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 Museum entrance, North Charles Street,Baltimore | |
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Former name | The Walters Art Gallery |
|---|---|
| Established | 1934 (1934) |
| Location | Mount Vernon, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Coordinates | 39°17′47.130″N76°36′59.396″W / 39.29642500°N 76.61649889°W /39.29642500; -76.61649889 |
| Type | Art museum |
| Director | Kate Burgin |
| Public transit access |  atMt. Vernon stationBaltimoreLink routes Green, Pink, Silver, 51, 95, 103, 410, 411 Charm City Circulator Purple Route |
| Website | thewalters |
TheWalters Art Museum is a publicart museum located in theMount Vernon neighborhood ofBaltimore,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, includingWilliam Thompson Walters and his sonHenry Walters. William Walters began collecting when he moved toParis as a nominalConfederate loyalist at the outbreak of theAmerican Civil War in 1861, andHenry Walters refined the collection and made arrangements for the construction what ultimately was Walters Art Museum.
Admission to the museum is free.
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 stonepalazzo-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 ofNorth Charles Street at West Centre Street.
The mansion and gallery were also just south and west of the landmarkWashington Monument in theMount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood, just north of the downtown business district and northeast of Cathedral Hill. Upon his 1931 death, Henry Walters bequeathed the entire collection of then more than 22,000 works, the originalCharles Street Gallery building, and his adjacent townhouse/mansion just across the alley to the north on West Mount Vernon Place to the City of Baltimore, "for the benefit of the public". The collection includes masterworks ofancient Egypt,Greek sculpture andRoman sarcophagi,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 ancientMiddle 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. TheArchimedes 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 suburbanBaltimore County arts agencies and authorities.[2] In 2012, "The Walters" released nearly 20,000 of its own images of its collections on aCreative Commons license, and collaborated in their upload to theworld-wide web and theInternet onWikimedia Commons.[3] This was one of the largest and most comprehensive such releases made by any museum.[3]
In 2021, several employees fell ill from toxic vapors related to on-site museum construction.[4]
Throughout 2021, directorJulia Marciari-Alexander, advised by law firm Shaw Rosenthal LLP,[5] refused to meet with Walters employees, stalling the advance of a wall-to-wall unionization effort.[6] In October 2021, when directed by theBaltimore City Council and Comptroller Bill Henry to meet with employees and allow a vote on unionization,[7] Marciari-Alexander refused, claiming that meeting with her employees constitutes interference.[8] It was later stated that if the unionization effort was successful, workers would be represented by AFSCME Council 67, which would also represent workers atBaltimore Museum of Art andEnoch Pratt Free Library.[9]
The Walters' collection of ancient art includes examples fromEgypt,Nubia,Greece,Rome,Etruria and theNear East. Highlights include two monumental 3,000-pound statues of the Egyptian lion-headed fire goddessSekhmet on long-term loan from the British Museum; the Walters Mummy;alabaster reliefs from the palace ofAshurnasirpal II;Greek gold jewelry, including theGreek bracelets fromOlbia on the shores of theBlack Sea; thePraxitelean Satyr; a large assemblage ofRoman portrait heads; aRoman bronze banquet couch, and marble sarcophagi from the tombs of the prominent Licinian and Calpurnian families.
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In 1911, Henry Walters purchased almost 100 gold artifacts from theChiriqui region of westernPanama inCentral America, creating a core collection of ancient American native art. Through subsequent gifts of art and loans, the museum has added works, mostly in pottery and stone, fromMexico, Central America andSouth America, including pieces from theMesoamericanOlmec,Aztec, andMaya cultures, as well as theMoche andInca peoples ofSouth America.
Highlights of theAsian art collection assembled earlier by Baltimorean father and son collectorsWilliam T. andHenry Walters includeJapanese arms and armor, andChinese andJapanese porcelains, lacquers, and metalwork. Among the museum's outstanding works of Asian art is a late-12th- or early-13th-century Cambodian bronze of the eight-armedAvalokiteshvara, aTang dynasty earthenware camel, and an intricately paintedMing dynasty wine jar. The museum owns the oldest survivingChinese wood-and-lacquer image of theBuddha (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 ofThai (Siam/Thailand) bronze, scrolls, and banner paintings in the world.
