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The Collection

The Old Master Painting Collection

The Museum & Gallery’s Old Master painting collection provides a rare viewer experience outside European cities and metropolitan areas with beautiful masterworks by recognized artists and their students—all of which are aesthetically exhibited with period furniture, sculpture, and tapestries to lend a period ambiance to the galleries and give patrons a panoramic view of ages past.  Of special note, M&G’s baroque paintings represent some of the most important artists and their works in the country.

The Collection is one of the largest and most interesting collections of European Old Master paintings in America. These works of art from the 14th through the 19th centuries beautifully trace the religious, artistic, and cultural history of Western Europe. Included are important works of many major artists such as Vannuccio, Botticelli, Cranach, Gerard David, Rubens, van Dyck, Reni, Domenichino, Guercino, Murillo, Ribera, Honthorst, and Doré. For a glimpse, view this virtual tour.

Patrons can also enjoy M&G’s Bowen Collection of Antiquities with artifacts that span 37 centuries and represent every day life from ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Hebrew cultures; and the Benjamin West Collection, a series of paintings housed in the War Memorial Chapel (on the campus of Bob Jones University).

M&G’s Russian Icon Collection, which dates from the 14th through 20th centuries and includes several icons once owned by members of the Romanov family, the last tsars of Russia.

While not all of the collections are available online, we continue to add more monthly. You can see some of the individual works and objects through articles, short video clips, and audio stops. OR view the variety of Collection objects currently available online here.

The Entry into Jerusalem

The Entry into Jerusalem

Signed, “the hand of Theophrastos”

Below the image, click play to listen.

Russian Icon Collection

 

M&G’s collection of icons (about 50) presents the history of icon painting from the 14th through the 20th centuries. Various icons represent the Novgorod School, the Suzdal and Moscow Schools (including the followers of Rublev), and the work of the Stroganov family.

While some icons lack their protective covering, others still have their oklad—some simple and understated and others highly decorated with seed pearls, enamel, semi-precious stones, and filigree. Many people are familiar with the Fabergé firm; however a number of other jewelry firms produced objects of the same quality for the royal family including Pavel Ovchinnikov (image on left), who earned the privilege of using the Imperial seal: the Romanov double-headed eagles.

A few of the icons in the collection come from Greece including a beautiful and intricate carving of The Annunciation in boxwood by an artisan monk from Mount Athos.  Of special note are twenty-two icons with a provenance linked to members of the Romanov family—the last of the Russian Tsars.