the noted mansion.

Among the original owning family of the Thomas's distinguished guests of the mid-19th century were the

Baltimore City Landmark in 1975.[7]

Anti-Labor Hostility

Throughout 2021, director

union-busting law firm Shaw Rosenthal LLP,[8] refused to meet with Walters employees, stalling the advance of a wall-to-wall unionization effort.[9] In October 2021, when directed by the Baltimore City Council and Comptroller Bill Henry to meet with employees and allow a vote on unionization,[10] Marciari-Alexander refused, claiming that meeting with her employees constitutes interference.[11] It was later stated that if the unionization effort was successful, workers would be represented by AFSCME Council 67, which would also represent workers at Baltimore Museum of Art and Enoch Pratt Free Library.[12]

Gallery

This is a list of selected works from the museum collection.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "From Gallery to Museum". Walters Art Museum. Archived from the original on December 26, 2010. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
  2. ^ "Free Admission at Baltimore Museum of Art and Walters Art museum begins October 1" (Press release). Walters Art Museum. May 31, 2006. Archived from the original on October 2, 2006. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  3. ^ a b McCauley, Mary Carole (May 8, 2012). "Walters donates artwork images to Wikipedia". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on June 5, 2013. Retrieved May 8, 2012.
  4. ^ Guide to the Collections, p. 14–15
  5. ^ "The Walters Art Museum". KWM Architecture. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
  6. ^ Guide to the Collections, p. 18
  7. City of Baltimore
    . p. 22. Retrieved October 2, 2022.
  8. ^ "Union Avoidance". Our Services. Shawe Rosenthal LLP.
  9. ^ Kirkman, Rebekah. "The Way Forward for Walters Workers United". BmoreArt. BmoreArt. Retrieved February 2, 2022.
  10. ^ Sullivan, Emily. "Walters Museum workers appeal to City Council members in union efforts". WYPR. WYPR. Retrieved February 2, 2022.
  11. ^ Marciari-Alexander, Julia. "Remarks to the Education, Workforce, and Youth Committee of the Baltimore City Council" (PDF). The Walters Art Museum. The Walters Art Museum. Retrieved February 2, 2022.
  12. ^ Kirkman, Rebekah (June 2, 2022). "Pratt Library Workers Intend to Form a Union". bmoreart. Archived from the original on June 19, 2022. Retrieved July 10, 2022.
  13. The Walters Art Museum
    .

Additional sources

External links

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