Comprehensive index of Charles Lang Freer's library, mostly relating to art and Asian culture. Headings include authors, countries, and topical subjects. Sections include locations in Freer's original Detroit home; an index of all books transferred to the Smithsonian; a list of collections and collectors catalogues of American and Near and Far Eastern art; sales catalogues, and books in Chinese language.
Arrangement:
Organized in the original manner by the creator.
Local Numbers:
FSA A.01 05.22
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Topic:
Art, Asian -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Art, American -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Letters between Charles Lang Freer and Secretary of the Smithsonian Charles Doolittle Walcott between April 13, 1908 and September 19, 1919. Topics include Freer's evolving bequest to the Smithsonian, his thoughts on the nature and goals of his museum, and the construction of the building in Washington, DC.
Freer accession number F1908.1908.17a
Letters between Charles Lang Freer and Charles D. Walcott
Arrangement:
Organized chronologically under correspondent.
Local Numbers:
FSA A.01 02.1Walcott
Collection Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Collection Rights:
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Genre/Form:
Letters (correspondence)
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Two lists made by William Jones of his collection of Sauk and Fox ethnological and ethnobotanical specimens at the Field Museum of Natural History. The lists were requested by Truman Michelson and sent to him by Berthold Laufer, curator of Asian Anthropology at the Field Museum. A transmittal letter dated December 29, 1914 from Laufer to Michelson is present.
Local Numbers:
NAA MS 3241
Local Note:
Title changed from "Lists of Sauk and Fox materials in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago" 5/28/2014.
Papers concerning Freer's art collecting activities, including correspondence, diaries, art inventories, scrapbooks of clippings on James McNeil Whistler and other press clippings, and photographs. In addition to Freer's own correspondence, the papers include correspondence collected by Freer of James McNeill Whistler and of Whistler collector Richard A. Canfield, correspondence of Freer's assistant Katharine Nash Rhoades, and correspondence regarding Freer's bequest to the Smithsonian Institution.
Correspondence, ca. 1860-1921, includes Freer's correspondence, 1876-1920, with artists, dealers, collectors, museums, and public figures; 30 v. of letterpress books containing copies of letters sent, 1892-1910; correspondence collected by Freer of James McNeill Whistler, and his wife Beatrix, 186?-1909, with Lady Colin Campbell, Thomas R. Way, Alexander Reid, Whistler' mother, Mrs. George W. Whistler, and others; correspondence of Whistler collector Richard A. Canfield, 1904-1913, regarding works in Canfield's collection; and correspondence of Freer's assistant, Katharine Nash Rhoades, 1920-1921, soliciting Freer letters and regarding the settlement of his estate.
Also included are twenty-nine pocket diaries, 1889-1890, 1892-1898, 1900-1919, recording daily activities, people and places visited, observations, and comments; a diary kept by Freer's caretaker, Joseph Stephens Warring, recording daily activities at Freer's Detroit home, 1907-1910;
Inventories, n.d. and 1901-1921, of American, European, and Asian art in Freer's collection, often including provenance information; vouchers, 1884-1919, documenting his purchases; five volumes of scrapbooks of clippings on James McNeill Whistler, 1888-1931, labeled "Various," "Peacock Room," "Death, etc.," "Paris, etc.," and "Boston...London" ; three volumes of newsclippings, 1900-1930, concerning Freer and the opening of the Freer Gallery of Art;
correspondence regarding Freer's gift and bequest to the Smithsonian Institution, 1902-1916; and photographs, ca. 1880-1930, of Freer, including portraits by Alvin Langdon Coburn and Edward Steichen, Freer with others, Freer in Cairo, China and Japan, Freer's death mask, and his memorial service, Kyoto, 1930; photographs of artists and others, including Thomas Dewing, Ernest Fenellosa, Katharine Rhoades taken by Alfred Stieglitz, Rosalind B. Philip, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Abbott H. Thayer, Dwight Tryon, and Whistler; and photographs relating to Whistler, including art works depicting him, grave and memorial monuments, works of art, the Peacock Room, and Whistler's memorial exhibition at the Copley Society.
Among Freer's correspondents are: Otto Bacher, Bernard Berenson, Siegfried Bing, Laurence Binyon, W.K. Bixby, Sigisbert Chretien Bosch-Reitz, Charles H. Caffin, Colin Campbell, Richard Canfield, William Merritt Chase, Frederick Stuart Church, Alfred Vance Churchill, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Arthur Wesley Dow, Ernest Fenollosa, Albert Gallatin, John Gellatly, Frederick W. Gookin, Sadakichi Hartmann, Frank J. Hecker, Dikran Kelekian, M. Knoedler & Co., Berthold Laufer, Lien Hui Ching Collection, W.A. Livingstone, Frederick McCormick, Bunkio Matsuki, Gari Melchers, Agnes Meyer, Eugene Meyer, Charles Moore, Yozo Nomura, Rosalind Birnie Philip, Charles A. Platt, Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the Smithsonian Institution, Joseph Stephens Warring, Thomas Way, Abbott Handerson Thayer, Dwight W. Tryon, Charles Walcott of the Smithsonian Institution, Beatrix Whistler, James McNeill Whistler, K.T. Wong, Yamanaka & Co., and Seaouke Yue.
