O. M. Dalton and the Franks Bequest

Among Franks’ subordinates and successors was Ormonde M. Dalton (1866–1945). He inherited the responsibility for publishing a catalog of the museum’s early Christian and Byzantine antiquities. In the introduction to the 1901 catalog, Dalton complains that the study and understanding of Byzantine minor arts was still not very advanced. Later, his own research and publications would help to fill that lacuna, as he became one of the leading Byzantine art historians of the early twentieth century. He oversaw the catalog of the Franks Bequest.