The Print Collection of Bishop Monrad (1811-1887)

Abstract

This thesis examines the Bishop Monrad print collection, which was given to the nation in January 1869. Bishop Ditlev Gothard Monrad (1811 -87) was a bourgeois intellectual and collector of European Old Master prints. His life and career in Denmark are discussed, as well as his three years as a settler in New Zealand (1866-69). The strengths of the Monrad Collection lie in the works of the sixteenth-century German and seventeenth-century Dutch schools. The latter is particularly well represented, and the group of works by Rembrandt includes some fine impressions. This is the first detailed and documentary history of the Monrad Collection. Based on archival and other unpublished sources, this research dispels many of the myths surrounding the history of the care and display of the collection in New Zealand. An archaeological investigation has identified the works that formed Monrad's original collection. These include an important group of twenty-nine prints which were long believed missing from the collection. A group of twelve works that had been erroneously integrated into the Monrad Collection have also been identified. Evidence uncovered during this research has been used to reconstruct parts of the albums in which Monrad stored his collection of prints and identify the systems by which his collection was organised.