Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Maine: Long Term Loan
Since 2019 the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) has been the recipient of over 100 objects from the Wyvern Collection on long term loan. The arrival of the Wyvern Collection loan has presented an opprtunity for the Bowdoin College faculty to come together with the curatorial staff of the BCMA and have acted as a resource for teaching, research, scholarship and public engagement.
The objects on loan have featured in numerous exhibitions at the BCMA. From August 2020 to February 2021 a selection of the loan objects were presented in the exhibition 'New Views of the Middle Ages: Highlights from the Wyvern Collection', which was accompanied by an online exhibiton and a catalogue. Further objects from the loan were also featured in the exhibition 'The Presence of the Past: Art from Central and West Africa' from August 2020 - December 2021, with an accompanying online exhibition.
In June 2024 the loan was renewed until 2027 with a revised selection of objects from the collection. A small selection of the objects currently on loan to the BCMA are shown below.
“With a collection dedicated for over two centuries to enhancing the education of Bowdoin students, the Museum’s holdings now consist of nearly 25,000 objects, ranging in medium, time period, and geographic origin. The loan from the Wyvern Collection meaningfully strengthens the Museum’s offerings in medieval and Renaissance art, while reinforcing its historic and continued commitment to object-centered teaching and learning.” - Frank Goodyear, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.
"The Wyvern Collection not only provides outstanding examples of art from the Medieval and early Renaissance era-in addition to select masterworks from antiquity and later periods-but also puts those works into a global context. Ethiopian devotional paintings, for example, will expand our ability to demonstrate the cultural exchange between Africa and the broader Mediterranean world during this period in the pre- and early modern era. As the only transhistorical and transnational museum in our region and as part of a leading liberal arts college, the Wyvern Collection enables the Museum to share with our public an expanded view of historic global communication and cultural exchange." - Museum Co-director Anne Collins Goodyear
