Old world masters in new world collections

America's Gilded Age billionaires were engaged in a passionate quest to bring European artistic heritage to the New World. This illustrated 1905 volume by prominent art writer Esther Singleton documents that ambitious campaign, cataloguing the Old Master paintings that entered American private collections. Singleton provides school-by-school overviews of European painting traditions while offering focused entries on individual works, tracing their provenance through centuries of ownership. The book illuminates a pivotal moment in cultural history: when industrialists like J.P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, and Andrew Mellon competed to assemble collections that would rival any European museum. Particular attention falls on the dealers and agents who facilitated these transfers, especially Sir Joseph Duveen, whose eye for undervalued masterpieces transformed American taste. Singleton's approach privileges aesthetic appreciation over art historical heavy-handedness, emphasizing beauty over the martyrdoms and violence that populate so many Renaissance and Baroque canvases. This remains essential reading for anyone curious about how America became a major center for European art.