New Portraits On Display At Rosenbach Museum

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The  Rosenbach Museum and Library is now displaying two portraits important as history and art.

The portraits of Rebecca Gratz (above) and her brother Joseph went on display yesterday. Curator Judy Guston says they came to the Rosenbach thanks to an anonymous donor whose generosity allows a great fit with the museum's mission:

"Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach was a great collector of Americana, so American history was one of his great focuses and he was also a great collector of early American Judaica, so the Gratz material fits into both of those areas of collecting here."

Guston says the portrait of Rebecca Gratz who founded the Hebrew school movement in the United States is a powerful work by Thomas Scully and so noteworthy from that standpoint too.  It may not have been displayed for the public since 1922.

Reported by John Ostapkovich, KYW Newsradio