Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown (1842–1918) was an American writer, collector, and curator of musical instruments. She is best known for her collection of musical instruments that she donated to the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

. She worked together with her son, who made the drawings used to illustrate her catalog of instruments.Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown's Collection Celebrates 125 Years at the Met
2014 blog post by the museum Beginning in 1889, she gave instruments to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The ''Crosby Brown Collection of Musical Instruments'', named for her husband

John Crosby Brown John Crosby Brown (May 22, 1838 – June 25, 1909) was a senior partner in the investment bank Brown Bros. & Co., founded by his family. Early life Brown was born on May 22, 1838 in New York City. He was the son of banker James Brown (1791–1 ...

, became one of the world's most historic and comprehensive collections of musical instruments. It started with an impressive donation of 270 instruments mostly from the Far East, Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific Islands in 1889 that were accompanied with the stipulation that she and her son could add to the collection and replace items with items of equal importance but superior quality. By the time she died, the collection encompassed 5 gallery rooms and had 3600 pieces. By the time her son died it held 4000 pieces.

Notable European instruments

File:Pianoforte Cristofori 1720.jpg, ''The oldest

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

'' was built in 1720 by

Bartolomeo Cristofori Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco (; May 4, 1655 – January 27, 1731) was an Italian maker of musical instruments famous for inventing the piano. Life The available source materials on Cristofori's life include his birth and death reco ...

and is a highlight of the musical instrument collectionListed as the oldest piano in the world in the Metropolitan Museum of Art guide and one of only 3 surviving pianos by Cristofori File:Rectangular Octave Virginal MET DT10869.jpg, The Rectangular Octave Virginal was built circa 1600 and is a highlight of the collection

Notable works

Musical instruments and their homes / by Mary E. Brown and Wm. Adams Brown ; with two hundred and seventy illustrations in pen and ink by Wm. Adams Brown. The whole forming a complete catalogue of the collection of musical instruments now in the possession of Mrs. J. Crosby Brown
digitized first 1888 copy of her catalog, presented prior to her gift, with 270 illustrations by her son
Catalogue of the Crosby Brown collection of musicians' portraits
Biographical sketches by Brown, Mary Elizabeth, 1842–1918, Buffum, Clara, 1873–1938, 1904
Alexander Brown and his descendants, 1764-1916
by Mary Elizabeth Brown, 1917

References

Sources

1970's article about the collection with illustrations

External links

* 1842 births 1918 deaths 19th-century American women writers American curators American women curators People associated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art 19th-century American writers Collectors {{US-writer-stub