The Brummer brothers, Joseph and Ernest, were art dealers with galleries in New York and Paris who collected decorative arts from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Pre-Columbian America, and the Baroque period. After Ernest's death in 1964, his widow, Ella Bache Brummer, donated The Brummer Gallery records to the Metropolitan Museum of Art which has made this digitized collection available. The majority of the collection is object cards, over 16,000, that describe items that the Brummers bought and sold. Cards include thumbnail photographs, buyer and seller names, purchase and sale prices, and some condition information. While this highly specialized collection is primarily of interest to art scholars, historians, and museum curators, the information on the cards is fascinating even for a lay audience. For example, card #N6040, a French Gothic chimney-piece, was purchased in 1944 from William Randolph Hearst for $7,500, and sold to the Metropolitan Museum in 1946 for $40,000.
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