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A Collector’s Eye: Freer in Egypt

Six colorful mosaic glass tiles each depicting half a face.

  • Dates

    January 28, 2023–ongoing

  • Location

    Freer Gallery of Art | Gallery 20

  • Collection Area

    Ancient Egyptian Art

A short distance from the steps of the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, rises the Washington Monument, one of the city’s most distinct icons and an embodiment of America’s attraction to Egypt’s ancient past. Like many cultured nineteenth-century Americans, Charles Lang Freer was intrigued by ancient Egypt. Between 1906 and 1909, he visited the country three times on his way to destinations further east. These voyages were crucial in nurturing his interest in ancient Egyptian art, which to him was the “greatest art in the world.” During these years, he acquired a range of works, including the renowned Washington Codex—one of the oldest Bibles in the world—a digital copy of which will be on view in the gallery. He also collected an exceptional group of New Kingdom Egyptian glass vessels, a Byzantine jewelry set, amulets, and hundreds of beads, many of which will be seen in this exhibition for the first time.

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Related Publication

A Collector’s Journey: Charles Lang Freer and Egypt

Author List: Ann C. Gunter
Publisher: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution
Publication Date: 2002

Drawing on a wealth of unpublished letters, diaries, and other sources housed in the Freer Gallery of Art Archives, this book documents Freer’s experience in Egypt and discusses the place Egyptian art occupied in his notions of beauty and collecting aims. The author reconstructs Freer’s journeys and describes the often colorful characters—collectors, dealers, scholars, and artists—he met on the way. Gunter also places Freer’s travels and collecting in the broader context of American tourism and interest in Egyptian antiquities at the time—a period in which a growing number of Americans, including such financial giants as J. Pierpont Morgan and other Gilded Age barons, were collecting in the same field.

Book cover of A Collector's Journey. Cover image: A sepia photograph of four men around a small circular table drinking tea. In the far distance, on the right of the cover, there are two pyramids and palm trees

Mosaic glass inlays, National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Freer Collection, Gift of Charles Lang Freer, F1909.486, F1909.487, F1909.488, F1909.490, F1909.493, and F1909.514

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