Various public men sent their treasures to the museum in its earlier days, when they were more needed than now; but it has been found necessary to select fastidiously from the too numerous articles offered every year as loans. Many families owning valuable collections find it difficult to keep them in perfect safety, and more begin to realize that such articles should not be of private advantage. Some collections, originally received as loans, it is pretty certain will never be removed; and I am assured by the director that the museum has been notified of being remembered in many wills. This gentleman, Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen, and his predecessor, Sir Henry Cole, said to me, in conversation about the prospect of building museums in the American cities, that they had no doubt such institutions, if good and safe buildings were erected, would there as well as here find themselves centres of gravitation for the art treasures and curiosities owned by the community around them. This museum, though hardly out of its teens, has received seven great collections, worth collectively more than two million dollars; thirteen bequests, worth over half a million dollars; and a large number of donations whose aggregate money value is very great, though not yet estimated. Among the more important donations sixteen have been from the Queen, nineteen from the late Prince Consort, three from Napoleon III. (very valuable too—Raphael’s “Holy Family,” in Gobelin tapestry; four pieces of Beauvais tapestry, and a collection of 4854 engravings from the Louvre), three from the Emperor of Russia, and thirty Egyptian musical instruments from the Khedive. Thirty-one donations, including, of course, a much larger number of objects, have been received from twenty-eight governments. In this list Japan (two), Würtemberg (two), and the United States (three) are the only governments which appear more than once; but I am sorry to say the presents of the American Republic are limited to department reports, the last being one from the War Department on gunshot wounds. Twenty European museums have sent valuable gifts to this youngest member of their family. Among private individuals, other than the donors of collections, Sir Henry Cole, K.C.B., father of the museum, and his family, are represented by twenty-eight valuable gifts—gifts, however, which are little compared with the enthusiasm and intelligence they lavished on the institution they saw planted as a seed, and may now from their windows behold grown to its present large proportions.
Among the numerous gifts and bequests which the museum has received during the past twenty years the following are the most important:
In 1857. By John Sheepshanks, Esq., 233 oil paintings, 289 water-color paintings, etchings, and other drawings. (Gift.) Mr. Sheepshanks died in 1863.
In 1860 and in 1873. By Mrs. Elizabeth Ellison, 100 water-color drawings. (Acting in the spirit of the intention of her late husband, Richard Ellison, Esq., of Sudbrook House, Lincolnshire.) For the purpose of forming a National Collection of Watercolor Drawings. (Gift.)
In 1864. By Rev. R. Brooke, 396 objects, consisting of textiles, watches, rings, etc., and 718 volumes of books. (Gift.)
In 1867. By Mrs. Wollaston, 270 drawings of mosaics. (Gift.)
In 1867. By W. Minshull Bigg, Esq., 3 works in marble by Lough: “Puck,” “The Melancholy Jaques,” “Titania.” (Bequest.)
In 1867 and 1868. By Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, Bart., M.P., 297 volumes, 862 pamphlets, and 155 prints illustrating the Great Exhibition, 1851. (Gift.) Died in 1869.
In 1868. By Mrs. Louisa Plumley, 43 enamel paintings by Essex, Bone, etc. (Bequest.)
In 1868. By Professor Ella, 329 volumes of music, printed and in MS.; 6 busts, 1 oil painting (a portrait of Rossini). From the Library of the Musical Union Institute. (Gift.)