The collection is arranged as 8 series.
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the
Donated 1981 by Anthony N. B. Garvan and Phil Hoyt for the estate of Mabel Brady Garvan.
Francis Patrick Garvan papers, 1867, 1912-1953. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Francis Patrick Garvan (1875-1937) and his wife Mabel Brady Garvan were art collectors in the 1920s and 1930s, specializing in decorative arts and furniture. Professionally, Garvan was a lawyer who spent the majority of his career serving as President of the Chemical Foundation, to which he was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson. He maintained relationships with many prominent museums and galleries including the American Art Association, the Anderson Galleries, the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Over the course of his life, Garvan had amassed a collection of thousands of decorative and fine art objects. During his final years, Garvan arranged for the majority of his art collection to be donated to Yale University, his alma mater.
This collection processed to a minimal level and a finding aid created by Dominique Luster in 2014.
The papers of art collector Francis Patrick Garvan measure 44.9 linear feet and date from 1912 to 1953, with one document from 1867. The papers provide extensive documentation on the Garvan collection which included rare books, ceramics, glass, paintings, prints, and furniture. The majority of the collection consists of inventory records that give descriptive information regarding each piece in the collection; in many cases the files also include a photograph of the object. Also found are correspondence and subject files; auction records for sales at the American Art Association, Parke-Bernet Galleries, and Plaza Art Galleries; loan records; estate records; and a small amount of printed material, writings, and photographs. Approximately half of the Garvan papers were created posthumously by Mabel Brady Garvan and the managers of Garvan's estate.
Notable correspondence is with antique, art and rare book dealers, museums, curators, conservators, Garvan's employees, George Parmly Day, Andrew Keough, and John Marshall Phillips of Yale University regarding the 1930 gift of the [Mabel Brady] Garvan Collection to Yale, as well as the American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, Inc., Francis Bigelow, Robert Ensko, Richard T. Haines Halsey, E. Alfred Jones, Fiske Kimball, William Macbeth, Inc., Wallace Nutting, Richard W. Symonds, and others.
Found here is correspondence, object inquiries, and salse transactions with museums, curators, conservators, and other art dealers. Also included is correspondence with private individuals looking to buy decorative objects or furniture from Francis Garvan. A significant portion of the correspondence in this series regards the 1930 gift made to Yale University which included the majority of his art collection.
Oversized material housed in box 46.
Oversized material housed in box 46.
Includes letter from Fiske Kimball.
Oversized material housed in box 46.
Oversized material is housed in box 46.
Taylor, Henry H. Correspondence
Oversized Symonds, Robert W., from Box 9, Folders 1-32
Auction records include sales records, lists, and catalogues for auctions in which much of Garvan's collection was sold during the 1930s and 1940s. The auctions were held at the American Art Association, the Parke-Bernet Galleries, and the Plaza Art Galleries.
This series is arranged as 3 subseries.
This subseries is arranged in rough chronological order with respect to the original arrangement.
This subseries is arranged in rough chronological order with respect to the original arrangement.
Loan records consist of detailed lists and letters Garvan used to track all of the objects he lent to various museums, historic homes, or private individuals.
Oversized material housed in box 46.
Oversized material is housed in box 46.
Tapping Reeve House
Tapping Reeve House
Estate records include legal records, inventories, correspondence, item tags, and other documentation regarding the management of Garvan's estate. The majority of correspondence in this series belongs to George Corbett, Garvan's business partner and manager of his estate. Included are lists and ledgers complied by Corbett regarding various items in Garvan's collection.
Inventories document the thousands of pieces of decorative art and artworks Garvan bought and sold as a collector. The first section of this series is a set of inventory lists organized by Garvan's estate. These lists primarily contain the location information of each item; some lists also include price and brief physical description. The second section of the series consists of inventory files with photographs of the object. The files contain more detailed physical descriptions of the items as well as information regarding the style, source, rarity and present location and condition of the objects. These files were originally contained in leather bound binders. Garvan's collection is also documented in inventory cards. The inventory cards range from one-sentence descriptions to containing almost as much information as that found in the inventory files. At some point Garvan adopted a new numbering system for his inventory cards; this series includes both numbered and unnumbered cards.
Printed material includes art catalogues which range from small personal collections to those of considerable size and extent. Also found are art magazines and bulletins from various art or historical organizations. One item of note is an unbound copy of
Oversized materials housed in box 46.
Oversized materials housed in box 46.
This series includes a few excerpts of Garvan's writings on decorative arts.
The photographic materials includes contains photographs, negatives, and photograph albums of Garvan's collection. Not all negatives have existing prints. The series also includes a few family portraits of distant relatives to the Garvan Family.