Director Anne L. Poulet Announces a Stunning Acquisition by The Frick Collection — First Major Purchase in Nearly Ten Years

Director Anne L. Poulet announces that following a recent vote by the Board of Trustees, The Frick Collection has made the first major acquisition by purchase in almost a decade: Joseph Chinard’s Portrait of Étienne VincentMarniola—a terracotta bust executed around 1809. Comments Poulet, “It is with great excitement that we bring this breathtaking—and previously unpublished—portrait into the Collection and before the public gaze. The work joins a group of distinguished busts in marble and terracotta by Houdon, Pajou, and Boizot, and represents a striking complement to our holdings. We hope that this important event, along with our recent and ongoing attention to special exhibitions of sculpture, will inspire fresh appreciation for the medium.” Although the institution is widely known for its presentation of the collection developed in the early part of the last century by industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919), the museum can and does acquire, through gift or purchase, additional works of fine and decorative art. Adds Poulet, “The institution is very much alive in that way, which, I hope excites our general public as well as the international scholarly community.”