European Art

European Art

The longstanding commitment of Princeton’s Department of Art and Archaeology to the study of art of the Middle Ages is supported in the Museum by examples of architectural sculpture; stained glass windows, among them an example from Chartres Cathedral; ivories; Limoges enamels; metalwork; and distinguished examples of German, Flemish, and Spanish polychrome wooden sculptures. 

The collection of old master paintings ranges from Italian gold ground panels by Guido da Siena, Francesco Traini, and Fra Angelico to 19th-century art, with particular strength in the Mannerist era. The important group of Dutch Mannerist paintings includes works by Hendrik Goltzius and Abraham Bloemaert. The Baroque is represented by Pietro da Cortona and Giovanni Battista Gaulli, while rococo masters include François Boucher and Jean-Siméon Chardin. The age of Enlightenment can be studied in paintings by Angelika Kauffmann, the studio of Jacques-Louis David, and Francisco de Goya. 

Among the 19th-century holdings are works by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, and Claude Monet. The art of the early 20th century includes paintings by Odilon Redon and the Russian master Ilya Repin, whose works are rare outside his homeland. 

The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, Inc., has placed on loan a magnificent collection of Post-Impressionist art, including masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Amedeo Modigliani, and Chaim Soutine. 

Alexandra Letvin

Duane Wilder, Class of 1951, Associate Curator of European Art

Alexandra Letvin was appointed the inaugural Duane Wilder, Class of 1951, Associate Curator of European Art at the Princeton University Art Museum in 2022. Before joining the Museum, she was the Assistant Curator of European and American Art at the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College, where she organized exhibitions spanning topics from artistic and cultural exchange in early modern Europe to nineteenth-century photography. She received her B.A. from Williams College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and previously held positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University, and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Collection Stories

Story Archive

Major Stone Works Undergo Cleaning, Conservation

Major Stone Works Undergo Cleaning, Conservation

In 2020 and 2021, the removal of more than one hundred large-scale and embedded works from the old building was a particularly complicated task; installing these objects again in the new building will also be a massive undertaking. Since nearly...
Peter Paul Rubens's The Abduction of Ganymede

Peter Paul Rubens's The Abduction of Ganymede

In 1636 the great Flemish artist Sir Peter Paul Rubens was commissioned to provide about sixty mythological paintings for the Torre de la Parada, King Philip IV’s hunting lodge outside Madrid. Approximately fifty oil sketches for the project still survive...