The fifth line in our image caption example reads "Josephine N. Hopper Bequest." This tells us that Soir Bleu was donated to The Whitney Museum of American Art as stipulated in the late Josephine Hopper's Last Will and Testament.
Josephine Nivison Hopper (1883-1968) was an artist who became Mrs. Edward in 1924. She made the decision to donate a massive number of Hopper's oils and works on paper to The Whitney because it had always been supportive of him, both as a museum and during earlier days when it was known as the Whitney Studio Club. She didn't want to part with these works during her lifetime, so that is where the word "Bequest" figures in.
There is a similar tale to be told any time you run across the words "Bequest," "Gift of" (especially when it is followed by "... in loving memory of ..." or "Purchase of" -- the last usually being appended with a Fund or Friends group name.
Now, aside from the good manners civilized people use when thanking generous other persons, there are other reasons that this line of an image caption is important.
First, every major donation has a contract attached to it. Adding this line to future captioning about the donated object is standard legal-ese.
Second, if this is included in the museum's captioning, it should be included in any reproduction of that object's image caption. Museum press departments do ask that this line, whenever applicable, is observed elsewhere when giving permission to use an image.
Finally, putting these very public "donor" lines out there for everyone to see certainly doesn't dissuade other, potential donors from doing the same. And donors make the art museum world go around, my friend. Were it not for donors, we'd have damned little art to look at in a mere handful of art museums. So, yes, let us always read this line of the caption and give thanks.
