Stanford University’s art museum began in 1894 as the Leland Stanford Jr. Museum, built from Leland and Jane Stanford’s wide-ranging collections of art and antiquities. Once considered the world’s largest privately owned museum, it suffered devastating losses in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and later decline, sales, theft, and dispersal. Revived from the 1960s onward, it gained a defining strength with the 1985 Rodin Sculpture Garden and now holds 199 works by Auguste Rodin. After major rebuilding following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the museum reopened in 1999 and today presents more than 38,000 objects while continuing to expand through major gifts and new initiatives.

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