{"id":3582,"date":"2014-02-07T15:25:09","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T20:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/?p=3582"},"modified":"2014-02-07T16:33:02","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T21:33:02","slug":"porcelain-figures-from-browns-monument-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/porcelain-figures-from-browns-monument-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Porcelain Figures from Brown\u2019s Monuments Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Porcelain figures originally commissioned by John Nicholas Brown II (1900\u20131979) are <a href=\"https:\/\/news.brown.edu\/events\/detail\/2013\/12\/06\/pdresden-and-nymphenburg-porcelains-anne-sk-brown-military-collectionp\" target=\"_blank\">currently on exhibit at the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. library<\/a> through April 25, 2014. Brown II was a civilian-status Lieutenant Colonel, Special Cultural Advisor for Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) in Europe toward the end of World War II \u2014 as well as husband to collector Anne\u00a0Seddon Kinsolving\u00a0Brown, the founder of the Library\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/collatoz\/info.php?id=27\" target=\"_blank\">military art collection<\/a>\u00a0(a substantial part of which has been <a href=\"https:\/\/repository.library.brown.edu\/studio\/collections\/id_619\/\" target=\"_blank\">digitized for online viewing<\/a>). While the 21 porcelains currently on\u00a0display\u00a0in the library were not salvaged works per se, they were commissioned by Brown in 1945 while he was a \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/mmf.greatesttheft.com\/monumentsmen\/bio.php?personID=35\" target=\"_blank\">monuments man<\/a>\u201d in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonypictures.com\/movies\/themonumentsmen\/\" target=\"_blank\">movie\u00a0opening on February 7, 2014<\/a>, directed by George Clooney\u00a0and\u00a0loosely based on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.monumentsmen.com\/books-movies\/the-monuments-men\" target=\"_blank\">historical<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.randomhouse.com\/book\/121563\/the-rape-of-europa-by-lynn-h-nicholas\" target=\"_blank\">accounts<\/a>, the \u201cmonuments men\u201d have been making a resurgence in both popular media and the cultural heritage community: from features in the <em>New York Times<\/em> (re: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/02\/02\/arts\/design\/not-all-monuments-men-were-men.html?_r=0\" target=\"_blank\">monuments women<\/a>, as well), to educational reference resources showcasing the retrieved artworks (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.scholarsresource.com\/browse\/image_set\/987\" target=\"_blank\">Scholars Resource set\u00a0featuring 111 salvaged works<\/a>), to recent commentaries by associated museums (\u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.metmuseum.org\/about-the-museum\/now-at-the-met\/2014\/in-the-footsteps-of-the-monuments-men\" target=\"_blank\">In the Footsteps of the Monuments Men: Traces from the Archives at the Metropolitan Museum<\/a>\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>The image shown below, a porcelain commissioned by John Nicholas Brown II\u00a0in late 1945 while serving with MFAA, was taken by Digital Production Services for the library&#8217;s exhibition publicity. Curator Peter Harrington describes the context of its commission:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"font-size: 93%;\"><p>While John Nicholas Brown was working with the allied forces in Germany in 1945 reporting on stolen art works, he visited the factory at Nymphenburg in Bavaria and ordered 21 porcelain figures for his wife, Anne S. K. Brown. Subsequent additions to this set came from the Dresden porcelain factory. Today these porcelains form a unique segment of the foremost American collection devoted to the history and iconography of soldiers and soldiering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_9896-2.jpg\" width=\"725\" height=\"1024\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Porcelain figures originally commissioned by John Nicholas Brown II (1900\u20131979) are currently on exhibit at the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. library through April 25, 2014. Brown II was a civilian-status Lieutenant Colonel, Special Cultural Advisor for Monuments, Fine Arts, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/porcelain-figures-from-browns-monument-man\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-anne-s-k-brown-military-collection","category-exhibits","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3582"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3609,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3582\/revisions\/3609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}