'The time is opportune' The Swarzenskis and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston

The arrival of Georg Swarzenski at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston opened a formative chapter for one of the most significant medieval collections on American soil. In a tremendously ambitious enterprise, which would be continued by his son Hanns after his retirement, Georg Swarzenski amassed a collection of significant quantity and outstanding quality in a surprisingly brief span of time. While the highlights of medieval art that the two Swarzenskis brought to Boston have been catalogued in the past, this essay looks instead to the larger framework that informed the careers of these two men, examining how their European training, experiences, and connections inflected their work. Rather than representing the Middle Ages through objects that were typical of various styles and genres, the Swarzenskis displayed remarkable initiative in seeking out acquisitions of extraordinary significance for an institution that had previously devoted little attention to collecting medieval art.