1997
Past Exhibition: Franklin and Condorcet
An exhibition of two remarkable portraits of famous men lent by the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia: an oil on canvas representing Benjamin Franklin painted by Jean-Baptiste Greuze in 1777, and a marble bust of Nicolas de Condorcet executed by Jean-Antoine Houdon in 1785. Also on view was a small group of letters, manuscripts, and eighteenth-century publications relating to the history of the two portraits and the relations between the American statesman and the mathematician, philosopher, and revolutionary.
Past Exhibition: The Proud Republic
An exhibition of forty-one medals, a print by Rembrandt, and a spectacular silver-gilt standing cup with cover, dated 1639, by Jan Lutma the Elder, all chosen and catalogued by guest curator Stephen K. Scher. The exhibition focused on Dutch medals of the seventeenth century, preceded by a sampling of sixteenth-century Italian and Netherlandish examples. Almost all of the examples are in silver, and most are cast, although large struck medals are equally important and impressive.