This art gallery was started by Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, and she had quite an interesting history. She was born into a poor family, the fifth of six children. She got a job as a nude model at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art. Later on she sued a guy by the name of Charlie Anderson for deflowering her. Then she met Adolph Spreckels and fell in love, apparently genuinely. Because he was twenty-four years older, she called him "daddy" and because he was filthy rich from the sugar industry, she called him "sugar daddy", supposedly the origin of the term. Well, Adolph was diagnosed with syphillis, that he aquired before their marriage; she was never infected. Alma went to Europe many times and particularly liked art. So, at the end of World War I, when France was desperate for money, she bought a huge collection of artworks for pennies on the dollar. They decided to put it in a museum and built the present one, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, which overlooks where the San Francisco Bay joins the Pacific Ocean. Adolph died a few months earlier.
The entrance
Note the Golden Gate Bridge at the bottom of the picture.
A Rembrant.
This one is by Rubens.
One by the impressionist Monet.
A period room.
The Legion has a good porcelin collection.
An excellent piece of furniture.
