The Huntington

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Huntington Library
Huntington Art Collections
Thomas Gainsborough: The Blue Boy
Thomas Lawrence: Pinkie

The Huntington (full name The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Garden , usually simply called Huntington Library , in German also Huntington Library ) is an educational and research institution in San Marino near Los Angeles , California , which, in addition to a library, has art collections and botanical gardens includes. It was donated in 1919 by the railway pioneer Henry E. Huntington (1850-1927) and his wife Arabella Huntington (1851-1924) and opened in 1928.

Library

The library is one of the most important private collections in the world. It contains about 9 million units, including 6 million manuscripts, 375,000 rare books and 500,000 photographs and negatives. The library is open to scholars and students for research purposes. Parts of the collection are shown to the public in permanent and temporary exhibitions.

The most important items in the library include the Ellesmere manuscript of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer from the early 15th century (call number MS EL 26 C 9) and a copy of the Gutenberg Bible printed on parchment .

In 2006 the Huntington Library took over the Burndy Library as a gift. The library, which was previously located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , was founded in 1941 by the industrialist and science historian Bern Dibner . It comprises around 67,000 historical original texts, mainly on the history of technology and science from the 18th and 19th centuries. The Dibner Hall of the History of Science was set up for this purpose.

Art collection

The most important part of the art collection are the works of English portrait painting of the 18th century. The best-known pictures are The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough (1769/70) and Pinkie by Thomas Lawrence (1794), which are shown together in one room.

The collection is housed in a gallery building that was added to the Huntingtons' old private home in 1934. The Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art in the west wing contains American paintings between 1730 and 1930, including works by John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt .

Botanical gardens

On an area of ​​42.5 hectares of the property there are various themed gardens, including a desert garden, a subtropical garden, a palm garden, a jungle garden , a Japanese garden , a zen garden and a Chinese garden .

literature

  • Robert W. Wark: Arabella Huntington and the Beginnings of the Art Collection. The Founding of the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery . Huntington Library, San Marino 1969.
  • Consuelo Wager Dutschke u. a .: Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library . Huntington Library, San Marino 1989, ISBN 0-87328-082-2 ( http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/hehweb/foreword.html digital version).
  • Robyn Asleson; Shelley Bennett: British paintings at The Huntington . Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino / Yale University Press, New Haven, London 2001, ISBN 0-300-09056-0 .
  • The Huntington Library. Treasures from ten centuries . Huntington Library, San Marino / Scala, London 2004, ISBN 1-85759-334-0 .

Web links

Commons : The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens: Dibner Hall of the History of Science (PDF; 113 kB).


Coordinates: 34 ° 7 '38 "  N , 118 ° 6' 36"  W.