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Islamic art in all media is represented at the Walters. Among the highlights are a 7th-century carved and hammered silver bowl fromIran, (ancientPersia); a 13th-century candlestick made of copper, silver, and gold from theMamluk era inEgypt; 16th-century mausoleum doors decorated with intricate wood carvings in a radiating star pattern; a 17th-century silk sash from theMughal Empire inIndia; and a 17th-centuryTurkish tile with an image of theMasjid al-Haram ("Great Mosque of Mecca"), the center ofIslam inMecca, (modernSaudi Arabia).The Walters Museum owns an array ofIslamic manuscripts. These include a 15th-centuryKoran from northernIndia, written at the height of theTimurid Empire; a 16th-century copy of the "Khamsa of Nizami byAmir Khusraw, illustrated by a number of famous artists for the EmperorAkbar; and aTurkish calligraphy album bySheikh Hamadullah Al-Amasi, one of the greatestcalligraphers of all time.Walters Art Museum, MS W.613 contains fiveMughal miniatures from an important "Khamsa of Nizami" made for the EmperorAkbar; the rest are inLondon,Great Britain.
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'medieval collection, for which the museum is best known internationally. Considered one of the best collections of medieval art in the United States, the museum's holdings include examples of metalwork, sculpture, stained glass, textiles, icons, and other paintings. The collection is especially renowned for its ivories, enamels,reliquaries, earlyByzantine silver, post-Byzantine art,illuminated manuscripts,Georgian illuminated Gospel manuscript, and the largest and finest collection ofEthiopian Orthodox Church art outside Ethiopia.
The Walters' medieval collection features unique objects such as the Byzantine agate Rubens Vase that belonged to the painterRubens (accession no. 42.562) and the earliest-surviving image of the "Virgin of Tenderness", an ivory carving produced in Egypt in the 6th or 7th century (accession no. 71.297). Sculpted heads from the royalAbbey of St. Denis are rare surviving examples of portal sculptures that are directly connected with the origins ofGothic art in 12th-centuryFrance (accession nos. 27.21 and 27.22). Anivory 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 asTreasures of Heaven, an exhibition aboutrelics and reliquaries that was on view at theCleveland Museum of Art in (Cleveland, Ohio), the Walters Art Museum, and theBritish Museum inLondon 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 titledThe Special Dead in 2008–09.
There are also Late Medieval devotional Italian paintings by these painters at the Walters:Tommaso da Modena,Pietro Lorenzetti,Andrea di Bartolo (Resurrection),Alberto Sotio,Bartolomeo di Tommaso (Death of Saint Francis),Naddo Ceccarelli,Master of Saint Verdiana,Niccolo di Segna (Saint Lucy),Orcagna,Olivuccio di Ciccarello,Master of Panzano Triptych andGiovanni del Biondo.
The collection of European Renaissance and Baroque art features holdings of paintings, sculpture, furniture, ceramics, metal work, arms and armor. The highlights includeHugo van der Goes'Donor with Saint John the Baptist,Heemskerck'sPanorama with the Abduction of Helen Amidst the Wonders of the Ancient World,El Greco'sSaint Francis Receiving the Stigmata,Giambattista Pittoni'sSacrifice of Polyxena, theMadonna of the Candelabra, from the studio ofRaphael,Veronese'sPortrait Of Countess Livia da Porto Thiene and her Daughter Porzia,El Greco'sSaint Francis Receiving the Stigmata,Bernini's "bozzetto" ofRisen Christ,Tiepolo'sScipio Africanus Freeing Massiva, andThe Ideal City attributed toFra Carnevale. The museum has one of ten surviving examples of theSèvres pot-pourri vase in the shape of a ship from the 1750s and 1760s.
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William and Henry Walters collected works by late-19th-century French academic masters andImpressionists. Highlights of the collection includeOdalisque with Slave byIngres (a second version);Claude Monet'sSpringtime;Alfred Sisley's panoramic view of the Seine Valley; andÉdouard Manet's realist masterpiece,The Café Concert.
