The Chrysler Museum of Art’s Glass Collection
The Chrysler Museum of Art holds one of the largest and most comprehensive
collections of glass in the world, with more than 10,000 glass objects spanning 3,000
years. The foundations of the collection were established by the early 1950s with a
significant bequest of New England Glass Company glasses from the estate of Norfolk
resident Florence Smith. In 1971, Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. donated more than 8,000
works of glass to the Museum, establishing the collection as a place of pilgrimage for
glass scholars and enthusiasts. Major gifts of English cameo, 20th-century Italian, and
contemporary glass continue to diversify and strengthen the collection well into the 21st
century.
The Chrysler Museum has collected the best examples of the glassmaker’s art across
all ages. Significant early glasses include the 1st-century A.D. Ennion bowl, fine
Baroque engraved glasses, and a selection of 16th-century Venetian glasses. Twothirds of the Chrysler’s glass collection is American, with outstanding holdings in earlyand mid-19th-century pressed glass and American art glass made by companies such
as the Mt. Washington Glass Company. Our Tiffany collection is world-famous and
nearly comprehensive in the area of blown glass, and also contains splendid mosaics,
windows, and lamps. French glass is another major area of strength, with magnificent
glasses made by nearly all major makers including Baccarat, Gallé, Daum, Walter,
Marinot, Argy-Rousseau, and Lalique. Our English cameo glass collection, while small,
is stellar, containing John Northwood’s Milton Vase and several masterpieces carved by
Thomas and George Woodall.
Virtually all of the Chrysler’s collection of major studio and contemporary glass has been
acquired since 1990. The range of artists and techniques represents the very best in
contemporary glass, and includes artists such as Howard Ben Tré, Harvey K. Littleton,
William Morris, Karen LaMonte, Toots Zynsky, Lino Tagliapietra, and Stanislav Libenský
and Jaroslava Brychtová.
-30-