Page 15 - Metropolitan Museum Collection September 2016

MARY STILLMAN HARKNESS (1874-1950) Lot 913

The last collector and donor to be included here is Mary Stillman Harkness (1874-1950).
Mary Stillman Harkness was the daughter of a wealthy New York attorney, while her
maternal grandfather had founded the shipbuilding frm George Greenman & Co. in
Mystic, Connecticut, and was known for his support of abolition and temperance. Edward
Harkness (1874-1940) was a graduate of Yale University and a philanthropist who inherited
his fortune from his father. The latter had made an early, lucrative, investment in John
D. Rockefeller Senior’s Standard Oil Company. In 1918 Edward Harkness was ranked by
Forbes as the 6th richest person in the United States.

However, both Mary and Edward came from families who were not only wealthy but also
had a strong sense of social responsibility. The lived relatively quietly, both being quite
reserved in nature, but it has been estimated that during the 36 years of their marriage
Mary and Edward Harkness gave in the region of US$120 million to charitable causes.
Mary Harkness supported a number of children’s charities, as well as those involved with
healthcare and higher education. Her gifts to Connecticut College included both a hall of
residence and a chapel. One of Edward Harkness’s major social projects was the provision
of greater access to healthcare, and he also bestowed major donations on Yale and Harvard
Universities to allow the creation of a college system of halls of residence, in order to
promote better social interaction between students. The Metropolitan Museum was
similarly one of the benefciaries of his philanthropy and he was appointed to the Board
of Trustees in 1912. He made a number of gifts to the Egyptian collection, including
the piece that has become the unoffcial mascot of the museum – ‘William’ the Egyptian
faience 2nd millennium BC hippopotamus (fg. 8).

Mary and Edward Harkness’s wedding gift from his mother was a magnifcent residence at
1 East 75th Street and Fifth Avenue, which was designed by the architect James Gamble
Rogers – a fellow student of Edward’s at Yale. It was completed in 1908 and after
Mary’s death became the headquarters of the Harkness Commonwealth Fund. During
Mary Harkness’s lifetime works of art, including the Chinese ceramics, were part of the
furnishings of Harkness House and their other homes. However, they had no children
and when Mary died the works of art were bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum. She
appears to have had a special fondness for Kangxi peach-bloom porcelains, several of which
are included in the current sale [Lot 913].

1 Asian Art at the Metropolitan Museum, special edition of The Metropolitan Museum of
Art Bulletin, Summer 2015, to celebrate the centennial of the Asian Art Department, p. 4.

2 Ibid., p. 5.

3 This was reported in a newspaper in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1953.

Fig. 8. ‘William’ - the unoficial mascot of the Metropolitan Museum, Egyptian faience
hippopotamus, 12th Dynasty, c. 1961–1878 BC, Gift of Edward S. Harkness, 1917. ©
The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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