The Philadelphia Museum of Art is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The museum administers collections containing over 240,000 objects including major holdings of European, American and Asian origin. Following the example of London's South Kensington Museum, the new museum was to focus on applied art and science, and provide a school to train craftsmen in drawing, painting, modeling, and designing. The Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art opened on May 10, 1877. (The school became independent of the museum in 1964 and is now part of the University of the Arts). The museum's collection began with objects from the Exposition and gifts from the public impressed with the Exposition's ideals of good design and craftsmanship. European and Japanese fine and decorative art objects and books for the museum's library were among the first donations. Starting in 1882, Clara Jessup Moore donated a remarkable collection of antique furniture, enamels, carved ivory, jewelry, metalwork, glass, ceramics, books, textiles and paintings. The Countess de Brazza's lace collection was acquired in 1894 forming the nucleus of the lace collection. In 1892 Anna H. Wilstach bequeathed a large painting collection, including many American paintings, and an endowment of half a million dollars for additional purchases. Works by James Abbott McNeill Whistler and George Inness were purchased within a few years and Henry Ossawa Tanner's The Annunciation was bought in 1899.

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Selected Items from This Collection

• Lace and Embroidered Scarf
• Uncut Embroidered Fan