The Toledo Museum of Art is one of America's great museums; its worldwide reputation is based on the quality of its extraordinary collections of art and their distinguished presentation in beautiful galleries. This volume, highlighting 129 of its masterpieces, provides a magnificent survey of world art history while representing the scope and quality of these collections.

Here are paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, and masterworks of decorative arts and architecture covering five millennia, from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome; through China, India, and Africa; to 1994 America. Especially well represented are the Museum's world-renowned treasures of the ancient Mediterranean world, Western European art from the Gothic period through modernism (including works by El Greco, Rembrandt, Rubens, Poussin, David, Van Gogh, Degas, Picasso, Beckmann, Brancusi, and Mondrian), and the United States.

Each of 129 works - several seen in multiple views - is illuminated by a brief, informative commentary prepared by one of eleven specialists affiliated with the Museum.

Toledo Treasures begins with a history of the institution, founded in 1901 largely through the efforts of Edward Drummond Libbey and Florence Scott Libbey (whose gifts and bequeathed funds remain responsible, nearly one hundred years later, for the bulk of the collections).

It relates the story of the Museum, its buildings, its leading benefactors and administrators, and its collections (including commissioned works), along with its programs in the fields of exhibitions, music, and education (including its relationship with The University of Toledo).