MIĘDZY ZNAWSTWEM A WIEDZĄ. HISTORYCY SZTUKI JAKO KOLEKCJONERZY W XX W. – WYBRANE PRZYKŁADY
BETWEEN CONNOISSEURSHIP AND KNOWLEDGE. ART HISTORIANS AS COLLECTORS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY – SELECTED EXAMPLES

Summary/Abstract: It is worth recalling a unique group of collectors with academic education in the history of art orwith professional experience in this area, who, thanks to their knowledge and research, wereable to search for unrecognised works of art, determine the time of their creation and makeattributions, introducing many fields to the repertoire of art history research issues.The article briefly presents the development of the practice of connoisseurship in the field ofart from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Against this background, the figures of fourtwentieth-century century art historians who created art collections in the field of art of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries were recalled. The first to be presented was Denis Mahon(1910–2011), an art historian and collector, specialising in Italian Baroque paintings. Hiscollection today as The Sir Denis Mahon Foundation is deposited in several British museums.Another presented is John Pope-Hennessy (1913–1994), one of the twentieth century’s mostinfluential and prominent British museum professionals and art historians. An expert in modernItalian sculpture, he created a collection of paintings, drawings, and decorative arts to furnishhis flats. The Pope-Hennessy collection was dispersed after his death, although some itemsended up in museum collections. Pierre Rosenberg (born 1936) has been described as thenext collector-cum-art historian. Former director of the Louvre, as a researcher and collector,he specializes in the French art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He donated hiscollections to the future Musée du Grand Siècle, which is due to open in Saint-Cloud in 2026.The last one presented was Andrzej Ciechanowiecki (1924–2015), a Polish art historian, artdealer, and donor. Ciechanowiecki lived and worked in London, between 1961 and 1995 heran three galleries: Mallet at Bourdon House, Heim Gallery and Old Masters Gallery. He created art collections in three fields: Polonicas, sculpture, and French oil sketches. He donated his collectionof Polonicas and sculpture to the Royal Castle in Warsaw, and the collection of Frenchoil sketches was dispersed in 2000.

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