Ackland Art Museum Receives 7 Rembrandts from Alumnus

The Ackland Art Museum from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill received its largest gift ever from alumnus Sheldon Peck and his wife Leena, valued at $25 million, including 7 Rembrandt drawings. With the Peck Collection gift, the Ackland becomes the first public university art museum in the United States to own a collection of drawings by Rembrandt and only the second university art museum in the nation to do so. The masterworks are a major collection of Dutch and Flemish drawings built by the Pecks over the last four decades. Along with the Rembrandts, the collection includes nearly 100 17th-century Dutch landscape, genre and figural compositions by artists such as Aelbert Cuyp, Jan van Goyen and Jacob van Ruisdael. A group of 15 18th- and 19th-century Dutch drawings is also part of the collection. One of the Rembrandt drawings in the collection bears an inscription in the artist’s own handwriting, which until this donation was the last known drawing with such an inscription remaining in private hands. With their gift, the Pecks aspire to offer the public a deeper appreciation for the Dutch masters’ celebration of beauty in the everyday.