Ken Thomson was no mere trophy gatherer. A man of passionate commitment and of wide-ranging cultural curiosity, the late Lord Thomson of Fleet (1923–2006) began a half-century of collecting in 1953 and continued to the very end of his life.
 
The Thomson Collection has drawn the respect of museum curators worldwide. In terms of quantity and quality, the Collection’s body of Canadian art has no equal; and a number of works, principal among them The Massacre of the Innocents, the masterpiece of Rubens’s early maturity, are of truly international significance. As the most important private art collection in Canada, it will hugely extend the holdings of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Amongst its European works is the fabulous 12th-century Malmesbury reliquary casket, an extraordinary selection of medieval ivories, and a fine group of portrait miniatures. A large and varied group of ship models is an intriguing facet of the Collection.