ftbe Pennsylvania Hcabemy of tbe jflne Hrts Hrt (Salleries of Hmerica Series t w S3 Each, one volume, octavo, profusely il- lustrated with full page plates in duo- gravure. Per volume, cloth decorative, boxed. $3.00 Per volume, three-quarters levant mo- rocco, boxed. $7.00 Gbe Brt of tbe /Ibetropolitan Museum of IRew 10ork BY DAVID C. PREYER ttbe Boston Museum of tffneBrts BY JULIA DE W. ADDISON Gbe Pennsylvania BcaOemy of tbe jfine Bets BY HELEN W. HENDERSON 1 S3 S3 S3 S3 1 S3 S3 S3 L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. S3 PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON ( see page 81). (The Lansdovrnc Portrait .) By Gilbert Stuart. fje Pennsylvania gleatremy of tyt Mint ®ets 3no ot^er Collections of p^tlaDelptya Including the Pennsylvania Museum, the Wilstach Collection, and the collections of Independence Hall and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. By Helen W, Henderson Illustrated Boston L. C. Page & Company mdc cccxi Copyright, jgu By L. C. Page & Company (incorporated) All rights reserved First Impression, November, 1911 Electrotyped and Printed by THE COLONIAL PRESS C. H. Simonds 6* Co., Boston, U. S. A. THE GETTY CENTER LIBRARY TO Gbomas IP. Bnsbut3 PAINTER THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED AND DEDICATED Introduction The scope of the present volume is limited to the more important of the public collections of Phila- delphia, with particular stress upon the historic portraits, in which they are extremely rich. It aims to give some idea of the artistic material in the city, produced by that galaxy of resident artists, whose presence, fostered by the court of Washing- ton, caused Philadelphia, in her early days, to be looked upon as the Athens of America. In Colonial and Revolutionary times, and during the early history of the Republic, Philadelphia was the metropolis of the New World, the centre of its cultivation and learning. The city claims, also, the distinction of having been the birthplace of art in this country, for here was born, on Janu- ary 22, 1720, James Claypoole, the first native American painter of whom we know, and in 1756, William Rush, the first native born American sculp- tor. Still earlier, in 1711, Gustavus Hesselius had come to Philadelphia, from Sweden, and to him was given the first public art commission in this coun- try. This was the painting of an altarpiece for St. VI IFntrofcuction Barnabas’ Church, in Queen Anne’s Parish, in the Province of Maryland. Of these pioneers, Claypoolei left nothing tangi- ble from which to estimate his prowess, but we know him to have been the instructor of his nephew, Matthew Pratt, whose work shows that he was guided, in the beginning, by a master of no small parts. The church, together with Hesselius’ master- piece, has disappeared, though two portraits, at least, by the Swedish settler have been handed down to us, while of Rush’s art the city of his birth pre- serves numerous examples, including his master- piece, the full length statue of Washington. The two earliest exhibitions of pictures in this country were both held in Philadelphia, in the old State House. The first was a collection of paint- ings by Robert Edge Pine, an English radical and follower of John Wilkes, who came to this country in the spring of 1784 to paint a series of historical pictures commemorative of events in the Revolu- tionary War, but who died before accomplishing his purpose. He brought with him a number of paintings and opened an exhibition of them in the State House, where he had a studio. The second was a general exhibition of paintings, held in the Senate Chamber of Independence Hall, under the auspices of the Columbianum, or Ameri- can Academy of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Ifntro&uction Vll etc., established at Philadelphia in 1795. The first exhibition of the new organization opened May 22, 1795, and included one hundred and thirty-four works from nineteen exhibitors. Philadelphia was the first American city to found an academy devoted to the fine arts, a movement which antedated the formation of the National Gal- lery, of London, by nineteen years. In December, 1887, there was opened in this Academy a loan collection of over five hundred historical portraits, which was the first systematic exhibition of the kind ever held in America, and was the pattern for those held afterward in New York, Boston, Chicago and elsewhere. Aside from the old portraits in the possession of individuals, there are few institutions in the city not owning one or more interesting portraits. Among these institutions may be mentioned the American Philosophical Society, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the State House, Carpenter’s Hall, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Mercan- tile Library, the University of Pennsylvania, the Musical Fund Society, the College of Physicians, the Pennsylvania Hospital, the United States Mint and many banks and insurance companies. In the preparation of the material for this work, the writer acknowledges the very generous coopera- tion of the managements of the various institutions viii fntrotmction included in this partial review of the art collections of Philadelphia, who have done everything in their power to lessen the labour which such a compilation entails. Mr. John Frederick Lewis, president, and Mr. John E. D. Trask, manager, of The Pennsyl- vania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Dr. Edwin AtLee Barber, director of the Pennsylvania Mu- seum, have been particularly kind in giving access to all available material, such as, in the case of the Academy, old records, reports, catalogues, etc., pre- served in the archives of the institution; while in dealing with the Pennsylvania Museum, the writer has depended largely upon the Bulletin edited by the Director for the facts and often the descriptions of the principal exhibits. At the Historical Society, where less definite data was available regarding the artistic aspect of its truly splendid collection of old portraits, special thanks are due to the uniform courtesy, kindness and helpfulness of the Librarian, Dr. John Woolf Jordan, and his assistant, Mr. Ernest Spofford, and the whole capable staff. The writer begs to acknowledge, also, a very great debt to Mr. Charles Henry Hart, one of the leading experts on Americana in Philadelphia, who has aided and directed her researches in the musty records of the past, and — in the preparation of the Stuart chapters, especially — to his invaluable series Introduction IX of articles on that painter and his works, which have appeared in Harper's and the Century Maga- zines, at intervals, since 1896. Biographical notes have been gleaned from all sources* as seemed most entertaining and reliable. An article by Mr. Earl Shinn, published in Lippin- cott’s Magazine for February, 1872, has furnished a fund of data concerning the early days of “ The First American Art Academy.” Many of the cuts used are from photographs copyrighted by The Pennsylvania Aoademy of the Fine Arts, and reproduced by their permission. Helen W. Henderson. Philadelphia, August 30, 1911. ' ’ . Contents CHAPTER PAGE Introduction v I. Historical Sketch of the Academy . . i II. Early Exhibition 29 III. Benjamin West and Washington Allston . 36 IV. Matthew Pratt and the Peales 59 V. Gilbert Stuart (1755-1827) .... 71 VI. A Group of Early Portrait Painters . . 105 VII. The Portrait Gallery Completed . . . 122 VIII. The Temple and Other Collections . . 130 IX. The Old Masters 148 X. Contemporary Foreign Paintings . . . 164 XI. The Gibson Collection 172 XII. Sculpture 188 XIII. The Phillips Collection 212 XIV. The Pennsylvania Museum : A General Survey 218 XV. American Pottery and Porcelain . . . 226 XVI. American and Foreign Glassware . . . 242 XVII. Mexican Majolica 250 XVIII. Chinese Porcelain and Cloisonne . . . 263 XIX. Classic Pottery, Swiss Glass, Laces, Fur- niture 272 XX. General Collections 282 XXI. The Wilstach Collection .... 294 XXII. Independence Hall 313 XXIII. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania . 337 Bibliography . 367 Index 371 %ist of HUustrations PAGE Portrait of George Washington (The Lansdowne Portrait) (see page 81) . . . . Frontispiece By Gilbert Stuart View of Central Square, on the 4th of July . . 34 By John Lewis Krimmell Christ Rejected 46 By Benjamin West Dead Man Revived by Touching the Relics of Elisha 58 By Washington Allston Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin West . . 64 By Matthew Pratt The Artist in his Museum 66 By Charles Willson Peale Portrait of Colonel John Nixon. — Portrait of Dr. John Fothergill 97 By Gilbert Stuart Portrait of Mrs. Samuel Blodgett. — Portrait of Miss Elizabeth Beale Bordley . . . .99 By Gilbert Stuart Portrait of Mrs. Samuel Gatliff and her Daughter ioo By Gilbert Stuart George Frederick Cooke as Richard III 107 By Thomas Sully Portrait of James Ross. — Portrait of Henry Pratt iio By Thomas Sully By Henry Inman Pat Lyon at the Forge 112 By John Neagle Portrait of Clayton Earl 116 By John Neagle The Murder of Rutland, by Clifford . . . .124 By Charles Robert Leslie xiii xiv oust of Illustrations PAGE The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone at Downing Street 127 By John McLure Hamilton Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Field . . .129 By John Singer Sargent The Lady with the White Shawl .... 130 By William Merritt Chase The Fox Hunt 132 By Winslow Homer Mother and Child 135 By George de Forrest Brush The ’Cello Player 136 By Thomas Eakins Becky Sharp 138 By Thomas P. Anshuts November 140 By Robert Vonnoh The Skaters 142 By Gari Melchers The Violinist 150 By Bartholomew van der Heist Ganymede 154 By Guido Reni Virgin and Child 157 By Benozzo Gozzoli Orestes Pursued by the Furies 164 By William Adolphe Bouguereau A Breton Peasant Boy 168 By Dagnan-Bouveret The Duke of Este Meditating the Death of his Wife, Parisina . 170 By Andre Gastaldi The Return of the Flock 173 By Jean Francois Millet The Great Oak of Ornans 177 By Gustave Courbet Seeking Shelter 179 By Emile Van Marcke In the Country 182 By Alfred Sterens Ifst of Illustrations Bust of John Paul Jones By Jean Antoine Houdon Bust of William Rush. — Bust of Edward H. Coates By William Rush By Charles Grady Man Cub By Alexander Stirling C alder The Battle of the Centaurs and Lapithia By John Graham Lough The Pennsylvania Museum, Memorial Hall, Fair- mount Park . Slip - decorated Dish : Pennsylvania German, 1769. — Sgraffito Dish: Montgomery County, Pa., 1805 . Mexican Majolica Vase, Decorated in Blue Camaieu. Puebla, about 1660. — Mexican Vase, Polychrome Decoration. Puebla, about 1780 . . . . Mexican Majolica Lavabo; about 1650. — Old Mex- ican Bandeja Sgraffito Dish : Dutch, 1718. — Slip - decorated Dish by Thomas Toft, Staffordshire . . . . Peach - Bloom Vase. K’ang-hsi Period. — Hexagonal Vase ( famille verte). K’ang-hsi Period Temple Censer, Decorated in Enamel Colours. Yung-Cheng Period. — L arge Quadrangular Vase. Cloisonne Enamel. Ming Dynasty Attic Stamnos, 520-500 b. c. Red Figured Style. Herakles Struggling with the Nemean Lion. — Askos from Canosa, 3rd Century, b. c. . Swiss Heraldic Glass, 1603. — Swiss Domestic Glass, 1584 Lace Cover Illustrating Punto a Maglia or Darned Netting Carved Glass Vase, Emile Galle. — Capo di Monte Seau, or Ice Pail, 1760-1800 Saracenic Tin - enamelled and Lustre Tile from Northwestern Persia, 13th Century. — Large Persian Plaque, 17th Century .... Group of Genuine Lowestoft. — Italian Harpsichord, 16th Century The Yellow Buskin By James A. McNeill Whistler XV PAGE 190 206 208 210 218 231 258 260 262 267 271 273 278 280 288 291 293 296 XVI tJList ot lllustcattons Old Brighton Pier By John Constable The Pond: Hampstead Heath By John Constable Repose By Jean Franpois Raffaelli “ Le Grand Miroir ” . By Alexander Harrison Portrait of Dr. Benjamin Rush By J. Sharpies Portrait of James Hamilton . By Benjamin West Portrait of William Allen By Benjamin West Portrait of William Hamilton and his Niece, Hamilton Lyle .... By Benjamin West Ann Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Hopkinson By Gilbert Stuart Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hopkinson By Robert Edge Pine and Charles Willson Peale Portrait of Governor Thomas Mifflin and his Sarah Morris By John Singleton Copley Portrait of Benjamin Franklin Wife, By Charles Willson Peale Portrait of Mrs. Benedict Arnold (Peggy Shippen) and her Son By Daniel Gardner PAGE 298 300 305 312 318 327 329 345 347 349 352 357 360 Cfje ^etmsplbatiia &catiemp of tfjc jfme arts CHAPTER I HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ACADEMY The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, founded in 1805, chartered in 1806, is the oldest institution dedicated to the fine* arts in the United States, and as such is of unique importance. It is the direct descendant of the Columbianum, which was in turn the successor of a drawing school started, in 1791, by Charles Willson Peale, a namei all artists should revere and honour for what its owner was, and for what he did for art in his time. The Pennsylvania Academy owes its actual con- ception to Peale, who, some fifteen years before the charter was granted, had attempted to form a col- lection of paintings and sculpture and to found a school of art. His associates in this effort were Will- iam Rush, the gifted wood-carver of a century ago, 1 2 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of jf me Brts and Giuseppe Ceracchi, the revolutionary sculptor from Rome, who was in this country at the time for the purpose of making busts of Washington, Hamil- ton and other prominent Americans, and who was guillotined on his return to France on the suspicion of plotting against the life of Napoleon. The widely differing and positive natures of these talented gentlemen did not produce concord and they disbanded before their purpose was accom- plished. Peale, 'himself, was a man of extraor- dinary resources and of indefatigable genius. Be- sides being a painter of undoubted merit, and at one time the only portrait painter in the colonies, he had served as captain of the volunteers in the Battle of Trenton and was a member of the Legislature in 1779. He had a long list of trades amongst which might be mentioned that of saddler, clockmaker, silversmith, glass-moulder, taxidermist, dentist, modeller and engraver. He established in the Philosophical Hall of the old State House a museum of rarities, known as Peak’s Museum, and historians tell us that Peale himself was not the least quaint of the exhibits. He seems to have had to a degree the spirit of Bohe- mianism, and tales are told of a supper party of thirteen given by the brave old artist within the ribs of a mammoth skeleton in the museum. His orig- inal and somewhat naive tastes are amusingly in- Historical Sfeetcb of tbe Bcabemg 3 stanced in thei names of his eleven , children, whom he called successively: Raphaelle, Angelica Kauff- man, Titian, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens, Sophonisba, Linnaeus, Franklin, Sibylla and Eliza- beth. Peale possessed an enthusiasm which failure could not dampen. His early attempt to form an academy was not a success, and in 1794, he projected what he called the Columbianum. A plaster cast of the Venus de Medici, brought to the Quaker city by Robert Edge Pine, the artist, in 1784, formed the nucleus of a small collection of 'antiques about which was built a class in drawing. Joseph Hop- lcinson makes reference to this cast of the Venus in a letter relative to Pine, dated May 6, 1833, in which he says that the Venus “ was kept shut up in a case and only shown to persons who particularly wished to see it; as the manners of our country at that time would not tolerate a public exhibition of such a figure. This fact alone shows our progress in civilization and the arts.” Peale attempted also a school for the living figure — a life-class — and thereby hangs one of the most amusing tales of the artist’s gritty deter- mination in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Philadelphia had no Piazza di Spagna, with groups of professional models, and Peale, finding nobody who would exhibit his person for 4 Pennsylvania Hcabemy ot ffine Brts hire, whipped off his frills and ruffleis and bared his own handsome torso to the class. An exhibition of pictures lent by citizens was opened in Independence Hall. But all failed together — the sculpture hall, the gallery of paintings and the life-class. Still this busy, tireless worker and enthusiast kept at it, and in the end must be recognized as the mo- tive force which pressed the issue of the ultimate project, for it was he who collected the meeting of founders of which he was one, in 1805, and he lived to contribute to seventeen of the annual exhibitions of the new institution. The meeting of the founders of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts occurred in Independ- ence Hall, in the same room where twenty-seven years earlier the forefathers had signed the Declara- tion of Independence. The room was then the meeting room of the Continental Congress. It was here that this assemblage of Philadelphia’s most progressive citizens met and subscribed to the arti- cles of agreement providing for the creation of an Art Academy. The compact exists as a horny brown sheepskin. Of the seventy-one who signed the parchment, forty-one were lawyers; thus the initial movement may be said to have come from the bar, liberally promoted, however, by some of every profession and calling. Joseph Hopkinson, the accomplished Distortcal Sftetcb of tbe Bcabems 5 author of “ Hail Columbia/’ was the influence that appeared most on the surface and conferred the executive and cementing strength. The pledge of the association as quaintly ex- pressed in the language of the day was : — “To promote the cultivation of the Fine Arts, in the United States of America, by introducing cor- rect and elegant copies from works of the first masters in sculpture and painting and by thus facili- tating the access to such standards, and also by occasionally conferring moderate but honourable premiums, and otherwise assisting the studies and exciting the efforts of the artists gradually to un- fold, enlighten and invigorate the talents of our countrymen.” It provided also for the selection of a building plot “ which it shall buy or else take on ground rent ” — then, and for years after, an in- stitution and mode of prolonged payment by usury on the soil, peculiar to Philadelphia. The venerable parchment, dated the twenty-sixth day of December, 1805, is now among the treasured archives of the Academy, and is signed as fol- lows : — James Oldden, Jr., Henry K. Helmuth, John Redman Coxe, Will Poyntell, Jos. Reed, Peter S. Du Ponceau, W. Lewis, William Tilghman, Sam- son Levi, Thos. Ballou Zantzinger, Henry Pratt, John B. Wallace, Thomas Wiedman, Lewis Niell, 6 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of jfine Hrts Samuel Meeker, John K. Helmuth, Charles Smith, Joseph Lownes, Edw. Penington, D. Watts, Edw. Burd, William Smith, James Hopkins, Benjn. R. Morgan, John Hallowell, John R. Coates, Plun. F. Glentworth, Philip Wager, Peter Wager, James Tatem, Walter Kerr, Wm. Rush, Jacob S. Wain, Henry Kuhl, C. Wn. Peale, Rem. Peale, Charles Clark, Andw. Bayard, T. P. Garesche, George Clymer, W. Rawle, Jos. Hopkinson, Simon Gratz, Geo. Fox, Chs. Chauncey, Charles Swift, Sami. Ewer, Thomas Bradford, Jun., Wilson Hunt, Moses Levy, J. B. McKean, A. J. Dallas, William H. Tod, Hor. Binney, Richard Rush, C. W. Fraser, John Read, Jun., James Gibson, Wm. Meredith, J. Dorsey, W. S. Biddle, Richd. Peters, Jun., Walter Franklin, Samuel Shoemaker, Mahlon Dickerson, J. W. Condy, Zalegman Phillips, Peter A. Brown, Robt. Frazer, James Milnor, Chas. Biddle. The election of officers held in the State House constituted George Clymer, a signer of the Declara- tion of Independence, president of the new asso- ciation, and as directors, William Tilghman, Will- iam Rawle, Moses Levy, Joseph Hopkinson, Joseph B. McKean, William Meredith, William Rush, John R. Coxe, M. D., John Dorsey, William Poyntell, Thomas C. James, M. D., and Charles Willson Peale. Two, Rush and Peale, were artists by pro- fession ; seven were members of the bar. Ibistorical Sfeetcb of tbe Hcabems 7 Mr. Clymer continued in office from 1805 until his death, in 1813, when Judge Joseph Hopkinson was elected to the presidency, and served the insti- tution until 1842, a period of twenty-nine years. Their successors have been: Joseph Dugan, 1842- 1845 1 Edward L. Carey, 1845 J Joseph R. Inger- soll, 1846-1852; Henry D. Gilpin, 1852-1859; Caleb Cope, 1859-1871 ; James L. Claghorn, 1872- 1884; George S. Pepper, 1884-1890; Edward H. Coates, 1890-1906; Henry Whelen, 1906-1907; John Frederick Lewis, 1907. The early meetings of the directors were held at the residence of Judge Hopkinson and it was there on July 1, 1805, it was “Resolved, That from a high respect entertained for the genius, talents and distinguished fame of our countryman, Benjamin West, he be elected an honorary member of this Academy.” The Pennsylvanian prodigy was at this time sixty-seven years old and at that painful period of his life when he was beginning to realize the decline of his popularity and his powers. He was still president of the Royal Academy, but the patron- age of royalty which he had enjoyed for years was promptly withdrawn when King George III became incapacitated through insanity. At the same time, and for the same cause, he was ordered to suspend work upon a series of thirty-six pictures ordered by the King for Windsor Chapel. 8 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fftne Brts The compliment tendered him by the new acad- emy was timely and he was touched by it. His reply to the letter of the Board came along in a few weeks, prolix, graceful, stately. He begins: “ Be assured, gentlemen, that that election I shall ever retain as an honour from a relative; ” he pre- dicts that the next great school of fine arts after Greece, Italy and Flanders will be in the United States and wishes that Philadelphia “ may be as much celebrated for her galleries of paintings by the native genius of the country as she is distin- guished by the virtues of her people, and that she may be looked up to as the Athens of the Western World in all that can give polish to the human mind.” He is especially solicitous that America shall fol- low the great kingdoms of Europe in filling her galleries with works of painters native not foreign. In a sly corner of his letter he recites a fact that was partly an encouragement to the young institu- tion and partly an exhibition of charming vanity. When Alderman Boydell’s great Shakespeare Gal- lery was broken up in London, Robert Fulton, in- ventor and artist, remembering his Pennsylvania birth, had bought, along with other paintings which he deposited in the Academy, West’s two contribu- tions to the Boydell collection — “ Lear in the Storm ” and “ Ophelia before the King and Queen.” Historical Sketch of tbe Hcahemp 9 The fine old painter’s acknowledgments are accom- panied with a polite little note “ by favour of Colonel Williamson ” to the members of the com- mittee who had corresponded with him. West in these missives, which still exist, writes a very good hand, erases a good deal and ex- presses himself with cumbrous formality, mitigated by liberties taken with the King’s English. After West, the next honorary members were Robert Fulton and Bushrod Washington. Having secured in West a lion, the directors gave their attention to the question of housing the Acad- emy, and at a little convocation at Judge Hopkin- son’s, July 8, 1805, a building committee composed of Messrs. Rush, P'oyntell and Dorsey was author- ized to act, and a site was selected on the north side of Chestnut Street between Tenth and Eleventh Streets. The first Academy building at Tenth and Chest- nut Streets, destroyed by fire in 1845, was attrib- uted to Benjamin Henry Latrobe, a lover of classic architecture and the author of the old Philadelphia Water Works in Centre Square and of the Pennsyl- vania Bank. It was in the Greek style, simple and impressive. Broad marble steps led up to a portico whose pediment was supported by a pair of Ionic columns, of just model and imposing height. The stairway had a few severe ornaments. On the io Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts cheek blocks were a couple of square termini fin- ished by two marble heads, a colossal Napoleon, after Canova, and a Franklin by Ceracchi. The Ceres over the doorway of the present build- ing stood in a corner of the courtyard under the shade of the largest hawthorn tree in America. Early in 1806 the first loan was solicited for finishing the building. This was divided into thirty shares of one hundred dollars each, to be refunded out of the earliest receipts. Before securing a repository, however, the new directors turned their attention to providing for its contents. Hopkinson and Peale had heard of Napoleon’s patronage of the short-lived art school of New York, which had received through the in- tervention of Chancellor Livingston, the American ambassador in Paris, a dozen plaster casts from the statuary assembled in the Louvre. At that time Nicholas Biddle, the future finan- cier, was in Paris. He was, at the age of eighteen years, secretary of the legation with the American minister, General Armstrong, had carried off early honours from two colleges and was the most daz- zling young diplomat in Europe. The directors wrote to Minister Armstrong detailing their wants, and enclosed a full explanation, with lists of selec- tion, to his precocious secretary. The lad replied with ease and intelligence, re- Ibistortcal Sketch of the Ecafcems 11 placing the directors’ catalogue with a list of statues in his opinion most worthy of reproduction — a selection made with the advice of “ the best statuary in Paris ” (Houdon) and directing the exportation with excellent judgment. On his re- turn to America he was made a member of the board. All this was at a time when Napoleon, flushed with the victories of his glorious campaigns, was in the midst of amassing the great but short-lived Musee Napoleon. Each victory and treaty of peace with the conquered foreign powers brought in its train a vast importation, to Paris, of the trophies of war. The statuary of which young Biddle wrote glowingly in his advice to the directors had until lately been precious exhibits of the Vatican at Rome. The correspondence of Nicholas Biddle names the marbles copied for the Academy, under the superintendence of a distinguished Italian artist, and included the Apollo, the Antinous of the Belve- dere, the Laocoon, the Torso Belvedere and the Meleager. From the Campidoglio in Rome had been taken the Capitoline Venus, the Dying Gladia- tor and the Antinous of the Capitol. The antiques which Mr. Biddle notes as then in the Louvre, and which still remain there, include the Fighting Gladiator, Hermaphrodite, Silenus and Bacchus, Jason and Germanicus. 12 Pennsylvania HcaDemy of jftne arts Napoleon, who appears to have thought of every- thing, took prudent pains to have moulds made of these statues as soon as they were received, antici- pating, we must suppose, a possible Act of Restitu- tion, which was realized in 1815, when the originals were for the most part restored to their rightful owners and the matrices were all that France could retain of her rich booty. The Emperor was glad to facilitate the study of these statues and readily consented to a fulfilment of the order from Philadelphia. The French bill of lading accompanying the invoices from “ Getti, Mouleur du Louvre ” particularizes over fifty ob- jects including, besides those named, an ecorche, or anatomical figure, by Houdon, and many busts and fragments. It is dated the 20 Primaire, an. 14. The expenses, based upon the reasonable rates es- tablished by the administration of the Louvre, amounted to francs 2887.30, including “ Pour- boires des cordeurs et chargeurs, francs 6.” In February, 1806, before the Academy had a corpor- ate existence, the cases were shipped from Bor- deaux. The Pennsylvania Academy received its charter March 28, 1806. It describes the erection of a building then in progress. The founders had pliable notions of the interpretation of the term Academy, and their charter made no mention of Historical Sketch of tbe Ecabems 13 the functions of a school. Statuary receives the primary consideration and the need of an edifice to display “ sculpture and other works of art,” is in- sisted upon. By the close of the year the building was prac- tically ready for occupancy. Its main feature was a handsome circular room with a dome, in the style of the Pantheon. In March, 1806, the charter obtained, the rotunda completed, the antiques installed and West’s Shake- spearian paintings hung upon the wall with other European canvases, the directors felt that an ex- hibition was in order, and the Academy was form- ally opened to the public. President Clymer deliv- ered the address. The public paid twenty-five cents a head to enter, and the Mondays, in consideration of the unblushing character of the casts from the Louvre, were set apart, “ with tender gallantry, for ladies exclusively.” The collection grew by slow but permanent degrees. It became the custom to give or bequeath works of art, to be displayed in the “ elegant halls on Chestnut Street.” The first present acknowl- edged was a copy of the silver-gilt medal of Com- modore Preble, executed by order of Congress, and presented by Tench Coxe in 1807. In the same year, Joseph Allen Smith presented a valuable part of his large foreign collection. In 1809 Mr. Solo- 14 ©ennsBivania Hcabemp of jFine arts mon gave an antique mosaic and Mr. Richard Bache deposited a portrait of William Penn’s father, the Admiral. In 1810 General Armstrong, the returned min- ister to France, presented some valuable books and a further collection of official casts from the Louvre, received from the Emperor. A few of the Bonaparte casts have survived the chances of fire and accident, and rank much higher, on account of their sharpness and precision, than the later casts by which the destroyed specimens have been re- placed. In 1816, it is a little curious to find a young Philadelphia traveller, Mr. Montgomery, struck with the Venus de Medici, once more established in the Tribune of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and sending home an Italian cast of her to Philadelphia. Mr. Wycoff gave small marble reproductions of the same figure and of the Antinous, and Clodion’s graceful bacchantes of the Louvre were repeated for the Academy in small marble duplicates. A rich bronze or two, a few genuine old ceramics and curiosities, came into possession, and the Academy became a suggestive and stimulating museum, with a series of antiques unparalleled in the New World, some genuine old masters, and plenty of decorations and rarities. The year 1811 was one of emphatic prosperity to the institution. This was the year of the first an- Historical Sftetcb of tbe Bcabems 15 nual exhibition, given in conjunction with the Society of Artists. Judge Hopkinson delivered the opening oration. Wertmuller, the painter, contrib- uted a figure of Ceres ; Krimmel sent several paint- ings and amongst the landscapes were some by Thomas Birch. The young association continued to receive dona- tions. About this time the remnant of the collection of Joseph Allen Smith was despatched from Italy. Twenty-one paintings and fifty-two engravings were put on an American ship, The Marquis de Someruclas. The vessel was captured by a British cruiser and steered into port at Halifax. The treat- ment of the Academy’s application to recover its consignment, at a time when swarms of American privateers were driving the English merchantmen, gutted and lamed, into every port of Britain, is a creditable bit of magnanimity and a bright little episode in the war of 1812. The judgment, deliv- ered in the court of vice-admiralty at Halifax, by the Honourable Alexander Croke, Doctor of Laws, is not only a handsome piece of justice, liberally interpreted, but is a most delicious revelation of provincial eloquence making the most of its oppor- tunity. Mr. Croke, in liberal periods, defends the rights of Art and Science to protection in the times of war. “ Heaven forbid,” is his pious aspiration, “ that such an application to the generosity of Great 16 Pennsylvania BcaOemy of fftne Brts Britain should ever be ineffectual ! ” The Corsican tyrant himself, remembers Mr. Croke, has recog- nized the exceptional privileges of art: “Not to mention the innumerable cases of the mutual exer- cise of this courtesy between nations in former wars. Even the present Governor of France, under whose control that country has fallen back whole centuries in barbarism, whilst he has trampled on justice and humanity, has attended to the claims of science.” He gives an instance : “ A gentleman, a Fellow of the Royal Society, was unfortunately one of the persons so unjustly detained at Paris at the com- mencement of the war. Considerable interest was excited through the medium of the British Gov- ernment to procure his release, but without effect. Yet to an application from Sir Joseph Banks, as the president of the Royal Society, in favour of a member of that useful institution, Bonaparte paid immediate attention, and in the handsomest manner permitted him to return to England. If such cases were unheard of every Briton would be anxious that his country should set the honourable example ; but I trust that every British bosom would blush with shame if his country should be found inferior to the lawless government of France.” The orator finishes off with a compliment for the “ very emi- nent American president of the Royal Academy,” in London, and thinks the day may shortly come historical Sketch of tbe Bcabems 17 when the Pennsylvania Academy’s influence will turn out “ new Wests to revive the School of Rafaelle in the wilds of America.” The judge con- fidently foresees a time when England and America “ shall know no other enmity than a liberal rivalry in every elegant and manly accomplishment ” — and then decrees restitution. In 1811 the Lansdowne portrait of Washington was added to the collection from the estate of Will- iam Bingham. About the same time Sully’s full length life-size portrait of the actor Cooke, as Richard III, was purchased by contributions from friends and admirers of the actor and tendered to the Academy, thus forming the nucleus of the most important collection possessed by the Acad- emy — that of its old portraits. By the death of Mr. Paul Beck, warden of the port of Philadelphia, which occurred in 1844, the Academy inherited a number of pictures. Amongst its historic relics, also, are four paintings by Joseph Vernet purchased for $2000 from the sale of Joseph Bonaparte’s collection, from his residence in Bordentown in 1845. By various acquisitions we find the Academy, at the time of its destruction by the famous fire of 1845, a well-equipped institution. The fatal his- tory of the fire makes gruesome reading. One night a maniac, a relative of the janitress who kept 18 Pennsylvania Bca&emy ot fine Brts the building, was seen prowling in his night dress through the basement, above which was the gallery of plaster casts. A conflagration, attributed to this unfortunate, broke out immediately after. The edi- fice was greatly injured, and the more ponderous contents were lost. Efforts to save the collection were faithfully made. West’s “ Death on the Pale Horse ” was hurriedly cut from the frame “ while its margins were blistering,” and escaped serious damage. A brave fireman, the engines playing upon him the while, slashed it away. These were the days of volunteer fire brigades in Philadelphia, and it is likely that they damaged more than they saved. The anxious volunteers are pictured by an enthusi- astic historian as standing at the entrance to see the devastation completing itself “ among the irre- placeable treasures.” The horned head of Petrich’s “ Mephistopheles ” crumbling away in laughter and flames — a congenial end. “ Milo ” perished once more at the stake. Behind the high flame gilded silhouette of the Centaurs, they saw, when too late to save, the curling and shrivelling of a noble can- vas by Murillo, bought in Spain from the collection of Joseph Bonaparte. This lost to our country a Murillo of great price — a representation of the “ Carita Romana.” “ The Battle of the Centaurs ” lived through the disaster and now ornaments the present building. Distorical Sfeetcb of tbe Hcabemp 19 The Academy was rebuilt upon the old site and after the old model and served the institution until its removal to the present location, when the old building, still devoted to the purposes of art, became Fox’s Theatre and was subsequently transformed out of all semblance of its original form, and has been gradually forgotten. By the year 1870, the requirements of the Acad- emy had outgrown the conditions of the beginning of the century and a new site on Broad Street was decided upon. At noon on the 22nd of April, 1876, the new edifice was opened for the first time. The building was the design of Messrs. Furness and Hewitt, and has a frontage of one hundred feet and a depth of two hundred and sixty-five feet. The construction was under the direction of Fair- man Rogers, John Sartain, Henry C. Gibson, Henry G. Morris and Matthew Baird. The cost was $543,000, of which $140,000 was received from the sale of the Chestnut Street property, and $33,000 received under the will of Henry D. Gilpin, the sixth president of the Academy, was to be de- voted to the installation of the Gilpin Gallery. The remaining sum of $370,000, together with the $100,000 necessary for equipment and various expenses, was contributed at the solicitation of James L. Claghorn, who was elected president in 1872, and to whose untiring energy the achieve- 20 Pennsylvania Bca&emy of jflne arts firood JrFeef* GROUND PLAN OF THE ACADEMY. Historical Sfeetcb ot tbe Bcabems 21 ment of the present building is most largely due. The subscription list includes twenty-five payments of $10,000, fifteen of $5000, fourteen of $2500, twelve of $2000, and eighty-six of $1000. About this time there appears upon the records of the institution the name of Mr. Edward H. Coates, to whom much of the contemporary achievement of the Academy is directly due. Mr. Coates served the Academy in various capacities for a period of twenty-nine years, from 1877, when he became a member of the Board, to 1906, when, having com- pleted a term of sixteen years as president of the institution, he resigned from active service. In 1876 Mr. Fairman Rogers, Professor Schus- sele and Mr. Thomas Eakins established the new school, the best, as it was the only live one in Amer- ica. In the year 1886 the endowment of the institu- tion was undertaken and $100,000 was subscribed towards an invested fund for this purpose. This has since been more than doubled, the greater part of the increase having come to the Academy under the will of George S. Pepper, its ninth president, whose wealth was munificently bequeathed - to the great charities and public institutions of Phila- delphia. In 1887 the Loan Collection of Historic Portraits was organized, largely through the efforts of Mr. 22 Pennsylvania Bca&emy of fine arts Charles Henry Hart, then chairman of the exhibi- tion committee, a post he filled with efficiency throughout the twenty years of his sendees to the Academy, from 1882 to 1902. The catalogue of the loan exhibition was the work of Mr. Hart and having been prepared with utmost care becomes yearly of increasing value. Mr. Coates coming to the chair in 1890, marks one of the most important happenings between that year and 1850 — the establishment of strong, mutual and lasting relations between the Academy and the artists of Philadelphia and the United States. This was accomplished through the recon- struction of the Annual Exhibition on a new and modern basis, compatible with the dignity of the institution and the growing importance of the pro- fession in this country. Toward this end, the exhibition of 1890 was put into the care and charge of a strong artists’ jury, and the first of the annual private views and in- augural receptions was given. Mr. William T. Richards and Mr. Alexander Harrison were guests of honour and the management made the important purchases, for the Temple Collection, of Davis’ “ The Brook ” and Harrison’s “ The Wave.” The next year Mr. Harrison S. Morris was asked to assist in advertising and exploiting the Academy and the exhibition, and the year following, he was Historical Sfeetcb of tbe Bcabems 23 invited to take thei position of managing director, which the Board created for him. His valuable services to the Academy, especially to the exhibi- tions, continued until his resignation in 1905. About 1892, Mr. Robert Vonnoh was asked to become chief instructor in the schools, and this was the beginning of a new epoch there. The faculty, with the chairman of the committee on instruction at its head, was put in full charge of the manage- ment of that department. Dr. John H. Packard was made the first chairman of the committee on in- struction under the new regime and continued his valuable services until his recent death. The Cresson Endowment, in memory of William Emlen Cresson, an Academician of The Pennsyl- vania Academy of the Fine Arts, provided by the wills of his parents, resulted in the most far reach- ing and splendid provision for foreign study en- joyed by any institution. Prior to its becoming operative, Mr. Charles Hare Hutchinson, for a number of years, had provided for an annual scholarship fund for study abroad. In 1905 a scheme for establishing in the Academy a Gallery of National Portraiture was prepared and a circular issued by the president in which the public was asked to cooperate in an effort to extend and develop the already important collection of historic portraits, first, by adding to the series of 24 ipennssivmnta Bca&entE ot fftne Brts portraits of founders and makers of the Republic, of the State of Pennsylvania, and of the City of Philadelphia, and of the men and women notable in American literature, science, the arts and social life. Secondly, to include in the permanent gallery por- traits of those of any other country or state who have been eminent in the history or affairs of the United States or whose achievement or service has given universal reputation. This circular was issued in February, 1904, and the exhibition, under the title “ Gallery of Ameri- can Portraiture,” was held in November and De- cember, 1905, and numbered one hundred and forty- six exhibits, of which about one-half were lent and the other half belonged to the Academy’s collec- tion. The result of this movement was to stimulate interest in the Gallery of Historic Portraits owned by the Academy and the accession of several addi- tions to the permanent collection. The works of art belonging to the Academy have been gradually accumulated by purchase, gift and bequest during the past one hundred and six years. The Carey Collection was formed by Edward L. Carey, the fourth president of the Academy, and one of the earliest patrons of art in this country. Mr. Carey had married a sister of Charles Robert Leslie, and it was with the aid of the latter that the examples of the earlier British school of painters Ibtstorical Sfeetcb ot tbe Hcabemg 25 were obtained. These, with a number of the works of American artists, chiefly sentimental pictures of the type which the French call genre, constitute the collection which was bequeathed to the late Henry C. Carey and from him purchased by the Academy. The Temple Collection is the result of a founda- tion established in 1880 by Joseph E. Temple, a di- rector of the Academy. Under the provisions of a deed of trust executed by him, a fund of sixty thou- sand dollars is set aside and invested, one-half of the annual income to be devoted to the current expenses of the institution, and one-half, or the sum of eighteen hundred dollars, to be appropriated annu- ally for the acquirement of pictures and the award of the Temple medal, both purchases and award being specifically limited to the work of American artists shown in the exhibitions of the Academy. The collection now includes about sixty paintings. The Gibson Collection was received in 1896 in accordance with the bequest of Henry C. Gibson, a director and vice-president of the Academy, who died in 1890. It consists of five pieces of sculpture and ninety-eight paintings which are principally examples of contemporary French and German art. The collection is arranged in galleries C and D, which have been completely furnished by Mrs. R. H. C. Brock and Miss Mary K. Gibson, the daughters of the donor, the sum of ten thousand dollars having 26 Pennsylvania Bca&enty of fine Brts also been provided as a permanent fund for the care of the paintings and the renewal of the frames. The Field collection of paintings, chiefly of works painted before the nineteenth century, was received in 1887 from Mrs. John W. Field, a daughter of Richard Peters, Jr., one of the founders of the Academy. In accordance with the deed of transfer it is hung permanently upon the west wall of the Print Room, and is the gift of John W. Field and his wife. The Print Room also contains about sixty thou- sand engravings and etchings collected by the late John S. Phillips and bequeathed by him to the Academy, together with an endowment of twelve thousand dollars for the care and increase of the collection. On May 2, 1910, the galleries were further en- riched by a collection of thirteen pictures of the nineteenth century, French, German, Italian and American painters, presented by Caroline Gibson Tait, a sister of Henry C. Gibson. The general collections of the Academy are es- pecially rich along the lines of the institution’s nor- mal growth as a patron of contemporary art and a museum for its conservation. The founding of the Academy occurred in the midst of flourishing times, when Philadelphia after having been ten years the capital of the nation was tbistortcal Sfeetcb of tbe Bcabems 27 still the scene of a brilliant society under whose patronage arts and letters thrived and blossomed. Philadelphia was the birthplace of several of our earliest painters and sculptors and at some time the residence of practically every one of importance. From this grew the need of an Academy whose birth and early development in the patronage and acquisition of Americana, were as natural as is the coming of the flowers that bloom in the spring. By reason of their logical growth these collec- tions of early native paintings and sculpture will always be the most valuable, as they are the most interesting, of the Academy’s possessions. This is particularly true of the noble group of portraits by Gilbert Stuart — that remarkable an- cestral picture gallery of Philadelphia’s wit, beauty and genius — to which logical sequence have been added equally fitting examples of Sully, Neagle, Inman, Peale and the minor painters — a collection as rich in historic portraiture as it is in historic art. Perhaps more than anything else the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 awakened consciousness in our art and in the conduct of the museum by bringing the reality of foreign life before the American people and making the first break in our national provincialism. The building of the new Academy, which occurred in the same year as the opening of 28 Pennsylvania BcaOeniy ot* jfine Brts the Centennial, aroused new interest and fresh am- bitions in the minds of its patrons. But now it was in a more sophisticated direction and as interest in native talent gave way to a worship of the imported product, so American art, as such, languished for lack of sustenance and passed into a state of vacu- ous imitation and little of moment was produced. The Academy’s records, at this period, note the receipt by gift, and otherwise, of numerous ex- hibits from the Centennial Exposition, the ques- tionable nature of whose influence can be judged by the aridity of these contributions. Though the wisdom of Mr. Temple, at his death, four years later, provided for the continuance of the patronage of American artists, we have never entirely recovered from the disturbance of this influx of foreign art, and the contemporary collec- tion acquired with the income of the Temple be- quest is an inadequate continuance of the earlier groups. Confidence once destroyed is slowly regained, but with the richness of the present output of distin- guished native artists and the increasing respect which they command at home and abroad, has come a revival of public interest and public faith, and the present generation of painters and sculptors will be an epoch-making one to the glory of American art. CHAPTER II EARLY EXHIBITIONS The early exhibitions of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts were at the instigation and under the auspices of the Society of Artists of the United States, a society formed in 1810 “ on en- lightened and liberal principles, in order to collect, as it were, into a focus, the various talents and resources of artists; and by such an institution to give a character to the fine arts in America/’ The literature on the subject of the founding and early history of this society, to be found in the old records preserved by the Academy, is as quaint as it is interesting. The report of a committee appointed to examine into the rise, progress and present state of the Society of Artists of the United States, read April 15, 1812, and printed for the same society, contains much interesting material and proves that the founding of the Academy had not passed without some ill feeling in the breasts of the fraternity. The following is quoted from the report : — " In 1805, a number of gentlemen of Philadel- 29 30 Pennsylvania Hcabemy of fftne Hrts phia undertook to establish an institution in this city, under the title of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. A considerable sum was raised by subscription ; a building was erected and a num- ber of antique statues, busts, etc., were procured from Paris. To the zeal and activity of Joseph Hopkinson, Esq., the citizens of Philadelphia are much indebted for a speedy completion of the in- stitution which was opened to the public in April, 1807. Some valuable pictures were loaned to the Academy by Robert Fulton, Esq., and others, but the principal articles which constituted their exhi- bition were the statues and busts. “ The subscribers to the Academy, with the ex- ception of two artists, were merely amateurs. Phil- adelphia at that time contained a number of artists of high standing in the different departments of art and, from the circumstances of their not having received invitations to join the Academy, they concluded amongst themselves that the institution was intended merely for a museum, and conse- quently not likely to become of much importance, either in the improvement of artists or in correct- ing the public taste(!). The artists have ever deprecated the idea of an exhibition of antique statues, such being only useful to students, and never have in any other country formed a public exhibition. It has been considered as extremely jfiarlg ^xbtbiUons 31 indecorous and altogether inconsistent with the purity of republican morals.” The constitution of the Society was signed by upwards of sixty persons and the members were invited to hold their meetings in The Pennsylvania Academy. Within six months the membership mounted to about one hundred. Various efforts were made from time to time to bring about the union of the Academy and the Society, but the most that was ever accomplished was an agreement entered into by both, which provided for the first of the Annual Exhibitions, which was opened on the 6th of May, 1811. The mooted question of antique statues again came up, a number of direct- ors of the Academy being anxious that they should constitute a part of the Annual Exhibition, and wished to appropriate one day in the week for the exclusive admission of ladies. To this the committee of arrangement objected on the grounds rather well taken, “ that there never ought to be any public exhibitions where both sexes cannot with propriety be admitted together ; and that the works of living artists were more immediately in- teresting, and much better understood by the public in general and also that the Society of Artists was extremely desirous of rendering their exhibition a - place of fashionable resort.” The committee of artists won out and the first 32 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts exhibition consisted of about five hundred works, of which more than one half were by American artists. After the exhibition had been open a few days, the old record goes on to say that “ the com- mittee of arrangement found it expedient to re- move the antique statues altogether from the public view. The vast concourse of fashionable visitors who frequented the exhibition after the above regulation were equally surprised and de- lighted not only with the number and excellence of the various productions, but also with the taste and manner with which the whole was arranged.” The receipts of the exhibition during the stated period of six weeks, amounted to $1,860. A pleasant feature of the affair was a decision of the management by which the exhibition was continued one week beyond the limited ‘time for the purpose of contributing towards the relief of the unfortunate sufferers by the fire in the town of Newburyport, Massachusetts. The receipts of that week amounted to $410. The second exhibition (1812) appears to have been particularly remarkable in American work. From it the Academy preserves at least two im- portant exhibits in its permanent collection. Bass Otis, who had been apprenticed to a scythe-maker prior to his entrance into the field of art, showed the interior of his late master’s smithy, with its Earlg Exhibitions 33 flaming forges and mysterious depths of shadow. This work Otis presented to the Academy, where it is valued as his only known composition, all the rest of his work having been in the direction of portraits. The second picture referred to is a “ View of Centre Square, on the 4th of July,” by John Lewis Krimmell (1787-1821), a young German painter from Edingen, Wiirtemberg, who came to this country in 1810 and began painting small cabinet portraits in oil. There was too much in him to remain satisfied with work of this character and he tried humourous street scenes, exhibiting in the Academy in 18 11 four pictures, including the “ Pepper Pot Woman,” which won for him imme- diate recognition. His keen eye was fresh for American character, and this picture was essen- tially typical in subject of Philadelphia, whose citizens were all too familiar with the sale of this lacerating draught of spices imported from the West Indian cuisine to notice its oddness until a foreigner with a sense of humour pointed it out to them. The heroine of the picture figures again in Krim- mell’s little chef d’oeuvre, the picture owned by the Academy, shown in 1812. It represents the water- works and garden at Penn Square. Seldom had the spirit of a time been more pointedly set down. 34 Pennsylvania Bca&emy ot Jrne Brts The mcroyables of 1812 are ogling the silken belles, who mingle with the crowd of idlers that throng the fashionable rendezvous for young men and maidens of a century ago — a place long since destroyed by the uncompromising hand of prog- ress. In the centre is seen Rush’s statue of “ Leda and the Swan,” for which the model had been the famous beauty and toast, Miss Vanuxen. The original statue was in wood, which having suf- fered almost to the point of disintegration from exposure to the weather was cast in bronze, and may still be seen in Fairmount Park. A family of Friends are pacing the half for- bidden paradise consecrated to art and frivolity: the little boy stares open-mouthed at the nymph’s pearly limbs, and is rebuked by his stern father, while his mother, profiting by the momentary dis- traction of her lord, turns her poke bonnet to take an oblique view of the figure’s soft contour. This historic relic is retained by the institution. Shortly after his early success, the young satirist and character painter was drowned while swim- ming in the Wissahickon. Krimmell’s most important work, and his last before his untimely end, was “ Election Day at the State House, Philadelphia,” in which a number of minute portraits were likenesses of prominent citi- VIEW OF CENTRAL SQUARE, ON THE 4TH OF JULY. By John Lewis Krimmell. j£ari£ Exhibitions 35 zens and politicians. The present whereabouts of this picture is unknown, but the Historical Soci- ety of Pennsylvania possesses what is doubtless the original sketch, showing some variations from the finished work, in water-colour, signed and dated 1818. Alexander Lawson began to engrave this picture the size of the original, but never finished it, and the plate as the engraver left it was some years ago presented to the Academy by Lawson’s daughter. The Academy owns also “ Bishop White Officiating at a Country Wedding,” painted by Krimmell. CHAPTER III BENJAMIN WEST AND WASHINGTON ALLSTON Historically, a first place in the annals of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts should be accorded to the works of Benjamin West (1738- 1820), of which the Academy owns three impor- tant examples. These include his best known work, “ Death on a Pale Horse,” “ Paul and Bar- nabas,” and “ Christ Rejected,” his acknowledged masterpiece. At the sale of his pictures after West’s death the latter brought three thousand guineas. It was exhibited at the Academy in 1843 and was pre- sented to the institution in 1878 by Mrs. Joseph Harrison. The picture has been engraved by John Sartain. West enjoyed a long life and occupied an unique position in the history of American art. He was the one true Philadelphian of the early painters who plied their art in the Quaker city, and though his style of painting, developed under the patron- age of George III, was not of a character to hold the public approval — to which, by reason of its Benjamin West ant> Washington Hllston 37 cumbrous proportions and unrelated subject, it made little appeal — yet historically West’s place in Pennsylvania is such that one can but accord him the dignity and notice which his industry deserves. Benjamin West was born in what is now prac- tically Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, on October io, 1738, and died in London March n, 1820. The story of his early efforts at art — the pen and ink sketch of his sister, sleeping in her cradle, made at the age of seven — the paint brushes made from the hair of a pet cat’s tail — the red and yellow earths given him by friendly Indians, for his first attempts in colour, and the filching of his mother’s indigo pot to complete his outfit of pri- mary colours are too well known to dilate upon and give a colour of romance to what was probably a prosaic enough reality. Such stories make their own appeal — deeds signed in blood have a dark significance — and as we like to think of Giotto, sketching his sheep upon the sands of the Italian hills, so the aspect of little Benjamin West’s child- ish fingers fashioning his brushes out of his in- sistent need for expression gives a distinct thrill, and there appears even a certain nobility in the cat who shed her coat, at one knows not what agony, that American art might have its beginnings. Of the friend who gave the lad a box of paints 38 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts and several engravings to stimulate his ambition, one does not hear so much, while the name of William Williams, an Englishman painting in Philadelphia, who is said to have given him his first lessons in art, but for West’s mention of him, has passed into oblivion. West made his first attempts at portraiture in Lancaster, which circumstance had a marked influ- ence in the formation of his career. There he met William Henry, an inventor, who, in his youth, manufactured firearms in that town. Henry is described as an extraordinary man, possessing the power to interest the imagination of those with whom he worked. On examining West’s produc- tions he is reported to have said that if he had such talent he would waste no time painting por- traits, but would devote himself to historical paint- ing. He suggested to West “ The Death of Soc- rates ” as a subject worthy of attention, and we find the painter at the tender age of perhaps four- teen executing the subject in accordance with Henry’s idea. He made at this time, or, at any rate, before his departure for Europe, portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Henry, which are now in the posses : sion of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. At this time — in the year 1754 — before West reached his sixteenth year — he met William Smith, provost of the College of Philadelphia, who benjamin West anb Washington Bllston 39 took him in hand to educate him in classical lit- erature according to his supposed needs as a painter. Smith brought the lad to Philadelphia in the interest of his education, and in 1756 he estab- lished himself there as a portrait painter. A sou- venir of this time and of his acquaintance with the provost of the University is preserved by the His- torical Society in the interesting portrait of Will- iam Smith as Saint Ignatius. During his sojourn in Philadelphia West re- sided with his brother-in-law, Mr. Clarkson, and through his kind and influential patron became the associate of Francis Hopkinson, Thomas Godfrey, Jacob Duche and Joseph Reid, then, like himself, unknown to fame. By the year 1756 he had full employment as a portrait painter, and his price for a picture was two guineas and a half for a head and five for a half-length. In addition to the canvases already mentioned the Historical Society preserves his masterpiece of this early time in the excellent por- trait of Mrs. Thomas Hopkinson. He visited New York, with a view to increasing his prices and thus hasten his contemplated depar- ture for Italy, and there painted many portraits of which there is but scant record. At the age of twenty-one Benjamin West, ac- companied by a son of his patron, Chief Justice 40 pennsglpanta Hcafcentg of ffine Brts Allen, embarked for his European tour. Every circumstance was in his favour and he had all along the line the best of introductions. If Henry and Smith gave West his first bent toward the classic and historical subject, his art received its final stamp of pomposity in Italy, where he became imbued with the spirit of the classic revival then in vogue and for which his peculiar training at home had specially fitted him. His paintings were “ Cimon and Iphigenia ” and “ Angelica and Me- dora.” After three years’ residence in Italy West went to London, where he took a studio and commenced the serious business of life. Here again circum- stances combined for his advantage. “ His friends Allen, Hamilton and Smith had arrived before him in London and received him with joy and tri- umph.” The portrait of Governor Hamilton, painted at this time, hangs in Independence Hall. Through his friends he obtained at once the right introductions and lost no time in establishing him- self as a historical painter, of which England at the time had none of importance, and his work soon attracted attention. He arrived quickly at the patronage of the church and painted for Dr. Newton “ The Parting of Hector and Andromache,” and for the Bishop of Worcester, “ The Return of the Prodigal Son.” Benjamin TPQdest ant> Masbtngton Hllston 41 About this time he married, September 2, 1764, Elizabeth Shewed, the young lady to whom he had become engaged before leaving his native land and who was escorted to London for the wedding in the convoy of West’s father. The painter’s introduction to George III was the outcome of a commission executed for Dr. Drum- mond, the Archbishop of York, for whom West painted a picture of “ Agrippina Landing with the Ashes of Germanicus.” The picture was brought before the attention of the throne, and from that time until the mental illness of George III became manifest, he enjoyed the full confidence and pat- ronage of the royal family, which culminated in a contemplated series of pictures on the progress of revealed religion, for his Majesty’s Chapel at Windsor. The pictures were all sketched and twenty-eight were executed, for which West re- ceived in all twenty-one thousand seven hundred and five pounds. In London West became at once a personality. He was one of the founders of the Royal Acad- emy, and in 1792 succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as president of that institution, a post which he held until 1815. As a man he was benevolent and kind as well as of a liberality in imparting his knowledge to others. The youth in his own country looked up 42 Pennsylvania Bca&emy ot jfine Brts to and revered him as the epitome of professional achievement and mundane success. In the biog- raphies of contemporary American painters one reads constantly of their desire to get to London and to study with West. They were apparently always cordially received, and West probably en- joyed his position of influence and patronage in a foreign land. Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, Joseph Wright, Matthew Pratt and John Trumbull each sought him out and became in a sense his pupils. “ The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart,” by Mason, tells a story of the young painter’s intro- duction to West, which expresses the relationship of our younger painters toward the pioneer and also quite clearly his attitude in the matter. Stuart, driven by necessity in London to some radical measure to affect a change in his prospects, called upon West without an introduction. West was dining with some friends when a servant told him that some one wished to see him. He made an- swer, “ I am engaged,” but added after a pause, “ Who is he?” “I don’t know, sir: he says he is from America.” Thereupon one of the guests, Mr. Wharton of Philadelphia, an intimate friend of West’s family, offered to go and see who it was. He found a handsome youth dressed in a fashion- able green coat, and after talking to him for some Benjamin West an& Washington BUston 43 time found that he was a nephew of Joseph An- thony, one of the most prominent merchants of Philadelphia, and a friend of Mr. Wharton. Hear- ing that he was well connected West came out and received the visitor cordially. Stuart told him of his long deferred desire to see him and his wish to make further progress in his calling, to all of which West listened with kindness and attention. At parting he requested Stuart to bring him a specimen of his work, which Stuart gladly did, with the result that in a few days he commenced his studies with West, and in the summer of 1777 he was domiciled in the family. At this time Stuart was twenty-two years of age and West thirty-nine. West as a matter of fact struck little root into English art. The course of its development pushed straight across from Hogarth to Wilkie, produ- cing an occasional tangent, — a Reynolds — a Turner — a West, — and these so disconnected, so beside the vein, that they appear quite apart from the normal course of development. For West there is perhaps more reason than for the others. His early visit to Italy gave him his bent for ever, as it affected Greenough, our early American sculptor, and all the men who came under the spell of the Classic Revival. It stultified their imaginations, it warped their view of nature, 44 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Hrts and we find it reflected in nearly all the work of this arid period. It was an epoch which left no great names in any country — only slavish follow- ers of a cult who worshipped cold formality, con- scious composition, theoretical knowledge of art inspired by the newly exhumed and ill-digested antiques, whose meaning in their relation to an- cient times they failed to grasp. But we must weigh the man by his century, and in his, West’s place was well assured. Over in France David was elevating humanity with all his might on the same stilts. We shall do well to pay West homage for the good that was in him, rather than to insist upon obvious lapses where he failed to see beyond the impediments of his age. His career of huge futilities is not without some saving grace of solid ground gained, where a bit of novel courage stands bright and wholesome to mark the progress of expression toward truth and nature. In his painting, “ The Death of Wolfe,” West had the courage to break away from the traditions of the classic school. He painted the characters in true British uniforms, though Reynolds came to persuade him to change the costumes for the an- tique garments and nudes. West resisted and achieved a little masterpiece. After it was finished Reynolds not only retracted his objections but prophesied that the work would occasion a revolu- Benjamin Udest anb HBlasbtnGton B listen 45 tion in art. It was purchased by Lord Gros- venor. We have but to study the age — that dreadful age which began with George Ill’s remarks to Fanny Burney upon Shakespeare, and degenerated into the debaucheries of the Prince Regent — to crown West with an apology that is almost an ovation. Thackeray has a word to say for West sug- gested by a stroll through this Academy. It oc- curs in the “ Small Beer Chronicles : Roundabout Papers.” “ ‘ I was walking with Mr. Fox in the Louvre/ says Benjamin West, ‘ and I remarked how many people turned around to look at me. This shows the respect of the French for the fine arts.’ This is a curious instance of a very small claret indeed which imagined itself to be port of the strongest body. There are not many examples of a faith so deep, so simple, so satisfactory as this. I have met with many who would like to be port, and thought Reynolds’ overrated stuff. When I saw West’s pictures at Philadelphia I looked at them with astonishment and awe. Hide, blushing glory! hide your head under your old nightcap. O Immortality! is this to be the end of you? ” When West lost the patronage of the court of Great Britain, in 1802, through the illness of George III, although sixty-four years of age, he 46 ©ennsElioania Bcafcems of Jfine Brts commenced a series of religious pictures on a larger scale than any he had painted for the king. The first of these was “ Christ Healing -the Sick in the Temple,” now in the National Gallery, London. This picture was painted for the Pennsylvania Hospital, of Philadelphia, but West, having sold it to the British institution, painted a replica, which is still in the possession of the hospital. This pic- ture was followed by two much larger ones, “ Christ Rejected,” and “ Death on a Pale Horse,” both of which are now owned by the Academy. “ Christ Rejected ” has been by general consent pronounced the finest production of his genius, and its excellence is the more remarkable as the artist had nearly attained the venerable age of eighty when he undertook the herculean task of covering this enormous canvas. The Reverend Sydney Smith said, on looking at it, “ I can preach you no better sermon than this picture.” The picture represents the events which took place when Pilate brought forth Jesus, crowned with thorns, and yielded him up to the judgment of the multitude. The central point of interest, the figure of the Saviour, is presented with bound hands loosely holding the derisive semblance of a sceptre, the serene brows bleed under the crown of thorns, while the patient shoulders are receiving the added mockery of a regal mantle. Standing CHRIST REJECTED. By Benjamin West Benjamin West anfc> Washington BUston 47 in front of Christ, with hand outstretched toward him, Pontius Pilate appeals to the people whether they will not select him as the criminal, to whose liberation they have a right at that feast, but their eager faces and uplifted hands reject Christ, and demand Barabbas, who, bared to the waist, with hands bound behind him, stands at the opposite side of the picture, near the prison portal, looking out sullenly from beneath his villainous brows. Prominent in the centre of the picture stands the richly apparelled high priest, Caiaphas, who, with extended arms suiting the action to the words, leads the cry of “ Crucify him ! Crucify him ! ” There are introduced into the picture the inci- dents which the story demands, such as the sorrow of Peter; the attachment of Joseph of Arimathea; the superstitious grief of Pilate’s wife; the despair of Mary Magdalen; John, the beloved disciple, supporting the fainting form of Mary, the mother, etc., so that the spectator has before him every object necessary to the explanation and unity of the story. On the left of the spectator are the Roman sol- diers attendant upon Pilate, who have Jesus in their custody. They bear the standard of the Emperor Tiberius, which marks the period of the occurrence. Their commander, the Centurion, stands in martial attitude, sedately considering the 48 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot ffine Brts awful event, surrounded by his family. Next to these is the main group, consisting of the Saviour, Pilate and the High Priest. Behind the High Priest is a throng of persons — some deliberating on this extraordinary event, while many outrageously denounce the hated ob- ject of their wrath and insult him with opprobrious looks, gestures and language. In the front of these are Joseph of Arimathea, James the Less and Saint Peter, who, filled with remorse at his former conduct in having denied his Saviour, “ went out and wept bitterly.” This central line of figures is terminated on the right by the murderer Barabbas, and the two thieves who have just been brought from their confinement and are attended by offi- cers, who are delivering them into the custody of others. In the middle of the foreground is the converted Mary Magdalen, who, in the bitterness of her grief, falls upon the cross and gazes at her Lord in a burst of despair. Near to Mary Magdalen is the third Mary, whose hands are compressed in sudden emotion. All the others are the pious women from Galilee, who came to administer to Christ, to whom he said as he saw them weeping, “ Weep not for me, ye daughters of Israel.” The gallery in front of the arches in the back- ground is filled with spectators agitated by con- Benjamin Mest anb Washington Hllston 49 flicting emotions. In the centre is Herod with his men of war and his court. The wife of Pilate, who accompanied him, marks the reconciliation of the two chiefs. She is earnestly looking at the “ just person ” and thinking of her dream. The preparations for the scourging and crucify- ing of Christ are denoted by the brutal characters who are removing the robe from his shoulders, and by the indecent and malignant zeal of the man who appears eager to inflict the scourge. “ Death on a Pale Horse ” enjoyed perhaps an even greater vogue. It is signed on the front “ Benj. West, Octr. io, 1817.” Washington All- ston writes of it : “ No fancy could have better conceived and no pencil more happily embodied the visions of sublimity than has his in his inimitable picture from the Revelation. Its subject is the opening of the seven seals, and a more sublime and awful picture I never beheld.” The enormous canvas is twenty-five feet by four- teen feet, six inches. Death on the Pale Horse is represented destroying Man and all living things, in every direction. The Powers of Hell follow on the clouds behind him. An image of the devour- ing mortality is seen in the sudden death of a young mother and her infant son. She is supported by her husband, who, at the same time, extends his arms as it were to stop the gallop of the Pale 50 Pennsylvania Hca^emp of fine Uxts Horse. Her daughter, a beautiful child, in a pa- thetic attitude, endeavours to succour her. Every- thing shows this to be a family of rank. The destruction by wild beasts is represented by a lion and lioness rushing upon a tumultuous group of men on horseback and on foot, who are endeav- ouring, in turn, to destroy their assailants. A wild bull is seen attacking the crowd behind, and toss- ing a youth into the air. . The furious animal is himself assailed by dogs. In the clouds an eagle and a heron are engaged in mortal combat; and in the foreground is a dove lamenting over its dead mate. Near the bull, but somewhat further in die pic- ture, a young man is struck dead by lightning on the supposed day of his marriage: his brother is supporting his lifeless body, and a young girl, his intended bride, gazes wildly at him. A number of figures are seen in confusion, terror and astonish- ment, at this awful visitation. Over their heads the firmament is rent; the clouds are broken; the thunders and lightnings let loose and the heavens rolled together “ as a scroll.” The destruction by famine is represented by a sallow, emaciated man, with a wrinkled visage and hollow eyes, on his knees, endeavouring to dig up some wfild roots with his long nails, to appease the ravenous cravings of nature. His empty cup lies JSenjamin Meat a n£> Washington Bliston 51 beside him. Close to this the destruction by pesti- lence is figured by a woman with an expression of pain and malady upon her wan countenance and expressed in her crouching attitude. The destruction by war is represented by a fig- ure, in helmet and armour, mounted on a red horse, with his sword raised in the act of charging; the clouds of battle rise before him. Near this scourge of the human race, a man mounted on a black horse, with the balances, is seen, while Christ, crowned, with a bow in one hand and a quiver at his shoulder, is mounted on a white horse and goes forth “ conquering and to conquer.” On the foreground beneath, the serpent lies with his head bruised, in fulfilment of the sacred word. The eyes of the Redeemer are fixed on the souls of the martyrs, who are ascending in glory to Heaven. This mysterious representation, which forms so beautiful a part of the picture, is introduced here as another emblem of the final accomplishment of the Christian dispensation at the last day. In the background, on this side of the picture, a Roman army appears on its march loaded with spoils of the Temple of Jerusalem, and driving along the Hebrew captives. On the still more remote seacoast, a Christian fleet is seen, and the landing of the Crusaders to recapture the Holy City. 52 Pennsylvania Bcabemy ot fftne Brts The general effect aimed at by the artist in this picture is the terribly sublime and its various modi- fications until lost in the opposite extremes of pity and horror. Mr. West was of the opinion, that, to delineate a physical form, which in its moral impression would approximate to that of the vis- ionary Death of Milton, it was necessary to endow it with the appearance of superhuman strength and energy. He has therefore exerted the utmost force ‘ and perspicuity of his pencil on the central fig- ure. He has depicted the King of Terrors with the physiognomy of the dead in a charnel house, but animated almost to ignition with inextinguishable rage, placed on his head a kingly crown, and clothed the length of his limbs with a robe of fune- real black. His uplifted hand holds no sceptre, but is entwined with the serpent, who first brought death into the world, and he launches his darts from both hands in all directions with a merci- less impartiality. His horse rushes forward with the universal wildness of a tempestuous element, breathing livid pestilence, and rearing and trampling with the vehemence of unbridled fury. Behind him are seen an insidious demon bearing the torch of discord, with a monstrous progeny of the reptile world — JBenjamin Tffilest anb Masbington Bllston 53 “ All prodigious things, Abominable, unutterable, and worse Than fables yet half feign’d of fear conceiv’d, Gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire.” The Ministers of Hell, who had “ power given to them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword and with hunger and with disease and with the beasts of the earth.” The next character on the canvas in point of consequence is the Rider on the White Horse. As he is supposed to represent the Gospel, it was req- uisite that he should be invested with those exte- rior indications of purity, excellence and dignity which are associated in our minds with the name and office of the Messiah. He is painted with a solemn countenance, expressive of a mind filled with the thoughts of a great enterprise, and he advances with that serene majesty in which Divine Providence continues, through the storms and com- motions of the temporal world, to execute its eter- nal purposes. He is armed with a bow and arrows, the force and arguments of truth, and leaves behind him, as passing vapour, all those terrible tumults and phantoms which make up the auxiliaries and retinue of Death. At the first view he seems to be only a secondary character, but on considering the business of the scene, it will be obvious that he is the great leader and that the others but follow 54 Pennsylvania Bca&emy of ffine Brts in his train, and carry into effect the inferior ob- jects of his heavenly mission, as he goes towards that glorious region in which appear “ the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.” The third of the apocalyptic characters is the Rider on the Red Horse. He is represented sim- ply as a warrior armed with the great sword. He advances in the same direction as the Messiah, thereby intimating that those wars which have accompanied the Christian religion, and of which he is the type and emblem, are a part of the divine scheme for effectually diffusing it throughout the entire world. It will be observed that the horse in this instance is caparisoned as a war horse, while those of Death and the Messiah are without reins, being guided only by the will of their riders. The prophetic vista beyond this character shows in one division the Romans under Titus returning with the spoils of Jerusalem and in the other the Cru- saders contending with the Saracens. Behind the Messiah and the Warrior, the Rider on the Black Horse is seen coming forward. He is represented with the steady countenance of a man scrupulous in his estimate of things, stern in his decisions, and likely to require the execution of his adjudications with the unrelenting solemnity of a terrible judge. He follows the two preceding Benjamin West anb Washington Hllston 55 characters and is supposed to typify that sceptical philosophy which affects to estimate Christianity by the temporary circumstances that have arisen in the course of its progress, while it is itself but a part of the great cloud of mysteries which en- velop the present and future purposes of religion. To give an idea of the impression created by the picture upon contemporary writers, we quote from “ The History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in America:” — “He (West) visited Paris, and took with him his sublime com- position on a small scale of * Death on a Pale Horse.’ His reception was cordial and the admira- tion of his work enthusiastic. Mr. Cunningham says, ‘ Minister after minister, and artist after artist, from the accomplished Talleyrand and the subtle Fouche, to the enthusiastic Denon and the ferocious David, gathered around him, and talked with unbounded love of historical painting and of its influence on mankind.’ ” The Academy’s can- vas Was enlarged and altered from this sketch which West carried to Paris in 1802. This work was executed when the artist was nearly eighty years of age. Soon after, Cunning- ham tells us, “ he began to sink and though still to be found at his easel his hand had lost its early alacrity. It was evident that all this was soon to cease, that he was suffering a slow, and a general 56 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts and easy decay. The venerable old man sat in his study among his favourite pictures, a breathing image of piety and contentment, awaiting calmly the hour of his dissolution. Without any fixed complaint, his mental faculties unimpaired, his cheerfulness uneclipsed and with looks serene and benevolent, he expired nth March, 1820, in the eighty-second year of his age.” He was buried beside Reynolds, Opie, Barry and Van Dyck in St. Paul’s Cathedral. The pall was borne by noblemen, ambassadors and academicians; his two sons and his grandson were chief mourn- ers, and sixty coaches brought up the splendid procession. One of the most interesting of the early Amer- ican pictures in the Academy’s collection is Wash- ington Allston’s (1779-1843) painting of the “ Dead Man revived by touching the Relics of Elisha,” which came to the institution by purchase in 1816, for the sum of three thousand five hundred dollars. The painter was born at Waccamaw, South Carolina, November 5, 1779, and died in Cam- bridge, Massachusetts, July 9, 1843. At an early age he was sent on account of delicate health to Newport, Rhode Island, where he remained until he entered Harvard University, whence he was Benjamin West ant) Washington Hllston 57 graduated in 1800. His natural taste for art was fostered by the congenial atmosphere of his adopted residence, where Smybert had painted and Stuart and Malbone had been born. Allston’s first instruction in art was during his school days, from Samuel King, of Newport, and when he removed to Boston to enter college, he acquired his first knowledge of colour in the human figure from pic- tures by Pine in the Columbian Museum. At this time he became acquainted with Malbone, and the year after Allston left college he accompanied Mal- bone to England. He entered the Royal Academy and the next year exhibited a picture at Somerset House. He travelled through France, Switzerland and Italy, remaining in the latter country four years, when he returned to America and married a sister of the celebrated Dr. Channing. On his second trip to Europe he took with him as a pupil Morse, the future inventor of the telegraph. Allston’s first important picture after arriving in England was “ The Dead Man Restored.” It was finished and exhibited at the British Institution in 1813, where it received the first prize of two hun- dred guineas. Horace Binney, one of the founders of the Academy, who had been in the senior class at Cambridge when Allston was a freshman, was trav- elling in England at the time, and being impressed 58 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot ffine Brts with the merit of the painting persuaded Allston to entrust it to his charge to convey it to Philadelphia, feeling sure that the Academy would purchase it. A contemporary review describes it as “ one of the stateliest pictures of the American School; ” as “ an awe inspiring work, carrying the mind back to the days of cave burial among the courageous Hebrew invaders of Asia Minor. A cavern is crowded with mourning figures; silhouettes of the sentinels, who watch for the prowling Moabites, darken the mouth ; in the foreground crumble the phosphoric bones, and a nightmare figure in a shroud stretches up toward the light and air with its new impulse of life. Our art has produced no other conception so simply grand and so nobly terrible.” There is much that is fine about the picture, which was extremely popular in its day and was the subject of many eulogies. With all due re- spect for the epoch of flowery words in which he lived, one may say that Allston showed high imag- inative powers and his ability as a colourist earned for him the title of the American Titian. Allston was made an associate of the Royal Academy, but could not be raised to full member- ship on account of ceasing to reside in the British Kingdom. CHAPTER IV MATTHEW PRATT AND THE PEALES “ It has always struck me that historical portrait galleries far transcend in worth all other kinds of national collections of pictures whatever; in fact, they ought to exist (for many reasons, of all de- grees of weight) in every country, as among the most popular and cherished national possessions. . . . Often I have found a portrait superior in real instruction to half a dozen written biographies, as biographies are written; or rather let me say, I have found that the portrait was as a small lighted candle by which the biographies could for the first time be read, and some human interpretation made of them.” Extract from a letter from Thomas Car- lyle, addressed to David Laing, of Edinborough, on the proposed National Exhibition of Scottish Portraits. The earliest American portrait painter repre- sented in The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is Matthew Pratt (1734-1805), whose birth preceded West’s by four years. His admirable por- traits of Benjamin West and his wife, Elizabeth 69 60 Pennsylvania Bca&emy of iFtne Brts Shewed, deserve special attention in the Gallery of Historic Portraits, to which we now make our entrance, as being portraits painted by a native born American — a Philadelphian — soon after he went to England and before he had received any foreign influence whatsoever. Matthew Pratt was born in Philadelphia, Sep- tember 23, 1734. His great-grandfather was Henry Pratt of Londontown, pewterer, who emi- grated early to the colonies. His father was Henry Pratt, a goldsmith and a charter member of the Philadelphia Library Company. Henry Pratt, the father of the artist, was married in Christ Church to Rebecca, a daughter of Joseph Claypoole, a de- scendant of Oliver Cromwell who had come over to Philadelphia about the time of William Penn. Of the ten children resulting from this union, Matthew was the fourth. He was born in a house which stood at the corner of what was called Tay- lor’s Alley, on Front Street between Walnut and Chestnut Streets. Historians quaintly tell us that at the age of ten he could write sixteen different handwritings. At fifteen years he was apprenticed to his uncle James Claypoole, the first native American artist of whom we have information, who instructed him, to use his own words, “ in all the branches of the painting business, particularly portrait painting.” flDattbew Pratt an& tbe peaies 61 Having served his time, Pratt set up in business for himself as a portrait painter, not refusing to take orders for pictorial signs, many of which showed the hand of a true artist. He is said to have painted a series of pictures for a grand ball given by the French minister Chevalier de la Lu- zerne, in 1785, in celebration of the birth of the Dauphin of France. His first sign was a representation of the Con- stitutional Convention of 1787, which contained portraits of the members and attracted a great deal of attention from the populace, who delighted to identify the portraits. It hung at the southwest corner of Fourth and Chestnut Streets. Another, called “ Fox Chase,” hung on the north side of Arch Street above Sixth, and his “ Game Cock ” marked a beer house in Spruce Street above Fourth. In 1764 Pratt accompanied Benjamin West’s father and future bride to London and was present at West’s wedding in London. There was a dis- tant kinship or connection between Elizabeth Shewed and Matthew Pratt — the lady’s uncle Richard having married Hannah Pratt, an aunt of Matthew — and romantic historians have embel- lished the story of the engagement and marriage with a delightful adventure in which they have not scrupled to mix names of the utmost dignity as accessory to the deed. 62 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot Jflne arts Since such romantic stories are as leaven to the heavy bread of fact, and since there is no direct evi- dence to refute the truth of the legend, as well as no great harm in it, but much whimsical humour, one gives it for what it is worth, in the interest of diversion. The story goes that the family of Elizabeth Shewell disapproved of her engagement to Ben- jamin West and that on his departure for Europe they shut the poor girl up in order to prevent the lovers from bidding each other good-bye. When West was settled in London and on the fair road to success, he wrote to his fiancee claiming the ful- filment of her promise, and her relatives, hearing of her intended departure, locked her up a second time in her room, to prevent her escape. They reckoned, it appears, without some of Phila- delphia’s most worthy citizens, for Elizabeth es- caped at night by means of a step-ladder through the aid of a trio of no less distinction than the phi- losopher Franklin; the poet and wit, Francis Hop- kinson; and Pennsylvania’s first bishop, William White. Authentic history, it is true, is silent on the sub- ject and the escapade is mentioned neither in the Autobiography of Franklin, nor in the Memoirs of Bishop White (where one would scarcely look for such a story) ; nor does Galt allude to it in his Life flbattbew Pratt anb tbe peales 63 of West. Pratt himself says 1764. June 24. I took my departure from Philadelphia in company with Betsy Shewell and Mr. John West, father to the famous Benjamin West, bound to London, where we arrived in a passage of 28 days. In a few weeks after our arrival (Sept. 2) I had the pleasure of officiating as father in the marriage ceremony at St. Martin’s Church in the Strand in joining Miss Shewell to Mr. Benjamin West as a wife, they having been engaged to each other in Phila- delphia three years before our leaving it — to the entire satisfaction of all their friends and relatives.” Pratt was the first of the American students re- ceived into West’s home as a pupil, and he remained four years. In 1768 he returned to Philadelphia, took a studio and found plenty of employment. He died in that city January 9, 1805, the year of the founding of The Pennsylvania Academy, and lies in- terred in the family vault of his eldest son, Henry Pratt, in Christ Church burying ground, at Fifth and Arch Streets. Pratt’s best known work is the full-length por- trait of Cadwallader Coldem, belonging to the New York Chamber of Commerce, for which it was painted in 1773, the recompense to the artist being thirty-seven pounds. The portraits of West and his wife, owned by the Academy, are remarkable for their simplicity and 64 H>enns£l\>ama HcafcentE of jptne Brts dignity, their character and originality, and for a subtle charm of colour in which no extraneous influ- ence is to bei detected. The pose is affected, as was the manner of the day, but its artificiality is in no wise offensive. They were presented to the Acad- emy by Mrs. Rosalie V. Tiers Jackson, a great- granddaughter of the artist. One of the most interesting of the historical por- traits in the possession of the Academy is the full length of “ The Artist in his Museum/’ painted by Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827). Peale was born in Chestertown, on the eastern shore of Maryland, April 16, 1741, and died in Philadelphia on February 22, 1827, and is buried in St. Peter’s churchyard at Third and Pine Streets. On attaining his majority, and having served his time with a saddler in Annapolis, he commenced business for himself and extended his line to include coach-building, clock-making, silversmith work and finally portrait painting — having received some slight instruction from John Hesselius. Afterwards he went to Boston to seek the advice of Copley, the only American beside Pratt to do meritorious work before he came under foreign influence. In 1768 he went to England and became a member of Benjamin West’s household, and under West’s direction studied at the Royal Academy, meanwhile painting flbattbew Pratt anb tbe peales 65 miniatures and engraving in mezzotint. His first engraving was a folio portrait of the Earl of Chat- ham. Returning to this country, in 1770, he found constant employment and gained considerable repu- tation in painting portraits in Annapolis and Balti- more. In the spring of 1772 he was invited to Mount Vernon, where he painted the first portrait of the Virginia colonel, George Washington. He is said to have subsequently painted Washington fourteen different times. Peale took an active part in the Revolutionary struggle, both as citizen and soldier, and having be- come possessed with the idea of a National Gallery, he worked energetically upon his scheme while in the army. His faith in the Revolution and his in- sight into the possibilities it furnished for the makers of heroes seems quite extraordinary in one who so actively allied himself with the pure fighting side of the cause. He followed the army from place to place and in the pauses of action, made that price- less collection of historic portraits, which was to constitute his National Gallery. In 1784 he established, in his residence at the corner of Third and Lombard Streets, Philadelphia, his famous museum. It first consisted of the collec- tion of historical portraits. In 1794 it was extended to include specimens of natural history and was transferred to the building of the American Philo- 66 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine arts sophical Society. In 1802 it was removed to the State House and it was while located there that “ The Artist in his Museum ” was painted, when Peak was in his eighty-third year. Subsequently it was taken to the Arcade and ten years later to the Chinese Museum. Here it remained six years and this was its last exhibition in its entirety, for it was dispersed in 1854, a great many, but unfortunately not all of the portraits having been purchased by the city, and placed, as was Peak’s original intention, in the City Museum in Independence Hall. In 1791 Peale attempted to form an association for the advancement of art in this city and kept at his efforts until, in 1805, he became one of the founders of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He was a director of the institution until 1810 and its meetings were held for many years in his museum. The full-length self portrait of Peak was pre- sented to the Academy in 1878 by Mrs. Joseph Har- rison. It was the artist’s last important picture and was exhibited in 1824, the same year it was painted. The portrait shows Peak, who exhibits in his well- preserved person all the ear-marks of an aged, but by no means decrepit, man, in the act of lifting a large curtain from before his museum, through which, in the distance, stroll various visitors quaintly garbed in the costume of the day. The large mam- ZlDattbew ©ratt an& tbe J>eales 67 moth skeleton in which Peale, it is supposed, gave the famous supper party of thirteen guests, is partly visible to the right, and about the table, in the fore- ground, near to Peale, stand colossal bones and an immense jaw of some pre-historic monster. A palette and brushes lie upon the table and at the other side of the picture a splendid turkey pecks inquisitively at a box of instruments. Divers birds are ranged along the shelves of the cases which line the wall on the left side of the room, and minute investigation reveals in the front end of the first case at the extreme left hand side of the picture, the careful painting of a curious stuffed swordfish about which, in the artist’s hand, is the inscription : “ With this article the Museum commenced, June, 1784. Presented by Mr. R. Patterson.” Peale, himself, makes a striking silhouette against all this detail of background. The head is very well painted indeed, and shows Peale to have been a much abler painter than he is com- monly esteemed. The head dominates the canvas absolutely, despite its complexity, and the hands, too, are full of character. The Academy owns an excellent example of his early portraiture in Peale’s three-quarter length seated figure of Robert Morris, one of Philadel- phia’s most prominent citizens, the financier of the 68 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts Revolution. The portrait of George Clymer, the first president of the Academy, by Peale, hangs in the Board Room and is much the most distin- guished in character of all the portraits of Academy presidents here collected. It is a bust, facing right, and depicts a man with positive features, resource- ful and energetic, as we know Clymer to have been. Of Peak’s eleven children, Raphaelle and Rem- brandt lived up, in a measure, to the burden of their names and have left some evidence of in- herited talent. Raphaelle Peak (1774-1825) achieved some success as a still-life painter, and the two canvases owned by the Academy, “ Fox Grapes and Peaches ” and “ Apples and Fox Grapes,” are examples of this branch of his art. They are small panels, signed and dated — both were painted in 1815 and neither is of particular interest, being in that painfully exact vein which characterized still-life painting at that time. Rembrandt Peak (1778-1860) is the best known of the brothers. He showed a talent for art at an early age, and was but seventeen when he painted a portrait of Washington, from whom he was for- tunate enough to obtain three sittings. He studied with his father and under Benjamin West and painted portraits in London, Savannah, Charleston, New York and Philadelphia. His best work was flbattbew Pratt anb tbe peales 69 done while on a visit to Paris in 1807 and again in 1809, when he painted the portraits of distin- guished Frenchmen, many of which were afterward placed in his father’s museum. Of these the Acad- emy owns three, that of Jacques Louis David, the celebrated contemporary artist; Dominique Vivant Denon, the artist and author, and Jean Antoine Houdon, the eminent sculptor. They exhibit a cer- tain vivacity of expression and character as op- posed to the vast number of portraits he painted for the museum on his return to this country, in which ho abused his style, which became more than perfunctory. This quality is most disagreeably in evidence in the careful portrait of himself with spectacles which ■the Academy owns and which bears a dry, search- ing, pedantic expression and a total lack of charm. One can imagine him doggedly following in his father’s footsteps but never inspired by the enthusi- asm or misled by the naivete of the older man. Rembrandt Peale was president of the Ameri- can Academy, succeeding Colonel Trumbull, and was one of the original members of the National Academy of Design. His best work was his por- trait of Thomas Jefferson in the New York His- torical Society. Like his father he painted Wash- ington several times, the last and most notable por- trait being executed in 1823. It was exhibited in 70 Pennsylvania Hcabemy of Jfine Brts most of the large cities of the United States and in 1832 was bought by Congress for $2000. His versatility almost equalled that of his father. He was one of the first to practise lithography in the United States, and gained a silver medal at the Franklin Institute, in 1827, for a portrait of Wash- ington. He is further represented in the Academy by a portrait of Judge Richard Peters, of Belmont, a small panel (7x9) hanging in the Field Collection in the Print Room, and by his portrait in the Gilpin Gallery of Richard Peters, Jr. A handsome por- trait of Audubon (?) the famous ornithologist, attributed to Winner, is possibly by Rembrandt Peale at his best. It is obviously neither of Audu- bon nor by Winner, nor yet by Neagle as has some- times been thought. The last of the Peale family with which we have to do is James Peale (1749-1831), a brother of Charles Willson, who is charmingly represented in the Academy by two miniature portraits of Reuben and Frances Gratz Etting. In addition to these there is a portrait of Anna and Margaretta Peale, daughters of the artist, which was purchased in 1902 and added to the portrait collection in Gal- lery B. CHAPTER V GILBERT STUART ( 1 75 5- 1 827) The collection of twenty-four Gilbert Stuarts is the glory of the galleries of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. No better opportunity can be found for the study of Stuart’s art than is afforded by this collection, which is undoubtedly the best representation of his work in any museum. Stuart painted in Philadelphia from 1795 to 1805, when he was in the fulness of his powers, and most of these canvases are of this period and come direct from the descendants of the originals of the por- traits, nearly all of whom were Philadelphians, and constitute for Philadelphia a gallery of portraiture, remarkable for its historic interest as well as a monument to the ability of the greatest of Ameri- can portrait painters. In addition to this it may be said that in no other gallery of the world may the work of any one artist be studied to the same ad- vantage as may that of Gilbert Stuart be followed in the gallery of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. It is a famous Scottish boast that all the shining 71 72 Pennsylvania Bca&emy ot fine Brts lights, in no matter what department of intellectual achievement, amongst the Anglo-Saxons, have been Scotchmen. An Englishman goaded to retort by the constantly reiterated assertion on the part of a friend is said to have cited Shakespeare as a proof to the contrary, when the undaunted Scot replied, “ Weel, if he wasna a Scotsman he was clever enough to be yen.” Gilbert Stuart was no exception to the rule. He was of Scottish parentage, born in what was for- merly Narragansett country, now the village of Hammond Mills, North Kingston, Rhode Island, on December 3, 1755. The humble house dedicated to his memory, an old-fashioned, gambrel-roofed structure, at the head of Petaquamscott Pond, still stands, and at the time of Stuart’s birth formed part of the old snuff mill set up by Gilbert Stewart, 1 the painter’s father, who came from Perth in Scotland •to introduce the manufacture of snuff into the colonies. At an early period in the life of Stuart the family removed to Newport, and it is there that we find the earliest picture that can be recognized as the work of the painter. This is a pair of Spanish dogs belonging to Dr. William Hunter of Newport, said to have been painted by Stuart in his fourteenth year. The hand of the restorer has left 1 The family name was spelled Stewart until Gilbert, the painter, changed it to its present form. Gilbert Stuart 73 very little of the original brushwork in the por- traits of Mr. and Mrs. Bannister, claimed to be his first efforts in this direction. Stuart’s first master in drawing was Cosmo Alex- ander, a Scotchman, who visited the colonies and painted a number of portraits in the manner of that time. He was a great-grandson of George Jameson, whom Walpole calls the Scottish Van Dyck. On his return to Scotland Stuart accompanied him, but shortly after their arrival in Edinborough, the death of Alexander threw Stuart upon his own resources and the lad was obliged to work his passage home on a Nova Scotia collier, after only a few months’ absence, under circumstances so painful that it is said that he could never be induced to talk about it. This was in 1773, a period of intense excite- ment in the colonies which were on the verge of the Revolution, to which Stuart seems to have been so indifferent that he reembarked for England two years later on the eve of the Battle of Bunker Hill, with the object of escaping from an atmosphere so little suited to his advancement in ant, and in quest of instruction from Benjamin West, then the dean of American painters, established in Lon- don. On arriving in London, Stuart seems to have lacked the hardihood to address himself, unknown and without resources, to his future patron, and 74 Pennsylvania Bcabeniy ot fine Brts picked up a precarious living as organist of a church on a salary of thirty pounds. Finally after two years’ desultory work he gained the courage born of necessity to call upon West, who received him into his family as apprentice and friend. For five years Stuart toiled in the studio of the gentle old master until, tired of a work which brought him no recognition and probably no greater compensation than the sober certainties of board and lodging, he set up for himself in New Burlington Street. Dunlap quotes Stuart as having said of this period of apprenticeship : “ When I had finished a copy of a portrait for my old master, that I knew he was to have a good price for, and he gave me a guinea, I used to think it hard — but when I looked on the establishment around me, which with his instruction I enjoyed, and knew it was yet to be paid for, I fully exonerated West from the charge of niggardliness, and cheerfully contributed my labour in return for his kindness. ,, West appears to have had no influence upon the work of the younger painter. Stuart’s debt to him was nevertheless great since it was through his association with the King’s painter that Stuart met many of the distinguished members of London soci- ety who afterwards became his sitters. During his apprenticeship West also allowed him time to draw in the schools of the Royal Academy and to attend Gilbert Stuart 75 the lectures of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Cruikshank, and the year after he went to West, 1777, he figured as an exhibitor in the Royal Academy. In 1782 he painted his so-called chef d } oeuvre, a full-length portrait of William Grant, Esq., of Con- galton, skating in St. James’ Park. This was en- tered in the catalogue of the Royal Academy, where it was included amongst a little group of paintings, Stuart’s last contribution to the exhibitions of that institution, simply as “ A Portrait of a Gentleman Skating.” The picture is remarkable in its expres- sion of the motion of the skater, while its quality as a painting may be estimated from the following incident : — An exhibition of Pictures by the Old Masters was held at Burlington House, in January, 1878, and this portrait was among the exhibits accredited to Gainsborough, and attracted marked attention. Among the notices of the exhibition was one pub- lished in the Saturday Review in which the writer said, “ Turning to the English School, we may observe a most striking portrait in No. 128, in Gallery III. This is set down as ‘ Portrait of W. Grant, Esq., of Congalton, Skating in St. James’ Park:’ Thomas Gainsborough, R. A. ( ?) The query is certainly pertinent, for while it is difficult to believe that we do not recognize Gainsborough’s hand in the graceful and silvery look of the land- 76 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot fftne Brts scape in the background, it is not easy to reconcile the flesh tones of the portrait itself with any pre- conceived notion of Gainsborough’s workmanship. The face has a peculiar firmness and decision in drawing, which reminds one rather of Raeburn than of Gainsborough.” The authorship of the picture then became the subject of a heated discussion between partisans of Romney, Raeburn, Shee and Gainsborough, until the controversy was ended by a grandson of Grant, who came out with the statement that the portrait was by “ the great portrait painter of America, Gil- bert Stuart.” The success of the Grant portrait assured the career of the painter. Following its exhibition at the Royal Academy, commissions for portraits came with every post and the painter lived in a state of luxury, spending his money with a royal hand and dispensing hospitality like a prince. His prices for the portraits done at this period were only inferior to those of Romney and Gainsborough, whose peer he rapidly became, painting in collaboration with the latter a full-length portrait of Henry, Earl of Carnarvon. This work was engraved by William Ward and the names of the two painters are in- scribed upon the plate. Stuart remained in London until 1788, painting numerous portraits of prominent people who became Gilbert Stuart 77 his friends as well as his patrons. He painted dur- ing his sojourn there Boydell, Gainsborough, John Philip Kendall, the Duke of Northumberland, Ad- miral Sir John Jervis, Dr. Fothergill and the Dukes pf Manchester and Leinster. He married, in 1786, Miss Charlotte Coates, the daughter of a Berkshire physician. In his thirty-third year he removed to Dublin and opened a studio there, where he re- mained four years and painted a number of nota- bles, members of the Privy Council, the Lord Chan- cellor, lords and ecclesiastics including the Very Reverend William Preston, Bishop of Killaloe, who was a generous benefactor of the Library Company of Philadelphia and whose portrait, by Benjamin West, hangs in the building at Juni- per and Locust Streets. Some of Stuart’s finest works are to be found in and about the Irish capi- tal. The gay life that he led both in England and Ireland, and his lavish hospitality, led him to un- believable extremes of fortune. It is said that he went to Ireland to escape imprisonment for debt, an ignominy he had more than once suffered during his residence in London. He boasted of having “painted himself out of jail ” in Dublin, where he got around the jailor by painting his portrait, in consideration of which honour the good man con- nived at his escape. When the fever to return to 78 Pennsylvania Bcabemy ot iftne arts America was strong within him he began a number of portraits in Dublin, for which he was paid half price at the first sittings, and having thus acquired the wherewithal for his passage home left the work unfinished without an apparent qualm of conscience. He eventually painted the ship’s owner in exchange for his transportation. He arrived in New York in 1792 and, after two years, came to Philadelphia in November of 1794. At the time of his return to his native land there were only four portrait painters of note in the coun- try. These were Charles Willson Peale, Matthew Pratt, Ralph Earl and John Trumbull, each of them a reputable artist in his way and much more capable than is commonly admitted, owing to the fact of their talents having been obscured by the brilliant prowess of the newcomer, Stuart, whose return marks an important epoch in the history of Ameri- can art, giving to it an impetus which lasted well on into the century in which he died. Stuart’s avowed purpose in returning was to paint the President, but while biographers have made much of a strain of glorious patriotism which was supposed to underlie the wish, Stuart, to judge by his own words, seems to have regarded it as a purely business proposition. He is quoted as having said to Herbert, the author of “ Irish Varieties,” when speaking of his contemplated return to his native Gilbert Stuart 79 land, “ There I expect to make a fortune by Wash- ington alone.” When he arrived in Philadelphia, during the winter of 1794-5, he was at once fortunate in making the acquaintance of that staunch Scot, Dr. William Smith, the friend and patron of West’s youth, the Provost of the University of Pennsyl- vania. Dr. Smith gave the painter his start in Philadelphia by presenting him with a house on his own property at Falls of the Schuylkill, in which to live, and providing him a studio in the house of his son, William Moore Smith. This was at the south- east corner of Fifth and Chestnut Streets, on