Dates
Biography
One year after the CMA’s incorporation in 1913, the museum initiated a relationship with freelance art agent Harold Woodbury Parsons (he adopted his brother’s Christian name as a middle name). Parsons was living in Italy at the time, in a good position to scout and report on works for CMA’s first director, Frederic Allen Whiting. Parsons earned the support of the museum’s trustees through efficient acquisition of artworks in Europe at markedly reduced prices.
Parsons, born in Lynn, Massachusetts, claimed to be a graduate of Harvard University in the class of 1905, when in fact he attended the Lawrence Scientific School affiliated with Harvard for two unfruitful years. With an independent income, Parsons travelled in Europe to learn languages and develop his knowledge of art and its market. In 1910 he moved to Rome where he served as a freelance buyer in the world market for antiquities. His first museum client was the Fogg Art Museum, for whom he scouted and purchased a small number of works. In World War I he served with the Italian Red Cross. After eleven years with the CMA as a freelance agent, the museum appointed Parsons to a salaried position as European representative in 1925, which he held while headquartered in Boston with periods in Europe.
Parsons’s career at the CMA illuminates the history of collecting and the speed with which the museum developed its remarkable collections in the early twentieth century, evident from the extensive director’s correspondence in the CMA’s archives. Whiting and William Milliken, curator of decorative arts and acting curator of paintings, acquired major works of art for the museum through Parsons. One of the most celebrated works at the CMA, The Holy Family with Saint John and Saint Margaret, a tondo by Filippino Lippi, was purchased by Parsons for Milliken, who succeeded Whiting as director in 1930.
In July 1941 Parsons resigned from the CMA to continue his work for the Kansas City Art Museum and to serve as an advisor to the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha. Parsons had to leave Italy during World War II; he returned when expatriates were allowed to return in the spring of 1946. He formed a friendship with Pico Cellini, a specialist in art restoration and a ruthless exposer of fakery in Italy. While living in retirement in Rome, Parsons tracked down and exposed one of the notable art frauds of the twentieth century, proving that three huge terracotta Etruscan warrior sculptures long exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as works of the fourth century, B.C. were modern Roman rather than ancient Etruscan. With a signed confession from the forger, the Metropolitan admitted the sculptures were fakes in 1961. This earned Parsons some notoriety near the end of his life.
Parsons died in Rome in 1967, having controlled over $12,000,000 in works of art for several American museums.
-Biography by Anne Cuyler Salsich, 2/12/2025
Occupations
Found in 14 Collections and/or Records:
File — Box: 22, Folder: 6
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1914-1919
File — Box: 22, Folder: 1
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1923
File — Box: 22, Folder: 2
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1924
File — Box: 22, Folder: 3
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1922
File — Box: 22, Folder: 4
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1920
File — Box: 22, Folder: 7
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1925
File — Box: 22, Folder: 8
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1921
File — Box: 23, Folder: 4
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1913-1930
File — Box: 23, Folder: 3
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1913-1930
File — Box: 23, Folder: 6
Scope and Contents note
From the Series:
This is the largest series of records documenting Whiting's tenure as director of The Cleveland Museum of Art. Most of the series dates from 1913 to 1930, the years that Whiting was director, although a small percentage predates his arrival in Cleveland (see, for example, Henry Kent's correspondence with the building committee from 1912-1913, located in box 1). These records reflect a time when museum functions and departments were not yet fully delineated. Together, they...
Dates:
1913-1930
