GALLERY FIVE is devoted to the sculpture, rugs, tapestries, furniture, and miscellaneous objects which are included in the Altman bequest, although, owing to exigencies of space and arrangement, a few examples of each class of material will be found distributed through the other four galleries given over to the present temporary exhibition of the collection. In order, however, to avoid confusion in referring to those objects which are exhibited out of their order, they are grouped in the Handbook under the general divisions of material into which they fall, and are, therefore, included under the various headings of the following chapter. The numbering of the individual objects follows the order in which they are placed, each class of material being separately considered. Thus the visitor who uses the Handbook will in this room look first at all the sculpture, beginning with Mino da Fiesole’s marble bust of a priest at his right as he enters from GALLERY 4, passing next to the the Pilon portrait of Charles IX, at the left, and proceeding always in that direction until he is again at the point where he entered. Here the ‘numbering of rugs begins and the same order is followed as in the case of the sculptures. This order is again repeated with the miscellaneous objects, but the furniture is considered in groups rather than piece by piece.
Sculpture
AMONG the twenty-seven pieces of sculpture, all but six of which are shown in GALLERY 5, the Italian school has the largest representation, fifteen examples in all marble, terracotta, stucco, and bronze. Nine pieces are French, one is Dutch, one German, and one Roman. The Italian sculptures are of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the French, with one exception, of the eighteenth, while the other works fall into inter-mediate periods. As has been stated, the sculptures are treated individually in the following notes and are not grouped according to schools.