the site of the present Drexel Bank. Later he removed to Germantown and the ruins of the building which he occupied may still be seen on the estate of Mr. William Rotch Wister. The William Smith who befriended Benjamin West was a young man under thirty. Stuart knew him toward the end of his useful and unselfish life and painted his portrait at the age of about sixty- eight. This was one of the first commissions that he received in Philadelphia and one of his most noted portraits. Stuart’s house on Chestnut Street soon became the resort of many prominent and fashionable per- sons. Philadelphia, at that time, was unusually at- tractive. It was the seat of the government and its 80 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot fine Brts society included representatives of the best people from all parts of the Union as well as many distin- guished foreigners. The President was, of course, in residence, and Mrs. Washington, as a leader of a brilliant circle, gave those delightful entertainments which have been described in “ The Republican Court.” Stuart, with the polish of the Old World about him, it may be imagined, was received everywhere and knew everyone. His sitters were selected from the choi- cest flowers of the court of Martha Washington and the galaxy of soldiers and statesmen who sur- rounded the President. In the gay social whirl in which he found himself, he became a prominent figure because of his gracious manners, his social qualities and his savoir faire. He played upon a number of instruments, particularly the harpsichord, had a sweet tuneful voice and a ready, sparkling wit. His adaptability made him a welcome guest at all forms of entertainment, and of this brilliant soci- ety he has left us quite a gallery of the beauties and notables of Washington’s administration. He painted Mrs. Washington, Mrs. Bingham, the Marchioness D’Yrujo, Mrs. Blodgett, the beautiful daughter of Dr. Smith, and many others, and he achieved within the first few years of his residence in Philadelphia his famous three portraits of Wash- ington. Gilbert Stuart 81 Stuart lived in Philadelphia for about ten years and then after a short sojourn in Washington, re- moved to Boston in 1805, and there he remained until his death, July 27, 1828. It is painful to record that through a constitu- tional lack of industry and never from any lack of appreciation or failure of patronage, he died in a state of indigence, bordering upon actual want, leaving his family practically destitute, except for the original of his famous head of Washington. Pilgrims to the grave of Gilbert Stuart are di- rected to a tablet erected to his memory, within recent years, on Boston Common. While this is claimed to be the spot where the painter was in- terred in the then Potter’s Field, his actual resting place is lost to accurate history. The piece de resistance of the Stuart Collection is the full-length portrait of George Washington, signed and dated, “ G. Stuart, 1796,” and familiarly known as the Lansdowne portrait. It was received from the estate of William Bingham, for whom it was painted, as one of the earliest bequests to the new Academy, in the sixth year of its organization, 1811. Gilbert Stuart painted three original portraits of Washington from life, the first showing the right side of the face and the second and third facing left. The first was a full bust, the second a full-length and 82 Pennsylvania Bca&emy of fine Brts the third a vignette head. They have become of- ficially known from the names of their original owners in the order of their painting as the Vaughan, the Lansdowne and the Athenaeum types, but the only one whose authenticity as an original life portrait has never been questioned is the Athenaeum portrait, which was retained by Stuart during his life and is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The date of the painting of the first portrait is not known but it appears to have been early in the year 1795, soon after the painter’s arrival in Phila- delphia, whither he came armed with a letter of in- troduction to the President from John Jay. The time of Stuart’s coming to Philadelphia is referred to in a letter written by Mrs. Jay to her husband, then in London, dated New York, November 15, 1794, in which she says: “ In ten days he (Stuart) is to go to Philadelphia to take a likeness of the President.” A memorandum has been found in Stuart’s hand of a list of “ thirty-two gentlemen who are to have copies of the portraits of the first President of the United States.” How many of these were made from the first portrait is not known and the identity of that first portrait has never been established to the satisfaction of everybody. Stuart himself said that he destroyed it, but his word is disputed by Gilbert Stuart 83 authoritative writers backed up by more or less conclusive evidence to the contrary. Of the six copies that have been discovered, each shows some variance from the others. Of these there is the Gibbs-Channing portrait sold to Stuart’s personal friend Colonel George Gibbs, of New York, from whom it passed to the Colonel’s sister, Mrs. Channing, whose son Dr. William F. Channing sold it to the late S. P. Avery, from whom it was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum. There is the Vaughan portrait proper, from which Holloway’s print was engraved and published November, 1796, in Lavater’s “ Physiog- nomy.” It was at this time in the possession of Mr. Samuel Vaughan of London, a staunch friend of Franklin and admirer of Washington. This pic- ture is still in the custody of the estate of Mrs. Joseph Harrison. A third portrait, claimed to be the first, was discovered and purchased in 1892 by Mr. Charles Henry Hart and is now owned by Mr. Marsden J. Perry of Providence, Rhode Island. This picture is said to have belonged to William Bingham and to have been bought at the public auction of the contents of his house in 1807, by James Kitchen, the proprietor of the Merchants’ Exchange Coffee House, located a block distant from Bingham’s house. Upon Kitchen’s death in 1828 the picture was inherited by his son, an emi- 84 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine arts nent physician of Philadelphia, who lived to his ninety-fourth year, and from whom i,t was pur- chased in 1892 after having been in his family for eighty-five years. In April of the following year Stuart executed his second portrait of the President from life, a full-length standing figure facing left with the right hand extended as if in speaking, similar in pose and composition to the portrait of Bossuet by Rigaud, familiar through engraving. This Lansdowne portrait is a ceremonial picture, full of imposing dignity, representing Washington as the executive head of the nation, in contradistinction to the other two known types, which give an intimate study of the personality of the man. Although until recent years the Academy’s full- length portrait was universally accepted as a replica of the original Lansdowne portrait in the present possession of the Earl of Rosebery, there is in point of fact some doubt as to which is the original of the two portraits which Stuart is krlown to have painted for William Bingham, a prominent citizen of Philadelphia, a friend and patron of Stuart and intimately associated in both business and social relations with America’s friend, the Earl of Shelburne, afterward first Marquis of Lans- downe. William Bingham was an early figure in the Gilbert Stuart 85 history of the country. He was a man of wealth and position, two factors which he considerably strengthened by his marriage in 1780 to Anne, the eldest of the daughters of Thomas Willing, one of the leading patriots of Colonial days. In 1795 Mr. Bingham was made United States Senator from Pennsylvania and served until 1801. It was during some years spent abroad in both public and private capacity that the friendship was formed between the distinguished Philadelphian and the English nobleman in whose honour “ Lansdowne,” the his- toric country seat of the Binghams, acquired about this time, was named. This estate and mansion had been built before the Revolution by John Penn and was one of the most attractive in the country. Washington was frequently entertained here and under the gracious reign of its beautiful hostess it became one of the most hospitable residences in the environs of Philadelphia. The sittings for the portrait were arranged for by Mrs. Bingham as referred to in a letter from Washington to Stuart dated Monday evening, nth April, 1796, in which the President inquires whether he is to pose at Stuart’s own house or at the State House and which begins : “ Sir : I am under promise to Mrs. Bingham to sit for you to- morrow, at nine o’clock, etc.” Of the two portraits painted at this time, one was retained by Mr. Bing- 86 Pennsylvania Hca&emy of ffine Brts ham for his own house, Lansdowne, and the other was sent to England as a present to his noble friend. The significant fact in support of the priority of the Academy’s canvas is its signature and date, while to support his claim 'to the original portrait the Earl of Rosebery has hung beside his picture an original autograph letter signed by Gilbert Stuart and witnessed by three names certifying to the authenticity and originality of that portrait. The whole controversy, which is a most interesting one, has been made the subject of a valuable article written by Mr. Charles Henry Hart, who has done so much original research work along these lines, and which appeared in Harper's Monthly Magazine for August, 1896. Mr. Hart believes that the Academy’s picture is the original and that Lord Rosebery’s is the replica. He bases this belief upon what he calls the intrinsic evidence of the picture’s originality, its freedom and animation, and upon the important fact that it is signed and dated “ G. Stuart, 1796,” while the other is neither signed nor dated. After the death of the Marquis of Lansdowne his pictures were sold, and Stuart’s Washington was purchased by Mr. Samuel Williams, a British mer- chant, for five hundred and forty pounds and fifteen shillings. Gilbert Stuart 87 Mr. Williams becoming insolvent, his creditors disposed of the picture by a lottery of forty tickets at fifty guineas each, when it became the property of John Delaware Lewis, M. P., who, in 1876, sent it to this country for exhibition in Philadelphia, at the Centennial Exhibition, where it was hung in the British section. The picture subsequently passed into the hands of the Earl of Rosebery. In 1823 Stuart gave to Samuel Williams the autograph letter he had received from Washington above referred to. Upon it he placed the following certificate : “ In looking over my papers to find one that had the signature of George Washington, I found this asking me when he should sit for his portrait which is now owned by Samuel Williams of London. I have thought it proper that it should be his, especially as he owns the only original painting I ever made of Washington, except one that I own myself. I painted a third but rubbed it out. I now present this to his brother, Timo. Williams, for said Samuel. Boston, 9th day of March, 1823. Gilbert Stuart.” The paper is witnessed, Isaac P. Davis, W. Dutton and L. Baldwin. This is the paper that has come to the Earl of Rosebery with the portrait and hangs framed beside it. The engraving of the portrait which led to so much hard feeling between Stuart and Mr. Bing- ham is produced by Mr. Hart in his evidence of the 88 Pennsylvania Hcabemy of ffine Hrts priority of the Academy’s painting. This was made by an English engraver, Thomas Heath, from Lord Lansdowne’s picture and was signed and dated Gabriel Stuart, 1797. Of this circumstance Mr. Hart says : “ Another potent fact is that the contemporary engraving of the Lansdowne picture by Thomas Heath gives the date of the painting as 1797, while the Bingham picture, as we have seen, is dated 1796. As both portraits were painted for William Bingham it is not at all unlikely that the original was signed and dated by the artist to ear-mark it and was retained in this country inten- tionally, very possibly at Stuart’s own suggestion for his use in painting duplicates.” Stuart made several replicas, one for William Constable of New York in which there is a change in the lighting, and afterward made a number of full-lengths of the President, varying the pose, of which the best is in the Lenox Library. The Academy has preserved throughout the con- troversy a negative attitude and the picture is con- servatively labelled, “ replica.” The canvas is in perfect condition, having done almost no travelling. When it was finished it was hung in the mansion at Lansdowne and upon the death of William Bingham was transferred to the gallery of the Academy and has hung there undisturbed throughout a full cen- Gilbert Stuart 89 tury. The signature is plainly visible |in the lower left hand corner of the canvas. 1 The colour is as fresh as the day it was painted and exhibits all the rich variety and truth to nature for which the painter was noted. The picture is a noble and im- pressive presentment of a distinguished man and a superb example of the best period of the work of Philadelphia’s master painter. Of the Athenaeum, or household portrait of Washington, the Academy owns one of many replicas, which was bequeathed to the institution by Paul Beck in 1845. It has suffered materially in restoration. The original was the painter’s favourite and he retained it unfinished through life, making from it a vast number of completed copies, of uneven merit. It was upon this picture that Stuart realized a quota of the fortune he had ex- pected to derive from his portraits of the President. But it became mere pot-boiling, so to speak. The regular price was one hundred dollars and Stuart has been much quoted as referring to these copies as his “ hundred dollar pieces.” One of the best of these copies hangs in the Historical Society, the gift of Francis Rawle Wharton. u Stuart was preeminently a colourist and his place, judged by the highest canons of art, is un- 1 This is one of the only two known examples of Stuart that are signed. 90 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of fftne Hrts questionably among the few recognized masters of portraiture.’’ This quotation, from the Encyclopaedia Britan- nica, is entitled to greater weight as being unbiassed by national prejudice, and a consideration of the twenty-four canvases exhibited in the Academy 1 is most convincing of the truth of this assertion from the other side of the water. No master before or since has given so true an impression of the colour of flesh, and in his proficiency he seems never to have fallen into a recipe, the pitfall of success. Each sitter was a new problem of colour and his portraits present as much variety in this regard as did the sitters themselves. His work divides itself into two distinct periods. The first, or English period, reflects the influence of the great painters of Great Britain with whom he came into contact during his formative years of study and early achievement. It is marked by a delicate precision in the drawing and by a slight artificiality of colouring whose pearly greys suggest the similar effects of Romney, Gainsborough and the other portrait painters of the British School with whom, as we have seen, his work was at times confused. 1 Of the Academy’s collection, twenty-one are owned by the institution, three are on deposit. The portrait of James Madison included in the group as a pendant to the excellent portrait of Dolly Madison, is a copy, and not from Stuart’s hand. (Albert Stuart 91 Stuart’s return to America marks the assertion of his own intense personality, a coming into his full power as an individualist ; and exhibits a robust- ness, a vigour, a strength of characterization and a richness of colour that carry him beyond the limita- tions of the cleverest of the British School, which formed him into a manner as distinctly his own as was that of any of his distinguished compeers across the water. He has been represented to us by his biographers as an eccentric, but many of the clever and witty retorts recorded to show how inconsistent and un- reasonable he was may be perfectly understood as the defence of a great portrait painter struggling against the opposing spirit of the sitter, a position, as every one knows, exceedingly hard. Mr. Hart, who seems to have understood him, writes : “ Stuart was a many-sided character in his mental and physical temperament. He could be as gruff as a bear and as sweet as a woman; as ill-mannered as a twentieth century youth and as courtly as a knight of old; as unscrupulous as a tricky money lender and as honourable as a judge. And in everything he was lavish. He was a man of extremes ; always hot or cold, never temperate. He could be dainty to effeminacy and gross almost to brutality. His art was of course imbued with these characteristics to a greater or less degree and they enable us to 92 Pennsylvania Bcabemy ot fftne Brts understand why his men were so robust and his women so refined, why his portraits were never of a class but always of the individual. He under- stood it all — all the different grades and de- grees.” As a rule Stuart’s interest in the canvas centres very palpably upon the head but, while he some- times slighted the accessories of the portraits he painted, there is sufficient evidence in this one gal- lery of the Academy to prove that he understood to a remarkable degree the painting of detail and of textures. Biographers are fond of quoting a bit of repartee that he threw out in answer to a friend, who, it is said, took him to task for his indifference to accessories in a portrait, when he is supposed to have arrogantly said, “ I copy the works of God and leave the clothes to tailors and mantua makers.” But too much has already been made of this remark, which was never meant to be taken seriously. On the other hand, we have the record of his most serious conversations with Neagle and with Jouett to show how profoundly he had studied his metier in all its aspects. On the subject of backgrounds he said to the latter in 1816: “Backgrounds should contain whatever is necessary to illustrate the char- acter of the person. The eye should see the appli- cation of the parts to the whole, but without sepa- rating or attracting the attention from the main Gilbert Stuart 93 point. Backgrounds point to dates and circum- stances, and peculiarity of employment or profes- sion, but the person should be portrayed so as to be read, like the Bible, without notes, which in books are likened unto backgrounds in paintings. Too much parade in the background is like notes with a book to it, and is very apt to fatigue by the con- stant shifting of attention.” As a painter of men of vigorous personality Stuart stands supreme. Men of high intellectual type like the Provost of the University of Pennsyl- vania, Bishop White, Robert Morris, William Lewis or Chief Justice Shippen, all of whom he painted, inspired his art to its utmost. Of this type the Academy possesses a superb example in the portrait of Colonel John Nixon, a prominent patriot and citizen of Philadelphia, who resided there from the date of his birth, 1733, to that of his death, 1808, taking during his entire life an intense interest in the welfare of his city and in the politics of his country, which he served as soldier in two wars. Nixon’s parents were Irish. His father was a shipping merchant who in 1738 built Nixon’s Wharf on the Delaware River. The son succeeded to the business of the father and in 1756, during the excitement of the French War, was elected lieuten- ant of the Dock-Yard company of which his father had been captain. In 1765 he signed the non-impor- 94 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fftne Brts tation agreement against the Stamp Act and from that time forward was a leader in the opposition to the usurpations of the Crown. He was one of the wardens of the port of Phila- delphia in 1 766 and in May, 1776, had charge of the defences of the Delaware, at Fort Island, and in July was placed in command of the guard of the city. John Nixon, by popular appointment, read and proclaimed to the people publicly and for the first time, the Declaration of Independence, at the State House, on Monday, July 8, 1776. He was one of the organizers of the Bank of North America in 1783 and its second president from 1792 until his death. The portrait of John Nixon is a rare piece of character study and is equally remarkable for the strength and virility of the painting. It is perhaps the strongest manifestation of the truth of Stuart’s maxim, “ There are no lines in nature,” as, upon close inspection, the markings, particularly in the painting of the mouth, are so subtle, so apparently slight, that a metamorphosis seems to occur as one backs off from the picture and the strength and de- termination of that feature become the dominating note of the portrait. But, like all great portraits, it is the living personality of the sitter which holds us more than the technicalities of the workmanship and we feel Nixon to have been every inch a man. (Albert Stuart 95 This portrait was bequeathed by the sitter’s grand- son, Henry Cramond, in 1887. Of the personality of George Reinold, whose portrait was purchased by the Academy in 1898, we know nothing except that he was a great beau. Stuart’s presentment is of a very handsome, rather curious looking man with heavy eyebrows almost meeting above the bridge of the nose, under which black eyes flash fire and make the strongest interest of the face. The brow is low and contracted, a de- fect which is partially concealed under a wealth of powdered hair, and the chin is buried in the folds of a snowy neck-cloth of unusual amplitude. One of the most interesting of the Stuart por- traits is that of Colonel Isaac Franks, an aide-de- camp to General Washington. It is marked by a quiet forceful personality and is a charming por- trait of a distinguished man of Colonial history. The picture came as the bequest of Henry C. Gib- son, in 1896, and is accompanied by an autograph of Stuart affixed to the following inscription in the painter’s own hand : “ Portrait of Mr. Isaac Franks. Presented to my friend Isaac Franks, as a token of regard, by Gilbert Stuart, October 1, 1802, German- town.” The letter was presented by Mr. Charles Henry Hart, to whom it was given by Mr. Gibson. The portrait of Sir Henry Lorraine Baker, an admiral in the British Navy, was painted in 1817. 96 pennsplpanta Bca&emp ot fine Brts The order which he wears upon his breast came to light in the process of cleaning the picture .some years ago, having supposedly been painted out by some zealous patriot as an offence to his republican principles. Baker was with Admiral Cockburn in 1814 when the British fleet came up the Chesapeake. The portrait of James Greenleaf, one of the founders of the North American Land Company in 1795 and painted in that same year, is of about the same calibre as that of Alexander James Dallas, purchased from the Annual Members’ Fund in 1900. Though the latter portrait is not in so good a state of preservation, its historic significance is of first importance. Mr. Dallas took up his residence in Philadelphia in 1783 where he was admitted to the bar in 1785. He served his country as Secretary of State under John Adams; as United States district attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania under Jefferson; as Secretary of the Treasury under Madison ; and in 1815 discharged the duties of Secretary of War in addition to directing the Treasury Department and superintending the reduction of the army upon the restoration of peace. Stuart’s delineation is of a man of upright bearing, of great enterprise and alertness, while the painting is of that most virile epoch of the painter’s history. The canvas comes through the descendants of Mr. Dallas. Stuart’s uncle, Captain Joseph Anthony, is among PORTRAIT OF COLONEL JOHN NIXON. PORTRAIT OF DR. JOHN FOTHERGILL. By Gilbert Stuart Gilbert Stuart 97 the more recent acquisitions and came to the Acad- emy as the bequest of Professor Oliver Wolcott Gibbs. It has been badly varnished at some time, which accounts for its spotted condition, but other- wise is a valuable addition to the collection, par- ticularly on account of the sitter’s relationship to the artist. Of his English period the Academy owns a fine example in the portrait of Dr. John Fothergill, a celebrated English physician and author, which was purchased from the Annual Members’ Fund in 1903, and is the last canvas to be added to the collection. Fothergill died in 1780, which fixes the date of the portrait within five years, for Stuart went to Lon- don in 1775. The picture has lost some of its orig- inal vitality in the hands of the restorer, but is still a superb piece of work and most valuable as repre- senting the pearly greys of the painter’s early manner and the extreme simplicity of his method. The eyes are subtly done, with a few deft expressive touches, the neck-cloth is a marvel of professional skill and the hand fine in its firmness of drawing and simple brushwork. The canvas breathes a dignity and repose which were doubtless most characteristic of the rather prim personage depicted — a primness that was an official manner, if one may judge by the keenly humourous eyes. He was a charming per- son evidently and one that interested Stuart keenly; 98 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts for the details of the costume, the curled wig, the texture of the grey cloth coat, the design of its covered buttons and the pattern of the handsome carved leather chair in which he sits are all dwelt upon with the care of a most skilful workman who is loath to leave a congenial occupation. Stuart’s masterpieces are undoubtedly to be found among his portraits of men. In the delineation of strong, virile types he was at his most original and best. So much more fame had he as a painter of men that it is with a feeling of surprise that one turns to those beautiful portraits of women of which the Academy possesses some superb examples and which reveal, in their treatment, an unexpected re- finement and tenderness. The portrait sketch of Mrs. Samuel Blodgett, which came to the Academy in the Carey Collec- tion, is universally acknowledged to be the finest female head that Stuart produced. The sitter was the daughter of the Reverend William Smith, D. D., provost of the University of Pennsylvania — “ one of the most admired beauties who ever adorned the drawing-rooms of Philadelphia, and as much dis- tinguished by sprightliness and wit as by personal comeliness.” The portrait has a purity, an ethereal charm and style which are characteristic of the painter’s very best period — qualities which declined in his work PORTRAIT OF MRS. SAMUEL BLODGETT. PORTRAIT OF MISS ELIZABETFI BEALE BORDLEY. Gilbert Stuart 99 done after the beginning of the nineteenth century. The very unfinished nature of the canvas gives it an added charm, exemplifying, as it does, Stuart’s use of the texture of the canvas in his portraits. He rarely obliterates the quality of the surface on which he paints, and so important a factor was this quality to the painter that when he employed a panel, as he ofttimes did for his portraits, he had the surface prepared or grained in imitation of an English twill canvas, a trick that has aided often in the identification of a disputed work. The Blodgett portrait expresses all the charm of the sitter with the least detail possible. There is a subtlety in the modelling of the face which baffles all imitation, a richness, a mellowness of flesh that is unsurpassed if not unequalled in any other of his heads. The strings of the little cap or turban, which the sitter wears, indicated by one line of the brush, terminate in a dainty bow of transparent muslin to the right of her chin and are a very masterpiece of restraint in the painting of accessories. The por- trait has been engraved by John Cheney for “ The Gift,” 1845. The portrait of Miss Elizabeth Beale Bordley is a rare combination of Stuart’s English and Ameri- can qualities. The picture is especially delightful in its decorative quality, in the delicacy of the mod- elling, the imperceptible blending of one form into ioo Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts another — through all of which the charming per- sonality of the sitter dominates, expresses her youth- ful frankness. The sitter was born in Annapolis, Maryland, Oc- tober 17, 1777. She was a daughter of John Beale Bordley, one of Washington’s agricultural corres- pondents and friends. She came to Philadelphia with her parents at the age of thirteen, and became a close friend of Eleanor Custis. The tradition is that the two friends had their portraits painted, by Stuart, for each other, and that they subsequently exchanged them, each taking her own. At the age of forty, Elizabeth Bordley married James Gibson, a Philadelphia lawyer of distinction, one of the founders of The Pennsylvania Academy, and she died in Philadelphia at the advanced age of eighty- five years. The picture was bequeathed to the Academy by Miss Elizabeth Mifflin in 1886. The portrait of Mrs. Samuel Gatliff (Elizabeth Corbin Griffin) and her daughter is perhaps the work in this collection which most recalls the painter Romney. As compared with the portraits of Mrs. Blodgett and Elizabeth Bordley it appears fuller in form, brighter, but not so rare in colour, and more frankly painted though it lacks the mysterious charm of the Blodgett head. Mr. Hart in his series — “ Gilbert Stuart’s Portraits of Women,” PORTRAIT OF MRS. SAMUEL GATLIFF AND HER DAUGHTER. By Gilbert Stuart. i (Btlbert Stuart 101 published in the Century Magazine for March, 1899, says of this picture : “ All that has been claimed for Stuart’s art both in England and America is con- centrated in this picture of Mrs. Gatliff and her child. This painting possesses every quality that goes to make a great picture. Its treatment is simple and direct ; its composition is dignified and natural ; its colour is refined and true; its distinction is un- equivocal and the maternal instinct beams from the rapt expression, while the tender firmness of the mother’s clasped hands strikingly contrasts with the trustful restfulness of the infant’s pose. Had Gil- bert Stuart painted nothing else than this picture it would be sufficient to name him a master in his art.” The picture came with two other portraits by Stuart as the bequest of Dr. Ferdinand Stewart Campbell in 1899. One of these represents Mrs. Gatliff’ s father, Colonel Samuel Griffin, a colonel in the Army of the Revolution and a member of the Congress from Virginia in 1789. The second de- picts Samuel Gatliff, an English merchant in Phila- delphia, to whom the lady of the first portrait was married at the age of seventeen years and by whom she was left a widow with four daughters ten years later. The portraits come through her son by her second marriage. The portrait of Mrs. George Plumstead is char- acteristic of the painter’s delicacy of brushwork and 102 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot fine Brts fine sentiment in the delineation of women. It hangs pendant to Stuart's portrait of George Plum- stead, the two having been painted in 1800, when Mrs. Plumstead was twenty-four and her husband eleven years her senior. Mrs. Plumstead had a face more remarkable for its character and charm of originality than for mere beauty. She affects one as essentially Scottish in type, with light, hazel eyes and fluffy blond hair, elaborately dressed. She wears black velvet softened at the neck by trans- parent folds of white tissue and lace, which Stuart was so fond of introducing into his portraits, and which he painted with consummate skill. A gold chain further relieves and breaks up the blackness of the gown, and the background is a crimson curtain beyond which one has a glimpse of distant sky. The sitter came of a staunch patriotic line* her father having been John Ross, of Tain, County Ross, Scotland, and her mother, a daughter of Charles Cruikshank, who fought under Wolfe at Quebec. George Plumstead was the youngest son of Will- iam Plumstead, a former mayor of Philadelphia, whose portrait by Copley (?) 1 hangs in the His- torical Society of Pennsylvania. The two portraits were bequeathed to the Academy by a grand- daughter, Miss Helena Ross Sheetz, in 1891. 1 Possibly by Matthew Pratt. Gilbert Stuart 103 Stuart painted the daughters of Thomas Willing and the Academy owns two, those of Elizabeth and Abigail. Their prominence in Philadelphia society at the time of the Revolution and early days of the Republic was* due to the activity of their father, the head of the mercantile house of Willing and Morris, one of the largest in the country. His partner was Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution. The portrait of Elizabeth, Mrs. William Jackson, belongs to about the same class and has much of the ethereal charm which animates the portrait of Mrs. Blodgett. There is exquisite colour in the painting of the chest and neck, which the cut of the bodice leaves bare, and the ruffles and transparent muslin of the gown show masterly handling and a fine sense of textures. The face itself is very grey, almost unnaturally so, even allowing for Stuart’s tendency toward greys noticeable in his early man- ner. The portrait was engraved for Griswold’s “ Re- publican Court.” It was bequeathed to the Academy by Miss Ann Willing Jackson, a daughter of the sitter, in 1876. In 1887 Mrs. John W. Field presented a por- trait of her mother, Abigail Willing, Mrs. Richard Peters, Jr., by Stuart, and that of her father, Rich- ard Peters, Jr., by Rembrandt Peale, came to the 104 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts Academy at her death in 1902. The two usually hang together. The portrait of Mrs. James Madison is full of charm and individuality and is a close character study. The canvas has that admirable freshness and spontaneity, that great distinction of colour and dainty handling of white draperies typical of the painter’s best period. There are evidences of some repainting on this canvas, notably in the back- ground. Stuart’s output was prodigious. In the catalogue of his works, issued by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1880, there are seven hundred and forty- six portraits recorded including sixty-one of Wash- ington. The catalogue of the Loan Collection of Portraits held at The Pennsylvania Academy in 1887 speaks of the discovery of eleven more, seven in Philadelphia, and four in England. Others have been discovered since. CHAPTER VI A GROUP OF EARLY PORTRAIT PAINTERS The Academy owns twelve portraits by Thomas Sully (1783-1872), upon whom fell the mantle of Stuart, at that artist’s death in 1828. Sully was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England, on June 19, 1783, and died in Philadelphia Novem- ber 5, 1872, at the advanced age of eighty-nine years. His father was a player who brought his family to this country at the beginning of the last century, landing in Charleston, South Carolina, where the son gleaned his first instruction in art. His eldest brother, Lawrence, Avas settled in Rich- mond, as a miniature painter, and thither Thomas repaired for advice and instruction. Sully re- moved to New York in 1806, and three years later adopted Philadelphia as his permanent home and there he painted his most important pic- tures. Stuart had left Philadelphia in 1803, and Sully, at the instigation of Benjamin Chew Wilcocks, whose portrait he had painted in New York, vis- 105 106 Pennsylvania Bca&emy ot fine Brts ited Philadelphia in 1807, an d early in 1808 took up his permanent residence there. His house be- longed to the Girard Estate and was specially built for Mr. Sully by Stephen Girard, who leased it to him for life. Its site was the bed of the pres- ent Ranstead Street at its intersection with Fifth Street. About this time the painter made a visit to Boston and received some advice from Stuart, and during a year spent in England is numbered as one of the pupils of Benjamin West. Upon his return to Philadelphia in 1809 or 1810, his improvement was so marked that he became at once the most prominent portrait painter in Phil- adelphia, a position he never had to relinquish, and indeed his early work stamps him as an artist of no ordinary merit. Like some other great artists he had his dis- tinctive periods showing clearly defined differ- ences in manner and methods. His first period was characterized by strength and solidity in draw- ing, by distinction of pose and beauty of colour, his sitters being chiefly men. His unquestioned masterpiece, a full-length portrait of General Jonathan Williams, was painted in 1815, while his excesptionally fine portraits of George Fred- erick Cooke and James Ross were painted ear- lier. His most extraordinary gift to posterity is a GEORGE FREDERICK COOKE AS RICHARD III. By Thomas Sully. E $roup of Baris portrait painters 107 register 1 of his work kept day by day, in which he has noted the name of the subject, the size of the canvas, the date when each picture was begun and finished, for whom painted and the price. At the end of eath year he added up the total number of his works for that year and their total value; and as his artistic career covered a span of three score years and ten, he has recorded the painting of two thousand five hundred and twenty pictures, for which he received $246,744, or an annual income averaging $3525, which was a very comfortable revenue for the greater part of his life, at the period in which he lived. The Academy is fortunate in the possession of one of the most important of Sully’s works, the portrait of George Frederick Cooke as Richard III. Cooke was an eminent actor of very dissi- f pated habits who came to this country in 1810 and died in New York two years later, after a period of great popularity. The full-length portrait in the Academy’s collection is a tour de force rather than a work of great artistic merit. It was fin- ished in January, 1812, and is signed with Sully’s cipher, “ T. S. 1811,” and was sold to The Penn- 1 This register arranged and edited with an introduction and notes by Mr. Charles Henry Hart, exists in an edition of one hundred and ten copies published at Philadelphia in 1909. The original manuscript is preserved by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 108 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot ffitte Brts sylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for $300.00, this sum having been contributed by friends and admirers of the actor. While the accessories of the picture are cold and dry, the head is a distin- guished piece of painting. Sully’s masterpiece in this collection is his half- length portrait of James Ross, painted in 1813, a work of astonishing virility and impressiveness. It justifies, as comparatively few of Sully’s por- traits do — none other in this collection — the painter’s renown as an artist de premiere quedite. The canvas is an imposing one, — the splendid solidity of the head, the breadth of treatment and freshness of colour quite cast into the shade the remainder of the collection. The sitter, James Ross, was a lawyer, a member of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1790 and United States Senator from 1794 to 1803. The picture has been engraved by Goodman and Piggott. The portrait of John McLain, who was Post Master General of the United States in 1823, and associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1829 to 1861, is a fine head, though painted much later — in 1831. An en- graving of this portrait was made for the National Portrait Gallery by W. G. Armstrong. Of Sully’s portraits of Fanny Kemble, the pop- B Group of Barlp portrait painters 109 ular actress and authoress of his day, the Academy owns two, “ Tragedy ” and “ Comedy,” so to speak. The better known of the two portrays Mrs. Kemble in the character of Beatrice, and pleases by its vivacity and its piquancy, which were so characteristic of her very great personal charm. It was painted in 1833 f° r Edward L. Carey and came to the Academy with the Carey Collection. It was engraved by John Cheney for “ The Gift ” in 1836. There is in the Board Room of the Academy, Sully’s portrait of Edward L. Carey, the owner of the Carey Collection and the fourth president of the Academy, which office he held until his death, and one of the earliest collectors of paintings in this country. In 1837 Sully visited London and painted from life the portrait of Queen Victoria in her corona- tion robes for the St. George Society. It hangs in the hall of the St. George Society, Philadelphia. John Wesley Jarvis (1780-1839) chiefly in- teresting to us as the master of that greater painter, Henry Inman, is represented in the Acad- emy by one portrait, that of William Harris Craw- ford, the American statesman, who filled many positions of trust and honour until finally he be- came secretary of the Treasury of the United States in 1816. no Pennsylvania Bcabemy of ffine Hrts Jarvis was a nephew of John Wesley, born in England and brought to Philadelphia by his father when he was but five years of age. It is said that a visit to the studio of John Wesley Jarvis decided the career of Henry Inman (1801- 1846), who became Jarvis’ .pupil, serving a seven years’ apprenticeship and devoting himself at first to miniature painting in which he became very proficient. Inman was a native of Utica, New York, though he spent much of his life in New York City, where he was one of the founders and the first vice-president of the National Academy of Design, in 1824-25. His connection with Philadelphia is from 1832 to about 1835, when he was associated with Cephas G. Childs in a lithographing printing business car- ried on in that city. He was a director of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1834 to 1836. His portraits of Macaulay, 1 Chalmers, and Wordsworth were commissions from this country and were painted in England, whither Inman went on a visit in 1845 and remained about a year. The finest Inman owned by the Academy is his portrait of Henry Pratt, presented by Mrs. J. Dundas Lippincott in 1905. Henry Pratt’s place in a gallery of Philadelphia portraits is particu- 1 In the Academy Collection. PORTRAIT OF JAMES ROSS. PORTRAIT OF PIENRY PRATT. By Thomas Sully. By Henry Inman. B (3roup o t Earls portrait painters ill larly significant. He was the eldest son of Mat- thew Pratt, the portrait painter, and became emi- nent as a shipping merchant of the firm of Pratt and Kintzing. He purchased from Robert Morris a large estate on the banks of the Schuylkill known as “ Lemon Hill,” which at his death became the nucleus of Fairmount Park, having been saved from its intended fate of a factory site through the energy of Thomas Pym -Cope. The old Pratt mansion still stands, though de- generated into the uses of a public refreshment house, within the boundary of the East Park. Mr. Pratt was one of the founders of the Academy — he was born in Philadelphia in 1761 and died there in 1838. The picture represents a remarkably handsome elderly gentleman in the full vigour of his age, in • which Inman has seen and painted all the beauty. He has placed the subject in a flood of mellow light which enhances the value of his silky, white hair and the soft texture of his fine old skin. The delightful personality of the sitter dominates the mere painting, in itself most charming. The back- ground is admirable, showing to the right a bit of handsome landscape. It is Inman at his best and rarest. The portraits of David Paul Brown, a noted lawyer of Philadelphia, and of Caleb Cope, sev- 112 Pennsylvania Hca&emy of fine arts enth president of the Academy, express Inman’s more conventional, less inspired style but are thor- oughly representative and distinguished portraits in which Inman is seen in his full power. His portrait of Thomas Sully as an old man is in one of his most sympathetic moods and is the best representation we have of the physiognomy of that artist. The canvas is painted with great ten- derness and feeling and is charming in its treat- ment and sentiment. The little portrait of Inman by himself, on a canvas ten by twelve inches, is a delightful sketch with an old style quaintness in- duced by the hat which he wears. It is signed on the back “ Sketch of H. Inman by himself at thirty-three, June, 1834,” and was bequeathed in 1871 by Cephas G. Childs, his business part- ner. Another of the illustrious coterie of early por- trait painters allied with the history of Philadel- phia is John Neagle (1796-1865) who is repre- sented in the collections of the Academy by four important canvases. Of these, the best known is that of “ Pat Lyon at the Forge.” The original of this picture, painted in 1826 when the artist was twenty-nine years of age and exhibited in the Academy the following year, is now the property of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The Acad- emy’s canvas is an enlarged replica painted in 1829 PAT LYON AT THE FORGE. By John Neagle. B (Broup of Earls portrait painters 113 and has been engraved with the title the “ Village Blacksmith.” The subject, Pat Lyon, the jolly smith, was an eccentric character, well known in Philadelphia. He had acquired by his industry a considerable fortune and had forsworn the forge when he called upon Neagle to paint his portrait, but he was no snob, and specified particularly in his con- versation with the painter that it was in his old character as blacksmith that he wished to go down to posterity and not as a “ gentleman,” a role for which he seems to have had some contempt. “ Paint me as a blacksmith,” said the wealthy Vul- can, stripping off his fine coat and baring his pon- derous arms. Shortly before, the quaker burghers, astutely arguing that the maker of locks was the man who could pick them, had apprehended Pat for a bank robbery and clapped him into the prison at Sixth and Walnut Streets, doubtless behind a lock of his own construction. Lyon was heartily proud of his martyrdom and desired that a view of his Bastile should figure in the portrait, which identifies the dark tower frowning through the window of the forge in Neagle’s picture. Lyon sued the bank and recovered $12,000 damages for the indignity he suffered. He died in Philadelphia April 15, 1829. The picture was presented to the Academy by the Neagle family. 114 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy ot ffine Hrts The original sketch for this picture, on a canvas eight by ten inches, was presented to the institu- tion by the late John Lambert, Jr., in 1897, and usually hangs by the side of the large canvas. It is a charming little sketch giving a complete idea of the character of the blacksmith and of the col- our scheme, which is more attractive in this sketch than in the completed picture. This interesting relic is inscribed on the back : “ The original study in colours by John Neagle for Pat Lyon the black- smith. A rapid sketch for arrangement and gen- eral effect, Philada. Penna.” and beneath this is written, “ The above is my father’s handwriting, Garrett C. Neagle, January 23rd, ’97.” Mr. Lam- bert evidently had Mr. Neagle’s son make this identification before presenting the sketch to the Academy. John Neagle’s parents were Philadelphians, though he was born in Boston in 1796 during a visit they made to that city. He had no regular instruction, though conscientious biographers re- cord his infant acquaintance with Petticolas, the miniature painter, when both were school boys and that after some instruction in drawing from Peter Ancora he was apprenticed to an ornamental coach maker and got two months’ instruction from Bass Otis. It was during this period of his study, when Neagle was nineteen years old, that Otis made that B Group of Baris portrait painters 115 delightful portrait of his pupil which hangs in the Academy. In 1818 Neagle set out for London in quest of Benjamin West, thinking he would find a more open field but shortly returned to Philadelphia and in May, 1820, married a step-daughter and niece of Thomas Sully, from whom he received some instruction and warm encouragement. Later he spent some time with Stuart in Boston painting his two portraits of the venerable artist shortly before his death and profiting exceedingly by his instruc- tion and advice. After this Neagle won rapid distinction in his profession. He began painting portraits about 1818 in Lexington, Kentucky, and made a little tour of Frankfort, Louisville, and New Orleans before settling in Philadelphia, where the best years of his professional life were spent. He was a director of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1830-31 and one of the founders of the Artists’ Fund Society and its first president, 1835-44. He died in Philadelphia September 17, 1865. Neagle’s work is very personal, but little affected by the painting of those artists with whom he came briefly in contact. The Academy’s masterpiece is the noble and beautiful portrait of Clayton Earl, signed and dated on the front J. Neagle, 1832. 116 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of fine Brts The canvas is a very fine example of solidity in painting, of firmness of construction, of character rendering and shows Neagle to have been a draughtsman of unusual attainments. While this portrait and that of Cornelia Earl, wife of the above, both bequeathed by their de- scendant, Harrison Earl in 1894, show Neagle to have been a painter of strength, delicacy and re- finement, he may be studied in his more virile aspects in Philadelphia at St. George’s Hall, where hangs the noble and massive portrait of Dr. Joseph Tilmore, that distinguished Englishman who was for many years rector of St. Paul’s Church, Phila- delphia; in the Union League, which owns his full-length portrait of Henry Clay; in the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, which contains five of his best portraits, or in the excellent “ Dr. Thomas Parke ” possessed by the Philadelphia Library- Company. Of the work of Bass Otis (1784-1861), Neagle’s alleged master, the Academy possesses little of im- portance, though he settled in Philadelphia as a portrait painter in 1812. His large picture and only known composition, entitled “ Interior of an Iron Foundry,” before referred to, was presented to the Academy by the artist. Otis achieved a measure of success as a portrait painter and did a good deal of experimenting in PORTRAIT OF CLAYTON EARL. By John Neagle. B Group of JEaxly portrait painters 117 the allied arts and is said to have made and printed the first lithograph produced in America. 1 He invented the perspective protractor and re- produced in a small crude mezzotint his portrait of Dr. Physick. The Academy owns a delightful portrait of John Neagle, by Bass Otis, painted in 1815 when Neagle at the age of nineteen worked in his atelier. It is a fresh, young face which looks out over a high, fop- pish stock, full of courage and determination. The portrait was presented to the Academy by the Neagle family. Included in the Academy’s col- lection are also portraits of Alexander Lawson, the engraver, and of Pollard E. Birckhead. The Academy possesses one example of the genius of Kentucky’s master painter, Matthew Harris Jouett (1788-1827) of whom practically nothing was known in these parts until his exist- ence was brought to light at the time of the Colum- bian Exposition in 1893. It was in this wise. The formation of a collec- tion that would show the progress and develop- ment of the country from Colonial times was in- trusted to Mr. Charles Henry Hart and the first contribution received by him was a miniature on ivory from Frankfort, Kentucky. The miniature, while it defied every one of the canons of that art, 1 Reproduced in the Analectic Magazine , July, 1819. 