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7¼" x 10". Suede-covered flexible card scrapbook, title embossed in blind. 52 black paper leaves with 74 B&W photographs adhesive mounted rectos only. Photos measure 3½" x 5 5/8" and nearly all are captioned. Very good: loss of suede to entire spine and chipped at edges; a few leaves with chips, most somewhat fragile. Photographs very good or better: a few slightly wavy and the occasional small spot. This is an intriguing book of black and white photographs taken of and at the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum (GWVSAM), compiled and dedicated to a "valued friend" by Mr. Smith himself. George Walter Vincent Smith was born in 1832 and amassed a fortune exporting fabrics and manufacturing carriages in New York. He began collecting art in the late 1850s, particularly Japanese and Chinese armor, swords, carvings and furniture, and moved to Springfield, Massachusetts in 1871. He and his wife, Belle Townsley Smith, a Springfield native and connoisseur of Venetian lace, established the GWVSAM in 1895 to hold their vast, eclectic collections in a grand, Italian palazzo-style building. The museum is especially noted for its holdings of Japanese lacquer, treasures from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, rare examples of lace and early textiles, and one of the largest collections of Chinese cloisonné outside of Asia. The building's original Tiffany stained glass windows are the only such existing windows created specifically for a museum. This album was inscribed to Louis E. Dalbeck "With the compliments and best wishes of George Walter Vincent Smith, December 31, 1918." Dalbeck (per his obituary) was a cellist, "well-known in Boston and New York musical circles," and a recognized "authority on chamber music" who directed the Woodstock Inn (now the Vermont Symphony) Orchestra for 27 years. The album holds four photographs of the museum's exterior and one of a portrait of the Smiths by noted painter Thomas Waterman Wood. One page noted, "The following 18 views are taken from different positions in the ten galleries" and those are the only pages that lack detailed, tidy captions. The photos reveal dozens of impressive works of art, notably an 18th century "Japanese Shinto Shrine," a 16th century "Italian Trousseau Chest" and several 16th to 19th century French, Italian, Chinese and Japanese cabinets and chairs. There are 18th century Japanese swords, a set of "European Armor, Gothic Style" from the 15th century and "Guns from Turkey, Morocco, Tunis, British India and Japan" from the 17th to 19th. Images also reveal alarmingly beautiful 19th century Russian and Japanese bronze sculptures, a "very rare specimen" of 17th century Chinese jade, Turkish and Persian rugs, carved ivory tankards from Germany from the 1800s and an array of 16th to 19th century Chinese and Japanese pottery, porcelain and jeweled enamel jars. There is also a "Marble Bas-relief of Mrs. Smith at the age of 25" by Madison Colby, an American sculptor who lived in Florence and a lovely example of Venetian "Rose Point Lace, 1688-1694." A terrific photograph album of worldly treasures in a Massachusetts art museum, compiled and gifted by its founder.
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