Samuel Eilenberg Papers, 1902-1996

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Series II: Art Collection Documents and Correspondence, 1902-1994

This series provides considerable material documenting Eilenberg's collecting activities over a period of 40 years. Although the bulk of the series concerns his Indian and East Asian art collection, the series also provides evidence of his earlier collecting in other areas: coins, meerschaum pipes, and European art. The series combines documents pertaining to the acquisition and care of his art collection with considerable correspondence, much of it concerning art loans or bequests of art objects to collections in the U.S, Europe, and Israel. Overview information about Eilenberg's art collection and information about major bequests he made has been placed at the beginning of the series, and information about his other collections placed at the end, along with collection minutiae (e.g. storage & transportation documents), photos of his collection holdings, and printed articles about art and archaeology. Material within each individual filing unit is organized chronologically, with undated material at the end.

The series also illustrates the truly worldwide nature of Eilenberg's collecting activities and sphere of correspondence, which included art dealers and contacts in Indonesia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, Ceylon, Japan, and throughout India, as well as correspondents in England, France, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, and Sweden—not to mention a great many individual curators and private collectors throughout the United States and Europe (Box 3, 8-24). Eilenberg's art activities brought him into frequent contact with museum directors, university presidents, curators, and art dealers, all seeking to cultivate relationships, as well as private collectors the likes of Avery Brundage and John D. Rockefeller III, whose 1962 letter expressed how "Mrs. Rockefeller and I greatly appreciated your stopping by the other evening to see some of our Asian art" and to provide an expert opinion on it (Box 3, Folder 4).



Box 2 Folder 10 Eilenberg Endowed Math Chair Art Bequest, 1987-1989

This folder documents Eilenberg's most significant single bequest, his 1989 gift of $1.5 million worth of Indian and East Asian art to Columbia, which, in turn, sold the artworks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in order to use the proceeds to endow the Eilenberg Visiting Professorship in Math.


Box 2 Folder 11 Endowed South East Asian Art Chair Proposal, 1991

A 1991 proposal for Columbia to create an endowed chair in South Asian Art, the focus of Eilenberg's collection, with an identical $1.5 million endowment (see Folder 10).


Box 2 Folder 12 American Friends of Israel Museum Bequest and Loans, 1983-1994


Box 2 Folder 13 Exhibits, Catalogs of SE's Collection, 1955-1991


Box 2 Folder 14 Eilenberg - Rosen Art Partnership, 1978-1991


Correspondence and Documents

These papers document Eilenberg's loans, gifts, and bequests to a remarkable range of other institutions, in particular the Victoria & Albert Museum, British Museum, Friends of Israel Museum, Metropolitan Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Asia Society, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and University of Missouri Museum of Art & Archaeology. The objects of Eilenberg's benefactions thus spanned the entire U.S., in addition to reaching Britain and Israel.


Box 2 Folder 15 Met, 1956-1992


Box 2 Folder 16 Asia Society, 1959-1993


University of Missouri Museum

The sequence of documents pertaining to the University of Missouri Museum, an institution to which Eilenberg made frequent and substantial gifts for over 20 years, has an especially interesting conclusion, and perhaps a revealing one: a 1987 letter from the museum director in which he regretfully refuses several proffered gifts, citing concerns over "questions of provenance [and about] the circumstances of export and import."


Box 2 Folder 17 Inventory of Gifts, 1963-1987


Box 2 Folder 18 1966-1977

(Saul Weinberg)


Box 2 Folder 19 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1970-1989


Box 2 Folder 20 LA Museum, 1984

(Light of Asia Show)


Box 2 Folder 21 Cleveland Museum of Art, 1956-1986


Box 2 Folder 22 George Bickford, 1957-1962

(Cleveland Museum)


Box 2 Folder 23 Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1963-1982


Other U.S. Museums


Box 2 Folder 24 1954-1965



Box 3 Folder 1 1972-1994


Box 3 Folder 2 U.S. Art Dealers, 1955-1992


Box 3 Folder 3 Peter Marks, 1963-1994

(New York Art Dealer)


Box 3 Folder 4 U.S. Art Collectors, 1952-1959


Box 3 Folder 5 U.S. Art Collectors and Scholars, 1960-1994


Box 3 Folder 6 England - Correspondence and Invoices, 1956-1987


Box 3 Folder 7 Victoria and Albert, 1955-1993

John Irwin, Curator of Eastern Art at the Victoria & Albert Museum, assessed the value of Eilenberg's collection's at "more than a million [English] pounds at 1973 prices" and he added that Eilenberg's offer of it to the museum—in exchange for what amounted to a lifetime annuity paying 12,000 pounds a year—"constitutes by far the most important offer of oriental art that has ever come to the Museum . . . a major even in the history of the Museum." Even taking into account of the desire of those on less-lofty perches to cultivate Eilenberg's good will and largesse, the evident respect with which he was regarded by major art experts is striking in this series; curators and museum directors address him as a peer in terms of expertise in the field of Indian and East Asian art. This is typified by the correspondence with John Irwin, which progresses from a cordial but formal level to a friendly and collegial one in which he and Eilenberg even begin to collaborate on a book on Indian Art.


Box 3 Folder 8 Spink and Son, 1959-1984


Box 3 Folder 9-10 Holland, 1955-1982, 2 folders


Box 3 Folder 11 France, 1959-1981


Box 3 Folder 12 Switzerland, 1956-1979


Box 3 Folder 13 Germany - Correspondence and Invoices, 1958-1990


Box 3 Folder 14 Sweden, 1967-1968


Box 3 Folder 15 Miscellaneous European Collectors, 1958-1980


Correspondence and Invoices


Box 3 Folder 16-17 India, 1956-1992, 2 folders


Box 3 Folder 18-19 Indonesia, 1965-1982, 2 folders


Box 3 Folder 20 Bangkok, 1965-1977


Box 3 Folder 21 Japan, 1956-1976


Box 3 Folder 22 Pakistan, 1972-1981


Box 3 Folder 23 Ceylon, 1974-1976


Box 3 Folder 24 Asia, 1957-1986


Box 3 Folder 25 Correspondence and Theft Claims: Operation "High Roller", 1970-1978


Box 3 Folder 26 Stolen Art Alerts and Photographs, 1979-1980


Art


Box 3 Folder 27 Storage and Transportation Documents, 1958-1990


Box 3 Folder 28 Conservation and Supplies, 1958-1980


Box 3 Folder 29 Symposia and Memberships, 1955-1991


Box 3 Folder 30 Objects Search, undated


Box 3 Folder 31 Objects Notes, 1961


Box 3 Folder 32 Bahram III Iranian Coin, 1955-1957

This folder contains various references to Eilenberg's publication of articles about aspects of not only Indian and East Asian Art, but also ancient coins and the figures they depicted.


Box 3 Folder 33 Numismatics Correspondence and Inventory, 1955-1959


Box 3 Folder 34 French Tapestry Fragment, 1972


Box 3 Folder 35 Manuscript Sheets in Non-Western Alphabet, undated


Box 3 Folder 36 Bookstore Invoices and Art "Book Object Search", 1955-1989


Box 3 Folder 37 Art Auction Catalogs, 1989-1993


Box 3 Folder 38 Select Art Clippings, 1960-1992



Box 4 Folder 1 Preservation Articles and Publications, 1983


Box 4 Folder 2 Art Illustration and Catalogs, undated


Art Collection


Box 4 Folder 3 Photography Documents, 1958-1977


Box 4 Folder 4 Photos, 1984-1994


Box 4 Folder 5-6 Copies of Revista de la Universidad De Buenos Aires, 1902-1946, 2 folders