SAN MARINO, CA.- The Huntington has added five significant works spanning the 16th through 21st centuries and a range of media to its Art Museum collection. The acquisitions deepen established areas of the collection while introducing new artists, histories, and perspectives. They create new opportunities for research, interpretation, and connections across The Huntington’s art, library, and botanical collections.

“These acquisitions reflect our commitment to building on the strengths of The Huntington’s collections while broadening the histories and artistic traditions represented within them,” said Christina Nielsen, Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Museum at The Huntington. “Our growing audiences value the historical masterpieces we steward for future generations, as well as the opportunity to experience them in conversation with art of our own time by some of today’s most significant artists.”

This year marks the 32nd anniversary of The Huntington’s Art Collectors’ Council, whose support enables the Art Museum to acquire curator-recommended works that strengthen the collection and expand the stories told in the galleries.

Jan Brueghel the Elder, A Still Life with a Tazza, a Garland of Flowers, and a Jewelry Box, ca. 1620

Jan Brueghel the Elder, a pioneer of the European floral still life, brings together flowers, jewelry, coins, glass, lacquer, and other luxury objects with extraordinary precision in this work from about 1620. Roses, carnations, marigolds, pansies, and other blooms encircle an ornate gilt tazza, while imported objects, including a Japanese lacquer box and pearls originating in the Americas, reflect Flemish global trade networks.

The painting will be the first European floral still life to enter The Huntington’s collection. Its botanical imagery creates natural connections with the Botanical Gardens, while its representations of gems, luxury materials, and an early watch complement the Library’s holdings in the history of science. The work will become a cornerstone of the reinstalled Dutch and Flemish gallery in the Huntington Art Gallery.

Deruta Workshop, “Bella Donna” Charger, ca. 1505–1520

This Renaissance bella donna (“beautiful woman”) charger was produced in Deruta, Italy, a leading center of maiolica ceramics. Made of tin-glazed earthenware with cobalt blue and lustrous decoration, it depicts an idealized woman in profile and belongs to a group of only 10 known Deruta dishes bearing verses by the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch.

The acquisition strengthens The Huntington’s holdings of Italian Renaissance ceramics while creating connections across the collections. Its profile portrait complements Domenico Ghirlandaio’s Portrait of a Woman, and its Petrarch inscription relates directly to the Library’s more than 100 rare editions of the poet’s works.

Zhang Chenglong, Mount Tai, Lofty Marchmount, ca. 1600

This monumental hanging scroll by Chinese painter Zhang Chenglong depicts Mount Tai in Shandong Province, one of China’s Five Sacred Mountains and a site of imperial ritual for more than two millennia. Created in about 1600, the nearly 10-foot-tall painting leads viewers through temples, villages, waterfalls, groves of ancient cypress trees, and pilgrimage routes toward the mountain’s summit.

The acquisition significantly strengthens The Huntington’s growing collection of Chinese paintings, and its focus on garden and landscape imagery connects to the traditions that inspired The Huntington’s Chinese Garden. The work is also planned as a centerpiece of an exhibition of Chinese garden paintings at The Huntington, currently scheduled for spring 2029.

Sargent Claude Johnson, Untitled (mask), 1933

Sargent Claude Johnson’s Untitled (mask) is a hand-hammered copper sculpture that draws on West African artistic traditions while celebrating Black American identity. Created in 1933, the mask combines an abstracted copper surface with gilded details that lend its subject a sense of elegance and regality.

Featured in The Huntington’s 2024 exhibition “Sargent Claude Johnson,” the sculpture joins two works by Johnson already in The Huntington’s collection—Organ Screen and Head of a Boy—as well as other important works from the Harlem Renaissance era, including significant pieces by Richmond Barthé, Charles White, and Romare Bearden.

Raqib Shaw, Space Between Dreams – The Pragmatic Pessimist, 2022–2023

Raqib Shaw’s monumental tapestry Space Between Dreams – The Pragmatic Pessimist depicts the artist sheltering in a fantastical frozen palace as he burns books for warmth and polar bears gather on melting ice. The richly detailed scene reflects Shaw’s concerns about climate change while drawing on artistic traditions ranging from Mughal miniatures to Renaissance and baroque history painting.

Created for The Huntington’s 2024 exhibition “Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West,” the tapestry was inspired in part by the institution’s historic Beauvais tapestries. Its acquisition reunites it with its companion work, Space Between Dreams – The Perseverant Prophet, acquired in 2025.

Other Significant Gifts of Art in 2026

In addition to works acquired through the Art Collectors’ Council, The Huntington has acquired Robert Indiana’s LOVE, one of the most recognizable works of postwar American art, as a gift for its permanent collection. The monumental sculpture will be installed near the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art and unveiled to the public before the end of the year.

The Huntington has also received several important gifts in 2026 that further enrich and broaden the Art Museum’s holdings.

Highlights include:

• Watercolors by important American artists, such as Joseph Stella and John Marin

• Works by seven founding members of New York’s American Abstract Artists: Ilya Bolotowsky, Werner Drewes, Burgoyne Diller, George L.K. Morris, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Gertrude Greene, and Vaclav Vytlacil

• Two early photograms by Theodore Roszak

• William Wendt’s The Interview (1929)

• Johannes Swertner’s Outside Haarlem at the Baan (Buiten Haarlem bij de Baan) (1763), the first work by Swertner to enter The Huntington’s collection, and the first representing the city of Haarlem

• 68 pieces of British silver from the 18th and 19th century