Celebrating the Old Master Collections of the NGA: Masterpieces of American Furniture

Dianne Stephens, senior educator, National Gallery of Art The 2019 Summer Sunday Lecture Series, Celebrating the Old Master Collections of the National Gallery of Art, takes a closer look at the many treasures housed in the Gallery’s permanent collection. On August 11, Dianne Stephens, a senior educator at the National Gallery of Art, discusses masterpieces of American furniture from the Kaufman Collection, 1700–1830. These magnificent objects were permanently installed at the National Gallery of Art in October 2012 as a promised gift of the collection formed over five decades by Linda H. Kaufman and the late George M. Kaufman, which includes some of the finest and most elegant examples of American furniture produced in colonial and post-revolutionary America. The Kaufman Collection a significant addition to the decorative arts at the National Gallery of Art and in Washington, and these important pieces of furniture complement and enrich the great American achievements in painting and sculpture in the Gallery’s permanent collection.