118 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy of fine Hrts was so undoubted a work of art in the freer sense that it was at once accepted, upon which the grand- son of the painter, the late Jouett Menefee, offered a second work by his grandfather which was none other than the excellent portrait of John Grimes now in the possession of the Metropolitan Museum of Xew York. Matthew Harris Jouett was born in what is now Harrodsburg, in Mercer County, Kentucky, on April 22nd, 1788, and died in his fortieth year at Lexington, August 10th, 1827. He was of French Huguenot origin, being a direct descendant from the noble Matthieu de Jouet, master of the Horse to Louis XIII of France, Lord of Leveignac, and Lieutenant in the Marshalsea of Limousin, whose grandson, Daniel de Jouet came to Xarragansett Country in Rhode Island in 1686. Matthew Jouett was educated for the law and admitted to the bar. He was appointed first lieu- tenant in the Twenty-eighth Regiment of the L’nited States Infantry when the war against England broke out. He figures as an independent in the field of American Art, though he came under the patronage and care of Gilbert Stuart during a brief four months of his life. As a souvenir of this time he has left us notes of Stuart’s conversations in the painting room given in Stuart’s own language, to B Group of )Earl£ portrait painters 119 “ preserve his singular facility in conversation and powers of illustration.” That Jouett followed Stuart’s methods in com- mencing a portrait is evident in the last canvas upon which he worked, an interesting ebauche of the local poet, Peter Grayson, which was presented to The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts by the painter’s daughter, Mrs. Menefee of Louis- ville, Kentucky. The story is told how Grayson was on his way to pose for this portrait when he met a funeral procession and upon inquiry learned that it was his friend Jouett the painter who was being carried to his grave. To commemorate this sad event Grayson wrote a poem which has been published. Stuart’s dictum as preserved by Jouett was : “ In the commencement of all portraits the first idea is an indistinct mass of light and shadow; or the character of the person as seen in the hill of the evening, in the grey of the morning or at a distance too great to discriminate features with exactness. Too much light destroys as too little hides the colours and the true and perfect image of a man is to be seen only in a misty or hazy atmosphere. “ Jouett was in his every fibre and vibration an artist in the highest sense. He was a skilled ana- lyst and a profound synthesist. He separated the 120 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts dominant traits of his sitters and then combined them to bring out the strong points and make his portraits likenesses. Considering Jouett’s environ- ment and lack of opportunity it is not extravagant to say that his work borders on the marvellous and it becomes difficult to believe that good exam- ples of some of the great masters of the brush were not known to him in his Kentucky home.” 1 In the historical sequence of the art of Penn- sylvania comes Jacob Eichholtz (1776-1842), a native of Lancaster. He was apprenticed to a copper-smith and studied with a sign-painter in his native town, and after acquiring a certain pro- ficiency in his art visited and copied Stuart and is also said to have received some advice from Sully. Nearly every old family in Lancaster or Lancas- ter County points with pride to ancestral portraits done by this native artist, who enjoyed, it appears, a full measure of local celebrity. Of his brush the Academy possesses but two examples the better one being a portrait of the Reverend John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder, a Moravian Missionary (1743-1832). The canvas is signed “ E. 1823” on the face, while from an elaborate inscription let- tered on the back we learn that it was painted in August, 1822, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It de- 1 Kentucky’s master painter. By Charles Henry Hart. Har- per’s Monthly Magazine , May, 1899. B Group of Earls portrait painters 121 picts a dry, uncompromising devotee of the austere faith of the Moravians and appears to be an excel- lent character study. His manner of painting at this time exhibits marked individuality and is easily recognized. He followed a certain dry statistical formula in which an insistent light red outline plays a prominent part and makes an ugly note of colour. In 1825, when he painted the portrait of Susan Earl Miller, bequeathed by Harrison Earl in 1894, he seemed to have outgrown his former manner to such an extent that it is inconceivable that the two portraits are by the same hand. The first can- vas was presented by the late William L. Elkins in 1893- His best known portrait is that of Nicholas Biddle with the United States Bank in the back- ground which he was said to have taken as a speci- men of his work to show Stuart when he visited him in Boston. He spent ten years in Philadelphia painting portraits. CHAPTER VII THE PORTRAIT GALLERY COMPLETED An interesting picture from the historical stand- point is that of “ Joseph Wright and Family/’ painted by the artist. Rather charming it is in its old-school style. The canvas is thirty-two by thirty-eight inches and the figures, all full lengths, are therefore about half-life size. The wife is seated on the left with a child on her lap, a small boy leaning against her knee, and a little girl seated at her feet. The artist stands on the right, with his hat on. Joseph Wright (1756-1793) was a son of Pa- tience Lovell Wright, that extraordinary woman who achieved fame as a modeller in wax. He was bom in Philadelphia and after the death of his father accompanied his mother and her family to London, where her own efforts and talents were sufficiently rewarded to enable her to give her son a good education. He studied with West and John Hoppner, who married his sister, and before leav- ing London painted a portrait of the Prince of Wales, afterward George IV. 122 Ube portrait Gallery Completed 123 Returning to this country in 1782, he was ap- pointed by Washington the first die-sinker of the United States Mint, and the “ Manly Medal ” of Washington is supposed to be his work. He died shortly after his appointment, in 1793, of the yel- low fever epidemic, in Philadelphia. Charles Robert Leslie (1794-1859) is repre- sented in the Academy by eleven works of vary- ing importance, including his first notable com- position, “ The Murder of Rutland, by Clifford,” which was presented to the Academy in 1831, by members of the artist’s family. This large and dramatic canvas illustrates a pas- sage from Shakespeare’s “ Henry VI ; ” where Ed- mund, Earl of Rutland, having been pursued to the field of battle between Sandal Castle and Wake- field by Lord Clifford intent upon avenging the death of his father, who was slain by the father of the young duke, falls upon his knees before the bloody Clifford and exclaims: “ O, let me pray, before I take my death — To thee I pray; sweet Clifford, pity me! Clifford. Such pity as my rapier’s point affords.” Third Part) Henry VI. Act 1, Scene Hi. The scene is one of great dramatic intensity. The murderous Lord, clad from head to foot in a coat of plate-armour, occupies the centre of the canvas. His face, hideously distorted by his evil 124 ©ennsgivania Bcafcemg of fine Brts intent, is disclosed by the lifted vizor, and he speaks his cruel line through clenched teeth, his eyes glaring horribly. One hand lifts the rapier, while with the other he seizes the fair hair of the boy. It is interesting to note that Sir Edwin Land- seer, when a boy, stood for the figure of Rutland. In the background, the frenzied tutor is disappear- ing, dragged off by soldiers. The canvas presents some immature crudities, but the delicate beauty of the child is expressed in a sympathetic manner in contrast to his rough and brutal surroundings. Leslie is essentially at home on the walls of the Academy, for he was in a sense its first scholarship student. His history is interesting. His parents were Americans, though he was bom in London in 1794, whence he was brought, in 1800, to Phil- adelphia, where, at the proper age, he was appren- ticed to a firm of booksellers — Bradford and Inskeep. His taste for art developed early, as evinced in three water colour sketches of noted actors in character, owned by the Academy. His boyish enthusiasm had been stirred to the depths by the acting of George Frederick Cooke. He had seen the theatre steps covered on a Sunday night, with servants and porters, who waited the opening of the box offices, next day. The magnetism of a furore so universal pos- THE MURDER OF RUTLAND, BY CLIFFORD. By Charles Robert Leslie. Zbc portrait (Sailers Complete*) 125 sessed him completely and found vent in his pencils, while it prepared him an audience exceptionally prepossessed to admire his works. The aquarelles in question represent Cooke, Cooper and Warren in their most striking poses as Othello, Falstaff and Richard and are odd memoranda of the stage costume and strut of that time. Mr. Bradford, of the firm of booksellers to which Leslie was attached, was at this time a director of the Academy and at a special meeting of the Board held May 20, 1811, he exhibited these specimens of the work of his sixteen year old apprentice, which had a great success. His masters volunteered to forego five unexpired years of his time and one of them, Mr. Inskeep, accompanied him to Eng- land, where he entered upon that cheery and charm- ing career which closed all too soon. The Academy contributed to his outfit one hun- dred dollars and the following resolution does credit to the hearts of the gentlemen of the Board : “Resolved, That Master Leslie be an eleve of this Academy, and that we will afford all the facilities in our power toward forwarding the views of his friends, in giving him an education calculated to call forth the powers of his mind, and raise him to that rank among artists to which we are in- formed he ardently aspires, and to which, in our opinion, he must attain should a munificent pat- 126 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of jFine Efts ronage foster and protect the laudable ambition which at present stimulates his genius to exertion so extraordinary.” Leslie arrived in London, December, 1811, studied at the Royal Academy and with West and Allston; established his reputation as a painter in the higher genre style, by his first important pic- ture “ Sir Roger de Coverly going to Church,” which was painted for Mr. Dunlop and repeated for the Marquis of Lansdowne. He exhibited in 1821 his “ May Day in the Reign of Queen Eliza- beth,” which secured his election as an associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1826 he was made a full Academician. Leslie was professor of drawing at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1833 and professor of painting in the Royal Academy from 1848 to 1851. The National Gallery, Lon- don, has two of his pictures, “ Sancho Panza and the Duchess” and “Uncle Toby at the Win- dow.” The Academy’s collection of his works includes, beside those already mentioned, three cabinet pic- tures, received with a portrait of Henry C. Carey, in the Carey Collection, Mr. Carey having married Leslie’s sister. These are “ Gypsy Belle,” a por- trait of Charlotte Cooper, Queen of the English Gypsies ; “ Touchstone, Audrey and William, in THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE AT DOWNING STREET. By John McLure Hamilton. Vbe portrait (Sailers Completed 127 As You Like It ” and “ Olivia, in Twelfth Night.” An ideal head of “ Sophia Western,” the heroine of the novel entitled, “ Tom Jones,” by Henry Fielding, was presented by Samuel P. Avery, from whom came also the interesting little portrait of the Earl of Egremont, a friend and patron of Leslie. Leslie’s contribution to the Gallery of National Portraiture is a portrait of William Dillwyn, a Philadelphia minister in the Society of Friends, bequeathed by W. S. Warder in 1832. With this the portrait collection comes rapidly down to modern times. Some minor works by minor painters complete the category of early por- trait painters. James Read Lambdin (1807-1889), a pupil of Sully, is represented by several portraits, including one of himself. Samuel B. Waugh (1814-1885) painted two of the collection of early presidents of the Academy, Henry D. Gilpin and Joseph R. Ingersoll. William Henry Furness (1828-1867) was the author of the unfinished por- trait of Ralph Waldo Emerson, presented by his brother, Horace Howard Furness, in 1900. The singularly brutal portrait of this distin- guished Shakespearian scholar in a red robe, is from the brush of Joseph de Camp, a Boston artist and one of the Ten American Painters. It is as unsympathetic a rendering of one of Phila- 128 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of JFine Brts delphia’s most charming citizens as one could hope to find. In striking contrast to De Camp’s portrait of Dr. Furness are John McLure Hamilton’s (1853- ) portraits of Gladstone and Richard Vaux, both of distinguished old gentlemen, done with infinite tenderness and appreciation. Mr. Hamilton is a Philadelphian but has resided some thirty years in London. He made two por- traits of the Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone. The one known as “ Gladstone at Hawarden ” was purchased by the French Govern- ment for the Luxembourg Museum, while the sec- ond, “ Gladstone at Downing Street,” was pur- chased by the Gilpin Fund from the sixty-third annual exhibition of the Academy in 1894. This canvas represents the “ grand old man ” at home, reading in his library at Downing Street, through whose window may be distinguished the Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square. The can- vas is thinly painted, in the charming manner which Mr. Hamilton affects, and as an intimate portrait of a great man off guard, nothing could be more expressive. There is a grandeur about the massive head, a sympathy in the painting of the fine old hands and suggestion of the slippered feet, that quite holds the spectator. The portrait of the Honourable Richard Vaux PORTRAIT OF MR. AND MRS. JOHN W. FIELD. By John Singer Sargent. Ube portrait (Bailers Completes 129 has more point in this collection, as the present- ment of a noted lawyer, diplomat and congressman of Philadelphia, a one-time familiar figure in our midst. It possesses the same charming qualities as the Gladstone portrait. A group of eight friends of the Academy presented the portrait in 1895. John Singer Sargent (1856- ) is represented by an excellent portrait of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Field, painted in Paris in 1882, and presented by Mrs. Field in 1891. The portrait of these two aged benefactors of the Academy is a beautiful example of Sargent’s work at a period when his reputation as one of the greatest of living portrait painters was still in the making. It is tender and sympathetic and remarkably true in the flesh painting, exhibiting none of the fire-works of technique to which his extraordinary facility has latterly led him. While in cleverness it is second to none of his canvases, in sincerity it is the superior of many. Mrs. Field was a daughter of Richard Peters, Jr., whose portrait by Rembrandt Peale and that of his wife Abigail Willing, by Stuart, hang upon the opposite wall of the Gilpin Gallery. CHAPTER VIII THE TEMPLE AND OTHER COLLECTIONS The formation of the Temple Collection dates from 1880, when Joseph E. Temple, a director of the Academy, executed a deed of trust, by which, amongst other benefits, the Institution became pos- sessed of an annual income of $1800 to be expended in the purchase of pictures and the award of the Temple medal, both the purchases and awards being specifically limited to the work of American artists shown in the exhibitions of the Academy. The collection includes at present about sixty paint- ings by contemporary American artists. The chef d y oeuvre of the collection is the “ Por- trait of Mrs. C.” familiarly “ The Lady with the White Shawl,” by William Merritt Chase, one of the loveliest things ever painted by this artist. The picture was acquired in 1895, being at that time considered one of the artist’s best works, a position it has never had to yield to any of his subsequent performances. “ The Lady with the White Shawl ” is in every way a museum picture and justifies, by its sincerity and its dignity, Chase’s 130 ttbe Uemple mb Qtbci Collections 131 high place in the world of eminent American paint- ers. It has those sterling and universal qualities of portraiture which characterize the work of all the greatest masters of the art. The personality presented is an extremely appealing one, whose serenity pervades and dominates by force of its intrinsic worth the technical features of the canvas. This is as it should be. For pure painting the picture compares with the best period of Garolus Duran, as instanced in his “ Dame au Gant,” in the Luxembourg Museum. It is in the vein of the early work of Sargent when he was still investi- gating, and has nothing in common with the over ripe period of all three painters, when technical brilliancy gained supremacy over all those subtler, more tender qualities which stand for what one really loves in painting. “ The Lady with the White Shawl ” will always stand as one of the most charming things produced in its particular epoch. Later, when, with Chase, “ style ” became a mat- ter of more moment; when in common with all the brilliantly successful painters of his period brush work became the all-absorbing feature of the metier, and portraiture degenerated into a mere background for the display of amazing feats of facility — of feu d’ artifice, his painting lost in depth what it gained in brilliancy. Of this change 132 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of jfine Hrts however one good thing came. Under the inspira- tion of a thorough mastery of the medium Chase made many an exhibition of tour de force , espei- cially in the line of still-life painting, of which he has become one of the foremost exponents in this country. The Academy preserves an excellent ex- ample of a series of studies of fish which the painter made at this time, and in which one ad- mires the delightful freedom of the method of painting, the remarkable fluency of the brush, the scintillating textures of the fish, the brass and the minor accessories of the canvas. “ The Fox Hunt” by Winslow Homer (1836- 1910), painted in 1903, is a superb example of the work of this master and is admirable for its strength of mass and for its composition. The picture is an unusual one and of extraordinary power. It is a winter scene. Through the deep, drifted snow, the fox runs swiftly, while above his head the two pursuing blackbirds keep pace with the hunted animal, serving a rich purpose of dec- oration in the composition. The chase follows the coast, and on beyond the white expanse of snow are rocks upon which the breakers dash with their accompaniment of high tossed spray, while through a rift in the lowering sky the sun glares upon the bed of the ocean, throwing into strong relief the horizon line. THE FOX HUNT. By Winslow Homer. Ube TTemple anb ©tbec Collections 133 The snow is soft and dry and offers no resist- ance to the fox, who moves forward with long graceful step, his head turned anxiously toward the source of danger. The moment is intensely dramatic, a factor that is well carried out in the colour of the picture, which is full of magnificent contrast. Homer was the most typically American painter which the country had produced up to his time. He was born in Boston and, after some ordinary instruction in his chosen profession, was sent to the front at the outbreak of the Civil War as a special correspondent and artist for Harper’s. His first pronounced success as a painter came from the exhibition of “ Prisoners from the Front,” painted in 1865. He has since painted a great variety of subjects, of which his best known have been those rugged canvases expressing the mighty moods of the sea. For years, toward the latter half of his life, he lived an isolated life on the Maine coast, studying his subject in all its various moods, painting always the grandeur of the rock- bound coast in its most dramatic relation with the ocean. As a water colourist Homer did the kind of work that placed him again in a class by himself. In his well known sketches of Bermuda he pushes the slighter medium to gigantic feats of expres- 134 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts sion. Throughout his career Homer was a painter of the elemental in nature; he saw the great, the noble and the overpowering. Whether his work will justify the immense value placed upon it dur- ing his life time is for the future to show — he is too recently dead for the present generation to properly estimate his worth. A very honest tribute to the nature painting in this picture was paid to the canvas by Mason Brown, an Adirondack guide attached to Mr. Coates’ camp at Saranack. The story is told by Mr. Trask, the manager of the Academy, who entertained the woodsman on his first visit to Phil- adelphia. He wanted to see the pictures and Mr. Trask was showing him the galleries of the insti- tution, while Mason, feeling that some comment was necessary, but having a vocabulary of only one adjective, used it incessantly, as he passed from canvas to canvas in his perfunctory and rather embarrassed way. “ That’s a pretty picture,” “ That’s a very pretty picture,” “ Now that really is a pretty picture,” was all he could find to say until suddenly he caught sight of the Homer. All his city manner dropped from him and starting toward the picture he ejaculated, “ By , I’ve seen things that looked like that ! ” The Collection contains one example of the ma- ternity series of that interesting painter, George de MOTHER AND CHILD. By George de Forrest Brush. Ube Uemple anb ©tber Collections 135 Forrest Brush (1855- ) in the group entitled “ Mother and Child ” acquired by the institution in 1898. No stronger contrast could be made than that which exists between Brush and Homer. While Homer is a most vigorous exponent of nature in her rugged moods, Brush draws more and more upon art for his source of inspiration. His work is very Florentine in character, shows strongly the influences which the painter has absorbed during his many years residence in Italy. It is not the robust painting of the Venetian School, which has left its mark upon him, but rather the gentler mas- ters of a century before the Renaissance — Peru- gino, Philippino Lippi, Botticelli and kindred paint- ers. The Academy’s canvas is the Madonna in a circular composition, similar to the group in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The child is in the arms of the mother, both soberly clad, which throws into relief the painting of the flesh. A second child, a boy, is to be discerned in the shadow of the background. The portrait of Rudolph Hennig, the “ Cello Player,” by Thomas Eakins (1844- ), is one of the masterpieces of this venerable artist. It repre- sents one of Philadelphia’s most noted musicians, who died May 28, 1904. The picture is signed on 136 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of ffine Brts the front with the date, 1896. Eakins, as a rule, did not hit upon the happy side of his sitters, but his portrait of Mr. Hennig is a true delineation of character, and expresses all the gentleness and fine- ness of that noble gentleman, whom so many of us remember with affection and respect. While Eakins painted upon the portrait, Mr. Hennig was accustomed to practise for his concert work, and in the picture the most telling quality is its sense of concentration and movement. The sensitive hand that holds the bow is not lax, it vibrates with the pressure upon the strings, while the head is turned in a way intensely characteristic of the sitter when playing, as though listening intently to the quality of the tone, the justness of the pitch, which was always faultless. Eakins is best represented in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania, which owns his mas- terpiece, a portrait of Dr. Agnew demonstrating before his class in anatomy and another of Dr. Gross. Thomas P. Anshutz (1851- ) is represented in the collection by his portrait in pastel entitled " Becky Sharp,” the model for which was one of Mr. Anshutz’ students, which was painted at the time when his ability as a portrait painter began to be officially recognized. Mr. Anshutz has been associated with the Acad- THE ’CELLO PLAYER. By Thomas Eakins. Zbc TTemple anb ©tber Collections 137 emy since its removal to the present building, where, under Thomas Eakins, he was one of the earliest students. Since 1881 he has been an in- structor in the schools, and is at present the chief of the faculty. He has had a hand in the making of hundreds of the artists of this generation, all who have studied in the Academy since 1881 hav- ing come under his jurisdiction. His leading qualification as an artist is his draughtsmanship, due to long years of study from the antique, from which he has made a series of powerful drawings. He is a remarkable example of a genius that developed its fullest power com- paratively late in life, his last pictures having been much stronger than any that preceded them. Alexander Harrison (1853- ), a Philadelphian whose genius has been fostered almost altogether in France, is represented by “ The Wave,” one of the most successful of his marine pictures, painted when Harrison was in the zenith of his power. It is considered the best of three similar pictures painted by Harrison — two of which are owned in Philadelphia. “ The Bell Buoy ” by William T. Richards ( I ^33' I 9°7) was purchased from the Temple Fund the same year as the Harrison (1891) and shows another artist’s view of a similar subject. Richards, during his lifetime, enjoyed a great 138 Pennsylvania Bca&emy of ifine Brts measure of popularity as a sea painter, and the Academy’s example is characteristic. He fell early into a recipe for painting marines, which was so successful that he never felt the need of changing his attitude toward that most varied of subjects. The Academy possesses the best known canvas of Charles H. Davis (1856- ), “The Brook,” purchased from its sixty-first annual exhibition in 1891. Davis has considerably changed his style, which exhibited all the symptoms of crystallization at the time that this picture was painted, and he now attempts to compete with the more rugged painters of the so-called nature school. “ The Brook ” is pervaded by a sympathetic, poetic feel- ing tinged with the sentimental, and belongs to that style of studio landscape which the open air painters have taught us to forego. Cecilia Beaux, the most celebrated of local women painters, is represented by her portrait of “ A New England Woman,” painted in 1896 and purchased by the Academy the same year. The portrait is a delightful study of a woman in a white dress holding a green-bound palm leaf fan. There are touches of lavender at the wrists, waist and throat and her reddish blond hair is neatly brushed beneath a cap. She sits on a low white chair before a window and the interior of the room suggests an harmonious environment for one of her simple BECKY SHARP. By Thomas P. Anshutz. Ube Uemple anb ©tber Collections 139 tastes. The painter has done more clever work than this portrait but it charms by its sincerity and simplicity. Robert Vonnoh (1858- ) is represented by two excellent and characteristic pictures in this collec- tion. The first, “ Companion of the Studio,” is an early work, signed on the front with the date, 1888. It is doubly interesting as a robust piece of portraiture and as souvenir of a fellow student of Mr. Vonnoh’s, Mr. John Pinhey, of Ottawa, now of Montreal. lit is a vigorous canvas, full of life and personality. The second example of the painter’s work is a landscape, “ November,” dated two years later, 1890. It is an important picture of the painter’s most plastic period. The canvas expresses the peculiar quality of the French landscape, and was done presumably at Grez, where he lived at the time and where he still returns to paint that charm- ing country close to the Forest of Fontainebleau. Mr. Vonnoh was associated with the Academy for a number of years as the head instructor in the schools and is to be remembered as the instigator of the movement which resulted in the formation of The Fellowship of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Gari Melchers is represented in the Temple Col- lection by an early work, one of the first which 140 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot fine Brts develops his present style of painting. “ Th Skaters ” was painted in 1901. The canvas is full of the individual point of view, and fresh, invig orating open air sense, with which this painte infuses his painting. The boy and girl, equippec for weather, move swiftly across the foreground Oj a snow-clad landscape with houses. It is cold, yei cheery, and the relation between the figures and * the landscape is admirably handled. Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859- ), a Pennsylva- nian, is represented by one of his biblical subjects, \ entitled “ Nicodemus,” painted in Jerusalem in 1899. The latest addition to the Temple Collection is a painting by Walter MacEwen entitled “ Phyllis.” It is quite representative of the work of this genial artist, whose models are always gowned in the cos- tume of half a century or more ago. “Miss Phyllis ” might be a Civil War heroine as she sits in shimmering silk against a large mirror which reflects her charming profile. Of the group of Boston painters, a few have been cared for. Willard L. Metcalf is the only one adequately represented however. His canvas, “ Twin Birches,” is one of the most successful he has accomplished. The subject is a typically New England one and the rendering is delicate and appreciative. The twin trees are daintily silhouetted By Robert Vonnoh. Ube tlemple anb ©tber Collections 141 against the early morning sky, their translucent leaves gleaming in the awakening of a summer morning. If the picture has a fault it is a lack of depth, the detail in the distant hills is not backed up by sufficient strength in the foreground. The “ Golden Screen ” of Edmund C. Tarbell belongs unfortunately to a transition period of this painter’s work and is scarcely a result. It was acquired in 1899. Childe Hassam’s small canvas called “ Cat Boats : Newport ” is hardly of sufficient impor- tance to represent this distinguished artist in an Academy of this class, yet it is a very charming little picture. The Twachtman catalogued is an inferior ex- ample of this the rarest flower of American im- pressionism. Two of our most distinguished native artists, whose work is thoroughly American, thoroughly local, though superbly represented in the various great museums of the country are known in this collection by but fragmentary and inadequate ex- amples of their skill. One refers to Edward W. Redfield and W. Elmer Schofield. To judge of their remarkable attainments in the field of land- scape work, one must go to other cities or watch the current exhibitions. The influence of the work of Edward W. Red- 142 t>ennsph>anta Hcabemp of fine Hrts field upon the landscape of the present day is one of the strongest in the movement of contemporary art. His work is characterized by a tremendous definiteness, a breadth of handling that is most expressive of the modern tendency. “ The Old Elm ” is fragmentary, as we have said, and it shows the painter’s directness of method denuded of the charm which is usually characteristic of his canvases. It is undeniably painty, a fault into which Redfield slips easily, but it has at least, and to a remarkable degree, the sense of out of doors. It is more than an impression, it is nature itself, and here is where, as a result, it fails, while as an experiment it is of exceeding interest. The date is 1906. • Of his great pictures the Chicago Institute owns a very handsome example, a hillside with cedars. Redfield has painted recently some springtime pic- tures which show a new departure in subject : they are full of subtleties of colour, of intricacies of method, very different from the old direct way, and vastly richer in imagination. His later pic- tures have a depth, a profundity, which carries the mind beyond the surface of the canvas, deep into the atmosphere of the picture. Redfield began his career as a student in the Pennsylvania Academy, where he figured as a promising student in the eighties. As a very young. THE SKATERS. By Gari Melchers. Zbc Ttemple an& ©tber Collections 143 man he went to Paris to pursue his studies and spent some years near Barbizon, on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, painting the French landscape. He returned to this country and set- tled in Centre Bridge, a picturesque part of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, close to the Delaware River. Here almost all of his pictures have been painted under the varying effects of winter, late autumn and approaching spring. From the first his com- positions have been powerful and individual and from the simplest of themes he has yearly elab- orated and increased his power of expression. W. Elmer Schofield, a contemporary and fellow student of Redfield, is represented in the Academy by “ Winter,” a canvas even less characteristic of the work of this interesting painter. It was bought in 1899, from the sixty-eighth annual exhibition of the Academy, and is therefore an early work of the artist, done before he had found himself. Though Schofield has spent many years in Eng- land, he remains essentially an American painter and a painter of American subjects. Of the work of a third Philadelphian of the same period, Charles Morris Young, the Academy pre- serves an early work entitled, “ Winter Morning After Snow.” As a tribute to the rising school of “ Young America ” painters, the Academy represents George 144 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts W. Bellows, of New York, by the best example of his forceful, uncompromising style that has found its way to Academy exhibitions. This is a winter scene, called “ North River,” and pictures a steam- boat struggling to back out of port through the frozen water. Miscellaneous Collections — American School The miscellaneous collections of the Academy contain a number of pictures by American painters which have been purchased from the Gilpin Fund, or acquired by gift and otherwise. The Academy preserves two interesting exam- ples of the work of William Morris Hunt (1824- 1879), one of the strongest figures of the last cen- tury in American painting. He was born in Brat- tleborough, Vermont, in 1824 and died at the Isles of Shoals in 1879, after a life of more than ordi- nary success and achievement. Hunt was origi- nally educated to be a sculptor, an influence which is felt in his sense of solidity and form. He stud- ied painting in Dusseldorf and under Couture in Paris, where he became the friend and an early patron of Millet, whose works he had the honour to first introduce to this country. He returned to America in 1855 and resided at Newport, but finally settled in Boston, where he had many pupils. In 1875 he published a work which has become Ube Uemple anb ©tber Collections 145 the handbook of students, embodying his views and known under the familiar title of “ Talks on Art.” He devoted himself to genre, history, and finally to landscape in his maturer days, while his early line was portraiture. “ The Flight of Night,” purchased from the Gilpin Fund in 1898, is the original sketch for Hunt’s greatest work, the mural paintings for the Assembly Room of the State Capitol at Albany, which became seriously damaged and were entirely obliterated in 1888. There were two decorations for the Capitol which represented respectively “ The great opposing forces of Nature : Night and Day, Feminine and Masculine, Darkness and Light, Superstition and Science, Pagan and Divine Thought, Self and Altruism.” This sketch repre- sents “ Anahita, the Persian Goddess of the Moon and Night, who stands for the negative or Fem- inine force.” The picture is described as follows : “ Anahita, driven forth from her realms of Fan- tasy and Unreality, impelled by the dawn of civili- zation, plunges, with her airy car, into the dark and hidden caverns of superstition and barbaric thought. The slave who bears an inverted torch, holds back the horses, that Anahita may look her last upon the Kingdom she so soon must relinquish. The horses obey her will without the ribbons, by which, in earlier sketches, they were guided. This 146 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine arts suggests the power of mind over matter. By the side of the Cloud Chariot float, in a dark-blue trans- lucent ether, the sleeping forms of a human Mother and Child. This vision hints to the Queen of the Night of other worlds than hers, where love and rest belong, and, as she hurries on her course, between the contending forces of Day and Night, Light and Darkness, a look of human doubt surprises the beauty of her Pagan countenance and renders her as tragic and typical a figure as that of the Colum- bus, and the fitting counterpart.” Hunt’s second canvas is an easel picture entitled “ Girl with White Cap.” It is a beautiful and interesting piece of painting, showing what a superior artist the painter was and how closely he was tied in spirit with his friend Millet and his master Couture. In its breadth of treatment and vigour of painting, the work bears considerable resemblance to the Head by Couture noticed in the chapter on the Gibson Collection. An interesting exhibit is a landscape entitled “ Port Ben, Delaware and Hudson Canal,” painted by Theodore Robinson (1852-1896) in 1893, and presented by the Society of American Artists, as a memorial to the painter, in 1900. Theodore Rob- inson was one of the most promising of a group of Americans who, studying in Paris in the eight- ies, came under the influence of the French impres- Cbe Cemple anb ©tbec Collections 147 sionists of that period, principally Monet, of whom Robinson became the friend and pupil. He died too young to realize fully the promise of his genius, but in this example may be seen how thoroughly he understood the painting of light and the vibra- tions of a sunny atmosphere. Robinson lived some years in Giverny, that lovely spot in the province of Eure, where Monet still resides. An innkeeper of the place shows with pride a quantity of sketches, made by the painter during his residence there, and left behind on the occasion of his last visit. A representative canvas by J. Alden Weir is his “ Mid-day Rest,” presented to the Academy by a group of five friends of the institution, including Dr. Francis W. Lewis, J. G. Rosengarten, Robert C. Ogden and Edward H. Coates and Isaac H. Clothier. CHAPTER IX THE OLD MASTERS The Pennsylvania Academy, like the provincial museums of Europe, is admirable in its preservation of the works of the local masters, who worked in Philadelphia at the time of its foundation and who were par excellence its raison d'etre. Though the great fire of 1845 and a second conflagration, which destroyed the North Gallery and its valuable con- tents in the early eighties, burned up the greater part of the old masters which had been given to the Academy in the early days, the institution at no time in its career has made a point of representing the masters of any school of painters other than the contemporary Americans. In this it is unique, and while its paucity of “ old masters ” is at times deplored and questioned, its great value as a museum thoroughly representative of the art of its own particular epoch and locality, cannot be too much insisted upon as the point of the whole in- stitution ; a point which in the coming centuries, as America gains ground as an artistic centre, will become accepted and extolled. 148 Ube ©lb /iDasters 149 The galleries of Holland are marvellous in their preservation of the works of the Dutch masters who flourished in that little country in its palmy days; the museums of Belgium must be visited if we would form an adequate idea of the output of her greatest painters; the marvels of the sculpture of the French Renaissance are only to be understood after a visit to Tours where Michel Colomb lived and wrought; while each little town of Italy is famous for some bit of local art done by the artists who had their birth there. While the wars of Napo- leon did much to disseminate the prolific output of the great Italian artists one cannot pretend to study the Venetians outside of Venice, the Florentines out of Florence and the Romans away from Rome. For all its magnificence, the Kaiser Friederich Museum misses the whole of the intimate meaning of those institutions that the Pennsylvania Academy, no less than the Prado, represents, whose spontane- ous birth is the response to the mingled urgency of the man, the place and the hour. The Academy, nevertheless, in its miscellaneous collections, preserves a number of old masters, of which the piece de resistance is “ The Violinist,” by Bartholomeus van der Heist (1613-1670), one of the most celebrated of the Dutch School of painters, at a time when it held supremacy over all others. Van der Heist was the contemporary and 150 Pennsylvania HcaDemy ot fftne Hr ts compeer of Franz Hals, Rembrandt and Ver Meer of Delft and was born in Hals’ birthplace, Haarlem, when that master was twenty-nine years of age. It is supposed that Nicholas Elias was his instructor, but he was chiefly influenced by the work of Hals. Van der Heist settled in Amsterdam when very young, and lived there the greater part of his life. The strength of his work lies in its robust sim- plicity of conception, its vigorous solidity of method and unfailing precision. His drawing was free and masterly, his draperies broadly painted and his colouring beautiful. His most famous picture, “ The Banquet of the Civic Guard on June 18, 1648,” was painted to celebrate the conclusion of peace with Spain and is one of the important ex- hibits of the Rijks Museum of Amsterdam. “ The Violinist ” was first exhibited at the Acad- emy in 1836 and is one of the pictures which es- caped the fire. The subject is a young artist, who, with the head thrown back in evident enjoyment of the music, is engaged in producing eloquent melo- dies from his instrument. It is a musicianly type, with the flowing hair and sensitive face. The cos- tume has allowed full scope to the painter’s brush with its full, fine, white shirt and rippling sleeves, gathered at the wrist. It is a harmonious and beau- tiful canvas as well as an unusual example of the work of the master. THE VIOLINIST. By Bartholomeus van der Heist. Ube lb /IDasters 151 The Dutch and Flemish Schools are rather better represented than any other of the foreign groups. There are canvases by Nicholas Bosschaert, a fruit and flower painter of the eighteenth century ; Gras- beek, a genre painter somewhat after the style of Gerard Dou; Pieter Janszoon van Asch, of Delft, who painted small canvases; Jan van Goyen, one of the earliest of the Dutch landscape painters ; Pieter van Lint, Adrian van Ostade, Cornelius van Poelen- burgh, Egbert van der Poel, Jan Joris van der Vliet, Dominicus van Tol, Hendrik Cornelius Vroom and Philip Wouverman. Of Antoine Francois van der Meulen, of Brussels, the Acad- emy owns “ A Cavalry Charge ” and “ A Battle Scene,” both small panels. Van der Meulen lived during the reign of Louis XIV, who was one of the greatest patrons of the Flemish and Dutch Schools. He invited the painter to Paris and gave him apart- ments at the Gobelins, where he was employed on designs for tapestry. The king heaped riches and distinctions on him. The “ Portrait of Henrietta van Haavens ” is an admirable work attributed to the famous Dutch painter, Godfried Schalken (1643-1706), a disciple of Gerard Dou, and best known as a genre painter. His most familiar subjects are small domestic scenes, chiefly candle lights. His small pictures were very popular and he painted the principal 152 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of afine Brts families of his native town, Dordrecht, when, in- spired by the success of Sir Godfrey Kneller, ho quitted Holland and tried portrait painting in Eng- land, at the court of William III, whose portrait he made. His venture generally, was not a success and he returned to Holland, settling this time in The Hague. He is represented in almost every gallery of importance in Europe, generally by one or more of his candle-lighted pictures. The portrait of Henrietta van Haavens recalls Kneller’s manner and is a spirited example of the portraiture of the period. Its authenticity as a Schalken is questionable. The picture was pur- chased by the fund contributed by the Annual Mem- bers of the Academy in 1900. A small collection of still-life pictures by Frans Snyders (1579-1657) a Flemish painter of consid- erable fame, includes “ Dead Game and Dog,” “ Dog and Heron,” “ Boar Hunt,” and “Dead Game and Fruit,” the latter presented by Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, in 1881. These are the typical product of the period in which Snyders lived and worked. The painter was instructed by Hendrik van Balen and Pieter Breughel. His talent excited the admira- tion of Rubens, who frequently, it is said, intrusted him with the painting of animals, fruits and the still-life of his pictures. His patrons were the Arch- Ube ©lb Masters 153 duke Albert of Brussels and the King of Spain, and his contemporary, Van Dyck, painted his portrait more than once. Second in importance in the Academy’s collection of old masters is the Italian School, of which there is a number of interesting and valuable examples. A beautiful, if fragmentary, example of the work of the Italian painter, Guido Reni (1575-1642) is preserved by the Academy in his “ Ganymede ” or “ Jove’s Cup Bearer,” which was one of the earliest gifts to the institution from Joseph Allen Smith, in 1812. It is one of the pictures whose romantic history is described in the opening chapter. The subject, which is represented merely by the head, is one of those beautiful, ideal types which Guido Reni painted when most under the influence of the Bolognese artists. The head is shown in partial profile and as a bit of pure painting is a very delight, in its quality of flatness, its caressed surface and its exquisite colour. Guido was a pupil of Ludovico Carracci, the founder of the Bolognese school, and was also asso- ciated with Annibale Carracci, the cousin of the former, with whose work Guido’s has possibly, in its earlier stages, more in common. Through Annibale, who went to Parma to study the works of Cor- reggio* Guido Reni became influenced indirectly by the poetry of that great and highly individual mas- 154 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of jftne Brts ter, and this little “ Ganymede ” has a charm dis- tinctly characteristic of the “ putti ” of Correggio, in the Convento di San Paolo in Parma. Later he was opposed, through jealousy, by Annibale. He went about 1608, to Rome, where he re- mained about twenty years. Here he executed the celebrated fresco of “ Aurora,” in the Palazzo Ros- piglioso, and the doubtful portrait of Beatrice Cenci at the Palazzo Barber ini. In these, as well as in the several “ Ecce Homos ” at Bologna, Rome, Paris, Dresden, London and elsewhere, will be noted the deleterious influence which his work suffered in Rome, where he had so much temporal success. Joseph Allen Smith seems to have had a fancy for mythological subjects. Among the few of his pictures still in the possession of the Academy are “ Cupid with a Vase ” and “ Cupid Musing,” by Bartolommeo Schidone, who was also a pupil of Carracci, though his work bears more resemblance to the style of Raphael and Correggio than that of his master. His pictures are extremely rare. Schidone was born in Modena in 1560 and died in Parma in 1616. The two examples owned by the Academy are small canvases — twelve by fif- teen inches — and though interesting are of no great importance. The Academy possesses five examples of Sal- vator Rosa (1615-1673) of which three landscapes XTbe Masters 155 were presented by Joseph Allen Smith, in 1812. Of these the largest is “ Landscape : Mercury De- ceiving *Axgus.” This is a characteristic example of the graceful style of this interesting painter whose life was so full of incident. Salvator Rosa was bom in Renella, near Naples and died in Rome. He was a pupil of his uncle, Paolo Greco, and Fal- cone, and is also said to have studied with Ribera. He lived for a while among the banditti of the Abruzzi, from which experience are drawn many of the subjects of his pictures. He went to Rome in 1635 and soon became famous as a painter, musi- cian and satirical poet. In 1647 joined the revo- lution in Naples under Masaniello and is said to have been a member of the Compagnia della Morte, formed for the waylaying and killing of the Span- iards in Naples. His masterpiece is considered to be the “ Conspiracy of Catiline,” in the Pitti Palace in Florence, while the Uffizzi guards a superb col- lection of his drawings. He excelled in battle pieces. Of Ribera, the master of Salvator Rosa, the Academy has to show a large canvas entitled “ The Cid,” which is deposited by Miss Mary A. Hearn. It is a handsome painting of the nude^ done in the master’s robust style and rich colouring. It is a half-length, facing left, the figure being seated. Joseph Ribera. Lo Spagnoletto (1588-1656), was 156 ipennsstxmnta Bcafcems of fftne Brts born at Xativa, now San Felipe, near Valencia, Spain, and died at Naples. ■His parents designed him for the profession of letters, but he made the acquaintance of Francisco Ribalta and devoted himself to the study of art under that master. He visited Rome, and, being without resources, endured many hardships. Fi- nally he was taken under the protection of a Car- dinal and his fortunes improved. He then studied with Caravaggio, whose system of chiaroscuro had peculiar attractions for him. After a rupture with his patron he became a sol- dier and experienced many vicissitudes, even be- coming a galley slave in Algeria. He went to Naples, where he married the daughter of a wealthy picture dealer, and where his Spanish birth brought him into high favour with the Spanish rulers of Naples, and he was appointed Court Painter to the Viceroy. In 1630 he became a member of the Academy of St. Luke and in 1644 received the decoration of the Order of Christ from the Pope. A second picture of the Spanish School is a “ St. Jerome in Penitence,” by Mateo Cerezo, noted for his pictures of the Conception which are found in many Spanish churches. This canvas was shown in the annual exhibition of the Academy in 1818. In the Field Collection, which hangs in the Print Room, is a fine work, a sketch by Paolo Veronese * VIRGIN AND CHILD. By Benozzo Gozzoli. Ube ©lb Masters 157 (1528-1588), one of the greatest of the Venetian painters of the Renaissance. The subject is “ St. John the Baptist,” the composition being similar to the large finished canvas of the same subject in the Villa Borghese. The sketch is small — sixteen by twenty — but the composition is powerful and satisfying, and the painting, though but a sketch, is thoroughly characteristic of the greatness and grandeur of this mighty painter. In the same collection is represented Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1498), a Florentine painter of the fifteenth century, and a student of Fra Angelico. His most important work was the decoration of the Campo Santo in Pisa, consisting of twenty-four designs, upon which he worked, aided by assistants, for sixteen years. The Academy’s example of the work of this master is a “ Virgin and Child,” done in tempera, in the manner of the frescoes of the period. It is a beautiful and extremely interesting work of art. Included in the Field bequest is also a charm- ing canvas, entitled “ Virgin ” by Francesco di Marco di Giacomo Raibolini (Francia), (1450- 1517), the painter of first importance in the Bolognese School. Francia, as he is familiarly called, acquired a great reputation for his designs in silver and gold and was appointed by the Prince of Bologna, Master of the Mint, an office which he 158 pennspipaitia Bcafcems of fine arts held until his death. In his own day he was better known as a goldsmith than a painter. In 1508 he came under the influence of Raphael. Of his frescoes only two remain, much retouched, in the Oratory of St. Cecilia at Bologna. His easel pictures and portraits in oil are numerous, and show the tendencies of Perugino and Raphael so strongly, that many have been confounded with the work of these painters. Vasari says of Francia, that he was reverenced as a god in Bologna. The Academy’s little canvas is in the serene and beauti- ful style characteristic of both Perugino and Francia. It shows simply the bust of the Virgin, who, garbed in the traditional blue, faces front with her head slightly tipped to the side. The composi- tion is fragmentary, and suggests having been cut down from a larger picture. “ The Last Supper,” by Bonifazio Veronese, the elder, is one of the minor works of the Field Collec- tion, being a mere sketch on a canvas eighteen by thirty-five. The painter, as his name indicates, was bom in Verona, about 1490 and died in 1540. He was a pupil of Palma Vecchio. His works are to be seen in most Italian galleries, also at Dresden, Vienna, St. Petersburg and Paris. Two quaint and ancient looking canvases by Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1694-1764), were pre- sented by Mrs. John Ford, the donor of some of Ube ©lb toasters 159 the Sullys. These are a pair of landscapes entitled “ Banditti among Antique Ruins.” Pannini was a follower of Salvator Rosa. Amongst the canvases purchased from Robert Fulton in 1813, are “ Death of Abel,” and “ Adam and Eve,” by Carlo Loti (1632-1698), a pupil of Caravaggio and of Liberi. The Academy preserves examples of several of the noted painters of the French school. Amongst these is an allegorical composition by that distin- guished painter of the court of Louis XIV, Charles Le Brun (1619-1690). This is from the Annual Exhibition of 1819, and represents “Time and Truth Correcting Love,” done in Le Brun’s some- what heavy and laboured style, and unimaginative colouring. Le Brun’s importance as the head of the French School seems to have been entirely super- imposed. What ability he had was not of the in- spired order, though he had an unending capacity for work. Louis XIV elevated him far beyond his spiritual deserts, though as an executive head he was eminently fitted to direct the decorating of the monarch’s palace at Versailles. He took a prin- cipal part in the foundation of the French Acad- emy and was the first director of the Gobelins manu- factory, painting meanwhile for his royal patron and designing fountains, statues and the whole series of decorations for the palace. His work shows the 160 Pennsylvania Bcabemy ot fftne Brts influences which his early training imposed. He studied with his father, a sculptor and with a painter named Perrier. Poussin also is partially responsible for the dulness of his style, for Le Brun accom- panied him to Italy in 1642, and doubtless formed himself after the severe and classic traditions of this artist, the most eminent of the French painters of the seventeenth century. Jacques Louis David (1748-1825), the court painter of Napoleon, is represented by a “ Samson and Delilah,” shown during the painter’s lifetime at the Academy in 1816. The subject is treated according to the traditions, showing Delilah as a dangerously beautiful brunette, and Samson as a young Hercules in the act of being shorn of his heavy locks. The four large canvases by Claude Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) which were purchased from the Bona- parte collection, at the famous sale of the possessions of the former King of Italy, in Bordentown, Sep- tember 1 7 and 18, 1845, have escaped the vicissi- tudes of time and fire, and are still included in the Academy’s collection. They are entitled respectively, “ The Royal Fam- ily of Naples at Portici,” “ Shipwreck,” “ Marine,” and “ Marine.” The first is signed on the front, with the date, 1746, and includes the portraits above mentioned, with a castle and a village in the dis- Ube ©lb /ibasters 161 tancs. They represent the somewhat dry method of idealistic painting in vogue at the time that they were done. Louis XV commissioned the painter to make a series of twenty pictures of French sea- ports, but, owing to the war with England, only sixteen were finished ; these are now in the Louvre. The collection of British pictures includes a charming portrait of Angelica Kauffman (1741- 1807) painted by herself; a delightful work of art, and a representative canvas by this able portrait painter. The picture was first shown in the first annual exhibition of the Academy, in 18 11, and presented to the institution, in 1817, by Mrs. Eliza- beth Powell. Angelica Kauffman was born in Schwartzenburg, in the Bregenzer Wald, though she is always classed as belonging to the British School of painters, and was indeed one of the original members of the Royal Academy. She spent most of her life abroad and in 1782 married Antonio Zucchi, a Venetian painter, and adopted Rome as her permanent resi- dence. John Hoppner (1758-1810) is represented by an admirable portrait of William Pitt, a bust, facing right. Hoppner was a choir boy in one of the royal chapels, and the king, whose natural son he was alleged to be, made him an allowance. He entered the schools of the Royal Academy in 1775, and 162 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of jftne Brts became an Academician in 17^5. Hoppner was por- trait painter to the Prince of Wales and a rival of Sir Thomas Lawrence. With the Carey Collection came a “ Landscape,” by George Morland (1763-1804), one of the most distinguished landscape painters of the eighteenth century in England. The example in this collection is a small one — fifteen by eighteen — exhibiting those peaceful qualities of English rural life which it was the custom to portray in those days of formal landscape painting, before Constable marked the path to nobler and greater truths. Two interesting canvases by John Opie (1761- 1807), a distinguished Londoner, are included in the collection. The first of these is an amusing portrait of Mrs. Elizabeth Davy, of Devonshire, England, which shows the immense cleverness of this painter of portraits. The second is a romantic subject — “ Gil Bias Securing the Cook in the Robbers’ Cave,” which was presented by Paul Beck in 1842. Another early English landscape painter, repre- sented in the department of British artists, is Richard Wilson (1714-1782), whose “Falls of Tivoli ” and “ Landscape Study ” came to the Acad- emy with the Carey Collection. Wilson was one of the thirty-six original members of the Royal Acad- emy in 1768, and was made its librarian in 1776. Daniel Maclise, J. Kenny Meadows, James Baker Ube ©lb jflbasters 163 Pyne and William Clarkson Stanfield, R. A., are three painters of the nineteenth century school of British artists represented in the Carey Collection, which, as has been mentioned, is largely composed of works of the romanticists. CHAPTER X CONTEMPORARY FOREIGN PAINTINGS Of contemporary French painting, the Academy possesses an example in the large dramatic canvas, depicting “ Orestes Pursued by the Furies,” by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), painted in 1862 and presented to the Academy by Mrs. Joseph Harrison in 1878. The painting is one of the most powerful of the subjects painted by this artist, who is best known as a painter of Madonnas. The subject follows the mythological story of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Cly- taemnestra. According to the Homeric story he was absent from Mycenae when his father returned from the Trojan War and was murdered by TEgis- thus, the lover of Clytaemnestra. Eight years later Orestes returns from Athens and revenges his father’s death by slaying his mother and her para- mour. After the deed he goes mad, and is pursued by the Erinyes, female divinities, avengers of in- iquity. In his picture of the story, Bouguereau repre- sents Orestes, nude, running distracted away from 164 ORESTES PURSUED BY THE FURIES. By William Adolphe Bouguereau, . ■ Contemporary jforetgn paintings 165 the three Furise to which, in later times, their num- ber was limited — Alecto, the unresting ; Megaera, the jealous; and Tisiphone, the avenger. Their hair is intertwined with serpents and the foremost Fury carries a torch, while the last one supports in her arms the dead form of Clytaemnestra, and all three point to the dagger which has pierced her heart. The picture is full of action and allows a full scope to the painter’s facility in the painting of the nude. The full-length portrait of Helena Modjeska Chlapowski, the celebrated Polish tragedienne, is a fine example of the work of Carolus Duran (1837- ) one of the most successful portrait painters of his day. His “ Dame au Gant,” in the Luxembourg Collection, painted about nine years earlier than the portrait of Modjeska, is still one of the important pictures of that gallery, though Duran has outlived his popularity. He is now at the head of the American Academy at Rome. The Academy’s canvas has distinction and charm. It shows the actress, standing, costumed in grey velvet, the figure in profile and the graceful head turned toward the spectator. It was painted for Mr. Paris Haldeman in 1878, and presented by him to the Academy in 1883. A small group of landscapes of the Barbizon School came to the Academy as the bequest of Dr. 166 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts Francis W. Lewis, a former member of the Board. These include a “ River Scene: South of France,” by Corot, of the same general character as the Corot of the Gibson Collection, though scarcely its equal, and a “ Twilight on the Seine,” by Daubigny, painted in 1863. Other pictures bequeathed by Dr. Lewis are, “ Top of the Grimsel Pass,” by Alex- andre Calame; “ Landscape: France,” by Emile Lambinet; “Snow Scene,” by Ludvig Munthe; “ Study of a Cobbler,” by Tony Offermans; “ Child Sleeping,” by Christian Schiissele ; “ Landscape,” by Paul Desire Trouillebert ; and “View on the Grand Canal,” by Felix Ziem. In the Field Collection is a crayon drawing, “ A Court Yard,” by Thomas Couture, and a tiny “ Landscape,” by Rousseau, the latter painted in 1851, and very interesting. As the bequest of Harrison Earl, in 1894, came a number of works by foreign painters. Amongst these is “ Castle on the Rhine,” by Charles Hoguet; “ Interior of a Stable,” by Henrietta Ronner ; “ Cattle in a Stable,” by Adolph Vogt and “ Market Scene by Moon and Candle Light,” by Petrus van