Arrangement:
All correspondence except letterpress books: arranged alphabetically by correspondent; letterpress books are chonological.
Biographical / Historical:
Art collector; Detroit, Michigan. Collected Asian, American, and European art, including a large collection of works by James McNeill Whistler. Founded the Freer Gallery of Art, which is now part of the Smithsonian Institution.
Provenance:
Selected for microfilming from the Charles Lang Freer papers at the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Microfilmed 1992 by the Archives of American Art with funding provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Office of Fellowships and Grants Research Resources Program. Portions of the correspondence and the letterpress books were previously filmed by the Freer in the 1970 (AAA reels 77, 453-456, and 1217-1232); those reels have been replaced by this microfilming project. See Finding Aid for information on papers not selected for microfilming.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Art, Asian -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Art, American -- Collectors and collecting Search this
Abel William Bahr was a coal merchant and general importer born in China who became an important collector of Chinese art. Several books and catalogues have been published about his collection. His papers include numerous drafts and notes about his memoirs as a collector, correspondence with other collectors and photographs of Chinese art objects, from jade to pottery to paintings.
Scope and Content Note:
This collection contains manuscript drafts and notes for Bahr's memoir, written by Bahr himself and C.R. Cammell, who was also the editor of The Connoisseur magazine. Other papers include correspondence with collectors of Chinese art or other figures in the art world, such as Lord Kitchener, the King and Queen of Sweden, Walter Muir Whitehill, Kenjiro Matsumoto and Senator Theodore Francis Green, among others. The bulk of the collection contains approximately 300 photographs of different Chinese art objects, from jade figurines to pottery to paintings. Most of these photographs are unidentified, but some of them include marginalia that indicate that they were of Bahr's own art objects for publication in books or articles. Photographs which are identified point to art objects also belonging to Bahr. The photographs have been organized based on the object type in the photograph, such as painting, statue or figurine.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into 7 series:
Series 1 -- Memoirs, [1944-1956]
Series 2 -- Correspondence, 1919-1957 [bulk 1947-1957]
Series 3 -- Clippings, 1948, no date [bulk no date]
Series 4 -- Other Writings, no date
Series 5 -- Images, no date
Series 6 -- Catalog Images, 1935, no date
Series 7 -- Art Object Photographs, no date
Biographical Note:
1877 -- Born in Shanghai to German father and Chinese mother
Circa 1880s -- Educated at St. Xavier's School in Shanghai
Circa 1894 -- Work as a clerk at a wholesale and retail coal merchant's office, left solely in charge during the first Sino-Japanese war, encouraged by backers to start his own business
1898 -- Goes into business with shipping friend, started the Central Trading Company
1900 -- Marries Miss Helen Marion Southey (daughter of Mr. T.S. Southey, in Hong Kong. Working at firm of Hopkins Dunn and Company. Begins construction on his first house, Fairview, outside the settlement on North Honan Road Extension, first son born[?]
1901 -- Recipient of Victoria Medal for his role as a gunner during the Boxer Rebellion (had joined the Shanghai Volunteers)
1908 -- Shanghai Exhibition of Chinese Art, which he helped to organize and which he loaned many pieces from his own collection. Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society. Publishes a catalogue of the exhibit in 1911, "Old Chinese Porcelains and Works of Art in China: Being Description and Illustrations of Articles selected from an Exhibition held in Shanghai, November 1908"
1909 -- Begins his association with Lord Kitchener; travels with him through China
1910 -- Leaves permanent residence in China, moves to London, England
1911 -- Catalogue of an Exhibition of Early Chinese Paintings from the Collection of A.W. Bahr, published by the Fine Art Society
1915 -- Applies to Foreign Office in London to go to America. (Involved in the art business; the war had stopped all such activities in London)
1927 -- Private printing of the catalogue, "Archaic Chinese Jades collected in China by A.W. Bahr, now in Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, described by Berthold Laufer"
1938 -- "Early Chinese Paintings from the A.W. Bahr Collection" by Osvald Siren, published by the Chiswick Press
1946 -- Leaves England, with his wife, daughter Edna, two sons and their wives and two granddaughters for Canada
1947 -- Metropolitan Museum of Art purchases Chinese paintings from Bahr, collection of archaic jades exhibited in the Royal Ontario Museum. The Met also publishes a portfolio of the painting, 'Ching Ming Shang Ho, Spring Festival on the River' which Bahr had donated to the museum
1948 -- The Met exhibits Bahr's Chinese paintings. Several Chinese art objects on loan to the Art Association of Montreal and exhibited in the new Far East gallery
1949 -- Tang figurine, paint cakes and Han pottery vase on display at the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology
1950 -- Donates Chinese ceramics to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
1951 -- Begins writing his memoir[?]
