A Museum of One's Own

Book excerpt: By 1850 cash-flush Americans like J.P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Henry E. Huntington, Arabella Huntington, and Mildred and Robert Bliss went on collecting campaigns that netted masterpiece after masterpiece, along with the furniture and fittings of dozens of aristocratic residences. From the outset, these collectors planned to present their trophies to the public as museums in which they could dictate each and every detail of the arrangements. Drawing on a decade of research, Higonnet weaves letters, auction records and photographs into an engrossing account of the founding of both renowned and obscure collection museums. She also explores how these collectors stoked the tremendous values accorded paintings by Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velazquez, Gainsborough and Reynolds. Also references the Hertford family, Sir Richard and Lady Amelie Wallace, Le duc d'Amale and others.