Schendel. Joseph E. Temple was the donor of several im- portant pictures, of which the most prominent is an immense canvas by Charles Hermans (1839- ) a well known Belgian artist, Chevalier of the Order of Leopold and Chevalier of the Order of Franz Contemporary Jordan painting 167 Joseph of Austria. This is a scene of festivity en- titled “ Masked Ball at the Opera House,” contain- ing numerous figures, painted with facility. A large canvas by Alexandre Struys, a Belgian, pro- fessor in the Academy at Weimar, and Chevalier of the Order of the White Falcon of Saxony, in- dulges in the lugubrious title of “ Forgotten,” and represents a handsome woman, in sixteenth cen- tury German costume, sitting in a great carved oak chair in an attitude of intense and unhappy thought. This was presented by Mr. Temple in 1882. An interesting example of the work of an Italian painter of the last century is the large canvas en- titled “ Caesar Borgia and Macchiavelli,” which ob- tained for the painter a gold medal at Paris in 1866, and excited warm admiration at the Universal Ex- position in the Champs de Mars of 1867. It was presented to the Academy by thirty-six subscribing friends of the institution, in 1870. The artist was Federigo Faruffini (1833-1870), a native of Sesto, San Giovanni, near Milan. The picture represents the Duke of Valentinois receiving Macchiavelli, who, in the year 1502, was sent to the camp of Cesare Borgia, to wait upon him and to watch him. From what remains of the official letters of the Italian Statesman we learn that Macchiavelli con- ceived the strongest admiration for Cesare’s com- bination of audacity with diplomatic prudence, for 168 K>enttSEix>ania Hcafcemg of fine Brts his adroit use of cruelty and fraud, for his self- reliance, avoidance of half measures, employment of native troops and firm administration in con- quered provinces. The interview takes place in a lofty room with a large leaded glass window, before which is seated Macchiavelli, his legs encased in red silk hose and the famous sarcastic smile upon his lips. The Car- dinal is seated to the right, bending forward in an ingratiating attitude, his two hands joined together at the finger tips. There is something infinitely effeminate and fawning in his manner, and he looks capable of all his cruelties. Though not a great masterpiece, the picture possesses much strength of composition and drawing, while the character ren- dering is excellent. “ A Breton Peasant Boy ” is a distinguished and representative canvas by Dagnan Bouveret ( 1852- ), presented by twelve friends of the Acad- emy, in 1906. The artist was bom in Paris and studied under Gerome. He has received all the honours that the French Government has to bestow upon painters, and has been much appreciated in this country. The “ Breton Peasant Boy ” is a beauti- fully painted canvas exhibiting subtle values, ex- quisite colour and interesting light effect. The young peasant is portrayed in a simple but effective costume, in which the prevailing scheme of colour A BRETON PEASANT BOY. Bv Dasnan-Bouveret. Contemporary ^foreign paintings 169 is grey, black and white. There is no special effort at portraiture, yet the work is strong in character and shows that the model has been carefully studied. The whole canvas is in beautiful harmony and strikes essentially the modern note. The donors of the picture were Messrs. E. Bur- gess Warren, William L. Elkins, George D. Widener, John T. Morris, Clarence H. Clark, John H. Converse, Charles C. Harrison, Edward T. Stotesbury, Edward H. Coates and the Misses Blanchard. An interesting canvas is that of “ The Duke of Este Meditating the Death of his Wife, Parisina,” by Andre Gastaldi (1819-1889), who was a native of Turin, Italy, and professor of painting in the Academic Albertine des Beaux Arts, of that city. The subject is taken from Byron’s poem, “ Parisina,” a poem founded upon a circumstance in Gibbon’s “ Antiquities of the House of Bruns- wick.” The following extract will explain the facts upon which the story is founded. The name of Azo is substituted for Nicholas, in the poem, as more metrical : “ Under the reign of Nicholas III, Ferrara was polluted with a domestic tragedy. By the testimony of an attendant, and his own observation, the Mar- quis of Este discovered the incestuous loves of his wife, Parisina, and Hugo, his bastard son, a beauti- 170 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts ful and valiant youth. They were beheaded in the castle by the sentence of a father and husband, who published his shame and survived their exe- cution. He was unfortunate, if they were guilty; if they were innocent, he was still more unfortunate; nor is there any possible situation in which I can sincerely approve the last act of justice of a parent.” In the poem Byron recounts that awaking in the night, the Marquis of Este — whom he calls Azo — hears his wife murmuring of her love for Hugo, and the exact part pictured by the painter is as follows : — “ He pluck’d his poniard from its sheath, But sheath’d it ere the point was bare — Howe’er unworthy now to breathe, He could not slay a thing so fair — At least, not smiling — sleeping — there — Nay more : — he did not wake her then, But gazed upon her with a glance Which, had she roused her from her trance, Had frozen her sense to sleep again — And o’er his brow the burning lamp Gleam’d on the dew-drops big and damp. She spake no more — but still she slumber’d — While, in his thought, her days are number’d.” The picture received a medal at the Paris Ex- position of 1855, and was purchased by the Acad- emy in 1867. A wonderfully expressive sketch called “ The THE DUKE OF ESTE MEDITATING THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE, PARISINA. By Andre Gastaldi. Contemporary foreign paintings 171 Model,” by Fortuny, was presented by Mr. Edward H. Coates in 1890. It is an excellent example of Fortuny’s free use of water colour. Among the recent acquisitions is a pastel by Gas- ton La Touche, entitled “ Souvenir d’Espagne,” and a water colour study of heads, “ A Brittany Peasant,” by Lucien Simon, both artists representa- tive of the Salon art of to-day. CHAPTER XI THE GIBSON COLLECTION The Gibson Collection, for many years the pri- vate collection of the late Henry C. Gibson, who at his death bequeathed it to the Academy, contains a number of notable works of foreign schools, all of the nineteenth century, by artists who had their vogue during the life-time of the collector. The collection, numbering ninety-eight paintings and five pieces of sculpture, represents the indi- vidual taste of a cultivated amateur, who patron- ized liberally the art of his own day, but who bought for the pure pleasure that pictures afforded to his aesthetic sense in the adornment of his house, rather than from a special interest in any particular school. Each work must therefore be considered on its individual merits and not for its place in the development of a specialty. While the collection is not of one school, it is all of one epoch and furnishes, in consequence, an in- teresting comparison between some of the contem- porary painters of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and America, of the middle of the nineteenth cen- tury. 172 THE RETURN OF THE FLO; By Jean Frangois Millet. Ube (Btbson Collection 173 That French pictures predominate is natural, and we find several rather fine examples of the Barbison School. Of these, the most noteworthy is “ The Return of the Flock,” by Jean Frangois Millet (1814-1875), a genuine masterpiece by this, the most profound of the nineteenth century painters in France. The picture is as fine an example of Millet’s powerful studies of humanity in its relation to nature as is to be found in any gallery, not except- ing the Louvre itself. Overtaken by night, a shep- herd, wrapped deep in his great cloak, occupies the foreground, with a tremendous sense of coming forward, followed by the undulating flock, huddled together, for it is cold. A shaggy sheep dog watches, in a professional alert way, the order of the sheep, and the sky is lit with the last rays of the setting sun. The scene is painted with simple, earnest feeling, overs wept with a magnificent sense of nature, a marvellous comprehension of the facts of the funda- mental soil, to which is added a dignity, a pathos and a grace never before approached. His con- temporary Jacques very aptly compares him to Daumier, in his great style of constructive drawing and wonderful breadth of treatment. He is like a great solemn creator, a person never concerned, like his compatriot Corot, with the pure joy of living, 174 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of fine Brts but dealing always with the big facts of life and of nature. His landscapes are as constructive as his figures and have ever an integral part in the emo- tion of the picture — are never super-imposed. Millet was the one great man of his generation who was par excellence touched by the genuine feu sacre. His was the dominant personality of the century — a genius bared of all the clever attribu- tions of his fellows — forging its own destiny, in its own way, silent — unconscious — inevitable. “ The Potato Harvest ” is an excellent example of the work of Millet’s distinguished contemporary, Jules Breton (1827- ), who looked at nature with less poetry, with a more photographic eye. In Breton one feels a more academic draughtsman — a more perfectly rounded and symmetrical artist who does all things well — a perfect craftsman. There is less temperament in his work than in that of Millet, more of the conscious dramatist. “ The Potato Harvest,” familiar through the etching of it by Bracquemond, depicts an episode in the daily life of peasants. A kneeling woman empties potatoes from a basket into a large sack, held by another. The figures are massive and sculp- turesque, well fitted for the labour imposed upon them. The painter that stands best by comparison with Millet, that can measure his full height in the Gbe Gibson Collection 175 presence of this stupendous standard, is Jean Bap- tiste Camille Corot (1796-1875). And this for the best of reasons, simply that there is no comparison. If Millet was the pacemaker in his direction, dwarfing all those who trespassed upon his chosen field, Corot was no less distinct a personality, no less an individual. The Academy is fortunate in the possession of the small canvas which came to it with the Gibson Collection. In America, which has proved so receptive a market for the spurious of the Barbison School of paintings, the eye has become so filled with the forgeries which abound, that this little masterpiece of undoubted authen- ticity comes like a revelation of the true genius and power of the painter. It is a small canvas, fourteen by eighteen inches, entitled simply “ Landscape,” but it gives a fine sense of Corot’s peculiar charm in the joyous ex- pression of the sensation of early morning, the delicious damp of the French atmosphere — its wonderful greys, its pearly mists, its delicate greens and the quality and variety of the clouded sky. Its luminosity is extraordinary, the landscape appears to shimmer in the first quiver of the awakening morning. The picture is a little lyric. Beside the spontaneity of Corot’s art the minor painters of the Barbison School sink into relative insignificance. 176 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts The chef d’ oeuvre of the collection is the large canvas by Thomas Couture (1815-1879), originally entitled, “La Triomphe d’une Femme Equivoque,” now familiarly catalogued “ The Thorny Path.” The canvas is a great allegorical composition painted toward the end of the painter’s life, in 1873, and exhibits in the highest degree Couture’s prin- ciples and manner, his strong and expressive draw- ing, his rich, brilliant colouring — those qualities of opulent prowess which have caused him to be likened to Paul Veronese. The picture points a moral on the results of a life of pleasure. The future of the beautiful creature, who directs the chariot, is reflected in the hideous old age of the dame in the rear, while the goal of her satellites is prophesied in the lurching figure of Silenus, who leads the van. Couture was Manet’s master and our own Hunt was his pupil, in whose work considerable affinity may be traced. He represents a curious middle ground between his progenitors. Ingres, David, etc., and his descendants, Manet and the whole school of followers of this radical genius. Couture was any- thing but radical, the truths of his academic fore- bears were too deeply impressed upon him for him ever to have been able to shake them off entirely. He comes nearer to the modern note in his head of a “ Roman Youth ” in this collection, and which was THE GREAT OAK OF ORNANS. By Gustave Courbet. Ube (Bibson Collection 177 painted in 1854. In this the treatment is broad, with a strong sense of realism in the vigorous draw- ing and the big masses into which the modelling and light effects are divided. Gustave Courbet (1819-1878) must be reckoned as the strong factor in modern landscape work. He is represented in the collection by one of his greatest pictures, “ The Great Oak at Ornans,” a powerfully painted tree of noble proportions, in whose rugged painting it is easy to feel the ardent patriot — the partisan of the Commune — the instigator of the overthrow of the Colonne Vendome. Courbet was the first pronounced exponent of the realistic school, whose work was a consistent protest against the classic ideals. “ Le beau, c’est le laid ” was one of his favourite paradoxes, and like all reactionary painters he overreached himself at times in his affec- tation of the gross and material with which he sought to emphasize his reliance upon the primary elements of nature. While the effect was not al- ways happy in his figure painting, it would be diffi- cult to find a more beautiful picture than the “ Deer in the Forest of Fontainebleau,” which is preserved by the Musee du Louvre. There is no doubt that even in its excesses his in- fluence was healthy. His landscapes have all the vigour of nature herself, as opposed to the studio products of many of his contemporaries. His brush 178 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts was broad, strong and uncompromising and his feeling for nature, a wholesome sentiment. Courbet has many qualities of mind in common with Tho- reau and has been aptly compared for others to Walt Whitman. Ornans was his birthplace and many of his can- vases were painted there. The “ Great Oak ” is an extraordinary composition for its time, but one which finds full appreciation now. The giant tree occupies nearly the whole of the canvas, the huge trunk placed squarely in the centre and the branches sweeping to each side. The painting is broad and simple, almost roughly done, but the effect is one of massive strength. The pigment is thick upon the canvas, laid on probably with a palette knife, but there is a vigorous freedom of air and light in the picture and it stands as one of the strongest things in the collection. Of French landscape painters, Rousseau, Dau- bigny, Cazin, Diaz and Dupre are represented, with the conventional thing from their hands. Jules Dupre (1812-1889), was one the most original and powerful of the painters of his epoch, among the exponents of the so-called “ paysage intime.” He is represented by two canvases, “ The Moor- land,” and “ Marine.” Dupre in his day was con- sidered, with Rousseau, one of the greatest colour- ists in landscape which the school produced. He SEEKING SHELTER. By Emile Van Marcke. Ube (Btbson Collection 179 was an early disciple of the rage for “ atmosphere ” in painting, a word which figured largely in the technical parlance of a quarter of a century ago, but which has passed into disuse. He understood values, which gives his paintings tone and depth, and in his treatment of masses of foliage he was so skilful that without losing the sense of weight and density one can feel the light and air filtering through, and moving in their (depths. Cattle scenes — landscapes with cattle — were tremendously popular at the time when the collec- tion was formed, and Mr. Gibson possessed vigor- ous examples of Try on, Van Marcke, Sacque and the two Bonheurs, amongst the French painters, and of Schenck of the Duchy of Holstein, where he had surely every facility for studying the herds. Emile Van Marcke (1827-1890), was born in Sevres and died in Hyeres. He was a pupil of Troyon, his compatriot and seventeen years his senior. The Gibson Collection possesses two of the cattle pieces of this excellent painter, of which the larger, “ The Herd,” is considered his master- piece. It is signed on the front, “ Em. Van Marcke, 1869.” The smaller canvas entitled “ Seeking Shelter,” has more of the qualities which appeal to the profession, and depicts a group of cattle hurrying before an approaching storm. It is juicy in painting and full of interest and gets as far 180 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of fine Hrts away as possible from the academic style of the canvases of Auguste Bonheur, Try on, etc., in the collection. The landscape is admirably painted also, the whole story being under one impulse, each incident taking its just place in a concrete whole. In the Rosa Bonheur, “ Highland Sheep,” the cattle are painted with considerable interest and accuracy, but the effect is cheapened by the intro- duction of a ready-made background, of false values and insipid colour that has nothing to do with the picture. Roybet, de Neuville, Meissonnier and Detaille have each a place in the collection. Roybet gives us a “ Cavalier,” which has more than the usual distinguished quality of this accomplished painter in little. It exceeds in interest the Meissonnier “ Cavalier Waiting an Audience,” in somewhat the same vein. Detaille, a pupil of Meissonnier, and in his day the leading military painter of France, is repre- sented by a characteristic canvas ; “ Charge of the Ninth Regiment of Cuirassiers, Village of Mors- bronn, day of the Battle of Reichshoffen, August 6 , 1870.” It is signed on the front, “ Edouard Detaille, 1874.” Soldiery became his passion in his boyhood, when he delighted to fashion corps of soldiers out of pasteboard, painting them with extraordinary Gbe (Sfbson Collection 181 truth and fidelity as to accoutrements and arms. On the breaking out of the Franco-German War, Detaille at once enlisted as a volunteer, and during the very midst of battle, gathered the subject of a picture. “ The Charge of the Ninth Regiment ” was exhibited at the Salon of 1874. The moment seized for the composition is when the head of the column of cavalry suddenly finds itself confronted by “ chevaux de frise ” barricading the narrow way through which the entire corps is rushing while attacked on all sides by hidden musketry from the windows of the neighbouring houses. The moment is full of excitement, for the main body is coming at top speed upon the advance guard, halted by the barricade. There is a fatiguing correctness about the soldiers of Detaille, which are wanting in character, in movement and in life. “ A Surprise in the Environs of Metz,” by Al- phonse de Neuville (1836-1885), Detaille’s dis- tinguished rival in the field of battle scenes, was painted in the same year as the Detaille and ex- hibited in the Salon of 1875. A- favourite picture in the collection is a most beautiful Alfred Stevens (1828-1900), called “ In the Country,” one of those delightful portraits of the artist’s model in her yellow gown and carrying a Japanese parasol. Alfred Stevens was a Belgian and one of the most popular of the fashionable 1S2 Pennsylvania Hcabemy of fine Hrts portrait painters of the last century. In the private collections of Brussels and Paris are to be found the chief treasures of his art. He excelled in the paint- ing of beautiful women. The Academy's example is a very fine one and gives a fair idea of Stevens’ art, which was per- sonal. charming, subtle and strong. That he was appreciated in life is amply attested in the list of medals and honours which he received. France made him chevalier, officer and commander of the Legion of Honour; Belgium conferred upon him the honour of Commander of the Order of Leopold ; he was Commander of the Austrian Order of Franz Joseph and held from Bavaria the Order of St MicheL Yet Stevens died in great poverty at Ostend, where toward the close of his life — he lived to be nearly eighty — he is said to have eked out a wretched livelihood by painting upon sea shells for tourists. The short but brilliant career of Mariano Fortuny y Carbo (1838-1874) filled the ears and aroused the enthusiasm of contemporary collectors of the last century. The painter is one of the chief exponents of the Spanish school of the middle of the nineteenth century. He was bora in Rewos, Catalonia. Spain. June 11, 1838, and died in Rome, November 21, 1874. His art education was ac- IN THE COUNTRY. By Alfred Stevens. Ube (Bibson Collection 183 quired at the Barcelona Academy from which he won the prix de Rome in 1856, at the age of twenty years. His talents were versatile and he produced oil paintings, water colours, etchings or drawings with equal facility. His chief work, “ Le Mariage Espagnol,” in- spired by the painter’s marriage to a daughter of Madrazo, the director of the Madrid Museum, was begun in Madrid in 1867 and finished in 1869 in Rome. When shown in Paris the picture created an extraordinary sensation. There were several portraits in it, among them those of Madame For- tuny, the Duchess of Colonna and the artist Regnault. The example in the Gibson Collection, “ The Council House, Granada,” was painted in 1872 in Granada where the artist passed one of the hap- piest periods of his life. The picture represents the Casa de Ayuntamiento viejo, or ancient town hall of Granada, an edifice long ago perverted from its high uses to a fish market. The quaint Plaza was once dedicated to important public fests and func- tions. The perfect harmony and rare brilliancy and colour of this picture are characteristic of this, the best and most individual period of Fortuny’s work. As an architectural study the low and pic- turesque Moorish buildings, with the flowering plants, gay awnings and rugs overhanging the bal- 184 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of ffine Brts conies, are most interesting, while the tiny figures, painted with matchless accuracy and skill, give local colour to a scene typically Spanish in character. The deep blue of the sky, the warm red of the chimney tops, the neutral greys of the rough cast walls, the green, yellow or vermilion placards on the front of the house, the gay shawls of the women, the shadows of the narrow street, are all handled with unerring delicacy and power. Fortuny re- ceived for the picture, which was painted for Mr. Gibson, forty thousand francs ($8000). There is a stirring romance connected with the picture, a mystery that was never wholly solved. Its owner, Mr. Gibson, sent it in January, 1877, to The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, to take part in a loan exhibition. This exhibition closed on the last day of March but Mr. Gibson allowed his pictures to remain on through the regu- lar annual exhibition of the Institution, which closed on the second of June. The pictures were returned, and, according to the records, Mr. Gibson received them in a darkened hall of the then closed house, checking off each canvas as it came without closely inspecting it. As the family were away for the summer the pictures were not hung but were tem- porarily placed in a room and securely locked. In the autumn when the house was opened, the first thing with which Mr. Gibson occupied himself Ube (Btbson Collection 185 was the arrangement of his pictures. On turning to the Fortuny, he was at once impressed with a change in the picture and closer inspection re- vealed beyond the question of a doubt that the original had been spirited away and a poor copy substituted. A long investigation followed. The curator of the Academy was interrogated and finally, on being provided with funds for search, recovered the picture and restored it to its rightful owner. His statement concerning its recovery reads like the most extravagant fiction, but Mr. Gibson rested content with the regaining of his treasure and nothing was done to establish or dis- prove its verity. The Academy owns a second work by Fortuny, a water colour, which is referred to under the chapter dealing with miscellaneous collections. The Collection contains an excellent example of the sombre style of Mihaly Munkacsy, in his “ Bringing in the Night Rovers,” signed on the front and dated 1881 : and an interesting canvas of Georges Michel (1763-1843), “Landscape,” which despite its brown colouring has a fine sky. He has been called the forerunner of Rousseau and referred to as “ a genius long misunderstood and first made known to the wider circles of the world by the Paris Exposition of 1889.” One must have seen his greater canvases to get much pleasure out of this 186 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts rather unimportant example in the Gibson Collec- tion, but it is interesting to know that Mr. Gibson was alive to the painter’s importance. There are a number of small unimportant can- vases in the collection which do credit to the taste of the collector. Amongst these may be mentioned, a charming Boldini, a delightful coast scene by Boudin; a Fromentin, a Gerome, two Henners; a Wilhelm von Kaulbach, now hopelessly demode, but once the admiration of the civilized world; a Cesare Maccari, “ The Model,” a really spirited little bit of genre painting; a Francesco Paola Michetti, “ Peasant Girl,” in his light Italian style, that is very pleasing; and a tiny canvas of James Jacques Tis- sot, called “ The Reverie,” that is almost equal to a Stevens for its compelling personality and delight- ful roundness of forms. A picture by Baron Hendrik Leys, a Belgian who was born in Antwerp in 1815 and died there in 1869, is an interesting example in poor condition, by the last of the Dutch or Flemish painters who preserved the traditions of the early masters of that locality. There are three Americans represented in the collection : Stuart, Sully and Rothermel. The Stuart is the portrait of Colonel Isaac Franks, the aide-de-camp of Washington, which is referred to in the chapter on the Stuart Collection, with Ube (Mbson Collection 187 which it has been placed. The Sully is an unim- portant canvas of the sentimental variety entitled, “ Child Reposing,” and the Rothermel is the best of the six canvases of this artist which the institu- tion possesses. Peter Frederick Rothermel (1817-1895), was born in Neiscopec, Lucerne County, Pennsylvania. He devoted himself with best success to the paint- ing of historical subjects and was a portrait painter of some parts. Bass Otis was his instructor and he spent also some years abroad in the study of his profession. His canvas in this collection is “ State House on the Day of the Battle of Germantown,” which was painted in 1862. His style was photographic and his colour suggests the chromo, but he was at one time much in vogue as an exponent of the senti- mental, the tragic and the pathetic in art. In 1910 the Academy received what was virtually an important addition to the Gibson Collection in the bequest of thirteen oil paintings from Caroline Gibson Tait, a sister of Mr. Gibson. These have been hung in an adjoining room, and are of the same general character as those in the main collec- tion. CHAPTER XII SCULPTURE Though the Academy, according to its charter, was above all consecrated to the uses of sculpture, its sculpture department is less remarkable than other collections in the institution. It possesses very few genuine antiques. Over the main door outside is the colossal, mutilated statue of Ceres in marble, referred to in the opening chapter, brought from Melagra, Greece, and pre- sented by Commodore Daniel F. Patterson in 1828. There are four delightful Tanagra figurines, mor- tuary sculptures from Tanagra in Boeotia, Greece, where they were discovered about 1872. These were presented by Mr. and Mrs. Fairman Rogers in 1879. A collection of twenty-three dekadrachms of an- cient Syracuse, of which the larger part comes from the “ Santa Maria Hoard ” in Sicily, can only be compared in size and interest with that in the British Museum. All the specimens are in remarkable con- dition and two are probably unique. The tyranny of Dyonysius and his successors, 188 Sculpture 189 about 400 b. c., is the age to which belong these splendid examples of Greek art, characterized by the head of Proserpine or Arethusa, and upon the reverse by the flying quadriga, above which hovers Nike with outstretched crown. The dekadrachm of Syracuse, which is the most glorious survival of Greek numismatics, exhausts the refinement of pro- file relief. Upon the obverse appear the signatures of Evainetos or of Kimon, who were the designers and cutters of the dies. The beauty of the coins and their completeness command our admiration, and our interest is aroused by the story they tell of the vicissitudes of the city of Syracuse, the mother of liberty and the slave of tyrants, great in commerce, rich, luxurious, loving the arts, yet able to defend herself even under base rulers against all the power of Carthage and Athens. If nothing survived of all the sculpture of the an- cients, Greek coinage alone would demonstrate that the race to which it owed its existence was more conversant with the qualities of beauty and had a finer spiritual constitution than any other race of which we have record. The collection was presented by Mr. and Mrs. George H. Earle, Jr., in 1899. The earliest patronage of sculpture in America dates back to 1785, when the State of Virginia gave to Jean Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), the most 190 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts famous living sculptor of France, a commission to make portraits of Lafayette and Washington, both of which are installed in the State Capitol at Rich- mond, Virginia. For the studies for the statue of Washington, Houdon crossed the ocean in 1785 at the solicitation of Franklin and Jefferson and spent two weeks in Mt. Vernon making studies of the future President and a life mask of his features. It is said that he even made a plaster cast of his entire person. Hou- don sailed with Franklin from Havre on the 22nd of July, 1785. He was with Washington for fifteen days and returned to France direct, reaching home on January 4th, 1786. The Academy preserves a valuable souvenir of Houdon’s visits to this country in the remarkable portrait bust in plaster of John Paul Jones, the celebrated naval hero of the War of the Revolu- tion. Houdon is known to have made and presented sixteen of these casts to different people but the one owned by the Academy is particularly valuable as being the only one of the sixteen that can be identi- fied. It was presented to General William Irvine, a Pennsylvania general in the Revolution. It is signed under the right shoulder, “ houdon, f. 1780.” From the original plaster cast the Academy has lately (1906) had made a bronze casting which BUST OF JOHN PAUL JONES. By Jean Antoine Houdon. . * Sculpture 191 stands in the Gilpin Gallery amongst the collection of historic portraits. A bust in plaster of Joel Barlow, dated 1804, is a further example of Houdon’s great skill as a por- trait maker. It was exhibited in the Academy’s ex- hibition of 1812, which was the year of Barlow’s death. The portrait was made in 1804, during Barlow’s eight years residence in France, where he lived the life of a man of letters, writing his poem the “ Co- lumbiad,” and making extensive preparations for a history of the American Revolution, and a work on the French Revolution. Barlow’s history is interesting. In 1807 his epic, “ The Columbiad,” was enlarged and published in Philadelphia. In 18 11, his country being apparently on the verge of a war with France, he was prevailed upon to accept the post of minister to France and went there in the United States Frigate “ Con- stitution.” After nine months diplomacy he was invited by Napoleon to meet him at Wilna, Poland, where the treaty, whose provisions had been agreed upon, would be signed. Barlow set out but on reaching Wilna found the French army in full re- treat on the town from Moskow. Becoming in- volved in the retreat, he was overcome by cold and privation and died at Yarmisica, Poland. The bust by Houdon gives the impression of a 192 Pennsylvania Bca&emy ot jftne Hrts noble and forceful personality and as a work of art possesses all the merits of strength, virility and character. It is signed under the right shoulder, “ houdon, an XII ” and under the left, “ j. barlow, 50 ans.” The next sculptor to visit us was an imaginative but unbalanced Italian whose erratic career led him to the United States in 1791, where he left a num- ber of works of historic interest. Giuseppe Ceracchi (1751-1801), was born in Rome and was employed as a young man with Canova upon sculpture for the Pantheon, but jour- neyed in 1773 to England, where his ability was recognized by Sir Joshua Reynolds and other artists of influence. A visit to Paris, and an intimacy with the French painter David, filled him with the revolutionary spirit then in the air. Imbued with an enthusi- asm for liberty and the new Republic, he came to America in 1791 with a scheme for Congress to erect a monument to Liberty — a colossal group one hundred feet high, in marble, which was to include the Goddess of Liberty, Saturn, Apollo, Neptune, Mercury and allegorical figures of Philosophy, National Valour, etc. The price for this monument Ceracchi fixed at $30,000 and Washington, who suggested that the money be raised by private subscriptions, headed Sculpture 193 the list with a circumspect amount. As other names did not follow rapidly, the sculptor returned to France, after making a number of portrait busts of questionable merit. On his return he was promptly guillotined for instigating a conspiracy against the life of Napoleon. His portrait, done in miniature by Trumbull, is in the collection of that artist’s works at Yale University. Two marble busts attributed to him may be seen in the Pennsylvania Academy, a Hamilton and a Franklin. The bust of Benjamin Franklin was purchased from Simon Chandron in 1811 and in the old days of the Academy, at Tenth and Chest- nut Streets, ornamented the stairway of the original building. The bust of Alexander Hamilton is a copy in marble of Ceracchi’s original life study — made and presented by John Dixey, a contemporary of Ceracchi much interested in the revival of the art of sculpture. It is probably even more dry and heavy than the original. At this time one of the earliest of those unrelated sparks of native genius made its appearance in Philadelphia in the person of William Rush (1756- 1833), a wood carver. 1 Philadelphia contains a number of his works of which his masterpiece is the full-length statue of 1 Vide page 333. 194 Pennsylvania Bcafcetny of fine Brts Washington, in Independence Hall. The “ Nymph of the Schuylkill ” is evidence of Rush’s ability as an artist and may be seen in the form of a bronze replica at the forebay of the old Fairmount Water- works in Fairmount Park, whither it was removed from Centre Square about the year 1820, or may be studied in Krimmell’s charming painting of the garden of Penn Square, where, under the more familiar title of “ Leda and the Swan,” it figures as the centre of interest in that spirited reflection of the times. The figure is an allegorical representation of the Schuylkill River, its drapery standing for the little waves of a wind-sheltered stream. It was carved to commemorate the establishment of the Water- works, and was placed in a circular basin in front of the engine house at Centre Square. This was the first fountain possessed by Philadelphia and the entire affair was considered a great novelty and one of the sights of the city. Rush’s model was Miss Vanuxen, daughter of James Vanuxen, a merchant, who was at that time, with Rush, a member of the watering committee. She afterward married Nathan Smith and died in 1874 at an advanced age. She is represented holding a bittern upon her right shoulder. The arms are gracefully posed, the left hand grasps one of the feet of the bird while the right steadies a half lifted wing. The bird is Sculpture 195 absurd enough, in all conscience, but the effect must have been charming when its lifted bill threw a vertical jet of water which fell freely upon the maiden, whose waist is encircled with rushes and whose figure is one of lightness and grace. To the taste of the present generation it seems unusually chaste in design but it was denounced when first erected as immodest. The crucifixes in St. Augustine’s and St. Mary’s Churches are by Rush, and at the Actor’s Home, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, are still preserved his figures of “ Tragedy ” and “ Comedy.” Rush was one of the founders and originators of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and an active director of the institution until his death. The most important memento which the institution preserves of his genius is a plaster cast of his portrait of himself carved from a pine knot, of which the original has long since disap- peared. This bust is an unique and curious work. The head is of the strong, revolutionary type and though the modelling is dry and literal, the character of the head is excellent and there is no question of its truth. Across the shoulders, in deference to his trade, Rush has thrown a pine sprig, its needles mingling with the artist’s long, spare locks. 196 pennspipanta Bca&emp of flTne arts Taft says of the work: “The fine old head is turned vigorously to the right, the pose is strong, and despite the grotesqueness of the wood carvers fancy the whole effect is one of power. The draw- ing of the nose, the modelling of the sensitive mouth and the fine chin and particularly the expression of the seeing eyes are all admirable. ... In noting the resemblance of this face to certain military types it is interesting to find that Rush actually served in his youth in the Revolutionary Army. He was a member of the council of Philadelphia for more than a quarter of a century and made his influence felt in the political and intellectual life of his city until the time of his death, which occurred January 17, 1833. It is probable that, coming at the time he did, he accomplished more for sculpture in Phila- delphia than any other one man since his day. His talent, remarkable as it was, counts for less than his personal influence. Though his own sculpture was wrought largely in perishable materials, his service to American art is enduring, for in uniting and crystallizing the floating elements of culture and rendering them available he made a contribu- tion of permanent and ever increasing value.” In addition to his own portrait, of which a bronze replica replaces the first plaster cast (which the Academy of course preserves) in the Gilpin Gallery, where it figures in the collection of historic portraits, Sculpture 197 the Academy has lately become possessed of a splendid cast of Rush’s bust of Lafayette, a strong piece of character work. It comes through the Rush family, having been presented by William Rush Duncan on May i, 1911. There is also listed a number of portrait busts by Rush; “ Portrait of a Man,” busts of Dr. Benjamin Rush, Captain Lawrence, Commodore Bainbridge, Dr. Wistar, Dr. Physick and Joseph Wright, the painter. The ancestors of John Frazee (17901852), the second mark in the premonitory stirrings of sculp- ture in this country, were emigrants from Scotland who landed at Perth Amboy amongst the early set- tlers of the place. The family name was Frazer which was changed to Frazee by the grandfather of John. John Frazee was born on the 18th of July, 1790, in the upper village of Rahway. He passed a child- hood filled with more than the usual vicissitudes of the tenth child of an indigent mother, deserted by a worthless husband. Frazee’s first bust was carved either in 1824 or 1825 and was probably the first marble bust chiselled in this country, undoubtedly the first carved by a native American. The subject was John Wells, a prominent lawyer of New York, and the monument stands in old St. Paul’s Church on Broadway. It 198 Pennsylvania Hcafcenty ot jfine Brts was “ executed from imperfect profiles after death ” and “ Frazee modelled it and put it into marble without teacher or instruction.” Under the circumstances the success of the bust is extraordinary. For the Wells Memorial the sculptor received one thousand dollars. What labours intervened are not recorded, but, in 1831, at the instance of the Honourable G. C. Verplanck, Congress appropriated five hundred dollars for a bust of John Jay, and Frazee executed it much to the satisfaction of his employers and his own fame. He rapidly became known as a portrait maker and made many busts of distinguished men of his day, but none more interesting than the portrait of himself of which The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts possesses the original plaster cast — a relic of great value- — and a bronze replica made recently. The head represents Frazee in his thirty-ninth year, according to his own statement, though he appears much younger. The shoulders are cut away and the pose is vigorous and full of character. The head is held erect, turned to the right with an ex- pression of earnest frankness. The short side whiskers show the too professional touch of the stone-cutter, but the curly hair, with all its conven- tionality, is full of colour and very artistic. In this Sculpture 199 bust Frazee presents himself as a personality — one that it would be a pleasure to know. With these unrelated and sporadic outcroppings of genius the history of American Sculpture comes down to 1805 when Horatio Greenough (1805- 1852), our first professional sculptor, was born. He and his group took themselves with ponderous gravity, sped away to Rome and Florence for life and livelihood, and under the tutelage of Thorwald- sen, the famous Danish sculptor, allied themselves with the classic revival in Italy. Greenough was born in Boston and died in Som- erville, Massachusetts. He received his early in- spiration in art from association with Washington Allston, with whom much of his time during his junior and senior years was spent, and to whose influence is probably due Greenough’s early depar- ture for Rome, where the unbounded opportunities offered to a young artist enabled him to carry into effect the plans of study he had formed under Mr. Allston’s advice. With our present freedom of thought in art and letters it is difficult to put ourselves in sympathy with the work of Horatio Greenough, or, indeed, with the best of the modellers of the epoch of Classic Revival. In their perfunctory idealization one may search in vain for the personal note. Whatever in- dividuality may have struggled for mastery in the 200 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts early beginnings of their art was promptly crushed by the ponderous certainty of Canova and Thorwaldsen, who set the standard for the world. Rather a thousand times the stiff, unskilful carv- ings of Rush and Frazee, whose work is instinct with character and personality, than the frigid, im- personal aloofness of Greenough whose art gives no hint of a national expression, reflects no picture of his time or condition. His ideal statue of Wash- ington, the best known of his works, stands before the east front of the Capitol at Washington, having been found too heavy for its proper destination, in- side, beneath the vaulted arch of the Capitol. The Academy possesses one of his most admired works, a marble bust of Lafayette, signed on the back with the sculptor’s monogram — H. G. — Compare it with Rush’s nervous, vigorous char- acterization of the general and note its lack of just those elements which make a portrait valuable. Its smoothly rounded, plethoric surfaces bear little re- semblance to one’s idea of the energetic French- man, and where Rush has supplied the picturesque accessories of costume, Greenough, true to his faith, pictures him like the Roman Emperors of old in the folds of a toga. Yet Fenimore Cooper, who befriended the young sculptor in Rome and whose contemporary opinion Sculpture 201 must have its weight, writes of the work : “ The bust of Greenough, (Lafayette) is the very man, and should be dear to us in proportion as it is faith- ful.” Hiram Powers (1805-1873) has his place here in the development of American sculpture. His fame rests, or rested, upon his “ Greek Slave,” which was finished in 1843, and attained a popular- ity in which public sympathy in the contemporary struggle of Greece for independence played a prom- inent part. This pure, white figure with its bowed head, shrinking beauty and its conspicuous chain became the symbol of the oppressed country from which it took its name. At the great International Exposition of 1851 in London its success was overwhelming. On the strength of it Hiram Powers became instantly famous. The statue was the centre of interest at the first World’s Fair in New York, 1853, an d was fondly believed to be the greatest work of sculpture known to history. The original was sold to Captain Grant for $4000 and is now in the gallery of the Duke of Cleveland. Several replicas were made, of which the first was brought to America in 1847 and is now in the Cor- coran Gallery, Washington. The third copy belongs to the Earl of Dudley, while a fourth, purchased by 'Prince Demidoff for $4000, was sold at that noble- 202 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts man’s death for $11,000 to A. T. Stewart, Esq., of New York. There are very few American Museums not sup- plied with busts by Powers. Most frequent is that •head of which he produced a number under the vary- ing titles of “ Ginevra,” “ Evangeline,” “ Faith,” “ Psyche,” etc., and which, in the Academy’s collec- tion is listed “ Proserpine.” Shobal Vail Clevenger (1812-1843), whose brief career left many busts of prominent Americans, is represented in the Academy by three examples in plaster. Of these the portrait of Joseph Hopkinson, the second president of the Academy, has been cast in bronze and dedicated to the portrait gallery w T here it upholds the dignity of the distinguished original, with his humourous, tiny eyes, his long sagacious nose and abbreviated chin. The bust of Allston by the same hand is scarcely less interesting in character and gives a pleasing and intimate view of this early American painter. Tuckerman sums it up : “ There was an exacti- tude in his busts that gave assurance of skill founded upon solid principles. . . . Clevenger began in art where all noble characters begin in action — at truth.” He died at the untimely age of thirty-one, and while his actual contribution to art was slight he had a greater influence because of his delight in his Sculpture 203 work and his devotion to it than many an artist who lived longer and produced more. Of native born contemporary Philadelphia sculp- tors, the Academy possesses excellent examples of four — Edmund A. Stewardson, Charles Grafly, Alexander Stirling Calder and Albert Laessle. Edmund A. Stewardson (1860-1892), belonged to a talented Philadelphia family and gave rich promise of a brilliant career when his life was cut short by an accident at the early age of thirty-two years. He was drowned while boating at Newport, Rhode Island, on July 3, 1892. The “ Bather,” of which the Academy owns the bronze and the Metropolitan, the marble copy, ranks amongst the finest products of American art and, so far as it goes, expresses an accurate knowledge, technical skill and excellent taste, while, on the other hand, being an early work, there is still present the academic influence which might or might not have been cast aside, had he lived. The small bust of Alexander Harrison, in bronze, owned by the Academy is more freely done and is a charming bit of pure sculpture as well as an excel- lent portrait of a fellow artist. His “ Portrait of a Lady ” completes the representation in the Academy and is an attractive type of thirty years ago appre- ciatively rendered. Of the work of Charles Grafly (1862- ), a 204 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot fine Brts Philadelphian of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction, the Academy possesses but one example despite the fact that Grafly has lived his life in Philadelphia and, one might say, in the Academy, where he was a student from 1884 to 1888 and has been an in- structor since 1893. His history is interesting in its absolute identi- fication with his environment. Grafly was born in Philadelphia in 1862. He attended school until he was seventeen years of age, when he entered a stone-carv ing establishment in order to gain practi- cal knowledge of the sculptor's craft. During this time he attended the schools of the Spring Garden Institute and in 1884 he was admitted to the x\cad- emy, where he studied modelling and painting under Thomas Eakins. In 1888 he went to Paris, study- ing at the Academie Julien and later at the Ecole des Beaux Arts — under Chapu, Dampt, Bougue- reau and Tony Robert Fleury. At the Salon of 1890 he made his debut with two heads in plaster, “ Daedalus ” and “ St. John.” These were shown the following year in Phila- delphia in the sixty-first annual exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy and the “ Daedalus ” vras awarded honourable mention from the Temple Trust Fund and purchased for the permanent collection for which it was cast in bronze. Grafly received honourable mention in the Salon Sculpture 205 of 1891 for a life-size nude female figure, “ Mauvais Presage/’ now in the possession of the Detroit Museum of Art. In 1893 he received a medal at the Columbian Exposition, Chicago, and in 1900 a gold medal from the Paris Exposition for a collec- tion of works which included several small groups in bronze. His later work has developed his greatest origi- nality and power in the making of numerous por- trait busts, in which he stands unrivalled. A most interesting series of contemporary painters was com- menced in 1899 with a portrait bust of Hugh Henry Breckenridge, a Philadelphia painter with advanced ideas upon colour who has produced much important work in landscape and por- traits. The Annual Exhibition of 1898 contained an oil portrait of Charles Grafly by Breckenridge and that of 1899 the portrait bust in plaster of Hugh H. Breckenridge by Grafly — the two having been made for exchange each artist retaining his own portrait. This was the year that the Academy bestowed upon Grafly its gold medal of honour “ for distinguished services in art and to the Acad- emy.” The series of portrait busts of artists to-day in- cludes, beside the portrait of Breckenridge, heads of Joseph Decamp, W. Elmer Schofield, Edwin S. 206 Pennsylvania Scabemy of jflne Brts Clymer, William M. Paxton and Edward W. Red- field, and is destined to become one day the nucleus of a portrait gallery as distinguished as the great Stuart collection in the Academy. To such a gal- lery might be added his busts of Dr. Isaac Starr, the famous specialist on diseases of children; Dr. Joseph L. Price, the late surgeon; Henry Lorenz Viereck, the government entomologist at the Na- tional Museum in Washington ; Edward H. Coates, a former president of the Academy, and other notables. Grafly’s work is admirable in all the fundamental qualities of drawing and construction, to which he has added a superb finish in the broad planes of the handling. These busts are charming in their fluency, in a sense of plasticity throughout, as though the clay had never grown dry and unre- sponsive. They skip all the century of elemental strugglers, whose work interests us more from the historic than the artistic standpoint, and relate back to Houdon and his like — for in both we see those qualities of permanency, of universal speech which make for endurance in all the great art of all times and all countries. Of the work of Alexander Stirling Calder ( 1870- ) the Academy possesses an excellent example of his best period in the life-size bronze of an infant, which he calls “ Man Cub.” The BUST OF WILLIAM RUSH (see page 195). BUST OF EDWARD HORNER COATES. By William Rush. . By Charles Grafly. Sculpture 209 displays a sense of the quaintly humourous, what one might call the human side of the reptile world which places him at once as a serious nature student. The blue eyed lizard is scratching his head with one of his clover back feet, deriving from the process an exquisite sensation of mingled pleasure and pain, which is expressed in the exact angle at which his head is turned to meet the responsive claw, while his eyes lose none of their alertness to the ever present possibility of danger. The graceful tail curves across a bit of ground covered with the winged seed of the maple tree. The Academy is fortunate in the possession of a beautiful example of Auguste Rodin (1840- ) in the “ Recumbent Figure,” presented by Alex- ander Harrison in 1902. It exemplifies one of the most notable phases of the great French mas- ter’s work, his skill and tenderness in the modelling of the nude back of a female figure. There is a subtlety, a plasticity in the lines of this figure — only partly wrought from the marble — that defy imitation. Rodin, who may be considered the dominant influence for sculpture in his century, is best repre- sented in Paris — in his “ Penseur,” placed before the entrance of the Pantheon, the French temple of fame. “ The Battle of the Centaurs and Lapithia,” by 210 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts John Graham Lough (1806-1876), referred to as having been saved from the great fire of 1845, which destroyed so many of the Academy’s treas- ures, is in plaster from the original model, and was presented by the artist in 1836. The subject is the familiar one of the great com- bat described by Hesiod, but more at length by Ovid, in the twelfth book of his Metamorphoses. Brief accounts may also be found in modern works of Mythology. It was a favourite subject with ancient sculptors, and even Phidias employed his chisel upon it. It is briefly this : At the marriage of Pirithous, who was one of the Lapithae, with Hippodamia, the chiefs of the Lapithae were assembled to celebrate the nuptials. The Centaurs were also invited to the festivity — one of them, Eurytus, inflamed by wine, resolved to make the bride his prize, and in his fury, seized her by the hair to carry her off — his companions followed his example, and each, according to his fancy, fastened upon one of the female attendants of the bride. The Lapithae instantly resented this brutal outrage, and the fight became general. Many of the Centaurs were slain, and the rest compelled to retreat. The group exhibited at the Academy is the work of Mr. Lough, a British artist, born in Greenhead, Northumberland, in the last century, and one of THE BATTLE OF THE CENTAURS AND LAPITHIA. By John Graham Lough. Sculpture 211 the numerous sculptors of his time to be influ- enced by the classic revival in Italy. Lough first exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1826. He went to Italy in 1834 and remained four years. He modelled a statue of Queen Victoria in 1845 an d of the Prince Consort in 1847 and made a statue of the Marquis of Hastings for Malta in 1848. The group, at the time of its presentation, was extravagantly admired on account of its vigorous action and handsome composition, and receives sev- eral pages of description in a contemporary cata- logue. Near the top of the pyramid of men, women and horses, the bride is seen, her dishevelled hair in the grip of her ravisher. Theseus attacks the Cen- taur to rescue her, and Pirithous, on a magnificent horse with a drawn sword, is flying to her assist- ance, aided by Hercules. There is a woman sup- ported in the act of falling to the ground by one of the Lapithse, who at the same time, with his other hand, defends himself from the assault of a Cen- taur.. One of the Centaurs appears dressed in a lion’s skin, and in the legend is thus described by Ovid : “ E’en still methinks I see Phceocomes ; Strange was his habit, and as odd his dress, Six lions’ hides, with thongs together fast, His upper part defended to the waist, And when man ended, the continued vest, Spread on his back the trappings of a beast.” CHAPTER XIII THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION One of the most valuable of the Academy’s pos- sessions is the Print Collection, which came to the institution in its entirety as the bequest of John S. Phillips on April io, 1876, and ranks as the finest collection of etchings and engravings in the United States. In his important work on Etching, that eminent authority, Mr. Sylvestre R. Koehler, thus refers to the Phillips Collection : “ First in magnitude among the collections of the United States stands the Phillips Collection, the property of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, to which it came by bequest of the late John S. Phillips, who died in 1876, and is said to have been engaged for thirty years in bringing it together. The collection contains be- tween fifty and sixty thousand prints arranged in volumes, chronologically and according to schools. Its richness in the works of etchers of all times and schools and its historical completeness in this respect I have had occasion over and over again to testify 212 XTbe Phillips Collection 213 to in these pages. As part of the collection Mr. Phillips left to the Academy also a small library which contains most of the books needed by the student. The collection is in charge of Mr. H. C. Whipple , 1 the life-long friend and assistant of Mr. Phillips, and is easily accessible to the public, being open to inspection, in the presence of the curator, or some one deputed by him, every day of the week. “ There is one great drawback to it however, which it is absolutely necessary to mention. Mr. Phillips cared more for its historical completeness than for quality, and hence a large proportion of the impressions fails to give anything like an adequate idea of the true character of the plates from which they were printed, in their early and true condition. 