Aprivate collection is a privately owned collection of works (usuallyartworks) or valuable items. In amuseum orart gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual or organization, either for temporary exhibition or for the long term. This source is usually an art collector, although it could also be a school, church, bank, or some other company or organization. By contrast, collectors of books, even if they collect for aesthetic reasons (finebookbindings orilluminated manuscripts for example), are calledbibliophiles, and their collections are typically referred to as libraries.
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Art collecting was common among the wealthy in theAncient World in both Europe andEast Asia, and in theMiddle Ages, but developed in its modern form during theRenaissance and continues to the present day.[1] The royal collections of most countries were originally the grandest of private collections but are now mostly in public ownership. However the BritishRoyal Collection remains under the care of the Crown, though distinguished from the private property of theBritish royal family. Thecabinet of curiosities was an important mixed form of collection, including art and what we would now callnatural history or scientific collections. These were formed by royalty but smaller ones also by merchants and scholars.
The tastes and habits of collectors have played a very important part in determining what art was produced, providing thedemand that artists supply. Many types of objects, such asmedals,engravings, smallplaquettes, modernengraved gems and bronzestatuettes were essentially made for the collector's market. By the 18th century all homes of the well-to-do were expected to contain a selection of objects, from paintings toporcelain, that could form part of an art collection, and the collections of those who would normally qualify for the term had to be considerably larger, and some were enormous. Increasingly collectors tended to specialize in one or two types of work, although some, likeGeorge Salting (1835–1909), still had a very wide scope for their collections. Apart fromantiquities, which were regarded as perhaps the highest form of collecting from the Renaissance until relatively recently, and also books, paintings and prints from the late 15th century onwards, until the 18th century collectors tended to collect fairly new works from Europe. The extension of serious collecting to art from all periods and places was an essentially 19th-century development, or at least dating to theAge of Enlightenment.Trecento paintings were little appreciated until about the 1830s, andChinese ritual bronzes and jades until perhaps the 1920s. Collecting ofAfrican art was rare until after World War II.
In recognition of its importance in influencing the production of new art and the preservation of old art, art collecting has been an area of considerable academic research in recent decades, having been somewhat neglected previously.[2]
Very famous collections that are now dispersed include theBorghese Collection andFarnese collection in Rome, and theOrleans Collection in Paris, mostly sold in London. When this happens, it can be a large loss to those interested in art as the initial vision of the collector is lost.
ThePrincely Family of Liechtenstein have works by such artists asHals,Raphael,Rembrandt andVan Dyck, a collection containing some 1,600 works of art, but were unable to show them since 1945 when they were smuggled out ofNazi Germany. The works were finally displayed in theLiechtenstein Museum after nearly 60 years with most in storage.[3] The important collection of theThyssen family, mostly kept in theThyssen-Bornemisza Museum, which settled inMadrid in 1992, was bought by the Spanish state. Only an exhibited part, the collection ofCarmen Cervera, widow of the late Baron Thyssen, remains private but exhibited separately in the museum.
Many collections were left to the public in some form, and are now museums, or the nucleus of a museum's collection. Most museums are formed around one or more formerly private collection acquired as a whole. Major examples where few or no additions have been made include theWallace Collection andSir John Soane's Museum in London, theFrick Collection andMorgan Library in New York,The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and theMuseu Calouste Gulbenkian inLisbon.[citation needed]
Other collections remain complete but are merged into larger collections in museums. Some important 19th/20th examples are:
Media related toPrivate collections at Wikimedia Commons
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