Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections

This fully updated and beautifully redesigned handbook is the essential guide to the encyclopedic collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Divided into four sections—Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Contemporary—the handbook features more than 500 masterpieces from the museum’s world-renowned holdings, each handsomely illustrated in color and accompanied by a brief text written by the museum’s curators. Each section integrates a wide variety of media, including paintings, works on paper, sculptures, decorative arts, costumes and textiles, arms and armor, and photography. Expanded entries provide in-depth information on some of the most historically significant and beloved objects, such as a 16th-century Indian temple hall, Grace Kelly’s wedding dress, and Marcel Duchamp’s Étant donnés. Other passages discuss the contributions of several of the museum’s most important donors, exploring the idea of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as “a collection of collections.”