The Collection at the BMA

Featured Works

Copy of the Roman glass Portland Vase (now in the British Museum) in slate blue-gray jasper with white jasper relief decoration, the two-handled vase in the shape of an amphora, one side shows on the left the image of a nude male emerging from an architectural structure and grasping the arm of a recumbent, draped female figure holding a sea serpent, above her is a flying Cupid holding his bow and arrows, to the right is a tree and a nude male figure resting his right leg on the stump, his chin in his right hand, which is resting on his knee; on the other side left is a draped male figure seated on a rocky structure next to a column, he looks over his shoulder to his left at a central figure, a draped, recumbent female, lying on the rocky base, looking slightly left and with her right arm reaching over her head, behind her and to the right is the figure of a draped seated male looking over his right shoulder at the central figure; underneath each handle is a bearded mask; the base with the image of a cloaked figure, head lowered, wearing a wrapped headdress, with right arm raised to face, in the background foliage. The white jasper used for the relief decoration has been given a blue tint prior to being pressed into the molds.

Portland Vase copy

Unframed diptych, two separate 40X32 inch photographs

Mary Parker and Caela Cowan

The Collection

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Glossy blackware bowl with Avanyu (water serpent) in raised relief within deeply carved recessed band around bowl; tongue of water serpent in shape of zig-zag terminating in arrow. Areas of the recessed band around Avanyu in matte black.

Bowl

Large "Gunboat Quilt" of brown silk taffeta, at its center an embroidered basket overflowing with appliqued flowers and two tiny strawberries and a small butterfly, surrounded by an embroidered wreath of similar flowers, like flowers adorn each of the four corners, the quilt front is divided by a geometric pattern of two vertical and two horizontal bands of small dark-blue taffeta squares, the back a medium brown polished cotton, the edges bound with blue taffeta.

Gunboat Quilt

Cake Basket

Large, cast iron tobacco box in the form of a seated, bearded Sir John Falstaff wearing sixteenth-century garb with a large belt and ruffled collar in a scene from Shakespeare's "Henry IV" (act 2, scene 4) in which Falstaff pulls his dagger and proclaims "…this chair shall be my state, this dagger my scepter…!" Falstaff is seated in an armchair whose armrests end in goat's heads, below the chair on either side is a bearded male mask; Falstaff's crossed feet rest on a small stool, the chair and stool rest on a base decorated with scrolls; his right arm is raised and his hand holds the handle of his dagger (the blade is broken off); his left arm rests on the chair's armrest while his left hand supports a long sword, which rests against his knee. The upper torso is hinged and opens to reveal the interior of the tobacco box.

Tobacco Box “Sir John Falstaff”

  • After a model by Johann Carl Wilhelm Kratzenberg, foundry Siméon Pierre Devaranne, or Royal Prussian Iron Foundry, Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • cast iron
Quirinus Stercke, Ferdinand Bol, oil on canvas

Quirinus Stercke

An enormous and complex multi-figure painting set in an African-American beauty salon/beauty academy. Mirrors in the painting are outlined in glitter, which Marshall applies to the surface in a gel medium. The painting’s unstretched canvas surface has grommets running along its outer perimeter. The painting hangs on screws threaded through the grommets. The composition ends just short of the support’s outer edges.

School of Beauty, School of Culture

Full-sized Kiowa cradle; buffalo hide beaded in a background of turquoise with stylized floral and triangle designs in colors of red, white, dark green, cobalt, and greasy yellow. Inside of cradle lined in mattress ticking. Separate hide pieces attached at the top of cradle and beaded with two diamond designs of the same colors as the cradle is tacked down to the boards with red painted round brass buttons and hide dangles with metal cones. Cradle is attached to thick boards with upper half painted in blue, red, and yellow and brass tacks following the color designs.

Cradleboard

Detached album leaf

Yomogyu (The Wormwood Patch), Tale of Genji: Chapter 15

Vertical canvas with white background towards bottom, dark gray background towards top. Covered uniformly with abstract markings in black and white derived from Ethiopic liturgical script (Ge'ez) and other alphabets, abstracted liturgical objects and abstracted visual references to African art. Moon at top of canvas. Passages of yellow, blue, green, and red paint throughout.

Words of Justice II

Male Polo Player on Horseback, from a Tomb Figure Procession