Henry Walters

THE Walters Art Gallery is one of the world's great museums in the breadth and quality of its art of many civilizations. Henry Walters collected with passion, knowledge and wealth, building on the work of his father, William T. Walters. It was Henry -- a secretive man -- who collected a museum of the world's culture and then donated it as the heritage of the people of Baltimore. The gift was unexpected. Henry died at his home in Manhattan, age 83, in 1931. Speculation swirled about the disposition of his art. His will, filed in Baltimore Orphans Court, left the collection of 20,000 objects, the art gallery, the family home at 5 W. Mount Vernon Place and one-fourth of his estate as an endowment to the city "for the benefit of the public."

The view of a 16th-century Lisbon street is such a teeming hodgepodge of races, social classes and religions and has so much life on display - much of it mischievous - that's it hard not to smile. Slightly to the right of center, an African man wearing the wide pants of a sailor dances with a stranger. He's trying to embrace a middle-aged white woman carrying a jug, who recoils in surprise. Toward the left, two Jewish policemen - identifiable by their long beards and armbands - support a sheepish-looking black prisoner who appears to be drunk.

In "Ode to a Grecian Urn," the 19th-century Romantic poet John Keats described a pair of lovers on the side of an ancient vase who exist in a timeless realm forever removed from the onrushing tide of history. Keats' idea of a timeless, ideal realm of art was the conventional wisdom of his era. But as the century wore on, it became more and more tenuous as a guide for creative artists. The 19th century was an age of unprecedented, rapid change. The invention of railroads, the telegraph and industrial mass production, the rise of universal literacy and a popular press, the expansion of cities and the huge accumulations of capital in business all served to shrink space and time.

Baltimore's Walters Art Museum has received a $265,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to put toward digitizing its collection of medieval manuscripts and making it available, via computer, to the general public. The three-year project, "Imaging the Hours: Creating a Digital Resource of Flemish Manuscripts," includes 113 illustrated manuscripts, encompassing 45,000 pages of text with over 3,000 pages of illumination — elaborate illustrations, such as stylized letters or border decorations.

The fat porcelain jar seems large enough to hold many secrets. It sits alone on a pedestal in the Walters Art Gallery, a colorful vessel just knee high and, if truth be told, rather stout. Bright orange enamel fish swoop and swirl on its sides, their curving bodies echoing the fullness of its shape. Henry Walters, who in 1931 bequeathed his art collection to the city, left barely a word about the jar's purchase, sometime between 1894 and 1908. Experts could have told him at the time that the jar dated from China's Ming dynasty, which ranged from 1368 to 1644, and was probably used on ceremonial occasions to hold wine.

A reader recently directed my attention to a copy of Washing `The Great Unwashed:' Public Baths in Urban America 1840-1920, by Marilyn Thornton Williams, a college professor, whose 1991 book chronicles the almost-forgotten public bath movement that blossomed during the 19th century. Urban social reformers pushed the many benefits that could be derived by regular bathing in addition to personal cleanliness and freedom from infectious diseases. Regular bathing also gave one a certain middle-class respectability, whether one was middle class or not. Having a relationship with hot water, a bar of soap and a clean towel was a necessary and good thing.

Henry Walters assembled almost unbelievably wide-ranging holdings for a single collector -- from Impressionist paintings to // medieval arms, from ancient Greek vases to Faberge bibelots.Inevitably, he could not be equally interested in everything. But one of his principal interests was his extraordinary collection of manuscripts and rare books, which he bought individually, on his trips to Europe, many of them from the Parisian bookbinder and bookseller Leon Gruel.He also had Gruel create sumptuous bindings for some of his books and acquired various other things from the firm, such as medieval ivories.

Near the end of his life, George A. Lucas -- a Baltimorean who spent five decades roaming the streets and studios of Paris in search of great art -- was haunted by one question: What would become of the nearly 19,000 prints, 300 paintings and 170 bronzes he had collected?The octogenarian art dealer needed to find a suitable home for his enormous collection, and he wanted to draft an airtight will to keep it out of the clutches of his French mistress' son. Messages scrawled on bits of paper found tucked into his diaries and ledgers -- "What to do with collection" -- reflect his growing fears.

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan is expected to rule later this week whether the Maryland Institute, College of Art may sell all or part of its renowned Lucas Collection -- or whether that question should be decided next spring in a trial.The collection, which includes thousands of prints, oil paintings and sculptures, was given to the institute in 1910 by Henry Walters. Considered one of the most important bequests ever made in Baltimore, it has been on loan to the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery since 1933.

THE WALTERS ART GALLERY has made a substantial advance in the acquisition of 17 works of Ethiopian Christian art, most of which are now on public view. This complements its holdings in Armenian, Russian, Greek and early Italian Christian devotional art.This addition to the collection flows naturally from the Walters' xTC stunning introduction of Ethiopian religious art to Americans in its 1993 show, which fed its own interest and reputation, indirectly leading to this purchase and extended loan.

