Since the collection’s inception in 1968 European and American painting, sculpture, and works of art on paper have provided a central focus of collection activity.
Among the highlights of the early European collection is a French mid-fourteenth-century ivory depicting the Nativity and the Crucifixion. The recent acquisition of an early fifteenth-century Florentine panel attributed to Lippo d’Andrea shows an enthroned Madonna and Child surrounded by saints in a composition typical of late medieval, early Renaissance art. The late-seventeenth-century terracotta relief sculpture of The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Avila, by Tommaso Amantini, a close follower of Bernini, brings a stellar and vivid example of Baroque art into view. Other works of similar significance are a portrait by Govaert Flinck, a student of Rembrandt, as well as three etchings from the 1630s by Rembrandt himself. In addition to prints by Piranesi, Durer, and Goya, the collection includes a lithograph of Manet’s Execution of the Emperor Maximilian. Among the holdings of European sculpture of the nineteenth century are portrait busts and idealized heads by Rude, Carpeaux, Falguiere, and Dalou, as well as Rosso’s piquant wax sculpture Bimbo Malato (Sick Child).
Holdings of American art include William Jennys’s portrait of Middlebury College founder Gamaliel Painter (c. 1805) and Peter Pelham’s (after John Smibert) portrait of The Reverend Henry Caner (1750). The collection also includes fine landscape paintings by John Frederick Kensett, Jasper Cropsey, and Frederic Edwin Church. A rare metal sculpture by Clark Mills representing General (later President) Andrew Jackson on horseback (c. 1855), as well as an unusual inkwell depicting an equestrian subject by William Rimmer, are also of note.
Adam and Eve | Full Image | |
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Object no: 1978.021 |
Purchase with funds provided by the Fine Arts Acquisition Fund and the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Fund. |
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Bimbo Malato (Sick Boy) | Full Image | |
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Object no: 1979.036 |
Purchase with funds provided by the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Fund. |
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Study of an Old Man (The Village Betrothal) | Full Image | |
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Object no: 1980.004 |
Gift of the Friends of Art. |
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The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa of Avila | Full Image | |
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Object no: 2000.004 |
Purchase with funds provided by the G. Crossan Seybolt Art Acquisition Fund, the Reva B. Seybolt Art Acquisition Fund, and the Calvert H. Seybolt Art Acquisition Fund. |
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The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds | Full Image | |
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Object no: 2002.012 |
Purchase with funds provided by the Walter Cerf Art Fund, the Fine Arts Acquisition Fund, and the Memorial Art Fund. |
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Diptych with Scenes of the Nativity and Crucifixion | Full Image | |
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Object no: 2002.013 |
Purchase with funds provided by the Friends of Art Acquisition Fund, the Frederick and Martha Lapham Art Acquisition Fund, and Margery Lehmann, Class of 1948, and Allen Stillman. |
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Rest on the Flight into Egypt | Full Image | |
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Object no: 2003.008 |
Bequest of Walter Cerf. |
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The Execution of Maximilian | Full Image | |
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Object no: 2004.033 |
Purchase with funds provided by the Walter Cerf Art Fund. |
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Self Portrait | Full Image | |
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Object no: 2005.006 |
Gift of Ralph E. Shikes and Ruth Collins Shikes ’45. |
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The Madonna and Child Enthroned with Angels and Saints John the Baptist and Nicholas of Bari | Full Image | |
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Object no: 2005.056 |
Purchase with funds provided by the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Fund and the Walter Cerf Art Fund. Conservation of this work was made possible by a generous grant from the Middlebury College Arts Council. |
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Gamaliel Painter | Full Image | |
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Object no: 0.061 |
Gift of an anonymous donor. |
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Landscape, Village in Distance | Full Image | |
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Object no: 0.100 |
Bequest of Joseph Battell. |
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Bust of Greek Slave | Full Image | |
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Object no: 1970.006 |
Gift of the Friends of Art and the Salomon-Hutzler Foundation. |
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Eight Bells | Full Image | |
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Object no: 1986.060 |
Purchase with funds provided by the Christian A. Johnson Memorial Fund. |
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Billingsgate | Full Image | |
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Object no: 1986.070 |
Gift of Mrs. Thomas Dibble. |
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Andrew Jackson | Full Image | |
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Object no: 1991.017 |
Purchase with funds provided by the Electra Havemeyer Webb Memorial Fund and the Frederick and Martha Lapham Art Acquisition Fund. |
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Down the River on a Golden Morning | Full Image | |
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Object no: 1998.021 |
Gift of George Hood Helmer and Hamilton Wright Helmer in memory of their great great uncle George Murray Wright, Class of 1874, Trustee. |
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The Reverend Henry Caner | Full Image | |
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Object no: 1999.010 |
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Maguire. |
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A View near Albano, Italy | Full Image | |
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Object no: 2002.007 |
Gift of Sylvia Kodjbanoff Keiser. |
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Otter Creek, Middlebury, Vermont | Full Image | |
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Object no: 2002.028 |
Gift of Louis Bacon, Class of 1979. |
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