2002

In 1999, Winthrop Kellogg Edey bequeathed to The Frick Collection a remarkable collection of twenty-five clocks, fourteen watches, and an extensive reference library relating to the history of time measurement. Over nearly five decades, Edey had purchased a large number of timepieces, many of which he later exchanged or sold to upgrade with artifacts of greater significance. This continual refinement enabled him to assemble a small but exceptionally fine collection, illustrating both the stylistic and the technical development of clocks and watches from about 1500 to 1830.

The Greentree Foundation generously lent to The Frick Collection for a period of one year six master paintings from the former collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney. The group included Corot's Cottage and Mill by a Torrent (Morvan or Auvergne), 1831; Manet's Racecourse at the Bois de Boulogne, 1872; Degas' Before the Race, 1882-88, and Landscape with Mounted Horsemen, c. 1892; Picasso's Boy with a Pipe, 1905; and Redon's Flowers in a Green Vase, c. 1910.

Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) painted this small panel during the height of the Italian Renaissance, using detailed, emotion-filled images to depict the moment when Christ appears to the souls in Limbo. The original work was created for Marchese Lodovico Gonzaga in June of 1468. Because it was so highly regarded, several other versions were made, including this smaller one, which was probably done for Ferdinando Carlo, the last Duke of Mantua, around 1470–75. Lent through the generosity of the Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection, it was on view in the Enamels Room.

After an initial preview last summer, visitors were again able to enjoy two eighteenth-century tapestries woven by the Brussels workshop of Peter van den Hecke (c. 1752). Displayed in the Music Room, these rare hangings are important for their state of preservation, the significance of their design, their royal provenance, and the evidence regarding the identity of their maker and manufacture.

Gilbert Stuart was the foremost portrait painter of the newly formed United States. He painted many of the most prominent figures of his day, including the first five American presidents, but none of the thousand portraits he made attained such renown as the three he painted from life of George Washington and those he replicated to order throughout his later career. To most visitors to The Frick Collection, Stuart's George Washington is instantly recognizable; in a collection of mainly European masterpieces, it is the only painting of an American by an American.

This exhibition was the first devoted exclusively to the drawings of Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), the remarkable eighteenth-century French painter and draftsman.

A vogue for furniture featuring secret compartments and complex mechanical devices swept France during the eighteenth century. Featured in the Cabinet was a mechanical reading and writing table with Sèvres porcelain plaques, attributed to Martin Carlin (c. 1730–85), a German-born cabinetmaker who worked in Paris and created furniture for such notables as Madame Du Barry and the daughters of Louis XV. Normally exhibited in the Fragonard Room in closed position, the table was displayed partially open, and photographs revealed the mechanisms that make possible its moving parts.

Featuring approximately seventy drawings, Poussin, Claude, and Their World: Seventeenth-Century French Drawings from the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, included outstanding masterpieces by Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, as well as lesser-known masters such as Sébastien Bourdon, Simon Vouet, Noël Coypel, Charles Le Brun, Eustache Le Sueur, and others. Selected by Emmanuelle Brugerolles, Curator of Drawings at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and Colin B.

To mark its centenary, the Toledo Museum of Art lent twelve of its greatest European paintings. Masterpieces of European Painting from the Toledo Museum of Art included exceptional works by artists such as Piero di Cosimo (1462-1521), Jacopo Bassano (about 1510-92), El Greco (1541-1614), Gustave Courbet (1819-77), James Tissot (1836-1902), and Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), many of whom are not represented in The Frick Collection's own holdings. The presentation of these treasures illuminated another chapter in American collecting.

During the winter of 2002 to 2003, visitors enjoyed two eighteenth-century tapestries woven by the Brussels workshop of Peter van den Hecke (c. 1752). On display in the Music Room on a half-year rotational basis, these rare hangings are important for their state of preservation, the significance of their design, their royal provenance, and the evidence regarding the identity of their maker and manufacture.