| Holdings
The Photoarchive comprises more than one million study photographs and
other reproductions divided into national schools and representing more than 37,000
artists trained in the Western tradition. The photographs record
paintings, drawings, sculpture, and illuminated manuscripts.
This collection has been systematically built through purchases and
gifts from photographers,
museums, scholars, and dealers in the United States and Europe. More than 56,000 original negatives were created for the Photoarchive between
1922 and 1967 in a pioneering project to photograph works of art in private
homes and small public collections throughout the United States, historic
monuments in remote areas of Italy, and works sold at London auctions between
1921 and 1932.
To facilitate object-oriented research, the
Library actively acquires multiple photographs of the same work of art to
document changes in condition and appearance over time. Photographs of
preparatory drawings, versions, copies, pastiches, and forgeries — materials
often overlooked in the literature — are also collected. Many of the
photographs in the collection are rare images of works that have since been
lost, stolen, or destroyed.
This example shows three states of a painting all documented in the Frick Art Reference Library's Photoarchive. Jan Gossaert van Mabuse (c. 1478–c. 1532), The Holy Family, oil on panel, 51.4 x 36.5 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, inv. no. 59.27. Photograph sources (from left to right): A) Photograph from 1920s: unidentified photographer, purchased through Mme. Brière; B) Photograph from 1930s: Van Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries, Inc., New York.; C) Photograph from 1980s: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
