Jewish Collectors and Donors at the National Gallery

这个项目询问了犹太人对国家美术馆建设的贡献。尽管许多与画廊有关的犹太收藏家--包括阿尔弗雷德·德·罗斯柴尔德、路德维希·蒙德、沃尔特·塞缪尔、第二子爵贝尔斯特德--都很重要，但这些人从未被作为一个群体来研究过，与画廊的发展有关。该项目的重点是从国家美术馆成立(1824年)到第二次世界大战结束(1945年)这段时期，将调查犹太捐赠者、交易商和托管人在建立藏品和管理该机构方面的作用。该项目将考虑犹太人绘画品味的独特之处，并揭示这一文化少数群体慈善行为背后的动机。它将重建犹太人在亲情、商业和社交网络中的存在，这些网络在一个急剧扩张但经济困难的时代支撑着国家美术馆，并分析导致著名犹太收藏家拥有的画作在大屠杀前进入公共领域的动态。虽然这个跨学科的博士项目主要集中在国家美术馆的藏品上，但它将揭示与英国内外其他机构和博物馆的联系，并将艺术史、社会和文化史、收藏史和艺术市场史的方法付诸实践。除了它的历史价值，这个项目还符合当代的愿望，即博物馆更多地反思自己的起源，发现它们包含的和可以叙述的多样化历史。这样，在2024年迈向成立200周年之际，该项目符合美术馆的当代议程。这个博士研究项目的中心问题是：-国家美术馆及其藏品的发展揭示了公元1830-1945年期间犹太文化慈善事业的哪些方面？捐赠画作与其他类型的礼物相比如何？-在这段时间里，犹太人参与国家美术馆的强度有什么不同？与其他群体相比，犹太人的参与情况如何？性别、社会地位、年龄或国家背景是否影响了收藏家与美术馆打交道的方式？-在国家美术馆存在的一百年里，犹太受托人对国家美术馆的指导和管理做出了什么贡献？-犹太商人对国家美术馆藏品的形成有多大的贡献？犹太商人和收藏家在多大程度上调动了更广泛的欧洲关系和文化趋势？-为什么犹太人的贡献在机构记忆中被掩盖了？这种情况应该如何纠正呢？

This project interrogates the Jewish contribution to the making of the National Gallery. Despite the importance of many Jewish collectors associated with the Gallery - including Alfred de Rothschild, Ludwig Mond, Walter Samuel, 2nd Viscount Bearsted - these men and women have never been studied as a group in relation to the growth of the institution. Focusing on the period from the foundation of the National Gallery (1824) to the end of the Second World (1945), this project will investigate the role of Jewish donors, dealers and trustees in constructing the collections and in administering the institution. The project will consider what, if anything, was distinctive about Jewish taste in painting, and uncover the motivations behind acts of philanthropy on the part of this cultural minority. It will reconstruct the Jewish presence within networks of kinship, business and sociability that sustained the National Gallery in an era of dramatic expansion yet economic hardship and analyse the dynamics which resulted in paintings owned by eminent Jewish collectors entering the public domain in the era before the Holocaust. Although centred on the holdings of the National Gallery, this interdisciplinary doctoral project will reveal links with other houses and museums in Britain and beyond, and put to work methodologies derived from art history, social and cultural history, the history of collecting and the history of the art market. In addition to its historic interest, the project fits with a contemporary desire for museums to be more reflexive about their origins and to discover the diverse histories they contain and can narrate. In this way, the project fits with contemporary agendas at the Gallery as it moves towards the bicentenary of its foundation in 2024.Among the central questions for this doctoral research project are:- What does the development of the National Gallery and its collections reveal about Jewish cultural philanthropy in the period, c.1830-1945? How does the donation of paintings compare with other types of gift?- How did the intensity of Jewish involvement with the National Gallery vary over this period? How did the Jewish participation compare with that of other groups? Did gender, social status, age or national background influence how collectors engaged with the Gallery?- What contribution did Jewish trustees make to the direction and management of the National Gallery in the hundred years of its existence?- How significant was the contribution of Jewish dealers to the formation of the National Gallery collections? How far did Jewish dealers and collectors mobilise wider European relationships and cultural trends?- Why has this Jewish contribution been obscured within institutional memory? How should that be rectified?