Writer, curator, and professor Benjamin Franklin March Jr. (1899-1934) studied, lectured, and wrote in the United States and in China, and through his works gained respect as one of the foremost authorities on Chinese art during the 1920s and 1930s. His papers, dating from 1923 to 1934, document his professional and personal life in the United States and in China and include lecture notes and outlines; research notes; diaries; scrapbooks; and photographs.

Papers, 1959-1987, of Elizabeth Gordon, editor of the periodical, House Beautiful from 1941-1964, mostly related to her research for the August and September 1960 issues of House Beautiful regarding the Japanese aesthetic concept of "shibui", and the subsequent travelling "shibui exhibition" from 1961-1964. Included are correspondence, some photocopies, 1959-1963; notes; drafts for articles and lectures; printed material including magazine and newspaper clippings, 1959-1987; 2 books, and exhibition announcements; drawings of paper and foil art; a photo album containing photos of exhibition installations; and photographs, slides, color transparencies, and lantern slides depicting people, sites, and objects reflecting the "shibui" aesthetic.

The Myron Bement Smith collection consists of two parts, the papers of Myron Bement Smith and his wife Katharine and the Islamic Archives. It contains substantial material about his field research in Italy in the 1920s and his years working on Islamic architecture in Iran in the 1930s. Letters describe the milieu in which he operated in Rochester NY and New York City in the 1920s and early 1930s; the Smiths' life in Iran from 1933 to 1937; and the extensive network of academic and social contacts that Myron and Katharine developed and maintained over his lifetime. The Islamic Archives was a project to which Smith devoted most of his professional life. It includes both original materials, such as his photographs and notes, and items acquired by him from other scholars or experts on Islamic art and architecture. Smith intended the Archives to serve as a resource for scholars interested in the architecture and art of the entire Islamic world although he also included some materials about non-Islamic architecture.

The papers, 1899-1962, of editor, lexicographer, author, and lecturer Everett Edward Thompson (1876-1962) primarily document his 1905 trip to Indonesia and subsequent lectures delivered from 1913-1919 and 1956. Portions of the papers are photocopies. Included are obituaries; a portrait photograph dated 1899; portions of a travel journal; announcements, notes, and 132 glass stereopticons assembled in preparation for lectures on Indonesia; a letter; printed material and clippings related to language and the Webster-Merriam dictionaries; and a handwritten copy of Irene Kuhn's 1961 news article on the early history of U.S. field teaching in the Philippines.

The Curt Maury papers, dating from 1953 to circa 1985, measure 12.7 linear feet and include writings and notes for planned and published books; travel files and expense ledgers for trips to India; photograph ledgers; and extensive photographs and slides of India.

The papers of Parisian jeweler and art collector Henri Vever (1854-1942) include six diaries; a ledger of his art acquisitions; original oil paintings by Vever; and photographs. The materials document Vever's circle of friends, patrons, and other art collectors in turn-of-the-century Paris.

Dwight William Tryon (1849-1925) was a noted American landscape painter whose painting style is associated with American tonalism. His paintings gained international recognition from the 1880s through the 1920s. Charles Lang Freer was his primary patron. Tryon taught art at Smith College and became head of the Art Department. The Tryon papers, dating from circa 1872 to 1930, document Tryon's professional and personal life and include correspondence, photographs, a sketchbook, and newspaper clippings.

Aschwin Lippe was a research fellow and later curator in the Department of Far Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The collection includes his early research and writings on East Asian art, particularly Chinese paintings. It has substantial material on his involvement in selecting the paintings and writing the catalog for the 1961 Chinese Art Treasures Exhibition. He later shifted his research focus to medieval Indian sculpture. The collection includes journals kept during several years of field research in India as well as his extensive photo-documentation of Indian temples and religious sculpture.

Photographs and negatives of Sonia P. and Hans C. Seherr-Thoss. Mounted and unmounted color slides, transparencies, black and white negatives, mounted prints, contact sheets, and a photograph, circa 1960-1968. The majority of images, taken by Hans C. Seherr-Thoss, appear in their publication, Design and Color in Islamic Architecture: Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey, published by the, Smithsonian Institution Press, in 1968. Countries depicted are Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The John Calvin Ferguson Family papers measure 6.4 linear feet, and date from circa 1850s to 1988, with the bulk dating from 1900 to 1945. The bulk of the papers consists of John Calvin Ferguson's personal, professional, and family correspondence, and correspondence between other members of the Ferguson family. The papers also include biographical materials; sermons, speeches, and writings by Ferguson and others; printed materials, both collected and given to Ferguson; and photographs, including five photograph albums.