1952 -- Last visit to London
1954 -- Gets typed draft of memoir. Living in Ridgefield, CT, working with C.R. Cammell
1959 -- Dies
Related Material:
There are no known related materials at any other institution or historical society.
Provenance:
Gift of Penelope Bahr and Helen M. Bahr (Stewart).
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research.
Rights:
Permission to reproduce and publish an item from the Archives is coordinated through the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery's Rights and Reproductions department. Please contact the Archives in order to initiate this process.
A.W. Bahr Papers, FSA.A2001.14. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of Penelope Jane Bahr and Helen M. Bahr (Stewart), November 12th, 2001.
Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation Search this
Collection Director:
Heye, George G. (George Gustav), 1874-1957 Search this
Container:
Box 266, Folder 9
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
1907
Scope and Contents:
Correspondents: M.T. Farley, Frederick Monsen, Alice Fletcher, Franz Boas, E.F. Dawson, H. Ernestine Ripley, Matilda Stevenson, Berthold Laufer, Wilhelm (Guillermo) Bauer, W.C. Mills, Nicolas Leon, Mrs. George P. Way, Clark Nissler, W.M. Cary, Clarence B. Moore, George Bird Grinnell, W.C. Curtis, Edward Schernikow, John Frederick Huckel.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadcast materials from the collection must be requested from the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation Records, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation Search this
Collection Director:
Heye, George G. (George Gustav), 1874-1957 Search this
Container:
Box 267, Folder 1
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
Jan-Sep 1923
Scope and Contents:
Correspondents: Berthold Laufer, Bella Weitzner, Maggs Bros., R.B. Orr, W.C. Park, Burton Thompson, Harmon Hendricks, F.W. Skiff, Alanson Skinner, Thea Heye, Charles Lummis, George Gustav Heye, Glen Stewart, Jon R. Swanton, Mrs. Frank C. Churchill.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadcast materials from the collection must be requested from the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation Records, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation Search this
Collection Director:
Heye, George G. (George Gustav), 1874-1957 Search this
Container:
Box 266, Folder 7
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
Nov-Dec 1905
Scope and Contents:
Correspondents: Frederic Ward Putnam, J. Walter Fewkes, Senor Escude, J. Jungmann, Anita Earl, J.W Benham, H. Stadthagen, Wilhelm (Guillermo) Bauer, Frederick W. Hodge, Walter Hough, John H. Cobbs, George Grant MacCurdy, James E. Mullen, L.O. Howard, Charles C. Willoughby, Charles Lummis, Otis T. Mason, Alfred L. Kroeber, H.H. Harrison, Benjamin Talbot Babbitt Hyde, Fred A. Musehenheim, Clark Wissler, M.C. Long, Alfred Beutenmuller, E. Pauline Johnson, Tim F. Barnes, Homer Sargent, Berthold Laufer, Fannie Morrisl, M.R. Harrington, W.L. Calver, Fred Schoenbach, George Gustav Heye.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Collection Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadcast materials from the collection must be requested from the National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
Collection Citation:
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Museum of the American Indian/Heye Foundation Records, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.
National Museum of Natural History (U.S.). Department of Anthropology Search this
Smithsonian Institution. Department of Anthropology Search this
Smithsonian Institution. United States National Museum. Department of Anthropology Search this
Extent:
(6 of 6)
Container:
Box 14
Type:
Archival materials
Date:
1933 August 17
Scope and Contents:
Includes Berthold Laufer to Hough, August 17, 1933, clarifying his interest in the study of domestication; "Zootechny for Buffalo Exposition"; and notes.
Collection Restrictions:
Some materials are restricted.
Access to the Department of Anthropology records requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Department of Anthropology Records, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository.
Collection Citation:
Charles Lang Freer Papers. FSA A.01. National Museum of Asian Art Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Gift of the estate of Charles Lang Freer.
Li Chi was a prominent Chinese archaeologist, trained in the United States and one of the first Chinese archaeologists to conduct and teach scientific archaeology in China. This collection contains the manuscripts of the reports Li Chi prepared for the Freer Gallery when he was a member of the archaeological expeditions in China sponsored by the Freer Gallery of Art and headed by Carl Whiting Bishop during the years 1926 to 1929. This specific manuscript describes Li Ji's preliminary report regarding the excavations at Hsi-yin-ts'un.
Arrangement:
This manuscript is part of the Li Ji Reports, Series 1: Report Manuscripts, 1926-1931.
Biographical / Historical:
Li Chi was a member of Carl Whiting Bishop's archaeological team during a Freer-Gallery sponsored expeditions to China from 1926 to 1929.
