The Frick Collection is an art museum located in Manhattan, New York City, United States. It is housed in the former Henry Clay Frick Mansion, which was designed by Thomas Hastings and constructed in 1913-1914. John Russell Pope altered and enlarged the building in the early 1930s to adapt it to use as a public institution. It opened to the public on December 16, 1935. The Frick is one of the preeminent small art museums in the United States, with an extremely high-quality collection of old master paintings and fine furniture housed in 6 galleries that flow from room to room of the spectaular Fifth Avenue residence formerly occupied By Henry Clay Frick and his family. The paintings in the rooms are still arranged according to Frick’s design, although additional works have been bought by the Frick Collection over the years in a manner deemed to correspond with the aesthetic of the collection.
The Polish Rider and several other important Rembrandts are the jewels in the corwn of this outstanding collection. The Polish Rider is especially celebrated for having been one of several masterworks found in museums that were disattributed in the early days of its examination by the Rembrandt Research Project team. The Polish Rider is noteworthy as being re-attributed several years later by Rembrandt Research Project Chairman Erst van de Wetering who cites it as having been painted by the master in 1655 (with later additions by a follower).
