Harvard Art Museums acquire key additions to Asian collection

The Harvard University Art Museums are announcing today a major addition to their Asian art holdings. Harvard has acquired three Japanese Buddhist sculptures and more than 300 early Chinese ceramics from Walter C. Sedgwick , a San Francisco Bay area philanthropist and private investor. The sculptures and ceramics are coming as a partial gift and partial purchase.

``The Japanese sculpture is unmatched in an American collection," James Lally said in a telephone interview yesterday. Lally heads J.J. Lally & Co. Oriental Art , a leading New York gallery. And the ceramics ``would be impossible to duplicate," he said. ``There is no better collection in America or Europe."

Lally put a rough estimate of $8 million to $10 million on the total value of the pieces. Harvard said it was unable to give a precise monetary value on the acquisition.

Sedgwick, a 1969 graduate of Harvard College, said in a telephone interview yesterday that he made the gift, in part, as a tribute to John Rosenfield , a professor of Asian art at Harvard with whom he studied as an undergraduate, and Robert D. Mowry , Alan J. Dworsky curator of Chinese art and head of the Harvard museums' department of Asian art. Mowry helped Sedgwick assemble the collection.

``It was always my intention" to give the works to Harvard, said Sedgwick, who is the grandson of Ellery Sedgwick , a onetime editor of The Atlantic Monthly.

``If I had another $20 million I'm sure I could keep building the collection, but there comes a time to say, `This is a very good foundation. It's time to give it up.' It's not just for people to see. It's also the dissemination of knowledge, through teaching, studying, and cataloging of the collection. It's important to me that museums not just put art in the basement. That, to me, is a real difference between a university museum and a regular museum."

The acquisitions are ``exceptionally important," Mowry said in a telephone interview yesterday. ``We're thrilled to have the collection."

Mark Feeney can be reached at mfeeney@globe.com