In one of the largest gifts ever received by Baltimore's Walters Art Museum , a New Mexico collector is donating some 300 pieces and promising a $4 million bequest to shine a spotlight on the art of the ancient Americas. "This is a huge development for us," said Walters director Gary Vikan, noting that the soon-to-be-created center for the study of the arts of the ancient Americas should prove especially alluring to the area's "very vibrant" Latino community. "This is a huge new ingredient in building audience for us," he said.

The prized collection of medieval manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum - about 38,000 pages - is heading out of its usual, controlled environment and into the light. The light of computer screens, that is. Thanks to a $315,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 105 medieval manuscripts from several centuries and cultures will be digitally photographed, cataloged and distributed during the next two and a half years. "This gives us the chance to make accessible, and for free on everybody's desktop, some of the greatest works of art from the Middle Ages [housed]

In a quiet, windowless room deep inside the Walters Art Museum, a digitization specialist places a 900-year-old Quran into the cradle of the Stokes Imaging System. She turns a page, lowers a wedge to hold the book in place, and snaps a picture. She raises the wedge, turns the page, lowers the wedge, and repeats. And repeats. And repeats. It's painstaking work, photographing one of the most important collections of Islamic manuscripts in North America, and slow. But scholars say the two-year project has put the Baltimore museum at the vanguard of a movement that is transforming the study of ancient texts.

All it took was a brief scan of the crowd at the Walters Art Museum gala to notice there was a little something different at this party. A bright red miter drifted amid a sea of bobbing bare heads. A set of enormous puffed velvet sleeves rubbed shoulders with dozens of traditional tuxedos. A gold lame toga twinkled alongside scores of cocktail dresses and gowns. This was "A Night In The Museum," where guests were encouraged to wear either black-tie attire or a costume inspired by one of the museum's paintings.

Baltimore art collector Henry Walters had a great eye for painting and sculpture, but he also had a thing for bling. While he was expanding the art collection that his father William began assembling in the mid 1800s, Henry amassed one of the most wide-ranging private jewelry collections in the U.S., including works by Tiffany & Co., Rene Lalique and others. His greatest finds form the core of Bedazzled: 5000 Years of Jewelry, a lavish exhibit that opens today and runs through Jan. 4, 2009, at the Walters Art Museum.

As Walters Art Museum conservator Elissa O'Loughlin pulled back the lid to one of two wooden crates left in the museum's attic for decades, Gary Vikan broke the tension. "Oh, my God, not another Monet! We have much too many of those," the museum's director said. The audience burst into laughter. Vikan was standing too far away to see the crates' contents -- volumes of well-preserved black, leather-bound photo albums and one box. O'Loughlin opened the box and removed an 80-page red leather book.

As Walters Art Museum conservator Elissa O'Loughlin pulled back the lid to one of two wooden crates left in the museum's attic for decades, Gary Vikan broke the tension. "Oh, my God, not another Monet! We have much too many of those," the museum's director said. The audience burst into laughter. Vikan was standing too far away to see the crates' contents -- volumes of well-preserved black, leather-bound photo albums and one box. O'Loughlin opened the box and removed an 80-page red leather book.

When William R. Johnston, curator of 18th and 19th century art at the Walters Art Gallery, decided to tell the story of the museum's founders, William and Henry Walters, he had no idea what it would entail.That was 25 years ago -- 25 years in which Johnston read hundreds of history books, perused thousands of pages from inventories or minutes and pored over what surely must have seemed like tens of thousands of footnotes.You see, William and Henry, father and son, were very private people.

A nationally renowned specialist in museum design, Polshek Partnership Architects of New York, has been selected to develop a master plan to guide growth and development of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum campus over the next decade. Museum director Gary Vikan said Polshek was selected over 10 candidates that sought the commission, the first comprehensive planning exercise at the Walters in 11 years. Open since the 1930s with an extensive collection assembled by William and Henry Walters, the city-owned museum began at 600 N. Charles St. and has grown into a campus that includes nine properties on three city blocks stretching along Centre Street.

A reader recently directed my attention to a copy of Washing `The Great Unwashed:' Public Baths in Urban America 1840-1920, by Marilyn Thornton Williams, a college professor, whose 1991 book chronicles the almost-forgotten public bath movement that blossomed during the 19th century. Urban social reformers pushed the many benefits that could be derived by regular bathing in addition to personal cleanliness and freedom from infectious diseases. Regular bathing also gave one a certain middle-class respectability, whether one was middle class or not. Having a relationship with hot water, a bar of soap and a clean towel was a necessary and good thing.