Something Borrowed

I realize that I never finished my something old, something new… series of posts from a few weeks back, so here’s the last installment–something borrowed. Along those lines I thought I’d fill you in on some of our items that are currently being borrowed by other institutions, or will be soon. Lending to other institutions for appropriate exhibitions helps us fulfill our mission to “inspire curiosity, inquiry, and creativity by engaging broad audiences in exhibitions, programs, and research based on our remarkable and expanding collections” by bringing our objects to audiences that might never make it to the Rosenbach and by making connections between our collections and those of other museums.

For those of you summering way out west, the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, has borrowed 30 Sendak illustrations as part of our traveling exhibit Wild New Ways: Maurice Sendak’s Animal Kingdom curated by Patrick Rodgers. The title of the show comes from an early draft of Where the Wild Things Are in which Max commands, “Show me wild new ways.” These borrowed items will be coming home soon, as the NMWA exhibit closes September 19 and we’ll be showing the exhibit here at the Rosenbach in 2011 for all of our local Philadelphia folks.

Some of our Joyce material will be soon crossing the pond to be a part of the exhibit Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballet Russe at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The V & A is borrowing a couple of manuscript pages of the Sirens episode of Ulysses, along with page proofs for Sirens (one page of which is shown below) , and a Man Ray photo of Joyce. For those of you coming to the Rosenbach, do not worry–we still have plenty of other pages of the Ulysses manuscript to display here so you can still get your Joyce fix in Philadelphia.

Page proof for Ulysses, p 263. EMs 1292/25

From across the pond to across town, our last upcoming loan is to the soon-to-reopen National Museum of American Jewish History. We will be lending a number of items for their inaugural installation, which will open in November. The items they are borrowing include portrait miniatures of Sally Etting, Moses Hart, and Jacob De Leon (the hunk shown below); a silhouette of Benjamin Gratz; silver, ceramics, and a dressing box belonging to the Gratz family; an almanac; and two paintings–a copy of Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of Miriam Gratz done by Jane Sully Darley and our very popular Thomas Sully painting of Rebecca Gratz (shown below). So if you come here in a month or so and don’t see Rebecca in her usual usual parlor location, know that you can see her across town and that she will be returning to us after she’s done visiting.

Jean Francois de Vallee, portrait of Moses Hart. ca. 1815. 1954.1605

Thomas Sully, portrait of Rebecca Gratz. 1831. 1954.1936. Bequest of Henrietta Gratz Clay.

That’s all for right now. And no, we don’t lend to individuals, so if you would like to swing by and borrow a copy of the Bay Psalm Book for your bedtime reading, you’re out of luck. Sorry:(