The Museum’s collection of European painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts includes Italian, French, Dutch, and British artists from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries.
The Ferguson collection of Wedgwood is of unique importance, mirrored by the outstanding collection of Irish silver amassed and donated to the Museum by John V. Rowan, Jr.
A bequest by Gilbert Denman left a significant group of paintings to the Museum, among which The Woodcutters by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes is particularly notable. William-Adolphe Bouguereau's Admiration, a prime example of late-nineteenth-century academic painting, is another favorite from the collection. Admiration was awarded the highest honors in the Paris Salon of 1899, when Bouguereau was at the height of his fame. Other works of note include portraits by English and Scottish artists Sir Joshua Reynolds and Henry Raeburn; landscapes by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet; paintings by Henri Fantin-Latour; and works by Impressionists Berthe Morisot and Armand Guillaumin.
