Ellen V. Kloppman

On provenance & the public domain

A credit line — the small "Gift of…" note beside a work on a museum wall — records its provenance: how the object passed from a private hand into a public collection, whether as an outright gift, a bequest left in a will, the purchase from a named endowment, or an entire collection acquired at once. Because these works are in the public domain, anyone can study, share, and reproduce them freely. Browsing by provenance follows the human story behind a museum's holdings — the collectors and benefactors whose generosity put these works where the public can see them.

Every work in this catalog is in the public domain; images come from the museums that hold them.