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
Box 2 Folder 19
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1970-1989
Box 2 Folder 20
LA Museum, 1984
Box 2 Folder 21
Cleveland Museum of Art, 1956-1986
Box 2 Folder 22
George Bickford, 1957-1962
Box 2 Folder 23
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1963-1982
Other U.S. Museums
Box 3 Folder 2
U.S. Art Dealers, 1955-1992
Box 3 Folder 3
Peter Marks, 1963-1994
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