Acquired Tastes: 200 Years of Collecting for the Boston Athenaeum - Hardcover

Cushing, Stanley Ellis; Dearinger, David B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0934552738 ISBN 13: 9780934552738

Publisher: Univ Pr of New England, 2007

Synopsis

This book celebrates the 200th anniversary of the historic Boston Athenaeum, one of this country's earliest and most prestigious repositories of books, paintings, sculptures, engravings, maps, photographs, manuscripts, decorative arts, and other artifacts of history and design. In this publication, the Athenaeum's role in the establishment and promotion of American culture is the subject of several major essays on patronage and collecting. These topics are both expanded and brought into sharper focus in fully-illustrated catalogue entries, written by members of the Athenaeum's professional staff, on a wide variety of objects representing the breadth and depth of the Athenaeum's holdings, past and present. These objects have been carefully selected not only for discussion here, but also as components of one of the most ambitious exhibitions ever mounted at the Athenaeum, held during 2007, the Athenaeum's bicentennial year.

About this title

About the Author

David B. Dearinger is the Susan Morse Hilles Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Boston Athenaeum.

Review

"A new exhibit of books at the Boston Athenaeum travels to the ends of the earth, across thousands of years, and into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. One volume contains hangings from Egyptian shrines and inscribed mummy wrappings dating to 1500 BC. An otherwise nondescript memoir was written by a thief in Boston in the 1800s who stipulated in his will that his reminiscences be bound in his own skin. The exhibitÑwhich celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Athenaeum, one of the oldest independent libraries in the nationÑalso features books from the libraries of George Washington and Henry Knox, his war secretary . . . Due to their delicate condition, books will be rotated in and out of the exhibit, which ends July 13. Acquired Tastes: 200 Years of Collecting for the Boston Athenaeum is the exhibit's companion volume."ÑJan Gardner, Boston Globe

". . . A 17th-century map of the coast of New England; a copy of Thomas Paine's Common Sense from the library of George Washington; a textbook for Native American children written in the Dakota language; a printed version of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln; a panoramic photograph of Boston in ruins after the great fire of 1872: These and dozens more artifacts document a conflicted and sometimes tragic real world from which the Athenaeum's art has provided over the years a refuge of transcendental refinement."ÑKen Johnson, Boston Globe

"More than 100 items representing the holdings of the Boston Athenaeum are grouped by form (books and maps, paintings, sculpture, prints and photographs, and decorative arts and artifacts) and pictured, each accompanied by a detailed history." ÑMaine Antique Digest

Edition details

• Publisher: Univ Pr of New England
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0934552738
• ISBN 13: 9780934552738
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384