Thomas Gold Appleton

Appleton, a Harvard graduate and wealthy son of a textile manufacturer, was a member of the MFA's first board of trustees. He also served as a trustee for the Boston Public Library and Athenaeum, and was a major contributor to the building of the Copley Square museum. While abroad, he became friends with artist Constant Troyon. As a collector, Appleton was interested in Greek and Etruscan objects, as well as Barbizon paintings. His bequest to the MFA in 1884 included three Troyons,( Landscape Near Dieppe, Sheep and Shepherd in a Landscape, and Oxen Ploughing), Theodore Rousseau's Landscape with a Peasant Watering her Cows, Diaz's Turkish Cafe, as well as paintings by Constable, (Rochester Castle), Bonington, Tintoretto, (The Assumption of the Virgin), and Vedder, (The Lair of the Sea Serpent). In 1877, he published anonymously a companion guide to the museum, encouraging the MFA to add more paintings to its collection. He bequeathed many objects to his nephew, Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow, who later gave them to the MFA upon his death.