David Rockefeller Donates $2.5 Million, Art to RISD Museum

David Rockefeller Donates $2.5 Million, Art to RISD Museum

David Rockefeller has donated $2.5 million to the RISD Museum in order to fund the Museum's collection of decorative arts and design. Rockefeller has also promised gifts of decorative artwork from his estate that includes European furniture, porcelain, and Silver. 

"I am very pleased this gift will provide the Museum with a new gallery, but, more importantly, it will complement the innovative educational program the Museum has recently established. My family and I are very excited about the gift and its potential impact," said Rockefeller.

The RISD museum's decorative arts and design collection is heavily used by faculty and students at RISD, Brown and other nearby colleges with a wide appeal from visitors. 

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"With this generous gift, David Rockefeller continues his family's nearly century-long relationship with the RISD Museum, once again making important and lasting contributions to the Museum and Rhode Island," said John Smith, the Director of the RISD Museum. 

"Of particular note is a pair of mid-18th-century soft-paste porcelain River Gods made by the French Vincennes manufactory," Williams says." These are extremely rare---- possibly one of only two extant pairs---- and hold special meaning, as they were obtained by Mr. and Mrs. Rockefeller from the collection of David's aunt, who displayed them in her Providence residence."

Mr. Rockefeller's promised gift of about 43 works includes rare furniture and decorative arts from England, silver objects used for dining and entertaining, and figurative and functional European porcelain.

"We are thrilled that Mr. Rockefeller has chosen to share treasures from his collection with us," Smith says. "Their beauty and rarity will add immeasurably to our already impressive collection of decorative arts and design, and fill voids---- particularly in our collection of English works---- with objects of a quality we could never otherwise hope to acquire."

Objects such as the intricately decorated "Rockefeller Service," collected over many years by Mr. Rockefeller's parents, John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, will significantly expand the Museum's existing holdings of Chinese exportware porcelain. The Qing Dynasty Rockefeller Service, which numbers more than 120 pieces, is considered one of the finest examples of famille rose Chinese exportware services.

The promised gift also includes a pair of elaborately carved gilded mirrors in the Rococo style, measuring a monumental height of more than seven and a half feet; a pair of George I burr walnut armchairs, each with a tapestry seat and five cabriole legs; a pair of brilliantly hued Korean wedding chests with detailed paintings of various animals, representing Daoist, Confucian, and folk symbolism; and a Tang dynasty figure of a standing court lady, featuring a rare deep blue glaze. This eighth-century ceramic figure was a prized possession of Mr. Rockefeller's mother, and was later displayed in Mr. Rockefeller's office at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.