1 This charming old gentleman was intimately associated with the life of the Academy for twenty-seven years and was much beloved by all who came in contact with him. He died on May 20, 1903, and his funeral, conducted by the Fellowship of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, was held at St. Stephen’s Church, on May 23, 1903. On this occasion the church was packed to its ut- most capacity with friends of Mr. Whipple, who were anxious to bear this last tribute to his memory. The character of the attend- ance was extraordinary in that it showed how wide had been the field of the old gentleman’s influence. Ladies and gentlemen from Philadelphia’s most exclusive society stood side by side with models who had posed in the schools of the Academy. All the officials of the Academy were present from the president and managing director down to an old coloured man, Tom Drayton, who for years had done the carting of pictures for the exhibitions. The scene was a most touching and impressive one and will live long in the memories of those who witnessed it. 214 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot fftne Brts Hence the collection is a dangerous one for the be- ginner who cannot tell what may be a good and what may be a bad impression, and who cannot supply in his mind the deficiencies observable in many of the specimens. Such a student may easily be prejudiced against a given etcher by charging him with the shortcomings of the worn or otherwise impaired prints before him, for which he cannot be held responsible. “ The more advanced student who is informed as to the difference which the condition of a print produces is, of course, much less exposed to such a danger and to him the Phillips Collection with its library offers very desirable facilities and is cer- tainly the best at present to be found in this country. “ Mr. Phillips left a small fund ($12,000) for the maintenance and increase of the collection, but as it is insufficient for these purposes no additions have been made to it since his death, and nothing has been done to improve its condition. By re- mounting and arranging in portfolios instead of in volumes, an arrangement which often makes com- parison impossible, the appearance, as well as the usefulness, of the collection might be considerably helped. There is a manuscript catalogue giving the names of the etchers, engravers, etc., represented. A card catalogue of the library is now in prepara- tion.” Etching — An outline of its technical proc- TTbe ipbtlltps Collection 215 esses and its history with some remarks on collec- tions and collecting. By S. R. Koehler. Published by Cassell and Co., Ltd., New York. London. Paris. Melbourne. 1885. The collection’s chief richness is in the depart- ment of etching, the progress of which art it illus- trates through a period of nearly four centuries, beginning with examples of the Hopfers, a family of etchers who flourished in Augsburg in the first third of the fifteenth century and are the first to follow this profession, of whom we have any re- liable account. Two of the greatest line engravers of England, Sharp and Woollett, are well repre- sented and there is an extremely valuable group of wood cuts of the sixteenth century, known as “ Clair Obscurs,” containing the remarkable efforts of early wood cutters to imitate oil paintings and whose modernity is as extraordinary as it is unexpected. Mr. Koehler, who was a profound student of the art of engraving from the technical side, spent many days with the Phillips Collection going over the prints, upon which he has left as a valuable memento of his visit, numerous notes both explanatory and critical and of the greatest possible value and in- terest to students considering the weight of his professional opinion in such matters. These memo- randa are made generally in English but often in German upon the margin of the print itself or upon 216 Pennsylvania Hcatemy of fine Hrts loose sheets of fool’s cap inserted in the volume to which they refer. They are written in pencil and read like intimate conversations with the author. His handwriting was round and clerical The manuscript catalogue, to which Koehler re- fers, is all that exists for reference to the prints ex- cept a card catalogue of the portraits written in Mr. Whipple’s firm hand and completed shortly before his death. The manuscript catalogue handsomely bound in book form, was made by Mr. Phillips him- self. It is indexed under the head of engravers simply, without reference to painter or subject, which carries out the peculiarity of Mr. Phillips’ interest in the art of engraving pure and simple. For this reason, the catalogue has only a very lim- ited sphere of usefulness — though it has been most carefully and exactly prepared. Mr. Koehler compares the collection with the Gray collection belonging to Harvard University, bequeathed by the late Honourable Francis Calley Gray, LL D.. who died in 1856, and which con- tains between five and six thousand specimens: the Tosti Collection, so called from its former owner, the late Cardinal Antonio Tosti of Rome, which was given to the Public Library of Boston by the late Thomas G. Appleton in 1869. and contains nearly sixty-five hundred prints ; the collection made by the late Honourable George P. Marsh at Cbe pbilUps Collection 217 Washington and acquired by the Smithsonian In- stitute, and one in the Redwood Library and Athenaeum at Newport, Rhode Island, left by the late Charles B. King, artist. The famous Claghorne Collection, comprising about twenty thousand prints collected by James S. Claghorne, president of the Academy, 1872-1884, was sold after Mr. Claghorne’s death and is now owned by Mr. T. Harrison Garrett, of Baltimore. This collection stands preeminent in the works of modern etchers of the French, English, Dutch, Bel- gian, German, Italian and Spanish schools. To the exhibition of the Philadelphia Society of Etchers held in 1883 its then owner contributed no less than six hundred specimens by two hundred and forty- two modern etchers. CHAPTER XIV THE PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM : A GENERAL SURVEY The Pennsylvania Museum and School of In- dustrial Art was chartered on February 27, 1876, and may be said to be the direct outgrowdh of the Centennial Exposition of that year. Certainly the coincidence was fortuitous, for the nucleus of the present extensive collections of the Museum con- sist of some of the most valuable exhibits from the International Exhibition of 1876, many of them having been presented by the exhibitors, while others were purchased with funds raised for the purpose. The Pennsylvania Museum is the guest of the directors of Memorial Hall, which is situated in a historic part of the Fairmount Park, not far from the site of the one time residence of William Bing- ham, that attractive mansion, known as “ Lans- downe,” built before the Revolution by John Penn, a grandson of the founder of the commonwealth, and occupied by various distinguished personages until its destruction by fire, a number of years before the present park system was created. Not far from 218 THE PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM, MEMORIAL HALL, FAIRMOUNT PARK Ubc Pennsylvania ZlDuseum 219 n '.I.TrloI ..rjL M I 71 , * V • i j F l . i x | H fl GROUND PLAN OF MEMORIAL HALL A. South Vestibule. Oriental Section. B. Rotunda. Models, etc. C. West Gallery. Wilstach Col- lection of Paintings. D. East Gallery. Ceramics, Glass, Enamels, Carvings, Lacquers, Silver. E. West Corridor. Wilstach Collection of Paintings. F. East Corridor. Bloomfield- Moore Collections. G. Southwest Pavilion. Greek, Roman and Egyptian Anr tiquities. H. Southeast Pavilion. Hector Tyndale Memorial Collec- tion. Dr. Francis W. Lewis Collection. Oriental Pot- tery and Porcelain. I. Northeast Pavilion. Bloom- field-Moore Collection of Ceramics. J. Northwest Pavilion. Wil- stach Collection of Paint- ings. K. Seals, Books, etc. L. North Vestibule. Exhibition of Work of Students of the School of Industrial Art Connected with the Mu- seum. M. Musical Instruments. N. Library. O. P, Q. Offices. R. Women’s Toilet Room. S. Men’s Toilet Room. T. U, V, W. Miscellaneous. X. Furniture. Y. North Corridor. Arms and Armour, Metal Work, and Lamborn Collection of Mexican Paintings. Z. Textiles and Costumes. BASEMENT South Side. Pompeian Views and Baird Centennial Model. North Side. The Mrs. W. D. Frishmuth Antiquarian Col- lection. 220 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of ffine Brts Lansdowne were the country homes of several Philadelphians of consequence — notably Judge Richard Peters, of Belmont, Samuel Breck, of Sweetbriar, etc. The building is in the style of the modern Re- naissance and is the work of H. J. Schwartzman, architect. It was begun July 4, 1874 and finished in March, 1876, and during the Centennial Exposi- tion was used as an art gallery. In front of the south entrance are two colossal bronze statues of winged horses attended by Calliope and Erato, the muses of epic and erotic poetry, which were origi- nally designed for the Opera House of Vienna. They were purchased in Vienna in the Centennial year by a public-spirited citizen and presented to Fairmount Park. The model which the organizers of the Museum wished to follow in the conduct of the institution was the South Kensington Museum in London and its purpose, as set forth in the charter, was to establish for the State of Pennsylvania, in the City of Philadelphia, a museum of art in all its branches and technical application, with a special view to the development of the art industries of the State, and to provide instruction in drawing, painting, modelling, designing, etc., through practical schools, libraries and otherwise. The School of Industrial Art connected with the Ube Pennsylvania /ffimseum 221 Museum was opened in May, 1877, and is at present situated at the corner of Broad and Pine Streets. It has become the most important of its kind in the country. The Board of Trustees consists of the Governor of the State and the Mayor of the City, ex ofhciis, and twenty citizens of Philadelphia, including repre- sentatives of the State Senate and House of Repre- sentatives, the Select and Common Councils of the City, and the Commissioners of Fairmount Park. An associate committee of women, the outgrowth of the Women’s Executive Committee of the Cen- tennial Exposition, came into existence in 1883, and serves as an auxiliary to the Board of Trustees. In the same year a fund of $50,000 was placed in trust for the benefit of the institution by the late Joseph E. Temple, three-fifths of the interest of which is set apart for the purchase of objects of art for the Museum and the remainder for the uses of the school. Many of the most valuable of the exhibits in the Museum bear the label of the Temple Trust. The Pennsylvania Museum occupies an unique position amongst American institutions dedicated to the uses of art. Originally conceived to embrace in its collections not only the fine arts but the in- dustrial arts as well, it covers the field in its broad- est sense and includes in its exhibits, not only ex- 222 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts amples of the artistic output of all times and all countries, but also is strong in educational exhibits illustrating the history, development and manufac- turing processes of the various departments of in- dustrial achievement. Ceramics form one of the most important fea- tures of the Museum. These collections have grown to such proportions that they now rank with the best and most representative to be found on this side of the Atlantic. They include numerous groups of porcelains from China and Japan; English and Continental china; both antique and modern and classical pottery of Rome and Greece. There is an interesting section devoted to the pottery of the Aboriginal Americans — Mexican, Peruvian, Mound Builders and Pueblo — and the only his- torically complete series of pottery and porcelain of the United States in existence. The latter in- cludes a large group of hard porcelain, made by Tucker and Hemphill in Philadelphia from 1825 to 1838, and an unrivalled collection of Pennsyl- vania German slip — decorated and sgraffito pot- tery, produced at local potteries in Montgomery and Bucks Counties, Pennsylvania, between 1730 and 1850. Among the rarest pottery in the Museum are some fine examples of Mexican Majolica of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A group of XTbe Pennsylvania jflbuseum 223 genuine Lowestoft china recently procured from England is interesting owing to its extreme rarity in the light of recent discoveries. The Museum possesses a little group of five examples of fully authenticated hard paste Capo di Monte, which are among the only genuine pieces to be found in the museums of this country. The Museum’s collection of American glass flasks and bottles with relief designs of historical sub- jects is probably unique, while the entire depart- ment of American glass illustrates the various proc- esses of glass making in this country, and includes representative examples of blown, cut, pressed, enamelled, silvered, stained, cameo and intaglio- carved glass. A collection of forty-four pieces of domestic stained glass, mostly Swiss in origin, is unique in this country. The Pennsylvania Museum is in- debted to the generosity of Miss Mary Lewis for this valuable accession. The collection was picked up piece by piece by the late Dr. Francis W. Lewis some thirty years or more ago, some of the finest specimens being from the well-known collection of Dr. Ferdinand Keller, of Zurich. The patrons of the Museum have been many. In 1882, Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore presented the first instalment of a valuable collection of art objects which she had collected during her trips abroad. 224 Pennsylvania BcaDemy of fine Brts This collection was placed in the Museum as a memorial to her husband, the late Bloomfield H. Moore, a prominent citizen of Philadelphia. At a later date the collection was largely increased by the donor. It covers the broadest field of indus- trial art, including examples of antique furniture, enamels, carved ivories, jewelry, plate, metal work, glass, pottery, porcelain, books, fans, textiles, cos- tumes and paintings. One entire room is devoted to the Bloomfield-Moore Collection of Ceramics, rich in Chinese porcelains. The Museum is especially valuable because of the excellence of its arrangement and the accessi- bility of its exhibits, affording to the student or the visitor every facility in whatever department he may elect to work. Exhibits follow a logical se- quence and are featured according to their impor- tance and rarity. The Director, Dr. Edwin AtLee Barber, has established an unique feature in mu- seum work, a bureau of identification, and may be consulted upon knotty points within the jurisdic- tion of the Museum. This has proved a great suc- cess and is much appreciated by the people. The system of numbering has much to recom- mend it. Each object in the Museum is marked by a distinguishing number or letter, corresponding to its label and the entry in the records of the in- stitution. Articles which have been purchased or Ube Pennsylvania /Ifouseum 225 presented bear the date of accession, followed by a number which indicates the order in which the ob- ject has been received in that year: thus, ’76-154 indicates that the exhibit was the one hundred and fifty-fourth received in the year 1876. Articles on loan bear a letter corresponding to the year followed by a number. CHAPTER XV AMERICAN POTTERY AND PORCELAIN The Museum’s collection of American Pottery is the outgrowth of the extensive collection of ceramics formed by the Director, Dr. Edwin AtLee Barber, for the purpose of illustrating his “ History of the Pottery and Porcelain of the United States,” which was purchased in its entirety by Mr. John T. Morris, of Philadelphia, and presented by him to the Museum. Around this nucleus have been gathered many of the more recent productions of American manu- factures, and the collection bids fair to become the most complete of its kind in existence. The Barber collection contains many rare and curious pieces which serve to illustrate the earlier history of the fictile art in this country. Of special interest are the full series of Pennsylvania slip- decorated wares of the eighteenth century and the hard paste porcelains of Messrs. Tucker and Hemp- hill, produced in Philadelphia previous to the year 1838. Other early establishments are represented, 226 Hmerlcan pottery ant> porcelain 227 bringing the history of the potter’s art in the United States down to the present time. The collection is divided into two series, the artis- tic and the technical. The first includes such ob- jects as have an artistic or historical value and the latter comprises the primitive appliances, tools, moulds, engraved plates for transfer printing and specimens of wares in the different stages of com- pletion. The existence of the ancient art of “ slip ” deco- ration in America was not suspected until 1891, when, through the accidental purchase of a red earthenware pie plate, Dr. Barber was led to make a series of investigations which resulted in the in- teresting discovery that this curious art, brought from Germany, had flourished in Eastern Pennsyl- vania before the middle of the eighteenth century. The original find, which was embellished with floral and bird designs and an inscription in Ger- man, with the date 1826, was supposed, when ac- quired, to be of European manufacture but careful examination revealed the fact that some of the words lettered about the border were in Pennsyl- vania German. Slip-decorated ware is therefore the oldest pot- tery, of an ornamental character, made by the white settlers in Pennsylvania of which we have any knowledge. The decoration was drawn upon the 228 Pennsylvania Bca&emy of fine arts surface of common earthenware by means of dif- ferent coloured liquid clays, or “ slips ” poured through a quill attached to a cup and afterward the whole was covered with a transparent glaze. In the German communities of Bucks and Montgom- ery counties such ware was made for fully a century and a half, but the old potteries have entirely passed out of sight and only remain in the memories of the descendants of the early potters. A number of pieces have come to light which bear English in- scriptions, from which it has been argued that the manufacture of slip ware was not confined exclu- sively to the German settlements. In the handbook prepared by the collector of this collection. Dr. Barber says : “ In addition to slip tracing, the reverse method of slip engraving was also practised at these local potteries, which process consisted in covering the red biscuit or unglazed ware with a thin layer of white slip, and scratching or cutting the designs through the dried coating to show the darker colour beneath. The application of a clear glaze after the designs were touched with yellow and green oxides, resulted in the production of a rich intaglio decoration in a greenish or mot- tled yellow ground. In Europe this ware is known as ‘ Sgraffito * or incised pottery. “ The collection of slip ware from Pennsylvania here exhibited is the most representative and com- Hmerican pottery ant) porcelain 229 plete that has been brought together, having been formed, by the writer, before other investigators were aware of its existence. The pieces were pro- cured from the descendants of the makers and every specimen is of undoubted genuineness. The major- ity of these have, through the information obtained from their recent owners, been fully identified as coming from particular potteries, many of which seem to have produced ware possessing distinct characteristics, which enable it to be readily rec- ognized. The earliest dated example in the col- lection was made in the year 1762, while the most recent bears the date 1849.” Special attention is called in this collection to a slip-decorated dish (No. ’93-190) seventeen inches in diameter, with sloping rim and flat bottom. The decoration is the tulip design and there are two rows of inscription in old Pennsylvania Ger- man around the margin, and the date, 1769. The body is a buff clay. This is the chef d’ oeuvre of the collection. It was probably made in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. The inscription reads : “ Aufrichtig gegen iedermann vertrau Dich gen wo nich vergneugen sein so vul mann kahn. . . . Wer ich bin der bin ich und dasz ist wahr. A01769. Ich wost dasz . . . sindar . . . hab ein so gar schoenes bett und musz schlafen ganz allein solt ich dan nicht trarich sein und dasz ist wahr.” 230 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of ffine Brts A slip-decorated vegetable dish, flat-bottomed, fourteen inches in diameter with a sloping rim, is another fine piece. In the centre a bird and tulip are traced in yellow and green slips. The border is decorated with plain and serrated bands of yellow slip, and a German inscription, the words of which are separated by wavy vertical lines in green. The ground of the dish is a yellowish red. The inscrip- tion reads : “ Gluck und Ungliick ist Alle Morgen unser Fruhstuck.” A curious and interesting example made after an old Chinese pattern is a slip engraved shaving dish. The ground is yellow while the decoration outside and inside consists of brown floral devices. The following inscription runs around the upper margin, from which a curved piece has been cut to fit the neck of the shaver : “ Du bist von der art Das du hast drei har ambart.” The piece was made by John Nase, probably before 1830 and is in a remarkably perfect state of pres- ervation. The two perforations in the margin op- posite the depression are for suspension. A remarkable example of sgraffito work is (No. ’92-42) a slip-decorated, flat-bottomed vegetable dish, fifteen inches in diameter with a straight rim, sloping at an angle, and three inches in depth. The central decoration is a conventionalized floral design SLIP - DECORATED DISH: PENNSYLVANIA SGRAFFITO DISH: MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA„ 1805. GERMAN, 1769. Hmerican potters anfc Porcelain 231 of variously coloured slips and around the inner margin is an inscription in English. This is from Eastern Pennsylvania, probably Montgomery County. An excellent plate by John Nase, made about 1846, is the slip engraved pie dish (Sgraffito) deco- rated with an etched figure of a Continental soldier on horseback and the following inscription around the rim : “ Ich bin ein reitknecht als wie ein ber Ach wan ich nur im himmel wer.” A second, earlier plate (1805) is similarly deco- rated from an old print of George Washington, and is from the pottery of “ Johann Neesz.” One of the most curious pieces is a red earthen ware mug with two handles. It stands nine inches in height. One side is decorated with a rude repre- sentation of the American eagle, holding in his beak a scroll inscribed “ Leberty.” On the reverse the initials PxK, and the date, May 5the, 1809. On the bottom is scratched “ Phillip Kline his Muge May 5the 1809.” This was the name of the potter, who lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Amongst the very rare pieces are two from the pottery of Jacob Scholl of Montgomery County, dating from about 1830. Both are stamped with a four-petaled flower, of which only three so marked are known to collectors. The first is a slip en- 232 Pennsylvania Bcabemy ot jftne Brts graved covered jar, cylindrical in shape and boldly embellished with floral designs engraved in the white coating, the leaves and petals tipped with green and blue oxides. The second piece is a sim- ilarly decorated spherical jar with blue and green flowers boldly done on a yellowish white slip. A variation in the usual type is to be noticed in a slip-decorated curved dish, in which the central design is of a large pigeon in the attitude of pluck- ing at his breast. The marginal device is a spray of large flowers extending entirely around the border. The colour is yellow on a bright red ground. This example differs from the slip-traced pieces previously referred to in the method of decoration, the design having been beaten into the body before burning. The potter is Benjamin Bergey of Montgomery County, and the period is about 1830. These are but a few of the richest specimens of this extraordinary collection. In the lower part of the cases are shown some of the original tools, moulds and other appliances gathered together from some of the old potteries. Hard Porcelain The first hard porcelain manufactory in the United States was that established about the year Bmertcan potters ant> porcelain 233 1825, by William Ellis Tucker, in Philadelphia. The ware resembled the French porcelain of the period, with some difference in the composition of the paste, and the French forms were used to a great extent. The body of this ware is extremely hard and of excellent quality, and the glaze is re- markably perfect. The decorations, always hand- painted, are done over glaze. The earlier attempts at embellishment were crude, consisting of land- scapes in sepia; but later, when artists were im- ported to do the decorating, it fully equalled the best of that seen on foreign wares of the same grade and was done in colours and in gold, after French and Dresden methods. The Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum pub- lished, April, 1906, an entertaining article by Dr. Barber on this manufacture, from which is quoted the following: “ To William Ellis Tucker, of Philadelphia, be- longs the honour of being the first to supply the home market with a purely American porcelain. The story of his remarkable life-work and the his- tory of the factory which he established, the first important one of its kind on this side of the At- lantic, cannot fail to prove of special interest to the ceramic student. “ Commencing his investigations with no previ- ous knowledge of the composition of the ware, nor 234 Pennsylvania Bcafcenty of fine Brts of the processes of its fabrication, he set resolutely to work to discover its hidden mysteries, and wholly unaided by the practical experience of others, he succeeded in a few years in perfecting, from new and untried materials, a porcelain body equal in all respects to the best which was being produced in Europe. “ His body was neither that of the French pot- ters nor the true bone of the English, but partook of the characteristics of both, the proportion of phosphate of lime, as shown by analysis, being about eight per cent., a very much smaller percent- age than in the English soft paste. “ Strange as it may appear, but little has been published relative to this early venture, although seventy-five years ago Philadelphians justly prided themselves on their 4 China Factory * and were in the habit of taking strangers to visit it as one of the principal points of interest in the city.” William Ellis Tucker, the founder, was a son of Benjamin Tucker, a member of the religious soci- ety of Friends, who had a china shop on the south side of Market Street (High Street in the old nomenclature) near where the Post Office now stands. To further the experiments of his son in decorating and in attempting to produce a ware from the different clays to be found in the neigh- bourhood, he built a small kiln in the back of his Hmertcan potters ant) porcelain 235 property and here William spent most of hfe time, painting on the imported white china and firing it in the kiln, and in pushing his investigations to a point where he was able to produce a fair quality of opaque queensware. His first serious venture in the manufacture of the ware for the trade was in 1825, after his father had retired from business, when he obtained from the city the old water works at the northwest corner of Schuylkill-Front (Twenty-third) and Chestnut Streets, and erected there the necessary kilns, etc. Later he added to his resources four acres of land on which a feldspar quarry was situ- ated. # In 1828 Thomas Hulme, of Philadelphia, in- vested some money in the enterprise and was ad- mitted to the partnership. A number of pieces have been found with a mark printed in red beneath the glaze, “ Tucker and Hulme, China Manufac- turers, Philadelphia, 1828. ” This partnership ap- pears to have expired at the end of a year or so. In 1832, shortly before his death, William Tucker entered into a second alliance with Judge Joseph Hemphill, who had recently returned from a trip to Europe, where he had become deeply interested in the manufacture of porcelain. They purchased a property at the southwest corner of Schuylkill- Sixth (Seventeenth) and Chestnut Streets, and 236 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot ffine Brts erected thereon a large factory, a storehouse and three kilns, greatly increasing the producing capac- ity of the works. After the death of the founder, Thomas Tucker, his brother continued the superintendence of the business, which was carried on in the name of Joseph Hemphill, and on the retirement of the lat- ter, in 1837, the factory was leased to him for a term of six months. He purchased all the un- burned ware then on hand with the materials and fixtures and continued the manufacture of fine por- celain for about a year. He filled a store with the products and then discontinued the factory and went into the business as an importer of fine china from Europe. The products of the factory may be divided into three periods, the Tucker period, from 1825 to 1828; the Tucker and Hulme period, during the year 1828, and the Tucker and Hemphill period, from 1832 to 1838. Of the first period, examples are now very rare. The paste is yellowish and the decoration crude and inartistic, while frequently there is no decoration at all. Such painting as was attempted was done by hand in sepia or brown monochrome and the favourite representations were landscapes, butter- flies and the like done with a few strokes of the brush and with but little variety. The numerous Hmerican pottery ant> porcelain 237 examples in the Museum collection show the influ- ence of the English potters in the shapes of coffee- pots, tea-pots, cups and saucers, etc., while other pieces are entirely original in design. During the time when Thomas Hulme was con- nected with the works (1828) considerable im- provement was made in the decoration of the ware. A pitcher of this period in the Museum collection is decorated only with gold bands and the initials C. B. having been made for Charles Burd. It bears the mark of Tucker and Hulme, with the date, 1828, in red. Soon after the business passed into the hands of Judge Hemphill, artists and artisans were brought over from France, England and Germany and a more pretentious style of decoration was intro- duced, although for a time sepia landscapes con- tinued to be used in combination with gold. French methods of decoration came much into vogue at this time. The ware was sold very extensively to the well-to-do people in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and nearly every family of prominence or wealth had table services or pieces made to order, and decorated with initials, monograms, medallions or armorial bearings, usually enclosed in wreaths of flowers or gold tracery. The ware of this best period is very similar to the contemporary French porcelain but has a bluer tint. 238 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of jfine Brts The Museum possesses the largest collection of Tucker and Hemphill porcelain in existence, with the original pattern books of the factory, showing in black and white, and in colours, every shape and pattern produced. The collection begins with the early productions of this manufacture decorated with painted land- scapes in sepia or brown, and ends with a fine series of pitchers and vases, exquisitely painted in colours. Amongst the rarest pieces is a large water pitcher with coloured landscapes and two vase-shaped pitchers, one bearing a portrait of Washington and the other a fine view of the Upper Ferry Bridge. The first is a Hemphill pitcher, impressed on the bottom with the letter F, the private mark of Charles Frederick, a moulder at these works. On one side is a coloured medallion portrait of Washington, painted from an enamel by Birch after Stuart’s portrait, known as the Vaughan type. On the opposite side is a landscape in colours, with a flagstaff flying the American flag. Above and below are heavy gold bands. The second Hemphill pitcher is similar in shape and decorated on the sides with festoons of flowers in natural colours. On the front is a painting of the bridge which once spanned the Schuylkill River at Callow-hill Street. This famous bridge was opened in 1813 and destroyed by fire in 1838, and Bmertcan pottery anfc> porcelain 239 figures on much of the historical china made at this time. The view was made from an engraving after the painting by Thomas Birch. The date of the piece is about 1833. It was presented by Mr. John T. Morris. In the collection of hard porcelain are several examples made by Kurlbaum and Schwartz in Phila- delphia, about 1853. These are decorated entirely in gold and supposed to be the only examples of this ware known to collectors. The catalogue claims them as “ in some respects the finest examples of hard porcelain table ware ever produced in Amer- ica.” An interesting example of soft paste porcelain is an amphora-shaped vase, in white ware, undeco- rated, the handles moulded in the form of female figures. It was made in New York, probably by Dr. Mead, in 1816, and is claimed as the oldest known piece of soft porcelain made in the United States. A series of Parian figures and busts were made for the Centennial Exposition by James Carr, at the New York City Pottery, and are preserved by the Museum, and its collection of Majolica includes some of the first pieces made in this country by Mr. Carr, and a representative series from the now ex- tinct pottery at Phoenixville. In the collection of white, opaque ware, may be 240 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy ot ffine Hrts seen the oldest known piece of American White ware, made in Philadelphia about 1770. It is an open work fruit basket, decorated in blue, under the glaze, and raised rosettes touched with blue. It is from the China Works of Bonnin and Morris in Southwark, and was deposited by Dr. James Mease in the Franklin Institute in 1841, with a letter giv- ing its history. The tall black vase, decorated with a full-length painting of Stephen Girard, is a rare example of Philadelphia pottery, made in 1851 by Ralph Bag- nail Beech. Under the title of American Faience the Mu- seum classes a group of underglaze opaque ware made in the United States during the past twenty years or more, notably from the Keramic Art Works of Chelsea, Massachusetts; the Rookwood Pottery of Cincinnati and the Lonhuda ware of Steubenville, Ohio. This collection numbers about fifty pieces. There is also a good collection of American stone ware and an interesting group of about twenty pieces of yellow and Rockingham wares. The latter was first made in the United States by James Bennett at East Liverpool, Ohio, in 1839. It was a reproduction of a ware made at the Swinton Works, on the estate of the Marquis of Rocking- ham, about 1796, and at that time in high repute. Bmertcan potters ant) porcelain 241 It possesses the same body as the ordinary yedlow ware, but is covered with a brown or mottled yel- low and brown glaze. Though now a despised material, used only for the most inelegant of kitchen crockery, it was once greatly in vogue and the pieces preserved by the Museum are quaint and interesting. The Rockingham tea-pot, 'with its familiar design of “ Rebecca at the Well,” was first made by E. and W. Bennett, Baltimore, about 1851. A flint enam- elled “ Toby Mug,” made at the United States Pot- tery by Messrs. Lyman and Fenton, Bennington, Vermont, is an interesting and curious specimen. The handle is in the form of a human leg and foot. At the north side of the building is a room de- voted to Aboriginal American pottery, in which are exhibited collections of painted and polished pottery of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, and containing mortuary pottery of the Florida Indians and a case of Mound Builders’ pottery from the ancient mounds of the Mississippi Valley, both given by Mr. Garence B. Moore. CHAPTER XVI AMERICAN AND FOREIGN GLASSWARE A second extremely important department of the Museum is that devoted to American glassware. This collection illustrates the various processes of glass making in this country, and includes repre- sentative examples of blown, cut, pressed, enam- elled, silvered, stained, cameo and intaglio carved glass; and covers a period of about three hundred years. The history of the manufacture of glass in this country is ably treated in an article by the Director of the Museum in the Bulletin for January, 1906. Dr. Barber says: “ The first industrial enterprise established in the territory of the present United States, as stated by Prof. Lyon G. Tyler in his 4 Cradle of the Republic,’ was a glass bottle factory, erected in the Virginia colony soon after October, 1608. Eight glass- workers, Welshmen and Poles, were brought over to operate it. The house stood in the woods about half a mile northwest from Jamestown, near Pow- hatan Creek. This manufacture seems to have 242 Hmerican ant) foreign Glassware 243 proved unsuccessful, and a second glass house was erected in 1621. In this year Capt. Wm. Norton brought to Virginia four Italians to manufacture all kinds of glass, among which were beads for trade with the Indians. In 1625 two glass workers, Ber- nardo and Vincenzo, w*ere enumerated in the census. The latter, desiring to return to Europe, is said to have broken the furnace with his crowbar. Soon after this the glass house fell into disuse and some years later it was sold. . . . “ So far as we know there has been no attempt by historians to describe the products of this early es- tablishment. Recent investigations by the writer, however, have resulted in the discovery that ex- amples of glass beads have from time to time been found on the site of the old glass house, or have been picked up on the shore of the river in the neighbourhood, where they had been washed up at high water. “ A number of these beads, fully authenticated, have recently been secured for this museum. Among these most interesting examples of seven- teenth century workmanship, which were origi- nally of globular form and about the size of an aver- age pea, are several of dull blue colour covered with minute longitudinal striations, while others are transparent and of a pale pinkish or greenish tint ribbed with broad lines of white* somewhat resem- 244 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of fine arts bling in appearance a small gooseberry. Some of them have been so worn by the action of the water that they have been reduced to half or quarter of their original size, while others are coated with a beautiful iridescent patination caused by three cen- turies of exposure to the action of the elements.” That the manufacture of more ambitious pieces was attempted by the Jamestown glass works seems clear from various fragments in the possession of the Museum, but the industry appears to have been in advance of its time and languished for want of patronage. The Museum preserves a series of examples of flint glass made by Baron Henry William Stiegel, at Manheim, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, from about 1762 to 1774. Stiegel came to this country from Manheim, Baden, Germany, in 1750, and his glass house is supposed to have been the first flint glass manufactory in America. The product of the factory, as we know it from the specimens which have come down to us from the homes of the well- to-do people of that day, was the flint or lead glass known in Europe as Crystal, and included blown glass, ornamented by etched or engraved designs of tulips and other floral devices. In these pieces the cutting and flowering was done with a wheel or sharp instrument. The Stiegel glassware was of a higher grade than Hmerican ant> fforeian Glassware 245 any produced in the country down to the period when the manufacture ceased, and although the works were only operated for a period of about ten years their output must have been considerable, as a goodly number of identified pieces are cherished by collectors. The works were situated in the village founded by Baron Stiegel where, during his days of affluence, he lived in comparative pomp and splendour. “ As he rode home at sunset, after spending a day in superintending his enterprises, he was accustomed to being saluted at the entrance of his park by the firing of cannon and welcomed by music played by a band of musicians stationed on the roof of his house. The interior of the building was furnished sumptuously. One room contained a large fireplace lined with old Dutch tiles, some of which may now be seen in the rooms of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.” An interesting account of Baron Stiegel’s enter- prises was published by Dr. J. H. Sieling in 1896. The writer states that the products of the Man- heim glass works were vases, sugar and finger bowls, salts, flasks, pitchers, tumblers, wine glasses and toys. It has been discovered within recent years that pressed glass was made in this country as early as 1827 and that the industry continued until 1840. 246 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy ot fine Brts An example of American pressed glass preserved by the Museum is one of a series of salt cellars pressed into the shape of a steamboat and evidently designed as a souvenir of the visit of General Lafayette to this country in 1824. The specimen in this collection is in a rich dark blue glass and on the side wheels of the boat is the name “ Lafayet ” in raised letters while on the stern are the initials “ B. & S. Co.,” which is identified as the mark of the old Boston and Sandwich Glass Company, at Sandwich, Massachusetts, to which have been traced also several special designs in glass cup plates, popular among collectors. The Museum’s collection of American glass flasks and bottles with historical designs in relief is of particular rarity and interest. It contains a practically complete series of bottles produced at American factories from 1825 to 1870. Several of the original iron blowing moulds in which these bottles were made are shown in the lower part of the case devoted to this special exhibit. Some of the earliest objects of this character were produced at Coventry, Connecticut, in 1813, when a glass factory was started in that place, in which decanters, tumblers, bottles, pocket flasks, snuff canisters, inkstands, vases and chemists’ phials and jars were manufactured. Flasks of various sizes were made from 1820 to 1830 with Hmerfcan a nfc foreign Glassware 247 portraits of Lafayette and Governor DeWitt Clin- ton, in commemoration of the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. These flasks were coloured sapphire blue, green, brown and amber. Flasks were made in commemoration of the open- ing of the first railroads in 1830. One of these shows a horse drawing a heavily laden four-wheel car along a rail and another varieity depicts a primitive engine. Both bear the inscription, “ Suc- cess to the Railroad/’ lettered about the margin. These are attributed to the Kensington Glass Works, Philadelphia. The Museum has recently come into possession of some exceedingly interesting specimens of the earliest cut glass made in the United States. These include a decanter, wine glasses, tumbler and water pitcher cut in the strawberry diamond pattern, made in Pittsburgh in 1828 for presentation from that city to Mr. Frederick Graff, a noted Philadel- phia engineer who, in the early part of the nine- teenth century gave to Pittsburgh some valuable aid in the formation of its municipal water system. The set is a gift from Miss Henrietta Graff, a daughter of Frederick Graff. A cut glass punch bowl, decanters, candlesticks and tall champagne and wine glasses, presented by Miss Henrietta Ritchie and Mr. Craig D. Ritchie, are from the manufactory of John and Craig 248 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of fine arts Ritchie at Ritchietown, now part of the city of Wheeling, West Virginia, and were made about the year 1835. The general exhibits of glass include the John T. Morris collection of modern Italian glass, several cases of English, French, Bohemian and Venetian glass; a case of old cut glass and a remarkably fine series of Tiffany Favrile glass, the greater part of which was purchased at the Paris Exposition of 1900, with the income of the Temple Bequest. “ In one of the cases will be seen several exquis- ite examples of carved cameo glass, the work of the late Emile Galle. The most noteworthy of these is a glass vase of moss-agate-like, or opalescent, sub- stance, beneath the surface of which are scattered brown and white dendritic mottlings which, in one place, have taken the form of the outstretched wings and a portion of the body of a dragon fly. M. Galle has seized upon this suggestion for a mo- tive, to perfect in the glass and on the surface a most realistic design of a large dragon fly. The gauze-like effect of the wings has been increased by engraving on the surface, immediately above the mottling in the glass, the delicate outlines and vein- ings of the wings, while to complete the design he has added on the surface the long jointed body of the insect, which is made more realistic by silvery and opalescent effects. For the eyes he has added Bmerlcan a nfc fforeion Glassware 249 two topaz-tinted globes. The vase itself is an ex- cellent representation of water and air, the lower part having a pale blue and iridescent colouring, while the upper portion gives the impression of at- mosphere, in which the dragon fly is poised, while the brown and white mottlings are suggestive of clouds.” (’05-46.) CHAPTER XVII MEXICAN MAJOLICA An important feature of the Museum is its col- lection of Mexican Majolica, all of which has been accumulated since 1906, when the first article on stanniferous faience in Mexico was published by Dr. Barber in the Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum in the July issue for that year. This arti- cle was inspired by a small collection of old Puebla ware which had recently come into the possession of the Museum. The collection included tiles from early cemeteries, churches and other buildings, coarsely decorated with blue designs composed of conventionalized flower forms, animals and human figures. There were decorated drug jars and spherical vases in blue; salt cellars and a curious little benitier or device for holding holy water, in colours, and as the most interesting example of all, a bowl, fifteen inches in diameter, of late seventeenth or early eighteenth century workmanship. Others with rude paintings of Chinamen in blue were taken from an old house in Puebla which was erected in 1687, and some were from an Indian Church at 250 /IDextcan rt&ajoiica 251 Tlaxcalancinco, near Cholula, and date back to 1789. There were various theories as to the origin of the ware, one being that Chinese potters had brought the art over from the Philippines, until proof was established to the contrary in one of the pieces in this Museum. The specimen in question is a large vase in blue decoration, around the body of which are rudely painted human figures, male and female, with long queues. It was argued that “ no Oriental artist would depict Chinese women with hair so arranged.” The announcement of this important discovery aroused widespread interest among students of ceramics all over the world and as a result Dr. Bar- ber made a trip to Mexico in 1907 for the purpose of studying the ware and collecting data relative to its history. Isolated examples of the ware, supposed to be of Spanish origin, had been brought back from time to time by travellers in Mexico, but these occa- sional pieces picked up in out of the way country places and in curio shops in the city of Mexico, had escaped the vigilance of experts and remained un- identified in private collections until a group of what purported to be native porcelain was offered for sale in Mexico and upon investigation proved to be tin enamelled pottery. Soon after several 252 jpennsElvmnia Hcafcems of tfine arts similar pieces were observed in a small collection of pottery accumulated in Mexico by Dr. Denman Ross, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and exhibited in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. No definite information could be obtained as to the origin of these pieces. By some they were called “ Talavera ” ware on account of their supposed im- portation from Talavera, Spain, while others main- tained that the name was derived from that of a noted potter. The best theory was that workmen had been brought from Talavera by the Dominican friars, who settled in Mexico soon after the year 1600 and established potteries at Puebla. A correspondence followed between Dr. Barber and various persons in Mexico of which the out- come was the discovery that stanniferous faience had been produced in Mexico, chiefly in Puebla, under Spanish influence, and that some centuries ago numerous majolica factories had flourished. About this time the above mentioned pieces were acquired for the Museum and about this nucleus the present remarkable collection has grown. In a comprehensive handbook on “ The Majolica of Mexico,” by Edwin AtLee Barber, Philadelphia, 1908, we find the following: “ Immediately after the conquest of Mexico, in 1520, Spain began to graft her civilization on the ruder civilization of the New World. The flower /Ibexican flbajolica 253 of her clergy, soldiery and artisans poured into the new El Dorado, where they at once established the printing press and introduced the industrial methods of the Old World. Factories for the man- ufacture of staple goods were erected at many places. The natives of Mexico, already skilful craftsmen, soon came to excel their teachers in pro- ficiency, and in a few years New Spain had be- come independent of Europe in the various indus- trial arts. During the eighty years between the date of the Conquest and the close of the sixteenth cen- tury, greater progress was made in Mexico in litera- ture, architecture and the other useful arts, than in any other country on the Western Continent in a similar period. . . . “ From the meagre references to the pottery in- dustry, found in the early literature of Mexico and the manuscript archives of the city of Puebla, com- bined with the results of a careful study of the ancient majolica and tile-work which have survived, we learn that previous to the year 1580 Spanish potters were plying their trade in Mexico and in- structing the natives in the mysteries of the art. The first Spanish clay- worker in the New World initiated the Mexicans into the secret of glazing the ware with tin and oxide of lead. “ Two distinct influences were at work in the ceramic art in New Spain, first the Spanish, through 254 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts the potters of Talavera, and later the Chinese through the extensive importation of Oriental por- celains during the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies. The manufacture seems to have been con- fined to the city of Puebla until a recent period, when potteries were established in Oaxaca for the production of ordinary commercial ware. “ The manufacture of decorative tiles was com- menced at an early date, probably before 1575, as is clearly proved by the extensive use of tile-work in many of the oldest churches and convents in New Spain.” In 1653 a potters’ guild was organized which lasted about thirteen years, but for the best part of a century the industry flourished untrammelled, with the result that a rich variety of styles was developed and each potter’s work is marked by great individu- ality. The golden age of the art appears to have been from about 1650 to 1750, during which period the number of potteries increased from ten or twelve to about thirty. Too much prosperity worked the usual mischief and the period of greatest activity was the forerunner of a decadence which set in about the middle of the eighteenth century, when the art began rapidly to decline and by the middle of the nineteenth century had reached its lowest ebb. ZlDeiican /iDajolica 255 The Majolica of Mexico may be classified under four heads: the Moresque, 1575-1700; the Spanish, or Talavera, 1600-1800; the Chinese, 1650-1800, and the Hispano-Mexican, or Pueblan, 1800-1860. Examples of the earliest of these styles, showing Moorish or Hispano-Moresque, are very scarce. The decoration is characterized by interlacing scroll- work or strapwork and the Museum preserves a magnificent example in the lavabo or large bowl of this character, from the old Mexican Convent of San Francisco, at Atlixco, which dates back to the early part of the seventeenth century. It is covered with a handsome scrollwork design in blue with black outlines. “ The central pattern is purely Moor- ish in spirit, both in composition and colouring, variations of this treatment being still employed by the modern Moorish potters. The question has been raised whether this piece was made in Mexico or was brought from Spain. A careful examination of the workmanship clearly shows that it differs from na- tive Moorish work in the treatment of the colours, the blue being thick and standing out in perceptible relief, which was a marked characteristic of the Mexican ware of that and the following century.” This superb piece has been assigned to the begin- ning of the best period of the art, about 1650, and is one of the earliest specimens in the Museum. There is something remarkably strong and virile in 256 pennsslpanta Bca&emB of fine arts the decoration, and the colour, too, is rich and hand- some. A fine example of old Mexican majolica showing Spanish influence, made in Puebla between 1680 and 1700, was added to the Museum’s collection in 1910. This is a convent or church laver or basin, twenty- five inches in diameter and six and a half inches in depth and decorated on the interior in blue in the “ tattooed ” style. In the centre is a large figure of St. Michael with a plumed head dress and flowing robes holding in his right hand a banner. Three cherubs’ heads are seen below his feet. The rest of the surface is filled in with a spotted ornamentation in which may be descried foliage, birds, houses, etc. The beautiful deep, rich blue is characteristic of the Mexican majolica of the late seventeenth century, and the decoration shows strong Spanish influence. The edge of the bowl is serrated at regular distances by a series of five depressions or thumb-marks in the soft clay. The outside is ornamented with blue designs of a floral and geometrical character, all rather quaint and archaic. The forms are outlined in light blue, filled in with this spotted sort of deco- ration, which was one of three or four distinct styles of painting in vogue at Puebla in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. This class of work is found on tiles, bowls, alba- relli, barrel-shaped vases or jardinieres, spherical /IDexican /l&ajoltca 257 jars and sometimes on other objects. One of the best of the bowls that is known is that in the Mu- seum collection — a shallow bowl, fifteen inches in diameter, in blue decoration, in which a crudely drawn hare is springing across the centre of the picture. This fine piece is supposed to have been produced previous to the year 1700, at the time when Puebla was influenced by both Talavera and Moresque workmanship. The birds and hare are Talaverian while the Moorish influence is shown in the three mosque-shaped buildings. A large proportion of the majolica produced in Puebla between about 1650 and 1800 reflects in form and ornament the methods of Chinese potters. This, Dr. Barber claims, shows plainly the bungling efforts of Spanish or Mexican decorators to imitate Chinese work and repudiates the theory that the pseudo-Chinese decorations of the Mexican wares were executed by Oriental artists, as has been urged. A very fine example of this kind is a large jar- shaped vase of Chinese form, painted in blue camaieu. The date assigned is 1660 and the piece is important as showing the transmission of Italian influence through Spain, in combination with Ori- ental figure motives. The