REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 35 



Following a letter from Mr. Kress to the President of the United 

 States, advising him of the gift, President Roosevelt replied as 

 follows : 



My Deas Mr. BIeess: Tour decision to present to the people of the United 

 States your priceless art collection is in keeping with the broad spirit of the 

 Congress in establishing the National Gallery of Art, primarily as the home of 

 the Mellon Collection. It has been the hope of those who have the welfare of 

 the National Gallery at heart that other private gifts would supplement the 

 treasures included in Mr. Mellon's Collection. 



I am, therefore, most grateful for your letter of July 1st, in which you 

 embody a letter to the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Art, 

 setting forth the generous terms of your proposed gift. Not only are the 

 treasures you plan to bestow on the Nation incalculable in value and in interest, 

 but in their bestowal you are giving an example which may well be followed 

 by others of our countrymen, who have in their stewardship art treasures 

 which also happily might find a home in the National Gallery, 



I feel that your proposed donation is a decided step in the realization of the 

 true purpose of the National Qallery. 

 Very sincerely yours, 



(Signed) Fbanklin D. Roosevelt. 



The collection was gratefully accepted by the Board and will be in- 

 stalled in special rooms and settings before the formal opening of 

 the Gallery. As can be seen from the list which is attached to this 

 report, almost all the important Italian masters from the thirteenth 

 through the eighteenth centuries are represented, and in the opinion 

 of experts no other private collection and very few museums can 

 illustrate in so complete a manner as Mr. Kress' collection the de- 

 velopment of the Italian school of painting during the Renaissance 

 period. Indicating the high value placed on the Kress collection by 

 experts in the field of art. Sir Kemieth Clark, Director of the Na- 

 tional Gallery of Art in London, made the following observation after 

 seeing the collection: 



There can be no doubt that it is one of the most remarkable collections of 

 fourteenth and fifteenth century Italian art ever formed. It is very compre- 

 hensive, containing masters hardly represented in any other American collec- 

 tion ; and Mr. Kress has managed to assemble a number of real masterpieces of 

 a kind one had supposed no longer available. 



Other well-known authorities and experts, such as Dr. Wilhelm 

 Suida, Count Contini Bonacossi, of Florence, Prof. Roberto Longhi, 

 F. Mason Perkins, and Bernard Berenson have all publicly praised 

 the quality and scope of this magnificent collection. 



The paintings and sculpture in the Kress collection will be exhibited 

 in such a way as to show both the growth of the different schools — 

 Florentine, Sienese, Central Italian, North Italian, and Venetian — 

 and the chronological development of Italian art as a whole. With 

 Mr. Kress' collection and the paintings and sculpture donated by Mr. 

 Mellon, the National Gallery will immediately become a center for the 



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