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One of the earliest collegiate art collections in the United States, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) was established through the 1811 bequest of James Bowdoin III of 70 paintings and 141 drawings. Included in this founding gift were significant holdings of Dutch and Flemish artworks from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Since that time, the BCMA has continued to acquire Netherlandish art through purchase and donation, and the collection has been enhanced through particularly important gifts by David P. Becker, Bowdoin College Class of 1970; Susan Dwight Bliss; Amanda Marchesa Molinari; and Charles Pendexter. Today, the BCMA stewards approximately 700 Dutch and Flemish prints, drawings, paintings, medals and plaquettes, and decorative arts dating from ca. 1500 to 1800. With a particular strength in works on paper, the Museum’s collection encompasses portraits, still lifes, genre scenes, figure studies, landscapes, maps, and more by artists such as Rembrandt van Rijn, Hendrick Goltzius, Claes Cornelisz. Moeyaert, Jan van de Velde II, Leonard Bramer, and Jacobus Houbraken. These artworks are frequently incorporated into the Museum’s longterm collections-based installations and temporary exhibitions, which are always free and open to all. As an academic museum, they are also regularly used for teaching and research by Bowdoin College faculty and students, as well as scholars from outside the College.
Cassandra Braun, Curator (April 2024)