drawing of the chariot and horses suggests the Italian style and the figure of the driver is inspired by the Chinese. The vase 258 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts stands eighteen and a half inches high and is one of the finest pieces in the collection. Having absorbed the teachings of the original workers in this style of pottery, the Pueblans began about the beginning of the nineteenth century to develop a manner of their own and increased materi- ally the range of their colours so that on ware of this period one finds painting in blue, green, red, brown and black. Chinese influence had entirely disappeared and figure painting in gaudy colours came into vogue. The best example of this kind that has come to light is the large vase shown in the illustration herewith, owned by the Pennsylvania Museum. Another excellent piece is a majolica jardiniere, eighteen inches in height, decorated in polychrome, made in Puebla about 1800. It is adorned with flowers and vines in rose colour and green. In 1908 the Museum acquired a most interesting collection of majolica tiles of Mexico, of the six- teenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, from old churches and convents of Mexico. These are rich in colouring and design and form a most impor- tant adjunct to the general collections of the majol- ica of Mexico. Sgraffito earthenware, similar in process to that employed by Italian potters and identical with that of the Pennsylvania-German potters of the eight- MEXICAN MAJOLICA VASE, DECORATED IN BLUE MEXICAN MAJOLICA VASE, POLYCHROME CAMAIEU. PUEBLA, ABOUT 1660. DECORATION. PUEBLA, ABOUT 1780. /IDextcan jflDajoltca 259 eenth century, was produced in Mexico at Guana- juato. A dish of this character, made about 1830, is preserved by the Museum. The Museum preserves on deposit from Mrs. Cor- nelius Stevenson, the assistant curator of the Mu- seum, an old Mexican Bandeja, or tray, from the Convent of the Encarnation, in the City of Mexico. The tray was offered for sale by the sisters of the convent, at the time of the confiscation of clergy property, under President Juarez. The sisters de- scribed it as an Aztec relic, though it is shown by the nature of the decoration to be of the period after the Conquest and under Spanish influence. The Bandeja measures three feet in diameter and is hollowed to a depth of four inches out of one section of a cypress tree. This tree, known as the “ ahuehuetl ” by the ancient Mexicans, still survives to some extent in the Valley of Mexico, though many were cut down at the time of the Mexican in- vasion. The tray appears to have been rudely chipped out with a gouge, and is varnished with a crude lacquer of copal. The decoration is a florid design of red shaded flowers and foliage of a green- ish brown hue and conventionalized representations of birds and animals, this divided into seven zones and the whole intermingled with a profuse applica- tion of gilding. In the centre is a double-headed bird with a crown 260 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy of JFtne Brts set between the two heads. This form of bird was probably adopted by the native Mexican artist from the Austrian double-headed eagle, then the emblem of the King of Spain. The Austrian Dynasty of Spain reigned over that country and its colonies from 1517, when Charles V ascended the throne, and continued to hold sway until 1700. When Maximilian reigned over the country he adopted the single-headed eagle, and according to good au- thority ancient objects decorated with the double- headed bird date prior to 1700. This magnificent piece then may be assigned to that time. As an object the Bandeja is absolutely unique and its authenticity is established by a voucher signed by the Mother Superior of the Convent from which it comes, countersigned by the accred- ited representative of the family to which the tray originally belonged. This family was the ruling power of Texcoco at the time of the Conquest. The piece was purchased by Mrs. Edward Yorke in Mexico, at the time when the French army entered the city of Mexico (1863). For the sake of comparison with the sgraffito ware of the Pennsylvania potters and that made by the Mexicans one mentions here several ex- amples of the same ware made by the Hollanders and a superb slip-decorated piece classed under old English pottery in the Museum. MEXICAN MAJOLICA LAVABO; ABOUT 1650 (see page 255). OLD MEXICAN BANDEJA. /iDexican /l&ajolica 261 The most important of the Dutch pieces is a plaque, eighteen inches in diameter, bearing the central design of a man plowing, while a woman looks on. The picture is very quaint. Two horses are harnessed to the plow and move forward with the precision and style of battle horses. The plow- man guides the plow and holds in his right hand a club. The woman appears to be offering a glass to the man. Through the centre a huge tulip of weird design grows merrily and above and below in the spaces available are Dutch inscriptions with the date of the piece, 1718, and the name of Derk Rahmeckers, probably the maker. The red pottery body colour is covered with a coating of white slip, through which the design is engraved. The decoration is in yellow, green and red. The piece is very similar to an enormous plaque in the Rijks Museum at Amsterdam, which was made by Gerrit Eevers at Schaphuysen, Hol- land, in the eighteenth century. The English plate, considered one of the most important additions to the Museum collections in many years, is one of the celebrated “ Toft ” dishes, and is conspicuously signed with the name of the maker, Thomas Toft, which occupies a considerable section of the margin. The dish is eighteen inches in diameter and is ornamented in a bold and stri- king way. The crowned head of Charles II of 262 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy of fine arts England is repeated five times in the bowl, arranged in a sort of quatrefoil pattern, the leaves separated by four rude presentments of eagles. In the central medallion are the initials R. C. one letter each side of the head, the C. being reversed. They are sup- posed to stand for Rex Carolus, and to make the identification of the portrait more sure, the head bears a strong resemblance to the Charles II on a signed Toft dish in the Hodgkin Collection in Eng- land. The earliest dated examples known previously to the discovery of this one were made in 1671, while this plate has been assigned to about 1661, during the Restoration in England. The slip decoration is in Toft’s most character- istic style and the colouring is orange, brown and yellow. The piece is extremely rare, and is claimed as the only specimen of its kind in any public col- lection in this country. SGRAFFITO DISH: DUTCH, 1718. SLIP - DECORATED DISH BY THOMAS TOFT, STAFFORDSHIRE. CHAPTER XVIII CHINESE PORCELAIN AND CLOISONNE The Museum’s collection of Chinese Porcelains ranks with the best of similar collections in Amer- ica. Two rooms are devoted to its disposal. The Bloomfield-Moore Collection is displayed in the North-East Pavilion, while the general collections, including the bequests of Dr. Francis W. Lewis, Edward S. Clarke and Miss Cornelia Thompson, with many rare pieces obtained from the Chinese Commission at the close of the Centennial Exhibi- tion, occupy the South-East Pavilion. The subject of Chinese porcelain with special regard to the exhibits contained in the Museum has been admirably covered in an Art Primer, No. 9, in the Ceramic series, published by the Museum, of which Dr. Barber is the author, as well as in a contribution to the Bulletin for October, 1909, by that same authority, and these have been exten- sively used in the preparation of the following. The Museum follows the method of classification according to the marking of the porcelains with the names of the dynasties and reigns, no more satis- 264 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of jfine Brts factory manner of identification having as yet been perfected. The classification of Chinese porcelains has always been a problem to collectors, owing to the lack of knowledge of the composition of the various kinds of ware produced in the early days of the Chinese Empire, which precludes the possi- bility of grouping them according to pastes or glazes, while the absence of names or trade devices of the factories in the product has made it impos- sible to adopt the system of classification that has been used in the study of European porce- lains. One of the more familiar systems is that adopted by Jacquemart, who grouped the porcelains accord- ing to their colour, or other superficial peculiarities. Polychrome vases according to this scheme were divided into families such as the familiar “famille verte,” “famille rose ” the chrysanthemopseonian family, etc., and this method has been generally adopted in grouping porcelains for exhibition, is constantly employed in sale catalogues and is often referred to in museum labels. The Museum possesses a fine collection of the blue camaieu and five-colour porcelains of the Ming Dynasty, which date from 1368 to 1643. The early reigns of the present Ch’ing Dynasty, particularly the K’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng, Ch’ien-lung and Chia- Ch’ing (from 1662 to 1820) are represented by Chinese porcelain anh Cloisonne 265 many remarkable pieces including some polychrome enamelled vases and plaques and monochrome glazes of the K’ang-hsi period, and a quantity of rose-back plates and enamelled vases of the Ch’ien- lung reign. Amongst the noteworthy pieces is a large globu- lar stoneware vase-shaped jar in the Bloomfield- Moore Collection, (’82-329) belonging to the early Ming Dynasty. The jar is double, or enclosed within a pierced outer shell, upon which the orna- ment in low relief is placed. This perforated back- ground is covered with a dark purplish and light blue glaze while the interior of the mouth is glazed in green. One of the finest and most valuable pieces in the collection is a fine example of the famous Peach- Bloom vases so much desired by collectors of Chinese porcelains. This is in the Bloomfield- Moore Collection and is exhibited, out of respect to its beauty and its rarity, in a case by itself. (’82- 1654) This is included among the so-called transmuta- tion or flambe glazed porcelains. The invention of the highly prized “ peach-blow ” or “ peach-bloom ” glaze (more aptly described by the French " peau de peche”), has been ascribed to Ts’ang Yinghsiiang, a member of the Imperial Commission which was appointed in 1680 for the porcelain works at Ching- 266 Pennsylvania Bca&emy o t fftne arts te-chen, and the name is descriptive of the colour and quality of the porcelain. The specimen in the Bloomfield-Moore collection is chiefly remarkable for its size. Vases of this character found in many collections rarely exceed eight inches in height, while this one measures fif- teen and three-quarter inches. It is globular in shape with a long slender neck, and the colour of the glaze is a dark, rich peach skin red, blending into ashes of roses, with delicate cloudings of apple green and mottling of crushed strawberry. The colouring differs somewhat from the accepted theories on the subject, which has led to some hesi- tation among connoisseurs as to its true classifica- tion, but this vase in reality more nearly approaches the real peach skin colour than the smaller vases in other collections, which are usually of a rich pink tone quite different from the colour of the fruit from which the glaze derives its name. Examples of the better known type have been sold in recent years for prices ranging from $10,000 to $18,000. “ So-called transmutation or flambe colours are due to the varied degrees of oxidation of copper. The surface of the ware is mottled, flecked, streaked and splotched with various colours, ranging from brilliant reds through every intermediate shade of purple to pale blue. Sometimes all of these colours appear on a single piece while in other cases different PEACH BLOOM VASE. HEXAGONAL VASE. K’ANG-HSI PERIOD. ( FAMILLE VERTE.) K’ANG-HSI PERIOD. Chinese porcelain anfc Cloisonne 267 shades of one or two colours are used. True trans- mutation glazes were perfected in the Yung-cheng reign (1723-1735) when what had been accidental effects were brought under complete control. Dur- ing the Ch’ien-lung period they were developed to the highest state of perfection.” A group of Flambe vases, Nos. ’04-777, ’04-630 and ’09-263, preserved in the Museum, may be studied for purposes of comparison. The collec- tions are rich in monochrome and flambe glazes, to which three cases are devoted — two in the Southeast Pavilion and one in the Bloomfield-Moore Collection. In the reign of K’ang-hsi (1652-1722), vases decorated with high reliefs of human figures and symbolic objects were made. The Museum pre- serves a fine hexagonal vase of this character, be- longing to the so-called famille verte. The vase is nineteen inches high and shows the “ Immortals and Twin Merry Genii ” in high relief. In the K’ang-hsi reign, enamel colours reached their greatest perfection and several new colours were added to the palette, such as the brilliant greens noted in this specimen. A tall cylindrical vase (’76-1486), which was purchased from the Chinese Commission at the Centennial Exposition, is a splendid example also of the famille verte. The design in five-colour decoration extends around 3$5 ^ntnsflmia Hci&cf ef f\n& Hrts lie entire oioiiinniieirenttDe and depicts dre -^ p pr-raf- porciHon muromted on a fkmtastk: targe drawn fey iriinerons Ira^ d — tpeb iOffnre.. Tike. Miasenraa possesses tbree specially' timra* ex- amples ©£ rose-feadk egg-sled plates of iSn© Gtaem- hmg Beood (1736-1795) icnmnintenEd *99-688, r Q2- &24 amd "99-494 respectwdJr- Tie first off ties© fedbmgs tto tie dlass ©f plates wMa tie so-called secern borders* amwfl cocres ffratnm tie IjoircdniBn Exposi- tojaa ©ff 1S51- ** It is jwofnieelx decorated inn lariEiaMt enamel coloms ana d g©M work. Im a large, wMte* sx-pomated^ star-sbaped reserre im tie centre is a fe garcr tifmTlllj paiTTmted figimre scene.. A seated lady bolds a ^ iwrtlvpr fanm bn Her tHtt Itairod.. By ber side stands a lady attendant, wMBe at tier feet, two boys* ©me hnMny im Ms barnd a giMed jpa-i settle; tie ©tier a toy, ate pflayimg life two rafebda. Tbe rrm pT border ©f tiiiingnijoase Mme; is diapered in black Y-ffflUeoL Tie next bonder is decorated witb gilded sttoBhporik. Tie ttMrd border is pink with qraatiefoi! diapering. Om tie ifflat rinm is a broad border coMtalmiiiig Irregular imedallioMS enclosing gdderd ©rnmiBefflifiataQffls atnd biitterffines and flowers m enamel cofloctrs om a pink giro»nnmd of btxneyeocnb diapering. Tie edge is tipped wittfe a marrow belt ©f robim’s egg MaeT TftKjragJhi It bas bent fee d 5 s- timet borders tie plate is dlassed with tie serea- border series.. Tie ©tier two referred tou ora© ©f Chinese porcelain anh Cloisonne 269 which is in the Bloomfield-Moore and the other in the Lewis Collection, are exquisite examples of the same period. In the Francis W. Lewis collection is a large octagonal shaped temple censer which exemplifies the extensive use of enamel colours and gilding. The Museum number of this piece is ’02-730. It measures twenty inches in height and thirteen inches in its greatest width and is supported by eight low cylindrical feet. Yellow is the prevailing colour. The bowl part is decorated at the top with a band of sunken gadroons, bronzed and gilded and each bordered with a heavy black enamelled line on a green ground. This is balanced at the bottom by a similar band solidly bronzed and slightly raised. The centre space is ornamented with a conventional design in green and red in relief on a canary yellow ground. The whole of the base or plinth is elabo- rately decorated and the cover or lid is perforated bronze, topped with a lion playing with a ball. Such pieces were made for Siam and other coun- tries to the south, the colour and treatment of the vitrified enamels being strongly suggestive of the work of the Siamese potters. The Museum contains a representative collection of powder blue, tea dust and iron rust glazes and a good series of the white and coloured crackles, while examples of rice grain decoration and white por- 270 fl>enns£lt>anta Hcabem^ of jfine Brts celain of various pastes and glazes form an inter- esting group. One of the most effective cases in the general collection contains a group of yellow and green glazes of the K’ang-hsi and Ch’ien-lung periods and includes six large vases with dark yel- low ground decorated, in raised enamel colours, with grotesque lions. By far the largest division of Chinese porcelains is that which includes the several varieties of painted wares. In these the colour was applied in three different ways — by the under glaze method, where the raw clay was decorated and then fired; by the application of colour to the biscuit or baked clay before glazing and by an enamel process, where the colour is added to the glazed surface and fixed at a low temperature in what is called a muffle stove. The technical names for these three methods of colouring are, Grand Feu , Demi-Grand Feu and Moufde. The earliest underglaze colour used by the Chi- nese potters was cobalt blue. In the Chia-ching period of the Ming Dynasty (1522-1566) a dark, rich, purplish blue, almost black, was employed to decorate the white glaze. It was known as Moham- medan or Mussulman blue and its use extended to the Wan-li reign (1573-1619). Several fine ex- amples decorated in this colour are preserved in the Bloomfield-Moore Collection. One of them is TEMPLE CENSER, DECORATED IN ENAMEL LARGE QUADRANGULAR VASE. CLOISONNE Chinese porcelain anh Cloisonne 271 a double gourd-shaped vase about twenty inches in height, with circular medallions enclosing five- clawed dragon and phoenix motives. The irregular form, and archaic style of the painting and the colour place the vase as of the Wan-li period (’82- 727). A second piece of the same epoch is in the same collection and worthy of special attention. This is a large ovoid, eight-sided vase of opaque stoneware, with figures representing the eight Taoist Immor- tals in the same deep blue (’82-325). The Lewis bequest includes a large collection of Japanese and Chinese cloisonne enamels gathered together by Dr. Lewis and presented in its entirety by Miss Mary Lewis, his sister. The collection covers the manufacture of this product from the fifteenth century down to a comparatively recent period. One of the finest examples is a large quad- rangular vase nearly two feet in height supported by eight vertical dentated ribs in bronze. All the visi- ble portions of this vase are heavily incrusted with cloisonne enamels in rich colours, of which the pre- dominating are lapis-lazuli blue, dark coral, yellow, green and clouded white on a medium blue ground. The piece is ascribed to the Ching T’ai reign of the Ming Dynasty (1450-1456). It is mounted on a square teakwood base carved to harmonize with the decorative motive of the vase. CHAPTER XIX CLASSIC POTTERY, SWISS GLASS, LACES, FURNITURE The collections of classical antiquities include the William Hammer, Francis W. Lewis, William S. Vaux and Robert H. Lamborn collections and con- tain representative series of pottery, minor marbles, bronzes and glass. There is a rich collection of antique lamps, a group of black Etruscan pottery, known as Bucchero ware, and a case of Cypriote and Corinthian pottery which contains several fine examples of red-figured pottery. Three groups of Greek and Italian vases, known as the Vaux, Lamborn and Lewis collections, in- clude about seven hundred examples mostly pur- chased in Italy. One of the oldest pieces in the collection is the Cypriote cup with two handles and decorated with droll representations of birds which is assigned to a period immediately following the Mycenaean epoch. Of later Cypriote vases, manu- factured during the Graeco-Phoenician period (800- 400 b. c.), the collection contains many good ex- amples. Bucchero ware, the native pottery of the Etrus- 272 ATTIC STAMNOS, 520-500 b. c. RED FIGURED STYLE. ASKOS FROM CANOSA, 3RD CENTURY, B. C. HERAKLES STRUGGLING WITH THE NEMEAN LION. Classic ©otters 273 cans, is well represented by the typical wine jugs and drinking cups and some exquisitely shaped vases, the clay of which is as thin as that of the lightest modern tea-cup. The collection contains also a number of fine specimens of Attic vases in the black-figured style, mostly amphorae or two- handled jars. Of these the most valuable piece in the collection is the red-figured Attic stamnos which comes from the collection of Joseph Bonaparte. It is a typical example of 520-500 b. c., when the style of vase painting was simple and severe. Herakles’ struggle with the Nemean lion is the subject of the decoration on one side of the jar while the other side depicts the struggle of Theseus with the Mara- thonian bull. A curious feature of this piece is an inscription which is written backward above the groups of figures and which has been translated to read, “ You are beautiful.” The habit of inscribing Greek vases is a well known one but this inscription is rare and adds to the value of the jar. A large proportion of the collection is made up of Apulian vases of the fourth and third cen- turies b. c., and the later Apulian style is also well represented. In the Vaux collection of pottery there is a fine vase of red clay covered with white slip from Canosa, Southern Italy, of so ornate a type that it vies with the artistic terra cottas of the Hellenistic 274 Pennsylvania Bca&enty o i jftne Brts period. The vase belongs to the “ askos ” order and is twenty- three inches in height and fourteen and one-eighth in width. The period is the third century b. c. “ The askos proper as a ceramic form is first seen during the red-figure vase period. The semi-globu- lar body is flat at the bottom and convex at the top with a handle sometimes arched over the top to meet the spout, sometimes, especially in Southern Italy, resembling a wine skin or pouch-like appear- ance. This species of vase is usually classed among the oil vases or lamp feeders. The great vases of which the Museum example is a typical specimen, however, must have been purely ornamental. Not only was their elaborate and fragile ornamentation unsuited to even careful use, but some are found to be virtually imitation vases, with false bottoms and closed spouts. They are usually of very large size, some are truly gigantic, and it is likely that like other large vases of Apulia, i. e., kraters and am- phorae, they were made for sepulchral uses. They occupy a place midway between the terra cotta figu- rine and the vase. . . . “ Like the statuettes of the period, the clay is cov- ered over entirely with a white slip laid directly on the unglazed red clay. The figurines and heads are usually coloured, as were the statuettes of the time and show pink and blue draperies. . . . On the Classic ©otters 275 front of this vase, under the wide spout, a bold relief of a fine Medusa mask is appliqued. A small one is also applied on the back of the vase. On either side of the front mask . . . the head and forepart of a horse springs forward as it were out of the body of the vase. These horses’ manes are tied up in a knot, standing straight up in front above their heads, which gives them a unicorn-like appearance. A tall, winged figure stands gracefully on the handle of the askos. Two smaller ones stand over the covered spouts. All three are draped and lean upon a sup- port.” 1 These askoi are found at Calvi, Canosa, Cumae and such places in Southern Italy and the Apulian region. Swiss Glass One of the most interesting and original of the collections of the Pennsylvania Museum is a group of thirty-seven pieces of stained glass, mostly of Swiss origin, unique in this country. It is of the type known as domestic glass, which was used in olden times to decorate the windows in the homes of the wealthy burghers or their council halls. Such glass is not to be obtained to-day, all the pieces of value being held by a few of the great museums or 1 “ Askos from Canosa.” By Mrs. Cornelius Stevenson. Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Museum. July, 1910. 276 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts in private collections. The Museum’s collection was amassed by a former trustee of the institution, Dr. Francis W. Lewis, who picked it up piece by piece, some thirty-five years ago, and contains some ex- amples from the well known collection of Dr. Ferdi- nand Keller of Zurich. It came to the Museum through Dr. Lewis’ sister, Miss Mary Lewis. An interesting discussion of the subject is con- tained in two articles, written by Mr. Charles E. Dana, which appeared in the July and October numbers of the Bulletin of the Pennsylvania Mu- seum, for 1907. From these the following is quoted : “ The small scale of the dwelling room or even of the Swiss council chamber in the olden days de- manded a more delicate treatment of its stained glass than the huge lights of a cathedral, dimly seen from afar. The specimens of the glazier’s art we are studying were set either in bands across the win- dows, or else formed a central panel therein. How- ever placed they were so near the observer that they could be examined in detail. It seems to have been the custom of town councils and trade guilds to present to neighbouring councils or guilds these glass panels in the production of which the local glass painter was put upon his mettle and, as we see, proved himself well worthy of the trust the fathers of the borough placed in him. The rooms were Classic pottery 277 often large but gloomy on account of the low ceiling and small windows. The Renaissance artist there- fore wanted to shut out as little light as possible, so he employed not only translucent but transparent glass. . . . “ One great charm of the Swiss glass is that in figure or heraldic work we get that delightful unex- pectedness, that deviation from conventional com- position which gives such a charm to anything we are to live with and constantly look up to for pleas- ure and rest. The usual form of design consisted of a sort of florid canopy frame of moderate dimen- sions enclosing one, two or three shields of arms, supported by fantastically dressed men at arms. . . . The Swiss, republican though they be, have always taken great pride in their ancestry and con- sequently in their armorial bearings. “ In the windows of a private house it was the master and mistress who supported the armorial shield, both in their Sunday best, and very proud of themselves, too. Do not overlook the quaint little Bible subjects, mainly in grisaille. There are in one of the finest of our glasses, a domestic one, two delightful little pictures of the Ark. Dr. Lewis suggests that the pictures were intended to typify the antiquity of the family, as did the celebrated Welsh one, where one of the sons of Noah is repre- sented carrying, evidently with great care and a 278 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy of fftne Brts feeling of deep responsibility, the records of the same Welsh family.” The best period of the industry was from about I 53° to a little later than 1600 and this epoch is well illustrated in the collection at the Museum. One of the finest pieces is a Swiss Heraldic speci- men dated 1603, which was one of Dr. Ferdinand Keller’s collection. In it are shown the Municipal arms with gryphons as supporters. The arms are cut with the wheel — which was characteristic of the best period — from ruby glass and then diapered on the face. The Swiss cross appears in the chief or upper part of the flag borne by the truculent standard bearer. The artist’s initials, W. B., are signed after the date. Many of the finer windows were designed by artists of great repute. Tobias Stimmer and even Holbein made drawings for such purposes, if they did not work actually upon the glass. Holbein’s famous “ Stations of the Cross,” preserved at Bale, are in fact cartoons for windows. They have all the precision and crispness of etchings. Our second illustration is of an earlier period. It is an example of Swiss domestic glass, one of a pair, and is dated 1584. The inscription reads: “ Eufrosina vo(n) Freysing Geborne Hagin sein seliche Hausfrau.” (Eufrosina Freysing, born Hagin, his happy wife.) SWISS HERALDIC GLASS, 1603. SWISS DOMESTIC GLASS, 1584. Classic Jpotterg 279 Laces The Museum possesses a rich and interesting collection of old laces, of particular value to the student owing to the logical arrangement and the historical completeness of the series. These are partly displayed in the West Arcade and partly in the East Corridor. The general collection in the West Arcade in- cludes textiles, laces, embroideries and costumes. A collection formed to illustrate the manufacture and history of point and pillow lace fills several cases and an interesting section is an instructive exhibit of materials illustrating the method of making old galloons, laces and fringes of gold, silver and silk, the gift of the German Commis- sioners at the Centennial Exposition. In another case may be seen a collection of such trimmings, including Italian specimens of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and French examples covering the period from the early part of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth centuries. Special attention is directed to an altar cloth of Punto a Maglia, or darned netting, with designs illustrating scriptural subjects, such as the Cruci- fixion, the sacrifice of Isaac, etc. This piece is the gift of Mrs. John Harrison, the Honorary Cura- tor of the Department. Extending the length of the north wall is a fac- 280 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy of jfine Hrts simile of the famous Bayeux Tapestry, made by an autotype process and coloured by hand, showing the most minute details of the original fabric pre- served at Bayeux, France. In the Bloomfield-Moore collection is a second superb and effective example of “ Punto a Maglia ” popularly known as filet brode, the art of which has recently been revived in France. In this piece the filet is combined with the reverse process known as “Punto Tagliato,” or cut work, in alternating squares. The cover really illustrates four kinds of needlework. One alternate set of squares is composed of Punto d Maglia, the other of linen bordered by drawn thread work and in the centre of each linen square one finds the Punto Tagliato and the Reticella, a style made from a linen foundation, partly by buttonhole stitch. One of the features of the collection is a superb garniture of old Point de Venise, the gift of the late Mrs. Owen Wister. This is the “ gros point de Venise ” of the late seventeenth century. Furniture The Museum conserves a valuable collection of furniture which has recently been reinstalled in a series of rooms dedicated to its use, and carefully fitted up to correspond to the nature and period LACE COVER ILLUSTRATING PUNTO A MAGLIA OR DARNED NETTING. Classic potten? 281 of the exhibits shown. The oldest group is six- teenth century Spanish, which is placed in a room whose walls are covered with old Flemish leather of Spanish inspiration, and the ceiling decorated after designs taken from a Spanish house. An early seventeenth century room has been fitted with English oak in the style of Haddon Hall, with wooden ceiling and panelling. In this room is a double cabinet of English oak, in which the date, 1700, is carved in the centre of the upper overhanging rail, in combination with the letters I. W. M. The entire front is elaborately carved in scrolled and foliated patterns, characteristic of the period. A beautifully carved and gilded mirror set, in the style of the Adam Brothers, English furniture makers of the late eighteenth century, is one of the most recent acquisitions, and has been hung over the Adam mantel in the English eighteenth century alcove. This set includes a long central mirror and side sconces of remarkably delicate design. A carved oak cabinet of the seventeenth century is one of the fine pieces in the English style but of Dutch manufacture. CHAPTER XX GENERAL COLLECTIONS To the east of the Rotunda is the large apartment known as the East Gallery where are installed the general collections of ceramics, glassware, jewelry, silver, enamels, lacquers, ivories, wood carvings and musical instruments. The general collections of pottery and porcelain are exhibited in this apartment. The exhibits in- clude cases of Persian pottery, tin enamelled wares, salt glazed stoneware, lustre and cream wares, lead- glazed pottery, tortoise shell wares, etc. The won- derful collection of Pennsylvania Pottery has recently been installed there, and the rare collection of Mexican Majolica forms one of its attractive features. One of the interesting collections is that of Anglo-American pottery, bearing views of old historic American buildings and portraits of American statesmen, which was produced by Liverpool and Staffordshire potters from about 1790 to 1S30. Many are decorated with views of Philadelphia, and are interesting evidence of 282 General Collections 283 the physical aspect of the city in the early days of the Republic. Among these general collections are several small groups of surpassing interest to connoisseurs. Chief of these is a group of thirteen pieces of genuine Lowestoft China, some of which were found on the site of the old factory in the town of Lowestoft at the easternmost point of England. Until recently but little was known about true Lowestoft china. The controversy as to its origin has been made the subject of so many articles and papers that it is superfluous for one to do more than mention it in a work of this kind. The point that the china found in America which has gone under the name of Lowestoft is in reality of Chi- nese manufacture, both as to paste and decoration, has presumably been settled. The claim that the china was made in China and sent to England to be decorated still occupies prom- inent authorities. An English authority upon the subject, Mr. Owen, in his “ Two Centuries of Ceramic Art in Bristol,” says : “ There cannot be any doubt that hard porcelain, vitrified and trans- lucent, was never manufactured from the raw mate- rials, native kaolin and petunse, at any other local- ity in England than Plymouth and Bristol. The tradition that such ware was made at Lowestoft in 1775 . . . rests upon evidence too slight to be 284 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot tftne Brts worthy of argument. The East India Company imported into England large quantities of por- celain for sale. . . . This particular ware, which is very plentiful even at the present day, and which has of late acquired the reputation of having been made at Lowestoft, was simply in form and orna- mentation a reproduction by the Chinese of Eng- lish earthenware models. The Chinese do not use saucers, butter boats and numbers of other articles after the European fashion and the agents in China were compelled to furnish a model for every piece of ware ordered. These models the Asiatic work- men have copied only too faithfully. The ill drawn roses, the coarsely painted baskets of flowers, the rude borders of lines and dots are literally copied from the inartistic painting of the English earthen- ware of by-gone days. “ There is a tradition that Oriental ware was imported in the white state, to be painted in Eng- land. Before giving belief to this speculation it will be necessary to consider how singular, nay, impos- sible, a circumstance it is, that if this unpainted china was imported in quantities sufficient to con- stitute a trade, none of it should have escaped into private custody free from that miserable deface- ment which has been called decoration. ” In 1902 a remarkable discovery was made on the site of the original china factory at Lowestoft, Eng- General Collections 285 land. This was the uncovering of pottery moulds and a large quantity of bits of china, in all stages of manufacture, by means of which the real char- acter of the paste, the style of decoration and the shapes of the ware, manufactured in the town of Lowestoft, became for the first time known. From these bits of circumstantial evidence it has been established that at least three kinds of china were made at Lowestoft. The first imitated the Worcester porcelain and was made in a whitish paste, decorated in blue, of which the glaze is tinged with blue. This variety is represented in the Museum by two cups, one decorated in a poor copy of the Worcester “ pow- der blue ” and the other with a blue transfer-printed pagoda design of distinct Worcester inspiration. The second, more characteristic variety, is a deep cream ware decorated in enamel in Chinese designs. The Worcester porcelain of the period was also imitated in this variety. The third is of a peculiar tint resembling a duck’s egg and, by comparison with the cream ware, is of a greenish hue. Chinese designs and colours were copied in this style, which seems to have been made in imitation of the Chinese so-called Lowestoft. Of this last, the Museum has to show a small jug. The collection is interesting for several reasons. In the first place the pieces here shown constitute 286 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts the only ones, with a few exceptions, in this coun- try, but the most important point in the discovery of the true Lowestoft is covered by Dr. Barber in an article on the false product, in the Museum Bul- letin for October, 1905. He says : “ The recent discovery of pottery moulds and fragments of pottery and soft paste, on the site of an unimportant factory at Lowestoft, England, has demonstrated beyond question, that the hard paste ware which has for a generation been known to collectors as 4 Lowestoft ’ was never produced in England, but was of Oriental manufacture. ... It may be safely assumed that every piece of hard paste ware in this country which has been supposed to be Lowestoft, is of Chinese workmanship, brought here by sailing vessels or by the East India Company, while those pieces of soft paste porcelain and white pottery resembling the so-called Lowes- toft style in decoration, are merely examples of that numerous class of ware which was produced at a score or more English potteries a hundred years or so ago, but which in reality bear little resemblance to the real products of the insignificant Lowestoft factory, which was closed in 1804.” Three exquisite vases from the Minton factory are among the fine things in the general collections of pottery preserved by the Museum, and were decorated by the celebrated artist Mr. M. L. Solon. (Benerai Collections 287 Of these the chef d’ oeuvre is the large vase in the Temple collection of which the subject is “ The Merry Jester ” and the number ’98-95. The style of treatment is the pcite-sur-pate, which is to say that the effect is gained by building one liquid white paste upon another until the desired tone is ob- tained. On one side of the vase, the body of which is of a handsome red, a nymph in the guise of a court jester, is depicted talking to her bauble, and on the reverse side is a puppet show, in which little wooden actors are giving a performance of “ Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, overcome and vanquished by Love.” The ensemble is indescri- bably lovely and graceful both as to shape and deco- ration. The artist, Mr. Solon, is a Frenchman, once con- nected with the manufactory at Sevres. In 1870 he went to England and became associated with the Minton factory at Stoke-on-Trent. Here he deco- rated a large number of pieces in his wonderful style without duplicating any of his subjects. The Museum preserves a little group of five pieces of genuine Capo di Monte, which is now so exceedingly rare that few examples are to be found in European museums outside of Italy, while in the United States they are said to be practically unknown. For purposes of instructive study the curator has placed these rare pieces in juxtaposition 288 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy ot fftne Brts to some of the current forgeries of the ware which are rife enough. The genuine has a quality which speaks for itself, the superb modelling of the fig- ures, the beauty of the colour and the character of the gold, being sufficient evidence of the genuine- ness of the specimens. The pieces in the possession of the Museum in- clude a cup and saucer with relief designs repre- senting on one side the “ Triumph of Bacchus ” and on the other “ Ceres in her Chariot.” These are from the collection of Rev. T. Staniforth, who secured them at the celebrated sale of the Bernal collection in 1855. A seau, or ice pail, with figure decoration in high relief, with a representation of Apollo and Daphne, and whose handles are in the form of hooded dolphins, is a particularly virile example, characteristic of the best period of the Capo di Monte factory when hard paste was manu- factured, from about 1759 to 1800. The most notable piece in the little collection is a hard paste porcelain tea-pot decorated in relief with a mythological group on one side and on the other the “ Judgment of Paris.” The exhibit comes from the recent Hoe sale, where it was in- correctly labelled “ Chelsea,” under which appella- tion it rested in obscurity until discovered by Dr. Barber, who bid it in. One of the most recent of the acquisitions to the CARVED GLASS VASE, EMILE GALLE CAPO DI MONTE SEAU, OR ICE PAIL, 1760-1800. (see page 248). General Collections 289 Museum collection is an old Raeren flagon, or salt glazed stoneware jug, worthy of special attention on account of its history. It is of the brown and grey glaze which characterized the productions of Raeren, near Aix-la-Chapelle in the province of Limburg, the original seat of the stoneware indus- try in Flanders, ’in the latter half of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth. This fine example measures nearly eighteen inches in height and is dated 1609, which has created the impression that it was made to commemorate the treaty of peace between Spain and the Netherlands. About the centre of the jug are seven arched al- coves containing the effigies of kings and prominent persons in relief. These are half-lengths which pre- side over their coats of arms, while above are in- scribed their names. The first niche on the left is labelled “ Marquis Spinola,” having reference to the Italian Marquis Ambrogio di Spinola, who was born in 1570 and was the opponent of Johann Mauritz, Count of Nassau, in the Netherlands before the declaration of peace. The second alcove is entitled “ Engels Konig,” King of England. The third is inscribed “ Roeimsch Kaiser,” Emperor of Rome or the Holy Roman Empire. Next to this is “ Spans Konig,” King of Spain, and following these are “ Konig in Franc- rig,” King of France, and “ Konig in Denmarc,” 290 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts King of Denmark. The inscription over the seventh figure is obliterated. Similar examples are to be found in the museums of Cologne and Aachen, in which the last medallion is inscribed “ Mauritis,” with the arms of Nassau beneath. In the niche occupied by the Roman Emperor the word “ Pais ” occurs for which reason this com- memorative pattern is known as the Peace Jug. In two of the other divisions are the letters “ H. B.” and “ I. B.” which are presumed to be the marks of Jan Baldems and the workman who assisted him in making the forms. This master potter belonged to a line of celebrated artists and modellers, of whom his predecessors Baldem Mennicken and Jan Emens were the most noted. These Peace Jugs were ex- tremely popular and distinguished men even at dis- tant points ordered examples from the pottery at Raeren and had them decorated with their coats of arms. On the back of this jug are three coats of arms in medallions. The central one has not yet been identified but the other two are inscribed “ F. Joan Mintzenburg Prior Carmel Franc. 1609.” Johan Mintzenburg was at that time a Carmelite Prior at Frankfort, Germany, and this example was prob- ably made for him. The Museum possesses a rare example of a so- called Saracenic tin-enamelled and lustre tile from SARACENIC TIN - ENAMELLED AND LUSTRE TILE FROM NORTHWESTERN PERSIA, 13TH CENTURY. LARGE PERSIAN PLAQUE, 17TH CENTURY. General Collections 291 north-western Persia, ascribed to the thirteenth cen- tury. It is in the form of an eight-pointed star and measures twelve and a half inches in diameter. The colouring is most exquisite, being something be- tween purple and brown with a golden lustre. The pattern consists of two conventionalized human fig- ures, with broad faces of the Mongolian type, the one to the right wearing a tiara or sorgoudg, the insignia of sovereignty, which would seem to indi- cate a royal personage. The inscription has not as yet been translated, but it appears to be in Persian and has been thought to be part of a love poem. It extends entirely around the pointed margin. Dr. Barber in writing of the tile places it as “ a repre- sentative example of the Arab-Mongolian type. It is Perso-Islamic rather than pure Iranian. The white stanniferous enamel is thick and heavy. The superimposed lustre is identical with that which is found on some of the Hispano-Moresco plaques. It is of brownish yellow tone, but when viewed at an angle it changes to a bluish-violet, of the same quality as that of the madreperla lustres of Valencia, which were introduced later into Italy by the Moors. We are therefore forced to the conclusion that these star-shaped tiles were made under Saracenic influ- ence modified to some extent by the introduction of Mongolian technique, as exhibited in the paintings. The glaze and lustre were purely Saracenic since 292 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts neither tin enamel nor lustre produced from silver and copper was used in China.” In this department of ceramics is a large Persian plaque of the seventeenth century, covered with the rare and highly prized celadon, or martabani glaze, which is believed to be the finest example of its kind in the country. The word “ Celadon,” in technical parlance, is applied to that sage green colour found on porcelain and stoneware from China and the pottery from the Eastern countries. It comes from a character in a pastoral romance of the seventeenth century, entitled “ L’Astree,” by Honore d’Urfe. The piece was staged and Celadon, a shepherd, was cos- tumed in a grey-green robe similar in colour to that employed in these ancient green glazed wares. The Museum’s plaque measures eighteen inches in diameter. In the centre is an eight-pointed star of the size and shape of a Persian tile, decorated in blue with a fearsome dragon. The design of the part surrounding the star is a very beautiful and clean cut pattern of conventionalized carnations. These are pate-sur-pate on a deep celadon glaze. The rise of the dish is ribbed and the combination of these three styles of decoration in one piece — the celadon glaze, the over decoration of pate-sur-pate painting and the underglaze blue decoration on ITALIAN HARPSICHORD, 16TH CENTURY. General Collections 293 white ground is what constitutes the rarity of the piece. The Museum preserves an extensive collection of musical instruments of which the nucleus was pre- sented at the close of the Centennial Exposition of 1876, when a number of antique and curious pieces were acquired. These include stringed, wind and percussion instruments, classified under their re- spective heads. The most interesting piece in the collection is an Italian harpsichord of the sixteenth century given by Mrs. John Harrison. The form is the same as that of a grand piano and the action like that of the spinet except that it has several strings to a key, whereas the spinet has but one. It stands upon three wooden legs, hardly in harmony with the elegance of the case, which is decorated in the Italian style of the period in a flowing, graceful design. Upon the inside of the case is an extensive coast scene with boats. CHAPTER XXI THE . WILSTACH COLLECTION In the western wing of Memorial Hall is housed the Wilstach Collection of four hundred and sixty- nine oil paintings and a few water colours and works of sculpture, bringing the whole up to a little over five hundred exhibits. The collection comes to the city through the gen- erosity of Mr. and Mrs. W. P. Wilstach, whose handsome residence still stands at the northeast corner of Eighteenth and Walnut Streets. The former devoted a fortune, which he had gained in mercantile pursuits, to the collecting, during his busy life, of the one hundred and sixty-six paint- ings and statuary which formed the nucleus of the Wilstach Collection. Mrs. Wilstach so increased the fortune which she inherited from her husband as to enable her not merely to dedicate the collec- tion to the perpetual enjoyment of her city, but also to afford it a handsome endowment for its main- tenance. The pictures and the fund were left in the custody of the Commissioners of Fairmount Park. The Wilstach Bequest represented at the time it 294 Ube ‘CmUstacb Collection 295 became available for the Fairmount Park Commis- sion, securities and cash to the value of $624,743.07, and yields annually an income of between twenty- five and thirty thousand dollars. This sum has been expended at the discretion of two or three members of the committee on the Wilstach Bequest, whose chairman, until his death in 1909, was Samuel Gus- tine Thompson. Since the passing away of Mr. Thompson this important post has been filled by John G. Johnson, whose authority on art matters may best be judged by the excellence of his private collection of paintings — one of the finest in America. The collection is badly hung and poorly cata- logued and contains more than the usual quota of false attributions. In a general way it may be said that the collection is one of names — a great many very distinguished painters being represented by in- ferior and often doubtful examples. The original bequest contained little of superlative merit — the palmy days of the collection having been those which immediately followed its transfer to the custody of the Commissioners of Fairmount Park, when some of the most important examples in the collection were acquired. The chief of these, and easily the gem of the col- lection, is the “ Yellow Buskin,” by James A. McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), which was pur- 296 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts chased in 1905, the owner having been Alexander Reid, Esq., of Glasgow. The picture was first shown in this country with a group of Whistler’s works at the Chicago World’s Fair. This group included “ Nocturne : Valpa- raiso,” “ A Chelsea Girl,” “ The Fur Jacket,” “ The Princess of the Land of Porcelain,” and the “ Yel- low Buskin,” and won for Mr. Whistler his first official honours from his native land — a medal World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893, and the Temple Gold medal at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1894, when the group was shown in Philadelphia. The original of this picture, Lady Archibald Campbell, was a woman of great distinction and beauty and a great friend of the artist. She sat to him off and on during a year for a great many studies in different costumes and poses, none of which Whistler completed except the “ Yellow Buskin.” Pennell, in his life of Whistler, says of the pic- ture : “ Some think the one portrait of her (Lady Archibald Campbell) that was finished, was Whistler’s greatest. It has not only the decorative value she says he insisted upon — but great dis- tinction in the figure and face, character in pose as she stands there fastening her glove, and splendid colour. It is one of Whistler’s several * Arrange- Ube XKHUstacb Collection 297 ments in Black.’ Whistler exhibited it first as a portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell, but afterward as ‘ The Yellow Buskin,’ its title in the Wilstach Collection, Philadelphia, to which it now belongs.” Lady Archibald Campbell says of it in a letter: “ The picture exhibited under the title of the ‘ Bro- dequin Jaune,’ or the ‘ Yellow Buskin,’ was painted so far as I can remember in a very few sittings.” It is one of three pictures in which Whistler tried to give movement to the figure. The canvas is clearly one of the painter’s greatest, exhibiting great beauty of tone, marvellous textures and exquisite surface. The lady stands back from the spectator, deep within the mysterious atmosphere of the pic- ture. The gamut of values is very limited, or would be so to a virtuoso less skilled in playing the lower register. As it is, the depth and range of these low tones is truly rich and wonderful. From the fur cape about her shoulders to the delicate tip of her shoe the modulations are perfect. To the technical handling of the theme the woman herself yields no tithe of her personal charm. The face is full of a quiet power and interest, the delicate arm through its white sleeve shows firm and sensi- tive, and it is difficult to believe the current story that her husband was dissatisfied with the portrait as a likeness. The two examples of John Constable (1776- 298 ipennsghmnta Bca&emp ot fftne Hrts 1837) acquired about the same time — “ Old Brighton Pier,” in 1896, and “ The Pond : Hamp- stead Heath,” in 1902 — compare favourably with the Constables of any European gallery. The smaller canvas is juicy and delicious in colour with a pearly quality in its soft yet virile harmony of splendid sky, its realistic stretch of wind-swept sand, its quivering sea, in whose choppy waves merry barks dance up and down, its freshness, in which one finds the very keynote of modernity. It has a spirit and plasticity lacking in that more weighty masterpiece, “ The Pond : Hampstead Heath,” in which the composition is more studied and the colour less spontaneous. The second pic- ture is, however, the more important of the two and is essentially a museum picture. The canvas shows an elaborate mastery of han- dling and opulent prowess, so to speak, in the grace- ful strength and richness of the masses. It is just this lordliness of method that jars ever so slightly the hypercritical, and at the same time there is some- thing splendid in the way the painter appears to say, “ Let there be light ” — and there is light ; “ Let there be two perfectly delightful poplar trees at the edge of the pond,” and there they are. It is a most graceful and wonderful landscape, breathing all the big qualities of which the great English landscape painter stood possessed, and in OLD BRIGHTON PIER. By John Constable. Ube MUstacb Collection 299 it we feel powerfully that Constable was indeed the one great artery of modern landscape work. More than the forerunner of the famous Barbison painters, who seem tame in comparison, he relates more closely to the school of French impressionists or even to our own landscape school now in the making. Constable was one of the earliest painters of moods in nature, which he revealed handsomely, with stylish and dramatic brushwork — a facile manipulation of the medium, so clever as to be at times a thought painty, in which he again shows his kinship to our modern landscapists. Now Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) repre- sents the very antithesis of this order of things, and his “ Landscape,” in the Wilstach Collection, may be profitably studied for purposes of comparison. It is quite handsome in its dry, formal way and is ex- ceedingly typical of a period when landscape was selected for its manifest physical beauty, long before the rage for picturesque confusion. There is order and an infinite repose — but very little sympathy with nature, as we understand her, — in this smooth, harmonious canvas — in the earth road winding its stately way amidst venerable trees, gnarled with age and abundant in foliage. It is all English peace — and its tone, upon which this school of painters based their most profound atten- tion, is quite perfect. 