Sarah Weinblatt Blog 4: The Fitzwilliam Museum: French Impressionists

The Fitzwilliam Museum is located in the United Kingdom. The foundation of the collection is from a the collection of Richard, VII Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion who, in 1816, left his art works and library to the University of Cambridge. He also left funds to build an institution to house his collections. The Impressionist paintings at the Fitzwilliam have mainly been acquired through gift and bequest. The first paintings entered the museum when a man named Frank Hindley Smith gifted 30 paintings and drawings. The French Impressionists online exhibition is one of many found on their website.

Collection Principles

According to The Fitzwilliam Museum website, the foundation of this online exhibition is a selection of works by French Impressionist painters. The entire collection at the museum consists of more than one hundred paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures. The online exhibition contains forty highlights from the collection such as works from Seurat and Cézanne.

There is no explanation as to why these forty objects were selected for this exhibition. The site only states that these are the highlights from the collection.

A history behind the Impressionist collection is available as well.

Metadata

The metadata that is available for each of the forty paintings in this online exhibition includes:

• Title of painting
• Painter
• Year(s)
• Medium
• Dimensions

There is also information regarding how the painting was acquired into the collection.

Catalogue records are available for these paintings which include: Title, Maker, Category, School/Style, Technicque, Dimensions/Description, Date, Provenance, Inscriptions, Marks, Documentation and Accession Number.

A description of each of the paintings is included like a label that would be found in a museum setting. These descriptions include a brief history about the painting.


Object Characteristics

The scanned images of the paintings are jpg files. One is able to access a larger version of the painting by clicking on the object which then directs you to a new window. However, this new window does not allow you to zoom in or out on the object.

In order to access the collection, the viewer must click on the link "Artist's Gallery." From there one can click on links that separate the paintings by painter. For example, to view paintings by Pissarro you would click on his name. The result would be 4 images with the title and painter's name listed below the image. Once you click on the image you are taken to a page that has the metadata previously discussed along with a image that you can enlarge by clicking on it.

You can also click on the link to the catalogue record. I found the catalog records very interesting because of the listing of the provenance of the painting. This is not often seen in online exhibitions and is rarely provided on a museum label but is very important information. I also liked the inclusion of any stampings or markings on the paintings because these are often hard to decipher from an online image especially when one cannot zoom in on the object.

Intended Audience

The intended audience for this online exhibition is anyone interested in the French Impressionists. A brief introduction to who the Impressionists were is included on the site for those visiting not familiar with the Impressionist movement.

Overall, I found this online exhibit very easy to navigate and very user friendly. I liked that the catalogue record was included for the extra information regarding provenance and markings as well.