The Bashford Dean Memorial Tablet by Daniel Chester French

Metropolitan was transformed from an unimportant aspect of the Decorative Arts department into an active and independent department with world-class holdings and an international reputation for scholarship. In recognition for his services to the Museum, Dean had also been elected to the Board of Trustees in 1927. After his death, in what was a significant sign of respect for Dean's connoisseurship, the trustees raised funds among themselves to augment the Dean bequest by purchasing many additional items from his estate for the Museum's permanent collection. It was this private call for funds that prompted the sculptor Daniel Chester French, also a trustee, to contribute not money but another form of memorial for which he was uniquely qualified: a bronze bas-relief. As French recounted to the Museum's secretary, H. W. Kent, "when there was an opportunity given to the trustees to subscribe to the purchase of the Dean armor, I wrote to Mr. de Forest [Robert de Forest, president of the Museum] that I could not compete with my multi-millionaire associates, but that I should like to contribute the tablet in bronze in memory of Dr. Dean, to be erected in the Armor galleries."3 In addi-