This catalogue of 36 masterpieces from the Frick Collection in New York accompanied a show at the Mauritshuis (the Netherlands) in 2015. Featured here are masterpieces dating from the 13th to the 19th centuries, with paintings by artists such as Cimabue, Memling, Constable, Reynolds and Ingres, but also drawings, sculpture and applied art.
All the works are beautifully depicted and described in lively texts that offer insight into their meaning and showcase the quality of the collection. An introductory essay describes how the art-loving steel magnate Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) amassed his fortune, how his collection arose and how the museum managed and expanded his legacy. In a second essay, light is shed on the history of how art collecting came to captivate the wealthiest Americans during the Gilded Age, when spectacular collections were being acquired with fortunes made by America's industrial magnates.
