Cynthia Saltzman's 'Old Masters, New World' Explores Gilded Age American Collectors' Acquisitions of European Art

Cynthia Saltzman's 2008 book 'Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures' examines how a small group of wealthy Americans amassed significant European art collections between the Civil War and World War I. Key figures include Henry Gurdon Marquand, J. Pierpont Morgan, the Havemeyers, Henry Clay Frick, and Isabella Stewart Gardner, who collaborated with experts like Bernard Berenson and Roger Fry. Their acquisitions formed the foundations of major institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Saltzman details the financial motivations behind these purchases, noting that collectors often sought to transform industrial wealth into cultural prestige and legacy. Henry James observed that impoverished European aristocrats sold art to newly rich Americans. The Havemeyers, friends with Mary Cassatt, acquired unfashionable Spanish art, while Frick focused on portraits and landscapes, avoiding nudes. Frick's collecting is portrayed as a calculated effort to reshape his public image following the 1892 Homestead Strike, where Pinkerton agents killed striking workers. Despite his attempts, local newspapers later revealed lingering public resentment. Saltzman's narrative avoids moralizing, instead presenting the aesthetic and social dynamics of this era. The book spans 352 pages, published by Viking Penguin in New York.