# Three Objects the Freer Name Covers, and the One Freer Owned

> Three objects in this archive carry the Freer name in three ways. One he bought and bequeathed, two were bought with his endowment 22 and 36 years after he died. A credit line is not a provenance.
> The Study - 2026-11-09
> Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/three-objects-the-freer-name-covers-and-the-one-freer-owned/

## Key points

- A Freer Gallery credit line can mean the collector owned the object or that a fund he left behind bought it. In this archive only one of three Freer objects was ever Freer's.
- The Freer Canteen was bought in 1941 and the d'Arenberg Basin in 1955, both with the Charles Lang Freer Endowment, 22 and 36 years after his death in 1919.
- The one object Freer did own, Whistler's La Princesse du pays de la porcelaine, cannot be lent, because the terms of his bequest keep the collection in the Gallery.
- The dealer Hagop Kevorkian sold the Freer its canteen in 1941 and sold the Cleveland Museum of Art its twelve-sided ewer in 1945, so the same hand sits behind two collections that look unrelated.

## The Freer name appears on three objects in this archive and means three things



## Whistler's Princess is the object Freer chose and owned



## The canteen came from a dealer 22 years after Freer died



## The d'Arenberg Basin was bought 36 years after the bequest and tells a thinner story still



## Why an endowment bought what the collector could not have



A collector's name on a credit line can mean he owned the object or only that he left money, and in this archive the second is twice as common as the first.

## Questions

**Did Charles Lang Freer own the Freer Canteen?**

No source consulted suggests he did. It was bought from the dealer Hagop Kevorkian in 1941 with the Charles Lang Freer Endowment, 22 years after Freer died in 1919.

**Can objects from the Freer Gallery be lent to other museums?**

The record for Whistler's Princess states that the terms of Freer's bequest prohibit it from being lent outside the Gallery. Wikipedia reports the same condition for the Gallery as a whole, so the Freer neither borrows nor lends.

**Who owned the d'Arenberg Basin before the Freer Gallery?**

It was in the Brussels collection of the Dukes of Arenberg by 1903, when it was shown in Paris. The record documents no owner between the 1910 Munich exhibition and the Gallery's 1955 purchase.

**What is the Charles Lang Freer Endowment?**

It is the fund created by Freer's bequest to buy further fine works of Oriental, Egyptian and Near Eastern art for the Gallery after his death. The canteen and the basin were both bought from it.

## Sources

- [1] Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, object record F1941.10, Canteen: credit line Purchase, Charles Lang Freer Endowment; provenance to Hagop Kevorkian, New York, purchased 1941 <https://asia-archive.si.edu/object/F1941.10/>
- [2] Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, object record F1955.10, D'Arenberg Basin, acquisition by purchase with the Freer Endowment in 1955 <https://asia.si.edu/object/F1955.10/>
- [3] Wikipedia, 'Freer Gallery of Art': the 1906 gift, the endowment, and the conditions on exhibiting and lending <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freer_Gallery_of_Art>