Tag Archives: collections

Label Talk: Calligraphic tile and Jean-Léon Gérôme’s sketch for The Whirling Dervish

There are many ways to interpret a work of art. The museum’s Label Talk series encourages visitors to reflect upon and voice their own interpretations of specific artworks, such as this pairing of a lustreware tile created by an Ilkhanid artisan in the 13th century to adorn a religious structure and an oil sketch created...

Label Talk: El Anatsui’s Untitled (with Red)

There are many ways to interpret a work of art, and the museum’s Label Talk series encourages visitors to reflect upon and voice their own interpretations of specific artworks, such as this stenciling and hand-painted enamel work by Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. Several members of the Middlebury community have offered their personal or professional reactions...

Label Talk: George Osodi’s Oil Spill Near Farm Land Ogoni

There are many ways to interpret a work of art, and the museum’s Label Talk series encourages visitors to reflect upon and voice their own interpretations of specific artworks, such as this photograph of an oil spill by Nigerian artist George Osodi. Several members of the Middlebury community have offered their personal or professional reactions...

Neo-Sumerian Record Keeping: A Cuneiform Tablet Fragment from a Mesopotamian Archive

By: Pieter Broucke, Associate Curator of Ancient Art and Professor of History of Art and Architecture In the fall of 1996, the Middlebury College Museum of Art received a gift from John Paul Wallach, Middlebury alumnus from the class of 1964, and his wife Janet Wallach. It was a fragment of a terracotta tablet with...

Piecing Together Cultural Context: Ancient Greek Painted Pottery Sherds

By: Pieter Broucke, Associate Curator of Ancient Art and Professor of History of Art and Architecture The Middlebury College Museum holds a collection of some thirty Ancient Greek pottery sherds that as small primary sources greatly enhance the teaching and learning of Greek vase painting. The fragments come from a variety of vase shapes, represent...

Brilliance Full and Wide: Transcription and Translation of a 1960s Chinese Manual of Poetry and Painting

The following transcription and translation of a 1960s Chinese Manual of Poetry and Painting in the museum’s study collection was created by Rebecca Li ’21.5 in connection with Professor Cynthia Packert’s spring 2020 course HARC 0347: Aesthetics of Asian Art. Brief Analysis Partially legible inscriptions on the front endpaper of the Manual of Poetry and...