A Singular Step: Freer’s Purchase of the Hanna Collection

Charles Lang Freer’s purchase of the Henry Bathurst Hanna collection of Indian paintings in 1907 can seem an anomalous, almost incidental acquisition in the career of a collector whose interests for the most part lay elsewhere. Its peculiarity makes it an intriguing episode, and one that but for the presence of some remarkable pieces might arguably be relegated to a footnote in the annals of Freer’s wide-ranging and more extensive areas of collecting. A clearer picture of his motivations comes into focus, however, by considering his pursuit of the collection within the broader range of his own experiences, his milieu, and the prevailing cultural context. This article situates Freer’s interest in a particular collection of Indian art—understood narrowly at the time as concomitant with Mughal painting—against the background of the long presence of India in the United States, the growth of interest in Eastern culture and spirituality in late nineteenth-century New England, the beginnings of the appreciation of the aesthetic value of objects from India in the early twentieth century, and the burgeoning market and place for non-Western works in art museums in metropolitan cities, including the one that Freer had committed to establishing. In so doing, one may better understand the importance he placed on the acquisition of the collection, which would be a singular step that initiated a place for India within fine art museums in the United States.