The Frick’s Board of Trustees announcesthe acquisition of two objects that will
enhance the museum’s holdings in areas that interested founder Henry Clay Frick
at the end of his life: eighteenth-century French porcelain and Italian Renaissance
drawings. A rare and beautiful vase created at the Royal Manufactory of Sèvres
has been acquired in honor of Anne L. Poulet, who retired at the end of September
after serving as Director for eight years. The vase, a partial purchase by the Frick
and a partial gift from Alexis and Nicolas Kugel, is
the first piece of hard-paste porcelain from the
Royal Manufactory of Sèvres to enter the
Collection. It complements the museum’s
substantial Sèvres holdings made with the earlier
soft-paste formula, objects obtained by Mr. Frick
from the dealer Joseph Duveen. This latest acquisition is particularly appropriate
given the interest of Director Emerita Anne Poulet in eighteenth-century French
decorative arts. The vase will be displayed this winter alongside selections from a
promised gift of hard-paste Meissen porcelain objectsin the new Portico Gallery for
Decorative Arts and Sculpture, which opens to the public on December 13. Also
entering the collection is an important Italian Renaissance by drawing the Sienese
artist Domenico Beccafumi (1486–1551), a two-sided sheet given to the Frick by
Trustee Barbara G. Fleischman in honor of Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp
Chief Curator Colin B. Bailey.