REPLY TO 04/24/96 18:51 FROM [log in to unmask] "Museum discussion list":
Re: Metropolitan Museum Collection

Gregg Stemm (et al.)---the collector's name was Luigi Cesnola and he
was American consul to Cyprus.  After trying to flog the collection
to Russia, France, and England it finally went to the new
Metropolitan and he became its first (I think) director.  As I
understand it, Leland Stanford purchased 5000 "duplicates" which
came here. (Cesnola took the money and started the Met's Egyptian
collection.) There is some information in one of our old catalogues,
C. Osborne, Museum Builders in the West; there are old Met
catalogues which may contain information on the collection; and
there is also one biography, Elizabeth McFadden, The Glitter and the
Gold (Dial Press: NY, 1971).
Bernard Barryte
Stanford Unviersity Museum of Art

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