The Delaware Art Museum said Wednesday that it received three gifts totaling $1.7 million to fully endow a curator position for its Bancroft collection of Pre-Raphaelite art.
Two of the gifts to the museum were anonymous, while the third came from Peggy and Ed Woolard of Wilmington. The endowment will be called the Annette Woolard-Provine Endowed Curator of the Bancroft Collection in honor of the couple’s daughter, who is a current trustee of the Delaware Art Museum.
The endowment is the first in the museum’s history and its Chief Executive Officer, Mike Miller, says it is positive sign.
"We are delighted that three very generous donors chose to invest in the Museum and in the Bancroft Collection through this incredible joint gift," said Miller n a statement. "These gifts demonstrate the community's ongoing support and desire to see the Museum thrive."
The announcement comes a month after the Delaware Art Museum fully paid off more $19 million in bond debt, some of which came from the June sale of a Pre-Raphaelite work - William Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil. That 1868 piece sold at Christie’s in London for $4.25 million, far below Christie’s estimate of between $8.4 and $13.4 million. The museum also sold sold a second piece - Alexander Calder's "Black Crescent" - in a private sale for an undisclosed price to help pay its debt, along funds from the museum's investment portfolio.
The museum was sanctioned by the Association of Art Museum Directors and lost accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums for its decision to sell pieces.
The Bancroft Collection, which was given to the museum in 1935, is one of the largest collections of Pre-Raphaelite art outside of the United Kingdom.
This piece is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
