RICHMOND, VA.-Two early 20th-century Art Nouveau buckles - one French and another English, a striking 17th-century Indian watercolor, and a 1979 photograph by American Harry Callahan are among items added recently to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts collection.

The French buckle is by Lucien Gaillard (1862-1935) and was made in 1900 from carved horn and silver. It measures 3-3/8 by 2-1/8 inches. It is the first work by the renowned jeweler to enter the VMFA collection.

"Lucien Gaillard won a prize in the 1900 Paris Exposition for his metalwork, but, encouraged by his friend the great jeweler René Lalique, he soon turned his talents to the design and making of outstanding jewelry," says VMFA Director Alex Nyerges.

The museum's consulting curator for 20th-century decorative arts, Frederick R. Brandt, points out that Gaillard was known for his extraordinary use of horn, which he treated to give it a milky, iridescent glow, as is the case with the museum's acquisition.

"He is also known to have been influenced by Japanese design, with its emphasis on purity and nature," Brandt says. Gaillard won the first prize at the 1904 Paris Salon for his jewelry. Brandt says the museum's Gaillard buckle is one of only two of its kind known to exist.

The second buckle acquired by VMFA was created in 1903 by an unknown designer for the Guild of Handicraft, founded in 1900 in Birmingham, England. Made of silver and opals, it measures 2-3/4 by 1-1/8 inches.

"As with other English guilds founded at about the same time, members of the Guild of Handicraft thought the Industrial Revolution was devaluing arts and crafts and, in turn, the lives of people," Brandt says. "Thus they turned to individual workers and the skills of their hands."

The beauty of the silver in the buckle is enhanced, Brandt says, by the addition of eight opals. "This is an important, unique and rare example of the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft," he says.

VMFA owns the world's largest and most significant collection of Art Nouveau buckles and related jewelry. It represents a time when the belt and buckle became essential to fashion. The vast majority of the collection was assembled by Dr. Karl and Gisela Kreuzer of Munich.

The two buckles were purchased through VMFA's Sydney and Frances Lewis Endowment Fund. The VMFA buckle collection began with a 2002 gift-purchase arrangement with Dr. and Mrs. Kreuzer. The Kreuzers gave the museum 20 additional buckles and other Art Nouveau objects last month.

The museum's new Indian painting is a page from a "Rasikapriya" ("Lover's Breviary") manuscript. Dating from about 1660-1680, it was created in opaque watercolor and gold and measures nearly 11 by 7-1/4 inches. It is titled "The Bewilderment of Radha." The page illustrates a portion of the text that analyzes the emotions of lovers who are separated.

"This particular picture is from one of the greatest sets of 17th-century Central Indian paintings ever produced," says Dr. Joseph M. Dye III, the museum's curatorial chairman and E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art.

It was purchased with funds from VMFA's Robert and Ruth Fisher Endowment.

"Venice, 1957" is the title of the museum's new dye-transfer color photograph by American artist Harry Callahan (1912-1999). It was taken in 1957 and printed in 1979.

"This work extends VMFA's range of Callahan holdings by adding another subject matter - a street scene - that was critical to his overall body of work," says John Ravenal, VMFA's Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

The museum already owns three Callahan photographs. Two are landscapes and another is a portrait of his wife, Eleanor.

Callahan, known primarily for his black-and-white work, also made color images throughout his career. Much of his color work remained in slide format until the 1970s. The complex dye-transfer process used in making the print acquired by VMFA was highly valued by photographers and collectors for its rich color and relative permanence. Kodak, the company that made the paper and chemicals used in the process, stopped producing them in the 1990s.

A Detroit native, Callahan was inspired early on by the work of Ansel Adams. Callahan taught photography at the Institute of Design in Chicago beginning in 1946. In 1961, he joined the faculty of the Rhode Island School of Design, where he stayed until he retired in 1977. Photographer Emmet Gowin was one of his many students.

The photograph was purchased though the museum's Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund.

The museum's trustees also approved the acquisition of three photographs by Mike Smith (American, born 1951) and three photographs by Jen Davis (American, born 1978). Smith is a photography professor at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tenn., and Davis is a second-year MFA student at the Yale University School of Art in New Haven, Conn. The six photographs were purchased through the museum's Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is an educational institution of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The museum is on the Boulevard at Grove Avenue. The galleries are open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission to the museum is free, although there may be a fee for special exhibitions. For additional information about exhibitions and programs, telephone (804) 340-1400 or visit the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Web site, www.vmfa.museum.