The Collection

The Museum, in collaboration with the Five College Museums/Historic Deerfield, maintains a comprehensive collections database of approximately 14,000 objects ranging from antiquity to the present that it conserves, researches, exhibits, and interprets. Primary strengths include Asian art, 19th- and 20th-century European and American paintings and sculpture, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art, Medieval sculpture, early Italian Renaissance paintings, and an extensive collection of prints, drawings, and photographs.

Charles François Daubigny The Water's Edge Optevoz

Among the many notable objects are a very significant Greek bronze statuette of a youth from the Classical period; a red-figure column krater by the Eupolis Painter, of great interest to students of Greek religion, costume, and cult performance; a bronze bust of Isis, described as one of the finest from the Roman period; a rare fragment of Duccio's celebrated Maestà altarpiece; a panel painting by Guariento, acknowledged by scholars to be the most superb work in America by this Paduan master; and the only known pair of screens by Yukinobu, the most distinguished Japanese woman painter of the Edo period.

In 1997 the Museum added to its strong antiquities collection an important portrait of the 2nd-century Roman Empress Faustina, wife of Antoninus Pius. Seen alongside the Museum's outstanding wall paintings from Pompeii and ancient coins—some with Faustina's likeness—this sculpture contributes substantially to the collection's portrayal of the Roman material environment.