The hungtiongton Art Gallery offers a fascinating interplay of the elegant and the domestic. The collection is one of the most distinguished in America within its area of specialization - British and french art of the eighteenth century - and the variety of its holdings brings this period vividly to life. In the historical period represented, bounded by the dates of the American and the French revolutions, the art of England and France was the accepted standard of the day, and the eighteenth-century-style interiors of the former Huntington residence provide a worthy setting, evoking the surroundings in which the works of art were originally seen.

 The majestic Sarah Siddons, Painted by Reynolds as the Tragic Muse, is the focal point for the most grand effect of all: the Main Gallery with its constellation of splendid portraits. This group of twenty pictures, including major work by Gainsborough, Romney, Lawrence and Raeburn, is perhaps the finest garhering of full-length Britsh portraits to be found anywhere. Amongst the paintings, dating from about 1770 to 1800, are two of the most famous and beloved images at the Huntington, Pinkie and The Blue Boy. In this gallery the grand gesture and rhetoric of exhibiton portraiture mingle with the domestic, the personal. Mrs siddons is regal, her pose and massiveness reminiscent of Michelangelo's sibyls. But near her, karl Friedrich Abel (chamber musician to Queen Charlotte) sits quietly at his work of composing, supprised by his friend Gaindborough; his viol rests on his knee, ready to run throuth the next passage; at his feet his very appealing dog is watchful, resting but with eyes open. The room is worth an afternoon of study and reflection, observing these contrasts and appreciating the virtuosity of the painters.

 Landscape is another area of Brirish painting handsomely represented in the collections, with works including Constable's View on the Stour near Dedham and Turner's Grand Canal Venice: Shylock. Also on view are the small-scale group portraits called "conversation pieces" by Hayman, Devis, and Wheatley, genre pictures with animals by stubbs, Marshall and Morland, and more than a hundred portrait miniatures from the sevenyeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, those delightful keepsakes painted on vellim or ivory to be exchanged among friends. All the major practitioners are included, from Hilliard and Oliver to Cosway aand smart.

 More than twelve thousand British drawings and watercolors, the work of about five hundred artists, enrich the Hungtington holdings still further: Blake, Rowlandson, Gainsborough, Turner and Constable are well represented. Selections are always on view in changing exhibitions, drawn from one of the most impressive collections of British draftsmanship to be found outside of London. Landscape, portrait, and narrative subjects (expecially comic drawings) are included in these simple, lively, and fresh samll picures.

 A Limited but reoresentative collection of British sculpture has recently been assembled and displayed, comprisong mainly portrait busts, and a further addition of the last few decades has been several hundred pieces of British silver, covering the wide span from the late fifieenth to mid-nineteenth centries. These appealing objects combine usefulness-in, say, a marrow spoon or a cream jug-with the rich luster and workmanship of elegant old silver. Surrounding and enhancing these throughout the building are British period furniture and other decorative and Wedgwood ware, including the eighteenth-century pine paneling encompassing the Quinn Room, these pieces round out the comprehensive view of Georgian art to be enjoyed at the Huntington.

 Continetal European art provieds a rich counterpart for these arts of England. In the Arabella Huntington Memorial, a special collection displayed in the Library building, are a number of Italian Renaissance paintings by minor masters, and a few works by flemish artists including an outstanding. Madonna and Child by Roger van der Weyden. The Memorial also comprises ornamental Severs proecelain, French furniture with its highly elaborate surfaces of marquetry of gilt bronze. and an outstanding collection of French eighteenth-century sculpture. Other French decorative arts are found in the main Art Gallery, including more handsome furnitture, ranging from the eococo style to the more restrained neo-classic. Clocks. candelabea, and other objects the revolution. Grandest in scale are the ten Beauvais tapestries wovwn from designs by Boucher, and in complete contrast are some tiny personal possessions, a collection of snuffboxes made of gold, enamel and gems.

 Perhaps most highly prized of the Continental pieces are the Renaissance bronze statuettes, a small collection but of remarkable quality, among which the works by Giovanni Bologna and his followeres are particularly noteworthy. These delightful little objects from sixteenth-century Italy were made for private enjoyment in study of an admirer. Here they invite the Huntington vissitor to linger for a closer look, to marvel at their fineness and rich patina.

 In 1978, the huntington received a major bequest which has become the Adeles. Browning Memorial. The gift consisted of French, British, Italian, Dutch and Flemish painting, and otherwise complemented in many ways the materials already here. Among the artists represented are Watteau, Boucher, and Fragonard, Romney, Hoppner, Canaletto, Rembrandt, and Van Dyck. The paintings are shown as a unit in for adjoining galleries, and they form a delightful excursion into Continental seventeenth and eighteenth-century art.

 An even more recent gift, also of enormous importance, is the Virginia Steele Scott collection. The collection consists of fifty American paintings, carefully chosen by professionals in field to represent the best of American art from about 1730 to 1930. Most of America's "old masters" are included: Copley, West, and Stuart for the early period; Sully, Bingham, Allston and many others for the nineteenth century; brilliant examples by Sargent and Cassatt from the end of the nineteenth century and, from the early twentieth century, fine characteristic works by artists such as Bellows, Hopper, Wood and kuhn. These pictures will be housed in a separate gallery become even more closely linked, as the former has since its inception centered on Anglo-American civilization.

 Beyond the walls of the galleries, a wide variety of sculpture and architectural ornaments are to be found in the gardens. Little temples, statues, urns, benches, and especially the fountains-all lend a particular grace to the landscape setting. Notable examples are the thirty-one stone figures of the seventeenth century, brought from a villa garden near Padua, and now flanking the broad North Vista lawn; the Italian baroque fountain at the end of that vista; for bronze statues after classcical originals, now beside the entrances of the Library building.

 The holdings of the huntington Art Gallery are continually growing, both through gifts and through purchase. The essential character of the collection, however, remains the same, allowing for a depth and internal harmony unmatched in most museums. But new treasures are constantly being added, pieces closely related in period or style to the original focus. The most up-to-date conservation work is carried out on pieces in need of attention. The regulations governing the huntington forbid lending works of art, so the treasures can be seen at first hand only by vistors to the gallery; however, high quality reproductions are available for the continued study and pleasure of the thousands who come each year. the collection id made more accessible for the public by an active program of talks, tours, and publications, and the scope is further widened by performances of music, dance, and drama related to the collection which add lively reflections in these sister arts.

 The huntington Art Gallery offers to the public a sense of history, a host of beautiful thing to see, and the intellectual pleasures of contrasts and suprises. But the most abiding recollection taken away by visitors may be the memory of a face: houdon's gentle Sabine, with her hint of an archaic smile; spirited Pinkie, touching us with her simple, direct gaze; Van Dyck's proud lady; or the memorable Abel, harmonies crowding into his head while his friend, out of sight' works away at this canvas.

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