Henry Walters was particularly interested in the courtly arts of 18th-century France. The museum's collection ofSèvres porcelain includes a number of pieces that were made for members of the Royal Bourbon Court atVersailles Palace outside ofParis. Portrait miniatures and the examples of goldsmiths' works, especially snuffboxes and watches, are displayed in the Treasury, along with some exceptional 19th- and early-20th-century works. Among them are examples ofArt Nouveau-styled jewelry byRené Lalique, jeweled objects by the House ofFabergé, including twoRussian Imperial Easter eggs, and precious jewels byTiffany and Co. ofNew York City.
The Walters' collection presents an overview of 19th-century European art, particularly art fromFrance. From the first half of the century come major paintings by Ingres,Géricault, andDelacroix. William Walters stayed in Paris with his family during theCivil War, because of his notorious Southern-leanings, and he soon developed a keen interest in contemporary European painting. He either commissioned directly from the artists or purchased at auctions such major works by theBarbizon masters, includingJean-François Millet andHenri Rousseau; the academic mastersJean-Léon Gérôme andLawrence Alma-Tadema; and even the modernistsMonet,Manet andSisley.
Henry Walters' original gallery was designed by architectWilliam Adams Delano and erected between 1904 and 1909, facing South Washington Place (at the northwest corner with West Centre Street) and attached by an overhead bridge/passageway across the back alley from his adjacent townhouse/mansion to the north on West Mount Vernon Place (facing theWashington Monument to the northeast). Its exterior was inspired by the Renaissance-revival-styleHôtel Pourtalès inParis and its interior was modeled after the 17th-century "Collegio dei Gesuiti" (now thePalazzo dell'Università) built by the Balbi family for theJesuits inGenoa. The arts of theRenaissance andBaroque periods, French decorative arts of the 18th and 19th centuries, and manuscripts and rare books are now exhibited in this palazzo-style structure.[10]
Designed by theBoston firm ofShepley, 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 razedMorris A. Mechanic Theatre in downtownCharles 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.[11] Theancient,Byzantine,medieval,Ethiopian, and 19th-centuryEuropean 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]
ThisGreek Revival style townhouse/mansion, one of the most elaborate in the city, was designed by famed local architectJohn Rudolph Niernsee (1814–1885), and erected between 1848 and 1850 for John Hanson Thomas. It was long regarded as the most "elegant" house along Mount Vernon Place or Washington Place. It sits on the southwest corner of the circle surrounding theWashington Monument and was later owned by the families Jencks and Gladding (and the house has been known as theThomas-Jencks-Gladding Mansion). Considered in its premiere landmark municipal location to be used for Baltimore City's Official Mayor's Residence (similar to other major American cities mayor's mansions such asGracie Mansion in a river-front park onNew York City's east side ofManhattan, facing theEast 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 localChevrolet 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 thePrince of Wales (eldest son ofQueen Victoria), the futureKing Edward VII (reigned 1901–1910); andGeneral Lajos Kossuth (1802–1894), the then famousHungarian freedom fighter, president of an early, brief Hungarian republic, veteran of theEuropean Revolutions of 1847–1848 and the "Father of modernHungary". Since the mid-1980s when, the Thomas-Jencks-Gladding Mansion was reacquired by the city under MayorWilliam Donald Schaefer (1921–2011), who served the city from 1971 to 1987, and futuregovernor of Maryland (1987–1995) from the Gladding family with a donation by the mayor's friend and local businessmanWillard Hackerman, and transferred to the purposes of "The Walters". Since additional renovations with the addition of a connecting gallery with domed skylight and corridor constructed through the top of the old rear carriage house/garage to the south end of the house, and across the east–west alley to the old 1909 Main Building's north side. Reopened in 1991, the newly renamed "Hackerman House" has been devoted to The Walters' recently expanded holdings ofAsian art.[12] As "Thomas-Jencks-Gladding House", the building was designated aBaltimore City Landmark in 1975.[13]
This is a list of selected works from the museum collection.
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