With some 280,000 objects, the Harvard Art Museum is the largest university art museum in the United States. Its Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, and Arthur M. Sackler museums feature world-renowned collections of archaic Chinese jades and bronzes, Italian Renaissance paintings, and nineteenth-century art, along with remarkable holdings of prints, drawings, photographs, and Bauhaus and German expressionist works, making it one of the most distinguished museums in the world.

This first handbook of the collections surveys their full scope, from early-Egyptian bronzes and Chinese ceramics to contemporary paintings and prints. Familiar works by Pollock, Picasso, Dürer, Van Gogh, and other well-known artists are presented along with extraordinary Persian miniatures, rare photographic prints, important Greek coins, and African sculpture. Each work is fully illustrated in color and introduced with a brief, engaging text. This elegantly designed book not only offers an appealing and accessible presentation of some of the Harvard Art Museum’s most significant works, but also introduces readers to other resources at the Museums, such as the Straus Center for Conservation, as well as to the artist archives that are housed there.

Stephan Wolohojian is Landon and Lavinia Clay Curator and Head of Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts at Harvard Art Museum.