{"id":40243,"date":"2026-05-17T12:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T16:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/?p=40243"},"modified":"2026-05-17T12:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T16:47:10","slug":"40243","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/visualization\/40243\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Exploring The Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of art<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I returned to The Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Open Access database as part of Creative Commons Zero initiative. Rather than limiting myself to objects depicting a particular theme or person, I wanted to explore the composition of a set of objects by a specific donor: would a single donor typically give works of a specific time period, or medium? Would the artworks be from the same general location? And how would a larger donor collection be categorized departmentally?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Robert Lehman Collection – a single donation of approximately 2,600 objects – was the perfect data set. Following a struggle with scientific data and mapping, this dataset was appropriate as I hold a Bachelors in Art History and have worked at the Met on the museum’s collection database. Additionally, this 1975 bequest – which at the time of gift was the largest donation in the museum’s history – was almost entirely accessible within the open access download. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Click the title image above to read the 1969 New York Times article announcing this “spectacular gift.” Grace Glueck, September 26, 1969, “Lehman Art Collection is given to the Metropolitan”, The New York Times. N.b. you may need to be logged into your NYTimes account to access this resource.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

Great art should not remain a personal joy<\/em>1<\/a><\/sup><\/sub><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Robert Lehman (1891-1969)<\/em>. Courtesy The Robert Lehman Foundation 2026<\/a>. <\/h6>\n\n\n\n

The raw dataset contained over a 20 columns and needed to be processed: clean up was performed in Excel Power Query and Open Refine, particularly using cluster and edit functions. Although the collection is in Robert’s name, the family’s art collection originated with his parents, Philip and Carrie Lehman. Often touted in press and promotional materials for its rich holdings of European works, particularly Italian masters, I first wanted a general make-up of the collection. Flourish.Studio was used for this first visualization based on the count of objects by object name (a looser categorization of objects than medium at the Met.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The composition of the Robert Lehman Collection in bubble chart, where larger bubbles indicate higher counts of unique objects. A custom colorway was generated from the HEX codes of Tiepolo’s self portrait and his son Giovanni Domenico’s drawing of Leda, two works found in the Lehman Collection. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to view the artwork composition alongside some basic artist information. A quick horizontal tree diagram in Tableau was surprising: after excluding objects that had empty or null attribution of any kind, the top five “artists” included a large set of Chinese works that accounted for the sizable holdings of dishes, vases, bowls, and plates:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

No mention of the Chinese holdings are made on the Met’s webpage describing the Lehman Collection, nor are any Chinese attributed works included in their “highlights from the collection<\/a>” section. Although the works may not be significant curatorial features, a mention of their existence would be expected as they comprise such a large part of the collection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I reinterpreted the artist attribution data as a chart in Tableau, again excluding nulls but this time also excluding the indefinite “Chinese” attribution to find the top named artists in the collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The top named artists where work is attributed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Image cards with text overlays constructed in Floursih.Studio include images by each artist found in the Robert Lehman Collection and the artist biographical column data. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, I wanted to see whether the Lehman Collection holdings were limited geographically. With Nationalities included in the dataset, I found a .csv file from github that listed nationalities and their corresponding countries and country codes for mapping purposes. For those that could not be identified by an XLOOKUP function in Excel, I manually reviewed the artist biographical data and culture columns to determine the appropriate county. Most Italian objects needed the country manually entered as the curators at the Met appropriately attributed objects to their historical Italian city-state rather than modern “Italy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note: where determinations were inappropriate, country was left blank. For example, certain objects had only the culture of Fa\u00e7on de Venise<\/em> noted – which is a historical type of glassware creation that could range from Venice through the European lowlands up through the United Kingdom, depending on the date. As the map is intended to provide the viewer with a the global scope of the Lehman Collection, unclear objects were marked unknown and excluded from this visualization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Above is the geographical distribution of objects in the Robert Lehman Collection. Where nationality was empty or an appropriate correlating nation determination was inappropriate, this data was left blank. The size of the mark indicates the number of unique objects attributed to artists with the given nation. In the detail below right, the user’s tool tip provides country data and a count of objects. On this map, we can see the scope of Chinese attributions as it’s plot point size is smaller only to Italy and France. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It would be interesting to perform the same types of visualizations on other major donors within the Met’s open access collection. Whereas there are multitudes of research and visuals about artists and movements, donor and credit line information are rich for potential story telling and could provide additional perspectives about the museum’s holdings. <\/p>\n\n\n

  1. Robert Lehman, as quoted in the recent exhibition, From Impressionism to Early Modernism: Collectors of Light \u2013 the Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nov-14-2025 ~ Mar-15-2026. National Museum of Korea. https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-xl\/news\/other\/robert-lehman-collection-makes-historic-seoul-debut\/ar-AA1QrY5r#:~:text=Continue%20reading<\/a> \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Exploring The Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of art I returned to The Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Open Access database as part of Creative Commons Zero initiative. Rather than limiting myself to objects depicting a particular theme or person, I wanted to explore the composition of a set of objects by a specific…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4625,"featured_media":40246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[{\"id\":\"4b35ce11-43c9-4fab-88ab-ea607085f5c5\",\"content\":\"Robert Lehman, as quoted in the recent exhibition, From Impressionism to Early Modernism: Collectors of Light \\u2013 the Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nov-14-2025 ~ Mar-15-2026. National Museum of Korea. https:\\\/\\\/www.msn.com\\\/en-xl\\\/news\\\/other\\\/robert-lehman-collection-makes-historic-seoul-debut\\\/ar-AA1QrY5r#:~:text=Continue%20reading<\\\/a>\"}]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1916],"class_list":["post-40243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visualization"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/Top-5-named-artists-1.png?fit=2364%2C442&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/saBdcV-40243","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4625"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40243"}],"version-history":[{"count":55,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40382,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40243\/revisions\/40382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40243"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/infovis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=40243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}