The Museum recently received a very generous gift of nine works on paper and two books from Roy Curtis Green. The gift includes four prints by Giovanni Battista Piranesi from his famous Views of Rome, etched between 1747 and his death in 1778, which record noteworthy places and buildings in Rome, especially the city’s ancient remains. These four works beautifully complement and, in fact, double the Museum’s already existing collection of prints from this series.
The gift also includes a rare etching by Henri Matisse, showing a nude woman, entitled Nu Féline (1926). It was printed in an edition of ten, plus two artist’s proofs, and one belongs to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Particularly exciting is a beautiful woodcuts of The Resurrection (1509), by one of the most important German artist of the Renaissance, Lucas Cranach the Elder. It is the first work by this artist to enter the Museum’s collection and belongs to a series illustrating the Passion of Christ. Light sensitive as these works are, they will be on view periodically in the European galleries.