The European collection comprises more than 1,600 works of art that cover diverse media and span seven centuries of cultural and artistic production. Italian paintings feature prominently, thanks in large part to a foundational gift in 1961 of fourteen paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Additional acquisitions since then have allowed the MA&A to enrich its holdings with characteristic examples from some of the key developments in European Art. These range from small-scale medieval carvings in ivory and paintings with biblical narratives to works on paper that encompass a wide array of artistic styles and techniques.