Page 11 - Avery Brundage Ancient Bronzes and Collecting Biography
P. 11
By the late 1940s Brundage had assembled a considerable collection of ancient Chi-
nese bronzes, highlights of which were seen in his loans to his hometown museum, the
Art Institute of Chicago, in 1948 (figs. 8.12, 8.13). The Art Institute’s second curator of
Asian Art, Charles Fabens Kelley (1885–1960), commented on the quality: “Although
the [Institute’s] famous Buckingham Collection of Chinese bronzes, an excellent mea-
suring stick for quality, is in an adjacent gallery, the Brundage Collection can hold its
own with it. Taken together, these two collections give a more complete range of the
34
best types of Chinese bronzes than can be found anywhere else in America.” Kelley
figure 8.11. Ran fangding. Early Western
Zhou period, 11th century bce. Bronze,
height 10 in. (25.4 cm). Avery Brundage
Collection, Asian Art Museum of San
Francisco, B60B2+.
A Unique Pair: The Bronze Rhinoceros and Its Collector, Avery Brundage 211