Robert Lehman Collection
Bequeathed in 1969, this remarkable private collection spans six centuries and includes Italian Renaissance panels, Dutch masters, French Impressionists, and decorative arts.
One family's eye, kept whole.
ost bequests dissolve into a museum's holdings; the Lehman collection entered the Met in 1969 on the condition that it stay together — so it survives as a portrait of a single, omnivorous taste, six centuries deep, assembled over two generations.
Within one collection you pass from Italian Renaissance gold-ground panels to a Tiepolo drawing and a Signac in pointillist color. The pleasure is double: the works themselves, and the mind that decided they belonged side by side.
