Page 145 - Bonhams Passkon and Philanthropy MET Mjuseum March 2024 Asia Week

Fig 2. Sonnenberg House, Sonnenberg Gardens and Mansion State Historic Park.

She had a personal interest in preserving the history of Native To Yale University she gave, amongst other collector’s items, the Melk
Americans in the New York area and made multiple donations to the copy of the Gutenberg Bible and the original Manuscript of Bayard
State Museum in Albany with this in mind. In 1920 she was awarded Taylor’s translation of Goethe’s ‘Faust’. The couple’s Upstate New York
the Cornplanter Medal for her work in Native American history. Since summer residence, Sonnenberg Gardens, is now a state park. Mary
1921, the award given by American National Academy of Sciences Clark Thompson, while on a visit to Europe, had intended to sail on the
for distinguished work in geology and paleontology, has borne her Titanic but canceled her passage at the last minute to attend a flower
name as the Mary Clark Thompson Medal. In her will, Mrs. Thompson show.
left nearly half of her $10 million estate to charitable and cultural
organizations. The Metropolitan Museum a gift of $50,000 and Sources:
over 500 works of art including important ivory carving from various https://www.jstor.org/stable/3254524
cultures, classical Greek artifacts, jades, crystals, European paintings https://nyti.ms/3q52NOC
and decorative arts, and Chinese enamelware’s and porcelains, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Clark_Thompson
particularly from Kangxi and Qianlong reigns. Other Chinese gifts https://www.jstor.org/stable/3254908
included a Tang horse, two albums of portraits of Chinese emperors. Jellinek, Provenance, pp 418-419

PASSION AND PHILANTHROPY: CHINESE ART FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART | 143