private collection
Owner's exclusive holdings
A private collection is an assemblage of objects—art, books, memorabilia, specimens—owned by an individual or family rather than an institution.
The term often implies items of value acquired through personal passion or connoisseurship: The painting came from a private collection in Switzerland.
Private collections may eventually become public through donation or sale to museums.
- bookBound written work
- old mastersHistoric European artists
- art dealerBroker of creative works
- auction houseFirm conducting competitive sales
- rare booksUncommon valuable printed works
gallery · personal property · cataloging · acquisition · confidentiality · provenance · inherited · exclusive access · hidden treasures · authentication · connoisseur · by appointment only · curation · bequest · tax shelter · climate control · security measures · amassed
- collectionscollections, anthology, anthologies, compilation, compilations
- art spacesart gallery, art museum, gallery, art studio, sculpture garden
- Japanese poetrywaka, tanka, haiku, senryu, hokku
- paintingsoil paintings, watercolors, acrylics, tempera, gouache
- art worldartist, painter, painting, paintings, sculpture
- auctionsauction, bidding, bid, auctioneer, auction house
private collectionmuseum collection
Institutional assemblage of artifacts
public gallery · lending library · public museum · national museum · commons
private collectionmuseum
Public exhibit space
public museum · state museum · library collection · public institution · Smithsonian