VIENNA.- The Belvedere’s exhibition of more than sixty works from the Museum Langmatt in Baden near Zurich showcases one of the most important private collections of French Impressionism in Europe.

General Director Stella Rollig: Jenny and Sidney Brown were creating their collection at the same time as international acquisitions were being made for the Modern Gallery in Vienna, the predecessor institution of the Belvedere, thereby adding a core collection of Impressionist art to the museum’s holdings. It is therefore a particular pleasure that the Belvedere was one of only three international museums selected to display the treasures of Langmatt while the Swiss museum is being renovated.

Jenny and Sidney Brown started building up their collection of French Impressionism in 1908, a time when artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Paul Gauguin were not yet widely acclaimed. Paul Cézanne’s still life Peaches, Carafe, and Person, for example, was the first painting by the artist to enter a collection in Switzerland. Collecting such a wide range of Impressionist art of such high quality was made possible by the family fortune and Sidney’s position as technical director of the global electrical engineering group Brown, Boveri & Cie.

The Museum Langmatt’s collection is remarkable both because it was amassed so early on and as it reflects the personalities of the collectors and shifts in cultural-political interests, said curator Alexander Klee.

Jenny and Sidney Brown rarely loaned works to exhibitions during their lifetimes, the collection’s quality and scope remaining largely under the radar as a result. Sidney’s death in 1941 brought an end to their collecting; Jenny survived her husband by twenty-seven years and died in 1968. Yet even after their deaths, works from their collection were hardly ever on public display. This was to change in 1987 when John Alfred Brown, their last surviving son, bequeathed Villa Langmatt with its park, exquisite interior, and, above all, collection of French Impressionist paintings to the city of Baden. The Art Nouveau Villa Langmatt was not only a residence but also a platform for a family’s passion for art. Since 1990 it has been open to the public as the Museum Langmatt.