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Fine Art Collection

The Fine Art Collection at the Tangier American Legation Museum consists of approximately 1,000 engravings, lithographs, watercolors, and oils as well as over 100 antique maps. Most of the water colors and oil paintings date from the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Many of the engravings date from earlier periods. The entire multinational collection was assembled through donations. The Museum itself is “a work in progress” developing outward and upward since 1821. Today this five story, 45 room complex artfully combines American, Moroccan, and Mediteranean architectural features creating an aesthetic “dialogue” with the fine art collection. The inspiration and unifying theme of the entire collection and of the Museum itself is Morocco.

The Museum’s diverse collection of 17^th to 20^th century art retraces Tangier’s historical function as a conduit between Europe and North Africa. The two main components are:

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The Angus Collection, donated by Donald Angus, a former resident of Tangier in the 1960s and 1970s. It consists of several hundred prints, paintings, and drawings from Germany, Holland, England, Italy, France, Spain, and Malta, dating from 1573 to 1913 depicting the cities of Tangier and Gibraltar, historical events, and portraits; and,

¨ The McBey Collection, donated by Marguerite McBey, the widow of the Scottish engraver and painter, James McBey. This collection, covering the period from 1901 to 1998 comprises 70 works by more than forty artists from 11 countries in a variety of media. Artists in the McBey collection include Oskar Kokoschka, Herbert Bayer, and James McBey. The collection also contains a water color by Emily Sargeant, the sister of John Singer Sargeant, and one of the Casbah by noted English photographer and set designer, Cecil Beaton.

Other items in the Museum’s collection include 37n antique maps, historical photographs, period furniture, and Morocco rugs.

Selections from the Museum Collection

William F. Draper was one of the foremost American portrait painters of the 20th century. Among his more than 700 portrait subjects were: Dr. Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic; Paul Mellon; Terence Cardinal Cooke; Celeste Holm; the jazz harpist Daphne Hellman; and President John F. Kennedy.
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