Huntington Acquires Five Works Spanning Four Centuries, From Deruta Plate to Raqib Shaw

The Huntington has announced five new acquisitions funded by its Art Collectors' Council, spanning the 16th to the 21st centuries and ranging from a Renaissance majolica plate to Raqib Shaw's frozen self-portrait. The Los Angeles institution, which combines an art museum, library and botanical garden, selects the works annually on curators' recommendations. Each gift, the museum says, builds on existing holdings while forging connections with its library and garden.

What did the council buy?

The earliest is a 16th-century majolica plate (tin-glazed earthenware) made in Deruta, Italy, a ceramics center since the Renaissance. It is one of only 10 known Deruta dishes bearing verses by the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch, and it complements the library's rare editions of Petrarch's works.

The full list:

• A 16th-century Deruta majolica plate with Petrarch verses
• A nearly 10-foot hanging scroll of Mount Tai by Chinese painter Zhang Chenglong, c. 1600
• A floral still life by Jan Breughel the Elder, c. 1620
• A 1933 copper and gilt sculpture by Sargent Claude Johnson
• Raqib Shaw's Space Between Dreams – The Pragmatic Pessimist (2022–23)

The Zhang Chenglong scroll depicts Mount Tai, one of China's Five Sacred Mountains, and traces pilgrimage routes to the summit. Traditional landscape paintings of this kind inspired the Huntington's own Chinese Garden. The scroll will anchor a planned exhibition of Chinese garden paintings in 2029.

The Breughel still life — the painter was son of Flemish Renaissance master Peter Breughel the Elder — is the first European floral still life to enter the collection. Its circlet of flowers comes with imported luxuries: a string of pearls and a Japanese lacquer box. The botanical garden reference is not subtle. It is, presumably, the point.

Why does the Johnson sculpture matter?

The 1933 copper and gilt sculpture by California modernist Sargent Claude Johnson draws on West African traditional masks. It belongs to a body of work celebrating Black American life and beauty. The piece joins two Johnson works already at the Huntington, alongside Harlem Renaissance holdings by Charles White and Romare Bearden. Johnson was the subject of a Huntington survey exhibition in 2024.

How does the Shaw fit in?

Shaw's Space Between Dreams – The Pragmatic Pessimist (2022–23) shows the Kashmiri British artist in a vast frozen landscape, burning books for warmth. The work draws partly on Mughal miniature painting, and its inspiration also came from an unusual corner of the collection: the Huntington's 18th-century Beauvais tapestries. The gift reunites it with its companion piece, Space Between Dreams – The Perseverant Prophet, acquired in 2025. Companion pieces split across institutions rarely stay split when one holder controls the matchmaking.

What else arrived in 2026?

Beyond the council-funded purchases, the Huntington has received several direct gifts in 2026:

• A version of Robert Indiana's iconic LOVE sculpture
• Watercolors by American modernists including Joseph Stella and John Marin
• A pair of photograms (cameraless photographic images) by Abstract Expressionist Theodore Roszak

With the Shaw reunion secured and a 2029 Chinese garden painting exhibition on the calendar, the acquisitions show the council buying with the Huntington's whole ecosystem — museum, library and garden — in mind.