private collection

A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual or organization, either for temporary exhibition or for the long term. This source is usually an art collector, although it could also be a school, church, bank, or some other company or organization. By contrast, collectors of books, even if they collect for aesthetic reasons (fine bookbindings or illuminated manuscripts for example), are called bibliophiles, and their collections are typically referred to as libraries. History Art collecting was common among the wealthy in the Ancient World in both Europe and East Asia, and in the Middle Ages, but developed in its modern form during the Renaissance and continues to the present day. The royal collections of most countries were originally the grandest of private collections but are now mostly in public ownership. However the British Royal Collection remains under the care of the Crown, though distinguished from the private property of the British Royal Family. The cabinet of curiosities was an important mixed form of collection, including art and what we would now call natural history or scientific collections. These were formed by royalty but smaller ones also by merchants and scholars. The tastes and habits of collectors have played a very important part in determining what art was produced, providing the demand that artists supply. Many types of objects, such as medals, engravings, small plaquettes, modern engraved gems and bronze statuettes were essentially made for the collector's market. By the 18th century all homes of the well-to-do were expected to contain a selection of objects, from paintings to porcelain, that could form part of an art collection, and the collections of those who would normally qualify for the term had to be considerably larger, and some were enormous. Increasingly collectors tended to specialize in one or two types of work, although some, like George Salting (1835-1909), still had a very wide scope for their collections. Apart from antiquities, which were regarded as perhaps the highest form of collecting from the Renaissance until relatively recently, and also books, paintings and prints from the late 15th century onwards, until the 18th century collectors tended to collect fairly new works from Europe.