Page 141 - Bonhams Passkon and Philanthropy MET Mjuseum March 2024 Asia Week

Fig. 4 John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral, Oil on canvas, circa 1825.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Fig. 3 Edward S Harkness - Wikipedia Fig. 5 Hippopotamus (“William”), Gift of Edward S. Harkness,
1917, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.9.1

Hall in Oxford, England. Over the years, she donated rare books to In 1917, Edward S. Harkness gave the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Yale University and important artworks to The Metropolitan Museum a small blue hippopotamus, of Egyptian faience, dating back to the
of Art. In her will Mrs. Harkness left to the latter 132 Chinese works second millennium BCE. The small treasure earned the nickname
of art, with a particular depth in imperial Kangxi porcelains, as well as ‘William’ and is today an icon of the museum’s Egyptian collection.
two Japanese lacquers. During their life together, the couple lived in (Fig. 5) Edward and Mary also helped finance Howard Carter’s second
a mansion at 1 East 75th Street, New York, NY, given to them as a excavation season of the tomb of Tutankhamen in the winter of
wedding gift by Edward’s mother, Anna Harkness (1837-1926). The 1923- 24.
home is currently the headquarters of the Commonwealth Fund, a
charitable organization founded by Anna Harkness and dedicated to Sources:
promoting healthcare for the most vulnerable members of society. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2049323
https://nyti.ms/3rJjkZ5
The Harkness fortune of $60 million was distributed to charities. The https://centennial.commonwealthfund.org/mary-harkness.html
collection of art masterpieces were bequeathed to the Metropolitan https://www.jstor.org/stable/3258031
Museum of Art, including works such as Constable’s Salisbury Jellinek, Provenance, p. 29
Cathedral (Fig. 4), and Hans Holbein the Younger’s Portrait of a
Member of the Wedigh Family.
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