Art - Faberge Eggs and More At Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum

I got to visit the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore over the holidays. I hadn’t been to the museum in about ten years, but it was having a display of Faberge eggs and other Russian artwork of the Romanov period that my wife and I wanted to see. I was reminded during the visit of the history of the museum and its founders William Walters and his son Henry.

Below is one the Faberge’s 50 eggs that were created. The Walters owns 2 of the 50 in existence and other elaborately enameled and jeweled pieces of the same era.

William, the father, went from a poor boy growing up in a Pennsylvania mining town to amassing his fortune through businesses in Rye whiskey and railroads during the first half of the 19th century. William began acquiring European artwork with his new found fortune. One piece that seems particularly timely right now given the popularity and rise of cryptocurrency is this painting of a Dutch lord protecting his rare tulip during the tulip mania of the 1630’s.

During the U.S. Civil War, he and his wife decided to sit out the war in Europe since apparently he had mixed loyalties. She unfortunately died while in Europe and he channeled his grief and his attention toward collecting arts and antiquities, including a Roman palace with 1,700 objects.

After the war, he and his children, including son Henry came back to Baltimore and in 1874 began showing their collection to the public. They first opened their house to the public on Wednesdays in April and May and donated the 50 cent admission fee to a local charity for the poor. Baltimorean’s loved being able to see his collection and it became an annual event in 1878. When William passed away, son Henry carried on collecting and acquired additional adjacent properties to open the Walters Art Museum. After Henry died, his will bequeathed the museum to the City of Baltimore “for the benefit of the public”.

One thing that struck me as I wandered the museum was how wealthy Walters was that he could travel the world in his private Pullman rail car or on the steam powered yacht that he owned buying things that caught his eye. One room that particularly made this evident was a richly wood paneled room that housed his collection of exotic animal trophies. In today’s sensibilities, a rich guy traveling the world killing exotic animals probably wouldn’t go over very well with the public.

After a 2006 grant for a year of free admission caused attendance to soar, the museum abolished its entrance fee permanently. It is an incredibly diverse collection including European impressionists such as Monet and Degas, Russian works such as Faberge, and ancient Roman, Greek, and Egyptian antiquities. If you are in Baltimore, it is definitely worth a visit.