# The Buyer in the Credit Line Was Already Dead > Thirty-two objects in this archive were bought on the income of six named endowment funds, and in every case the person named had died before the purchase. What a credit line records and what it hides. > The Study - 2026-09-15 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/the-buyer-in-the-credit-line-was-already-dead/ ## Key points - Thirty-two of the 273 published records here were bought, in whole or in part, on the income of one of six named endowment funds at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art. In every one of the thirty-two the person named in the credit line had died before the purchase. - The Rogers Fund bought the Negroli helmet in 1904 and a Bugatti desk chair in 1970. Jacob S. Rogers, a locomotive builder from Paterson, died in 1901 having, in the Museum's own account, cared little for art and owned no art objects of any value. - Rogers' will forbade the Museum to touch the principal. Only the income was to be used for the purchase of rare and desirable art objects, and by 1904 that income was already over 200,000 dollars a year. - Isaac D. Fletcher made the Museum his residuary legatee under the eighth clause of his will in 1917, an estate the Museum's Bulletin put at unquestionably over 3,000,000 dollars. The Fletcher Fund bought a bronze horse in 1923 that the Museum later condemned as a forgery and then reinstated. - A credit line records the fund and the year. It does not record the price, the seller or who decided. The Museum's own entry for The Harvesters calls its 1919 price extraordinarily low and does not give it. ## A credit line names the money and not the decision ## Thirty-two records here were bought with a dead man's income ## Jacob Rogers owned no art, and his name has bought art for a hundred and twenty years ## Fletcher wrote his collection into a gallery and his residue into a fund ## Dick and Munsey show that the fund outlives the collection it arrived with ## Cleveland has one fund made in a donor's lifetime and one made at his death ## What the credit line hides is the price, the seller and the decision ## How to read a fund in a credit line ## Why this archive is free to read A credit line is the most quoted line on a museum object and the least understood. It records a pool of money and a year. It is silent on the price, the seller and the decision, and the name it carries belongs, in every case in this archive, to someone who was dead before the object arrived. Copy it exactly, cite the will behind it where you can read one, and never let the name stand in for a buyer. ## Questions **What does a museum credit line like Rogers Fund, 1919 actually mean?** It names the endowment fund whose income paid for the object and the year the object was accessioned. It does not name a buyer in the ordinary sense, and it does not record the price, the seller or the people who decided to buy. Jacob S. Rogers died in 1901 and The Harvesters was bought on his fund's income in 1919. **Who was Jacob S. Rogers and why is his name on so many Met objects?** He was president of the Rogers Locomotive Works in Paterson, New Jersey, and died on 2 July 1901 leaving the Metropolitan Museum of Art the residue of his estate, roughly 5,000,000 dollars plus real estate. His will allowed only the income to be spent, on rare and desirable art objects and library books, which is why the Rogers Fund has bought objects continuously from 1903 to the present. **Was the person named in a fund alive when the object was bought?** In this archive, never. Across thirty-two records bought on six named funds, the namesake had died between six and eighty-six years before the purchase. The Bugatti desk chair was bought on the Rogers Fund in 1970, sixty-nine years after Rogers died. **Does a credit line tell you what a museum paid?** No. The Metropolitan Museum's own entry for The Harvesters calls the 1919 price extraordinarily low without giving it, and the prices of The Fortune-Teller in 1960 and The Musicians in 1952 are not published. A credit line records the source of money, not the amount. **What is the difference between Bequest of Isaac D. Fletcher, 1917 and Fletcher Fund, 1923?** The first is an object Fletcher owned and left to the Museum in his 1917 bequest. The second is an object the Museum bought later with income from the residue of his estate, which his will's eighth clause left to the Museum. The Bulletin of November 1917 put that residue at over 3,000,000 dollars. ## Sources - [1] Jonathan Bloom, This Weekend in Met History: July 2, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Perspectives, 1 July 2011. Read in full 15 September 2026. Source for Rogers' death on 2 July 1901, the roughly 5,000,000 dollars plus real estate, the will's income-only clause, the 200,000 dollar income by 1904 and the first purchase of 23 January 1903. - [2] Robert W. de Forest, The Notable Bequest of Isaac D. Fletcher: His Solution of the Museum Problem of Conditional Gifts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 12, no. 11, November 1917, pp. 216-218. Read on JSTOR 15 September 2026. Source for the 251 objects, the residuary estate of unquestionably over 3,000,000 dollars and the eighth clause of the will. - [3] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Drawings and Prints, department history. Read 15 September 2026. Source for the 1916 acquisition of more than thirty-five hundred etchings from Harris Brisbane Dick, the fund for additional purchases and the hiring of William M. Ivins Jr. - [4] Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Case Western Reserve University, entry Wade, Jeptha Homer II. Read 15 September 2026. Source for the dates 15 October 1857 to 6 March 1926, the presidency from 1920 and the purchasing fund of more than 1,000,000 dollars. - [5] Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Case Western Reserve University, entry Severance, John Long. Read 15 September 2026. Source for the dates 8 May 1863 to 16 January 1936 and the collection valued at over 3,000,000 dollars left to the museum. - [6] The Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum History. Read 15 September 2026. Source for the Severance Fund among the bequests of the 1940s and 1950s. - [7] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access Collection API, object 435809 (The Harvesters, Rogers Fund, 1919), object 480706 (Bugatti desk chair, Rogers Fund, 1970), object 251268 (bronze horse, Fletcher Fund, 1923), object 436838 (The Fortune-Teller, Rogers Fund, 1960), object 437869 (Juan de Pareja). Credit lines read directly from the API 15 September 2026. - [9] New-York Historical Society, William Thompson Dewart collection of Frank A. Munsey and New York Sun papers, biographical note, hosted by NYU Special Collections. Read 15 September 2026. Source for Munsey's death in December 1925 and the bulk of his estate passing to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. - [8] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection record for Jean-Francois Raffaelli, The Fletcher Mansion, New York City, 17.120.228, credit line Mr. and Mrs. Isaac D. Fletcher Collection, Bequest of Isaac D. Fletcher, 1917. Read 15 September 2026.