300 Pennsylvania Hca&emy ot fine arts There is a wall of such landscapes — one of the handsomest groups of paintings in the collection — by Dutch, English and Spanish masters of the sev- enteenth century. A Van der Neer, of Amster- dam (1603-1677), despite its brown shadows is more real than many modem impressionistic land- scapes with their blue ones: a Jan van Goyen of Leyden (1596-1656), whose style touches no re- sponsive chord in us and yet whose sky, one must admit, is wonderful. The Jan Both, of Utrecht (1610-1650), “Land- scape and Horseman,” is an interesting and beau- tiful canvas in the same vein — mellow in tone, handsome in arrangement, with a fine dramatic note in the figure of the rider in the foreground. A Philip de Koninck, of Amsterdam (1619- 1688), “View of the Elterberg, near Kleef,” is able in its hard way with a remarkable effect of distance in its map-like rendering of a flat, low- lying Dutch country. There is a staggering amount of detail patiently done, and for human interest in the foreground, some athletic looking cows with bumpy deltoids, drawn, one should say in all seriousness, like Heine's camel, from the painter's inner consciousness, but immensely hu- mourous in their grotesque and welcome departure from the academic in cows, of which we have so much. Koninck was born and died in Amsterdam THE POND: HAMPSTEAD HEATH. By John Constable. Zbc THMlstacb Collection 301 and was a pupil of Rembrandt. His pictures are valuable for their rarity, some of the finest being in private English collections. There is a beauty in the South Kensington Museum. The Jan Steen, of Leyden (1626-1679), “The Fortune Teller,” is an unusual arrangement — the division of light is from left to right diagonally across the canvas, giving a nice balance and broken agreeably by the group of figures in the lower left hand comer. The David Tenier (1610-1680), “Landscape and Figures,” harps agreeably upon his favourite theme — the return of the unwilling drunkard, in the convoy of his wrathful spouse, while a dog runs gaily ahead and barks. Tenier’s chief fame rests upon these little scenes of rustic peasant life, of which he painted a great many of varying de- grees of merit but all interesting in character. In this example the landscape is unusually fine. Jacob Ruisdael, of Haarlem (1625-1682), is rep- resented by a characteristic and truly splendid ex- ample in the Wilstach Collection — “ Landscape and Waterfall.” Ruisdael, Fromentin considers the most distinguished figure in the Dutch school after Rembrandt, and of all the Dutch painters the one who most nobly resembles his country. A landscape by Velasquez (1599-1660), “Study of Columns, Figures, etc.,” stands somewhat apart 302 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fftne Hrts from the others. The architecture of the canvas is magnificent as to detail and fine in its old-fash- ioned, decorative way of painting, which in its effect has much of the beauty of tapestry, revealing a little more of the substance of the forms por- trayed. There are certain touches in the canvas which seem to speak for the genuineness of the attribution to the greatest of the Spanish masters, noticeably in the small groups of figures — the dice players in the foreground especially, and in the simple silhouette of the dark masses against what stands for light in the sky. There is a rich, hand- some depth in the whole effect of evening and a remarkable variety of closely related tones, con- sidering the low scale of values to which it has been limited. The landscapes of the Barbison school have the usual prominence accorded to them by collectors of this epoch and most of the examples in the Wil- stach Collection were included in the original be- quest, and represent therefore the taste of the donors. The great exception to this is the recent acqui- sition of the ebauche of a picture which is cata- logued “ Solitude,” by Millet. The canvas is in- teresting in a technical way for its state, though not particularly characteristic. The three canvases attributed to Gustave Cour- Ube Milstacb Collection 303 bet are all additions since the death of Mrs. Wil- stach and two of them, at least, are very interest- ing, though not equal to the example in the Gibson Collection in The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. One of the finest pictures in the collection, and the first acquired after the transfer of the bequest to the hands of the Fairmount Park Commission, is the Delacroix, “ L’ Amende Honorable,” which created so much sensation at the time of its pur- chase, owing to the price paid, $20,000, which the public thought high. Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix (1799- 1863) was one of the leaders of the Romantic School in France, having been the first to break away from the traditions of the classicists who flourished during and after the Revolution. He had his great vogue under the reign of Louis Philippe and during the Second Empire, when he decorated the ceiling of the Galerie d’ Apollon in the Louvre which marks the culmination of his peculiar powers. Sylvestre regarded him as the greatest artist of the nineteenth century. “ L’ Amende Honorable ” may be classed as an early work. It was painted in 1831 on the eve of the painter’s great popularity, and once was part of a royal collection — the Due d’Orleans having purchased it for sixty pounds. The painting is 304 pennssixmnta BcafcentE ot ffirte Brts admirable in its rendering of the gloom which prevails in a church and is of an impressive dig- nity and great richness of quality and tone, to which the figures and their dramatic story are held as incident. Theophile Gautier says of the picture : “ The scene passes in the great convent reception room of the monastery. The shade envelops the high arched vaulting. The wall in the depth is pierced with long windows, with triple mullions. On the walls of the room vague paintings, frescoes or ta- bleaux, outline themselves in a half tint, obscure phantoms of colouration, with a frightened spec- tral life, but without emerging from the gloom. On the left of the tableaux is a dais, under the throne of which sits a mitred figure, an abbe or archbishop in sacerdotal habit, surrounded by some acolytes, one of whom carries a delmatique of rose- purple — a light which brings out the sombreness of the general tone. Before the abbe they drag, holding him under the arm, the condemned to make ‘ amende honorable.’ His limbs appear broken by a recent torture, and on his pale forehead we read the terrors of the prison. In painting, this astounding work has an equal only in the banquet hall in the Massacre de l’Eveque de Liege, and in poetry, only in that of the gallery of armour in Everadnus.” REPOSE. By Jean Francois Raffaelli. TTbe TOlstacb Collection 305 The Jean Frangois Raffaelli (1845- ) is the chef d’ oeuvre of the few modern French pictures included in the collection, and won for the artist a gold medal when exhibited at the Paris Exposi- tion of 1889. “ Repose ” is the title and the sub- ject is unusual for this painter, whose chosen field is “ tout Paris ” out of doors. It depicts a charming young woman in a bed that quite overflows the frame, though the canvas is a large one for Raffaelli (76x5934). The scheme of the picture, like that of the famous “ Olympia ” of Manet, is the clever dealing with different qualities and textures in whites. The unit of value is white and the subtle problem of painting fair and beautiful flesh against this mass of white pillows and embroidered coverlet is han- dled in a masterly manner all-absorbing for the painter. Stevens tried something of the same theme in his beautiful canvas of a mother sleeping in a bed with her new-born infant. 1 But while Manet had the contrast of the black skin of the negress and the black cat to emphasize and relieve the paleness of his canvas, and Stevens a note of brilliant pink in the bell rope in the back of his picture, as well as its very appealing sentiment, 1 Stevens painted two similar canvases of this subject — one is owned by William M. Chase and the other belongs to a private col- lection in Brussels. 306 Pennsylvania Beafcemy of fine arts Raffaelli has done nothing to break the colour note and holds attention by force of very clever- ness. Of Antoine Vollon (1833- ), the famous still- life painter, the Wilstach Collection guards a fine example called “ After the Ball/' a masterly and powerful canvas with a particularly happy note of blue in the fan which lies upon the table, making an accent in a general tone of quietly painted brasses, velvet curtain and a bouquet of violets and white camellias. His “ Port of Marseilles ” is an unusual canvas of much interest. There is a small Alfred Stevens in the original collection, with an absurd title, which out of re- spect to Stevens one suppresses. It is less char- acteristic and important than the Stevens in the Gibson Collection at The Pennsylvania Academy, but, like everything from the brush of the gifted Belgian, full of delicate charm and appreciation of the subject. Of the important influences on art in France to-day the Wilstach Collection represents Cottet and Simon, the former in name only, and Lucien Simon by a large “ Family Group/' in which one admires immensely the painting of the old lady holding a child who occupies the centre of the com- position. If the canvas were to be judged by this group alone it would be called a masterpiece, but TLbc TKMlstacb Collection 307 there is something fatiguing in the endless repe- tition of the type and one objects to the sickly green quality of the tone of the whole — in at- tempting harmony he appears to have overreached himself and produced an effect as though the per- sons represented were sitting in a light that dis- agreed with them, as people look in certain chem- ically produced lights which destroy the sense of pigment in the flesh. An interesting fragment of the work of Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884) is preserved in his “ In the Fields,” dated 1880, four years before his death, at the age of thirty-six years. For a romantic interest in the young painter whose chef d’ceuvre is cherished by the Metropolitan Museum, read the diary of Marie Bashkirtseff, his young Russian contemporary, whose fate so resembled his own. Jules Breton pays him the best and most modern of compliments when he calls him a true investigator. The Wilstach Collection owns one of the most famous of the canvases of Mihaly Munkacsy ( 1846- 1900), the Hungarian painter whose real name was Lieb. He was called Munkacsy after his birth- place, Munkacs, in Hungary. “ The Last Day of the Condemned ” was purchased by Mr. Wilstach at a critical moment in the artist’s career — a cir- cumstance which changed his life from one of 308 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of fine arts poverty and distress to one of wealth and repu- tation. The picture illustrates an Hungarian custom. A condemned prisoner on the day before his execu- tion is visited by his townspeople, who come either out of curiosity or to bring contributions toward a mass for the criminal’s soul. There is a certain handsomeness in the picture despite its academic, frigid quality of perfection, and its obvious story, told, however, without sen- timentality. Munkacsy was preeminently a story- teller, and his strength lay in the study of char- acter which his types represent. There is rude vigour in the desperation of the condemned man, who bears the horrors of his situation with surly fortitude and palpable suffering, while the other figures are in easy, natural action, according to their several sentiments. For his faults, Munkacsy used black without discretion, so that his pictures are nearly monochromatic — the printer’s ink, as it were, having gotten mixed with every colour on the palette. Most of the atrocities of the collection came in 1904, when eighty-five new pictures, chiefly from the Italian and Flemish schools, were received, and in 1906, when twenty-two were added from the French and Italian art of the seventeenth century. The view point of the authorities in acquiring TLbc Mtlstacb Collection 309 this cumbrous lumber for the very limited gallery space at the disposal of the collection is difficult to understand. Even as cement to a practically com- plete quota of able masterpieces, the relevance of the purchases is questionable, but where, as here, they frequently represent all that the collection has to show from certain schools it seems unpardon- able. There is an absurd thumb-box sketch by Rubens ; an artificial and melodramatic “ Van Dyke;” a vaguely catalogued “ Van der Heist,” “ Dutch Por- traits,” while from unknown sources spring anony- mous horrors and a long list of paintings by ob- scure outriders of minor Italian schools. Un- known kinsmen of quasi famous Italian primitives are brought to light in this extraordinary hodge- podge of which the most amazing is an entire wall of Spanish, Italian, French and Flemish schools patched together like a puzzle, without respect to names or persons and before which one sits bewil- dered by the glitter of the frames. From all of this one weeds two good examples of Ribera (“Lo Spagnoletto ” ) (1588-1656), a “ St. Sebastien ” of unusual beauty and an “ Archi- mede,” in which one sees all of Ribera’s strength in the drawing of an old man. A Tintoretto (1518-1594), “ Portrait of a Gen- tleman of the Pesaro Family,” is an impressive and 310 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot fine Brts dignified example of this great painter of the Re- naissance. A reposeful, massive portrait full of subtleties of colour, extremely characteristic of that kind of portrait of imposing personages of which Tintoretto has left so full a record. It is much more slight in character than the similar, but in- finitely stronger canvas by this painter in the Louvre, which typifies the best of which he was capable in this direction. The Cornelius de Vos (1585-1651), while not the work of an inspired master is an excellent ex- ample of this Flemish painter. The canvas rep- resents Antoine Renniers, a citizen of Antwerp, and his wife, Marie Leviter, seated at a table with their children about them. The De Vos dear to our hearts is Simon, whose delightful, smiling portrait, until recently cata- logued, “ Portrait of the Painter,” is the chef d’ccuvre of the Antwerp Gallery. Cornelius has none of the fascination of Simon, beside whom his work appears statistical and rather wooden. There is however in this group admirable composition and some masterly painting of drapery and still- life. “ A Princess of the House of Sciarra,” by Bron- zino (1502-3- 1 572), is fine in design but thin and edgy in colour. A “ Crucifixion ” by that fasci- nating Flamand, Pieter Breughel, the elder (15?- Ube Milstacb Collection 311 1570), author of the splendid “Blind Leading the Blind,” in the Louvre, and masterpieces in the Vienna Gallery, is but a fragment, yet strange and interesting under its liberal restoration. There are three unimportant canvases by Tiepolo (1696-1770), who marks the end of the Renais- sance in Italy. “ Christ Healing the Sick ” has been cleaned to the destruction of its niceties of colour and tone, and “ The Last Supper ” is not characteristic in colour — both however show some of the grace and vivacity of this great decorator. A canvas attributed to Francisco Pacheo ( 1571- 1654), Velasquez’ teacher, has much evidence of genuineness and exhibits the robust vigour of a master. There is a splendid solidity in the mod- elling of the head, skilful brush work in the paint- ing of the eyes, which are keen and full of expres- sion. The “ Crucifixion,” by Domenico Theotocopuli, el Greco (1548-1625), is admirably impressive as to subject despite its badly drawn limbs. Recent Salons have been largely drawn upon for much of the modern French and American work in the gallery. The Wilstach Collection has not, however, figured as a patron of contemporary American art, in which department the gallery is very weak. There is a fair “ Still Life,” by Will- iam M. Chase, and an interesting portrait of the 312 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of JFine Brts Norwegian painter Thaulow, by John W. Alex- ander, and Alexander Harrison is represented by five canvases, of which “ Le Grand Miroir ” is characteristic of his best period. By Alexander Harrison. CHAPTER XXII INDEPENDENCE HALL The collection of historic portraits at Independ- ence Hall is based upon the nucleus of canvases which were secured to the institution from the famous Peale Museum about which we have talked so much. At the time of its sale at public auction in 1854, a number of Peak’s original portraits of signers of the Declaration of Independence, Revo- lutionary heroes and men of affairs in the early history of the United States, were bought in by the city and restored to the State House, where, for so many years of the artist’s life, they had been installed. There are at present in the collection at Inde- pendence Hall over eighty portraits by Charles Willson Peale scattered throughout the various chambers of the old colonial building, where the pictures are valued for their historic significance and but little attention is paid to their importance as works of art. In addition to the Peale portraits are a delightful and unique collection of pastel por- traits by Sharpies, some excellent examples of 313 314 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of jftne Brts Benjamin West, valuable portraits by Stuart, Pine, Sully and Allan Ramsay, and Rush’s masterpiece, a full-length statue of Washington in wood. The arrangement is without regard to the artis- tic value of the portraits, but follows a very intel- ligent classification and chronological order. The room to the immediate left of the entrance is the room in which the Declaration of Independence was signed and is fittingly dedicated to the portraits of the signers of that document. A portrait of Livingston who was a member of the committee that drafted the Declaration, but who for some reason did not sign it, one of John Nixon, who read it, and Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Congress that passed it, are hung in this room. The opposite apartment was the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and here are hung the few por- traits of the Judges who presided in this room. The hallway contains a miscellaneous collection of full-length portraits of important personages, in- cluding a group of English kings and queens, Peak’s Chevalier Gerard, West’s Governor James Hamilton, Sully’s Lafayette, Rembrandt Peak’s Washington and one or two others of no impor- tance. On the second floor, the Banquet Room is con- fined exclusively to Colonial and Revolutionary Pennsylvanians and the group of pastel portraits Unfcepenfcence Iball 315 by Sharpies. The southwestern room contains por- traits of the French and foreign allies, Washington and his military family, while on the opposite side the southeast room is devoted to the framers of the Constitution and includes a portrait of Wash- ington by Robert Edge Pine, a sketch of Monroe by Sully, a portrait of Decatur attributed to Stuart, and an original drawing of Richard Dobbs Spaight by St. Memin. Of the original Peale collection, the chef d’ceuvre is the full-length portrait of Conrad Alexandre Gerard de Rayneval, known as Chevalier Gerard, the first French Minister accredited to the United States. He was one of the secretaries of Count de Vergennes, foreign minister under Louis XVI, and as such arranged and signed the treaty between France and the United States, February 6, 1778. Fie reached Philadelphia early in June of that year and remained in this country until September, 1779, when he was succeeded by the Chevalier de la Luzerne. In the discussions with Congress in 1779 with regard to the conclusion of a treaty of peace with Great Britain, and arranging the bound- aries of the new Republic, the Chevalier Gerard bore an important part, enjoying the full confidence of Count de Vergennes. In 1779 Yale conferred upon him the degree of LL. D. The portrait shows the gentleman dressed in a 316 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot fine Brts red suit, standing, with the State House in the distance. It was painted for Independence Hall as a compliment to the distinguished French- man. There is a delightful portrait of Lafayette by Peale, painted as a very young man and wearing the uniform of a Continental soldier. This is a comparatively recent acquisition and comes from the family of General Wayne, at Paoli. Another excellent canvas is the portrait of Baron Steuben, the Prussian Major General, who, under Washing- ton, was made inspector general of the army and established a system of discipline and economy so thorough that the whole army became as a single machine in his hands. Peale shows him in full regalia, his epaulettes on his shoulders and orders hung about his neck. The Dr. Benjamin Rush by Peale is exceed- ingly characteristic, as are also the portraits of John Adams, Richard Henry Lee, Robert Morris, Martha Washington, Jean Antoine Houdon, Count de Volney and others. In fact all his portraits are distinguishable for a certain sharp character read- ing. Peale puts something of his own rugged per- sonality into all of his portraits. The Portrait of Washington by James Peale is a fragment, having been cut down from, presu- mably, a full-length canvas. Such a portrait was •ffnfcepenfcence Iball 317 shown in an early exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy, and since all trace of it has been .lost it is possible that this is the same. It shows Wash- ington with his hand resting upon his cane while in the background are the figures of marching sol- diers. The collection of pastel portraits by James Sharpies (i 751-1811) is one of which any museum would be proud. Sharpies was an Englishman, who came to this country about 1794. Dunlap says of him that “ He painted in oil ; and I have seen a composition of his, wherein several of Dr. Darwin’s family were portrayed: but his success- ful practice in this country was in crayons, or pas- tils, which he manufactured for himself ; and suited in size to the diminutive dimensions of his portraits, which were generally en profile , and when so, strikingly like.” He visited many cities and towns of the United States, carrying letters to distinguished persons, military, literary or civil, with a request to paint their portraits for his col- lection. He made New York his headquarters and made his rounds in a large four-wheeled carriage of his own model, designed to carry the family and all his paraphernalia for work, and drawn by a powerful horse. He is said to have worked with great rapidity, finishing in two hours a portrait for which he 318 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot ffine Brts charged $15, and for a full-face, which was never so successful, $20. Of the only known work of Sharpies that is of unquestioned authenticity the National Museum in Independence Hall preserves a collection of forty- five of his small portraits in pastel, of which forty were purchased from the Centennial Exposition of 1876, for their present destination. Amongst them are portraits of Noah Webster, George Washing- ton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Mon- roe, Dolly Madison (at an advanced age), Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Rush, Rob- ert Livingston, General Horatio Gates and General Anthony Wayne. Sharpies made a portrait of Washington at Mt. Vernon in 1796, which has been said to be the last portrait for which the Gen- eral sat prior to his death. Sharpies used thick grey paper, softly grained and of a woolly texture. His coloured crayons were kept finely powdered in small glass cups, and he applied them with a camel hair pencil. He usually made a replica of each portrait, which he retained himself and this is the source of the large personal collection whose romantic history is ably told in an article in Lippincotfs Magazine for De- cember, 1871, written by Mr. J. W. Palmer. The collection became the property of Mr. Levin Yeardley Winder, a descendant of Governor PORTRAIT OF DR. BENJAMIN RUSH. By J. Sharpies. ITn&epenDence Ifoail 319 Yeardley of Virginia, whose noble estate in North- ampton was taken by the Governor under Royal grant. Here the precious portraits hung for many years accompanied by a miniature catalogue of the pictures, printed in Bath, England, and without date. This gives the names of two hundred and twenty-nine sitters. Each one, originally, had the name of the sitter attached, but in 1861, the United States troops came down upon Northampton, and the ladies of Yeardley, thrown into a state of panic by their approach and alarmed for the safety of the pic- tures, snatched them from their frames, laid them in sheets of paper and distributed them amongst the neighbours. In the haste and confusion, some were left on the walls, and those were ruined by wanton thrusts of bayonets and otherwise des- troyed. Others sent to the house of Dr. Browne were discovered and appropriated or destroyed when that place was made the headquarters of the Federal forces. There remain, according to Mr. Palmer, one hundred and thirty, of which about seventy are identified, and all but about ten are in good con- dition, and these not seriously injured. Sharpies died suddenly in New York and was buried in the Cemetery of the Roman Catholic Chapel in Barclay Street. 320 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts Mr. Palmer gives a sympathetic description of the portraits : “ In all these portraits the pur- pose of the artist seems to have been sturdily hon- est. To produce a likeness which the eye of any friend, however unimaginative, might instantly recognize, was all the magic of his method. There are no experiments in idealizing, no ambitious at- tempts to portray exceptional character, as in the works of Gilbert Stuart. In every picture the countenance, like the clothes, is the man’s familiar wear. On the shoulder is the dust from the pow- dered hair, and in one portrait I find a scar on the cheek, representing a commonplace disfigurement neither romantic nor effective. The likenesses are ‘ homely ’ and with three-quarters of a century between the spectator and the sitter, we know the face.” The full-length portrait of the Marquis de Lafay- ette, by Thomas Sully, was originally intended for the City of Philadelphia — the money to be raised by subscription — and was painted in Philadelphia on the occasion of Lafayette’s second and farewell visit to this country in 1824. Lafayette came at the official invitation of President Monroe to visit the United States. He sailed from Havre, July 12, and arrived in New York, August 15, 1824, and in the course of the next fourteen months travelled through the whole country visiting each of the flnfcepenbence t>ai! 321 twenty-four states and all the principal cities, and was everywhere received with tokens of enthusias- tic reverence and affection. His sixty-eighth birth- day was celebrated in the White House in Wash- ington, September 6, 1825, on which occasion a noble farewell speech was made by President Adams, and the next day he sailed from the Po- tomac in the Frigate Brandywine, and arrived in Havre October 5. He was in Philadelphia from September 28 to October 5, 1824, and again from July 18 to 21, 1825. Sully made a study of his head during the first visit and this original, signed and dated, is owned by Herbert Welsh of Germantown. The subscriptions for the full-length failed, and the portrait, which was not finished until 1833, was left on Sully’s hands. He subsequently pre- sented it to The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and that institution later, with the artist’s consent, transferred it to the City of Philadelphia, in exchange for West’s painting of “ Paul and Barnabas,” which had been bequeathed to the city; and thus the portrait reached the destination orig- inally intended for it, and hangs in the Old State House. It is a strong piece of character painting. La- fayette appears in civilian costume, wears grey gloves and carries a cane. His top coat is thrown 322 Pennsylvania Scabemy of jftne arts open, exposing its old rose silk lining, and is at- tached across the chest by a silken cord of the same hue. The fit and elegance of his clothes give the impression that the general was something of a fop, but in no vain sense, to judge by the keenly humourous face with its black, bead-like eyes, that miss nothing of what is going forward. In the background of the picture is a spirited bit of local landscape with houses, from whose windows lean many people in honour of the arrival of the dis- tinguished guest in the escort of the City Troop. A second Sully in the collection — a sketch of James Monroe signed and dated 1836, is quite a charming thing. The Museum preserves an interesting memento of the visit to this country of Robert Edge Pine (1730-1788) in his half-length portrait of Wash- ington, presented to the city by the Honourable Benjamin Moran, minister of the United States at Lisbon. Pine came to this country in 1783 and took up his abode in Philadelphia, residing at the comer of High (Market) and Sixth Streets. His specific object in coming to America was to paint the dis- tinguished persons and events of our Revolution. But the country was too immature to give him the encouragement he sought and he had resource to portrait painting. Ihibepen&ence Ibali 323 He brought letters of introduction to Francis Hopkinson, and the first portrait he painted in America was that of the well known patriot. It now hangs in the Historical Society of Pennsyl- vania and bears the date 1785, and was considered by the son of the sitter “ a very fine one.” Hop- kinson wrote to General Washington explaining the design Pine had in view, of collecting portraits for historical pictures of the Revolution, and re- quested the general to sit to him. Washington’s reply was the famous “ In for a penny, in for a pound ” letter which has been so often quoted. The portrait in Independence Hall is of a de- lightful simplicity of painting and colour. The General stands to the waist, dressed in his blue great coat, with buff trimmings, one gloved hand resting upon the hilt of his sword. The expression is keen and self composed and the canvas is a dig- nified presentment. Pine was generously patronized by distinguished people, doubtless owing to his friendly attitude toward the land of his adoption. Robert Morris built a house for him, in Eighth Street, Philadel- phia, which was adapted for the exhibition of his pictures and the pursuance of his art. Here he died very suddenly of apoplexy. After his death his wife petitioned the Pennsyl- vania Legislature to allow her to dispose of her 324 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts husband’s pictures by lottery, but though the re- quest was granted, the project was not a success. A large number of them fell to the lot of Daniel Bowen, proprietor, with Edward Savage, of Sav- age and Bowen's New York Museum, a motley establishment, half painting gallery, half museum. This w~as about 1794- In the following year the museum moved to Boston, where, under the title of the Columbianum it flourished until 1803 when it was destroyed by fire. The paintings at this time numbered one hundred and twenty-three, chiefly by Pine. What was left of the collection was reinstalled, under the title of the New Eng- land Museum, and finally of the Boston Museum, which was dispersed in 1892. The world can now form an estimate of the ability of Pine only from the engravings published of his works and the few portraits of eminent men of our country still remaining with us. His most familiar portraits are those of John Wilkes, whose principles he espoused, and of David Garrick, whose friendship he possessed. He made four portraits of the latter, of which the most important is Gar- rick seated at a table reading Macbeth, which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. The portraits of Francis Hopkinson and of Dr. Johnson, president of Columbia College, are fine examples of the painter's grasp of character, and Unt>epen&ence Ibaii 325 surpass, in colour, the work of his American con- temporaries, with the exception of Stuart. An interesting specimen of the art of Saint Memin (17701852) is preserved in the drawing of Richard Dobbs Spaight, the Governor of North Carolina. Saint Memin presents a most interesting study to those interested in Americana. He was a Frenchman, born in Dijon, educated at Paris and served in the army of the princes during the French Revolution. He came to this country in 1793 with the idea of introducing a machine for making sil- houettes, the rage for which was in its incipiency. A compatriot of Saint Memin’s, named Chretien, had invented a machine in 1786, called a physionotrace, by means of which the human profile could be copied with mathematical accuracy, and which had been a great success in France. Saint Memin con- structed such a machine with his own hands, ac- cording to his understanding of it, and also made a pantograph, by which to reduce the original de- sign. His life-size profiles on pink paper, finished in black crayon, were reduced by the pantograph to a size small enough to be engraved within a per- fect circle two inches in diameter. The machine gave of course only the outline, the finishing being done in one case with crayon, and in the other with the graver and roulette, by which means he took, in this country, more than eight hundred portraits. 326 Pennsylvania academy of fine arts The drawing and engraved plate with a dozen proofs became the property of the sitter for the price of $33, the artist reserving only a few proofs of each portrait. With these proofs he formed two sets and wrote upon each impression the name of the subject. These two complete collections were brought to this country in 1859 and one of them is now in the Corcoran Gallery, Washington. While in this country, Saint Memin resided prin- cipally in Philadelphia and New York, but made visits to other cities making portraits. WTiile in Philadelphia he secured a profile of Washington, which is interesting as being the last portrait of him that was taken from life. In 1814 he returned to France, and three years later, was made the director of the Museum at Dijon, in which office he remained until his death. The portrait of Spaight is a very charming and representative drawing by this interesting and dis- tinguished man. The medium is handled with great delicacy, the pink paper imparts an impres- sion of warmth and life to the features, themselves rendered with wonderful sympathy and express- iveness. The face is very much alive and the cos- tume of the period, which the sitter wears, with its stock and ruffled shirt, lends itself delightfully to the spirit of the medium. An extremely interesting canvas, and one pos- PORTRAIT OF JAMES HAMILTON. By Benjamin West. •ffnfcepen&ence f)all 327 sessing a romantic history, is the full-length por- trait of James Hamilton, the Royal Governor of Pennsylvania, painted by Benjamin West. It was bequeathed by his descendant, Henry Beckett, to the Spring Garden Institute and by that institution given to the city. The Philadelphia Times of November 6, 1892, published a long and interesting account of the dis- covery of the picture, after some years of oblivion, by Mr. Charles Henry Hart, which attributes the canvas according to the popular tradition, to Mat- thew Pratt, West’s distinguished pupil. This state- ment Mr. Hart corrects in the light of later devel- opments in a letter to the Times which appears under the date of October 3, 1894. That there was in existence a portrait of James Hamilton, the sometime Governor of Pennsylvania, was known to a select few interested in the history of American art. It had belonged to Henry Beck- ett, a descendant in the female line, who died at Bonaparte Park, Bordentown, New Jersey, Sep- tember 11, 1871. It was Mr. Hart, always interested in such early portraits, who started on what appeared to be at first a hopeless quest of the picture. It was found that the Spring Garden Institute, “ having no place to hang the portrait,” had consented to the idea of the executor of Mr. Beckett, that the picture be 328 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts presented to the city, and this was done. Further investigation proved that the canvas had for a time hung in the Hall of Fairmount Park, near the Green Street entrance, but that it had been removed to make way for the Pompeian views, presented to the city by Mr. Welsh. This clue led to its dis- covery buried in the lecture room of Horticultural Hall, and it was subsequently transferred to the rooms of the Park Commissioners in City Hall. Upon full presentation of the facts to the Com- missioners of City Property, steps were taken to have the picture hung in the Old State House — the Capitol of the Province at the time when James Hamilton was its Governor, and of which building his famous father, Andrew Hamilton, was the architect. The tradition accompanying the picture, which had appeared repeatedly in print for nearly a cen- tury, was that the portrait was the work of Mat- thew Pratt, and furthermore that it was the picture that had started him upon his successful career as a portrait painter, and so it was labelled in its new position. The portrait had been badly cared for and at one time, as was plainly visible, the head and bust had been cut out of the canvas and subsequently re- placed when the entire canvas was relined. On its recovery the picture was entrusted to the care of PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM ALLEN. By Benjamin West. Hn&epenfcence tbali 329 Mr. Wilkinson, an efficient restorer of pictures, and when the layers of dirt and varnish were removed from Pratt’s “ Hamilton,” it was found to bear the careful signature of “ B. West 1767. London.” upon its face! The canvas is 90 x 60 and shows the figure life size. It is no less remarkable as a painting than it is interesting as a portrait. A second interesting portrait by Benjamin West is that of William Allen, Chief Justice of the State of Pennsylvania for a period of twenty-three years. He was born in Philadelphia in 1703, and died in London in 1780, at the age of seventy-seven years. No one in the whole history of the city of Philadelphia has more fitting place in the mem- ory of the old State House than William Allen. He was at the death of his father the richest man in Philadelphia, and gave away in charities his sal- ary, which he always refused to appropriate to his own use. On the 15th of October, 1730, he made the first purchase of the ground upon which stands Inde- pendence Hall, for a State House for Pennsylvania. He paid for it with his own money and took the deeds in his own name at the request of his father- in-law, Andrew Hamilton, the chairman of the committee on procuring a site, and subsequently, architect of the edifice. 330 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of jfine Brts When all the difficulties of the enterprise were removed a few years later he conveyed the prop- erty to the proper authorities and was reimbursed by the province. In 1735 he was made Mayor of the city, and the next year, when the State House was nearly com- plete inaugurated its Banqueting Hall by giving therein a feast to all the citizens and strangers in the city, described in a contemporaneous account as “ the most grand and the most elegant enter- tainment that has been made in these parts of America.” In 1751 he was appointed Chief Justice of Penn- sylvania and held the office until 1774. The Su- preme Court of the Province was held in the West room of the State House, directly opposite that in which independence was voted and the Continental Congress sat, and here the portrait hangs. William Allen’s principal estate lay in the an- thracite coal region of Pennsylvania, and from its original owner Allentown derives its name. Allen collaborated with Franklin in founding the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsyl- vania) and was prominent amongst those gentle- men of Pennsylvania who were the first in Amer- ica to organize an expedition to the Arctic Re- gions in quest of a Northwest Passage. Chief Justice Allen was an early friend and Unfcepenfcence Iball 331 patron of Benjamin West, and he lived to see his confidence in the young painter verified. This pro- duced an intimacy between West and the Allen family which lasted throughout the life of the painter. There is preserved, by the descendants of William Allen in England, a picture by West of a family fete in the grounds of Governor John Penn’s country seat — Lansdowne — upon the banks of the Schuylkill. It contains portraits of the governor and his wife, Ann, eldest daughter of Chief Justice Allen, whom he married May 31, 1766, and of all the Allen family and of West himself. A group of seven pictures presented to The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts by Mrs. Joseph Harrison, in the custody of Independence Hall, for as long as it shall remain a National Museum, includes West’s third picture in the col- lection. It is “ Penn’s Treaty with the Indians,” a large composition more interesting as a relic than as a work of art. The picture includes the portraits of West’s father and of his half-brother, Thomas West of Reading. They are to be found in the group of Friends that accompany William Penn. Thomas stands immediately behind Penn, resting on his cane. Mrs. Plarrison, the donor of the picture, was 1 332 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of jfine Brts the widow of Joseph Harrison, the prominent en- gineer, who with two partners built the locomo- tives and rolling stock for the St. Petersburg and Moscow Railway, in Russia. For his distinguished services to the country the Emperor Nicholas dec- orated him, at the time of the completion of the bridge across the Neva, with the Order of St. Ann, to which was attached a gold medal. After exe- cuting other extensive contracts for the Russian Government Mr. Harrison returned to Philadel- phia in 1852, and built the fine mansion at the southeast corner of Rittenhouse Square and Nine- teenth Street, which still stands intact and unoc- cupied since Mrs. Harrison’s death. Joseph Har- rison was a very intelligent patron of art, and to his taste and judgment Philadelphia owes many of its richest treasures. The group of paintings referred to includes, besides West’s “ Treaty,” portraits of King Will- iam III, Queen Mary, Queen Anne, Kings George I, George II and George III, of which the latter, by Allan Ramsay, is the most important. It was painted by order of the King, in 1767, for the State House in Philadelphia, but was not sent out because of the troubles between the colonies and the mother country. It was purchased by Joseph Harrison, in London, about the middle of the last century, when he heard of its history and secured Unbepettbence ttmll 333 by him to its original destination. The canvas is a beautiful one, depicting the young king in his regal robes of State and wearing a soft, youthful expression even in excess of his twenty-nine years, and is particularly attractive in colour and style. The National Museum in Independence Hall preserves the masterpiece of William Rush, the first American born sculptor who worked in resist- ing materials. He was born, according to the statement of Mr. Charles Henry Hart in Browere’s “ Life Masks of Great Americans,” on July 4, 1756, “being the fourth in direct descent from John Rush, who commanded a troop of horse in Cromwell’s army, and, having embraced the prin- ciples of the Quakers, came to Pennsylvania the year following the landing of William Penn. From the emigrant John Rush was also descended, in the fifth generation, the celebrated Benjamin Rush, physician and politician, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The father of William was Joseph Rush, who married, at Christ Church, Philadelphia, September 19, 1750, Re- becca Lincoln, daughter of Abraham Lincoln, of Springfield Township, now in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. She was of the same family as Abraham Lincoln, the martyr President of the United States. I am thus minute in tracing the ancestry of William Rush, in order to establish and 334 ©ennsEhmnta Bca&ems of jftne Hrts place upon record, beyond a question or doubt, that he was the first American sculptor by birth and parentage, and thus set at rest the claim, so fre- quently made, that this honour belongs to John Frazee, a man not born until 1790. “ Rush served in the army of the Revolution, and it was not until after peace had settled on the land that he seems to have turned his attention to art. He soon became noted for the life-like qual- ities he put into the figureheads he was called upon to carve, and so noted did these works become, that many orders came to him from Britain for figureheads for English ships. The story is told that when a famous East Indiaman, the Ganges, sailed up that river to Calcutta, with a figure of a river-god carved by Rush, at its prow, the natives clambered about it as an object of adoration and of worship. Benjamin Latrobe, the noted archi- tect, in a discourse before the Society of Artists of the United States, in 1811, says, speaking of Rush : ‘ His figures, forming the head or prow of a vessel, place him, in the excellence of his atti- tudes and actions, among the best sculptors that have existed; and in the proportion and drawing of his figures, he is often far above mediocrity and seldom below it. There is a motion in his figures that is inconceivable. They seem rather to draw the ship after them than to be impelled by the lln&epen&ence Iball 335 vessel. Many are of exquisite beauty. I have not seen one on which there is not the stamp of genius.’ ” Rush’s full-length statue of Washington, in wood, was made about 1814, and was one of a number of exhibits by the artist shown in the Fifth Annual Exhibition of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in 1815. It stood for some time in the Hall of the Washington Benevolent Society, on Third Street near Spruce, and in 1824 was placed in Independence Hall, on the occasion of Lafayette’s visit to the city. It was carved from Rush’s recollection of Wash- ington with the aid of Houdon’s celebrated bust of the general, which it closely resembles. City Councils purchased the statue in 1831 for $500. Its present location in the Hall of Independence is in the Supreme Court Room to the right of the entrance, where it presents a most dignified and dominating personage. The character of the fig- ure is slightly affected and the pose inclines to the artificial. We are wont to picture Washington as a more robust personality, but there is much charm in the rendering and a certain graciousness in the inclination of the figure. Washington stands supported by a broken column, is costumed in the conventional dress of the early Republic, with knee breeches, ruffled cravat and stock, buckled 336 Pennsylvania academy of ffine arts shoes and all the appointments of a gentleman of cultivation and position. He holds in his right hand a scroll, while his left lifts the drapery, whose voluminous folds have been introduced for the pur- poses of giving sculpturesque mass. A cast of Houdon’s bust of Washington is to be found on the second floor in the Banquet Hall, and may be studied for purposes of comparison. CHAPTER XXIII THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA The art collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania represents a gradual development, chiefly by gift with an occasional purchase from funds contributed by members, of such works as owing to their historic value have place in such a reliquary. While the artistic point of view has been a secondary consideration, the Society has become possessed quand meme of a number of very dis- tinguished canvases — portraits for the most part of prominent citizens by prominent American painters. The Society was founded in 1824 and led a no- madic existence, unfavourable to the accumulation of treasures, until 1882, when the trustees purchased a permanent site and the Society was installed in the historic mansion of Major Robert Patterson, at Thirteenth and Locust Streets. Previous to the ac- quisition of the old Patterson house, so well remem- bered as one of the homes which gave character to our city, the Historical Society occupied as tenant various restricted quarters, of which the first was in 337 338 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts Carpenter’s Court. The Athenaeum, the Pennsyl- vania Hospital, and similar institutions subsequently gave it shelter, at nominal rentals, until by the grad- ual accumulation of wealth and power it was able to secure a habitation of its own. The first building was destroyed in 1902 for the erection of the new and highly practical fire-proof building, greatly en- larged to fit the growing needs of the Society. The first work of art came to the Society on March 20, 1833, when Granville Penn presented what he considered “ an original portrait of Will- iam Penn, his grandfather.” This is the youthful portrait in armour, of which, according to the legend, there were two at Stoke Poges, until this presentation was made. No author has ever been assigned to the picture which latter day critics pro- nounce only a copy from a doubtful original. The Society, having no settled habitation, did not know what to do with the picture and left it in the custody of John Vaughan for many years. By subsequent gifts, the Penn Collection has grown to considerable proportions and includes at least one valuable canvas, of whose authorship un- fortunately there is some uncertainty. This is the admirable portrait of Admiral Penn, father of the founder of Pennsylvania, attributed to Sir Peter Lely, or Van der Faes (1617-1680), a celebrated portrait painter of Dutch descent, who flourished Qbc HMstorical Society of Pennsylvania 339 at the Court of Charles I and was made first painter to Charles II, the beauties of whose court were the subjects of his masterpieces. The doubt about the attribution is all in the pic- ture’s favour as the point urged is that it is too good for Lely. Certainly the portrait is a delightful one, showing the Admiral facing front, with a flowing white tie and a good-humoured expression on his weather-beaten face. The painting is the work of a very fluent brushman and a good colourist and is quite free from the affectations of Lely’s style. The picture is from the same source as the Penn in Armour, Granville Penn having presented a num- ber of relics to the Society as the fruits of his visit to this country. The most important pictures in the collection of the Historical Society, from the historic standpoint, are the portraits of Gustavus Hesselius and of his wife Lydia, painted by Gustavus Hesselius (1682- 17 55), who was the earliest painter to come to America and whose life and works in this country have been made the subject of an interesting and valuable article by Mr. Hart. 1 The portraits in question come down through the granddaughter of the sitters, Eliza Henderson, who married Adolph Ulric Wertmuller, and they were 1 Harper's Monthly. March, 1898. 340 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy of ffine Brts presented to the Society by the late Charles Hare Hutchinson. Until the presentation of these portraits the name of Gustavus Hesselius as a painter was unknown to history. Those who have given attention to the subject have known of Hesselius (John) by whom, according to Robert Gilmore of Baltimore, “ the greater part of the family portraits in the old man- sions of Maryland were painted, and that in a re- spectable manner.” He was the early instructor of Charles Willson Peale, whose son Rembrandt, in his memoir of his father, published in the Encyclo- paedia Americana, calls him “ a portrait painter from the school of Sir Godfrey Kneller.” He was in fact the American born son and pupil of Sweden’s pioneer painter in this land. Gustavus Hesselius is of the utmost importance in the study of the beginnings of American art for several reasons. In the first place he disproves a popular fiction — that the birth of art, as we are pleased to term it — occurred in New England with the arrival of John Smybert, who came over from Scotland in 1729, or, according to some authorities, with the arrival in the colonies in 1715 of John Watson, who in that year set up his easel in the capital of New Jersey, Perth Amboy. Hesselius antedates both of these worthies, for there is noted on the old Swedish records the arrival Ube IMstorical Society of Pennsylvania 341 of two brotliers Hesselius who arrived at Christina, now Wilmington, Delaware, on the first of May, 1711, while a later entry oddly states that “ Mons. Gustaff Hesselius, after a few weeks flyted on ac- count of his business to Philadelphia.” Gustavus Hesselius was born at Folkarna, De- larne, Sweden, in 1682, and was consequently the senior of Watson by three years and of Smybert by two. He came of a family distinguished for its piety and learning and his father and four brothers were dedicated to the church. The Hesselius family was intimately associated with the establishment of the Swedish religion in this country, two of the brothers having been commissioned by the king, Charles XII, to go to America and preach the gospel to the Swedes along the Delaware. Hesselius is important for another reason. He it was to whom was given, ten years later, the first public art commission in this country — to paint an altar-piece representing “ The Last Supper ” for the Church of St. Barnabas in Queen Anne’s parish, in the province of Maryland. Unfortunately the paint- ing perished with the church in 1773. In 1773 h e was back again in Philadelphia, for in that year he purchased a house and lot on the north side of High Street below Fourth, where he resided until his death, May 25, 1755. That he con- tinued his vocation on a broad scale is shown by an 342 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy ot ffine Brts advertisement in the Pennsylvania Packet for De- cember ii, 1740: “ Painting done in the best manner by Gustavus Hesselius from Stockholm and John Winter from London. Viz., Coats of Arms drawn upon Coaches, Chaises, etc., or any kind of Ornaments, Landskips, Signs, Shew-boards, Ship and House Painting, gilding of all sorts, writing in gold or colour, old pictures cleaned or mended, etc.” Hesselius was probably the painter of many of the early portraits, whose authorship is unknown. One has already been identified as from his easel, that of Robert Morris, the father of the financier of the Revolution, in the Nixon Collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. From these three it appears that the Swede was a painter of no small parts. The character is good, the treatment simple and direct, and the colour, if monochromatic, is of a pleasant greyness, and he knew something of values. The Historical Society owns an exceedingly inter- esting collection of early portraits by Benjamin West, including four that were painted by the artist before his departure for Europe, and consequently before he had any regular instruction whatsoever. Of these four canvases two represent the early patrons of West — William Henry, for whom he painted “ The Death of Socrates,” and Provost Ube Ibtstorical Society of J>enn8£lv>ania 343 William Smith, under whose special tutelage West imbibed so much of the classic lore that was to influence his career. The third of the early por- traits is of Mrs. Ann Henry, wife of the above, and the fourth and best is a portrait of Mrs. Thomas Hopkinson, nee Mary Johnson. The portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Henry represent the great-grandparents of Dr. Jordan, the present Librarian of the Historical Society, by whom they are presented to the institution. Exceedingly in- teresting and quaint they are in their rigid poses, but extraordinarily thorough considering the lad’s tender years and colossal inexperience. They show what courage he had and they also show in many ways that he had seen and noted good por- traits and knew what the conventional requirements were. William Henry was an American of Scotch-Irish ancestry, an inventor and a manufacturer of fire- arms in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He lived from 1729 to 1786, was a member of the Continental Con- gress, 1784-5, and in 1768 invented the self-moving or sentinel register. He was among those ante- cedent to Fitch and Fulton in the application of steam as a motive power to propel boats. The portrait of Provost Smith was done about the same time and is even more naive. It resembles indeed a primitive in the crudity of its drawing, the 344 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of fftne Brts exaggeration of the features, but it is an earnest try for expression and is worthy of all serious consid- eration. The Rev. William Smith, D. D., was born near Aberdeen, Scotland, September 7, 1727. He was important in the history of Philadelphia as the first provost of the College of Philadelphia, and an early patron of the fine arts and belles lettres. The picture in the possession of the Historical Society is known for purposes of identification as “ William Smith as St. Ignatius,” on account of the following incident : Governor Hamilton had placed at West’s disposal his collection of pictures, amongst which was a St. Ignatius by Murillo. West made a copy of the picture and won the admiration of Provost Smith, who, always on the lookout for something new to suggest to his pupil, conceived the idea that portraiture might be elevated above a mere physical likeness, and acting upon the suggestion, West made a portrait of his friend in the attitude and style of the Saint. The result was a grateful offering from the artist to the sitter. It came to the Society as a gift from Horace Wemyss Smith, his great-grandson, on October 10, 1871, on the occasion of the installation of the Society in the Hall of the Pennsylvania Hospital, which had been originally built to receive that great picture by the artist, “ Christ healing the Sick.” PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM HAMILTON AND HIS NIECE, ANN HAMILTON LiTLE. By Benjamin West. Ubc Ibistorical Society of Pennsylvania 345 The portrait of Mrs. Thomas Hopkinson, in the Hopkinson Collection, is a remarkably graceful and charming picture — one that would do credit to any period of West’s career — though painted be- fore he was twenty-one years of age. West’s chef d’ceuvre in the Historical Society is the full-length portrait of William Hamilton, of Woodlands, and his niece, Ann Hamilton Lyle. It is in many respects the most beautiful canvas of the painter’s in Philadelphia, containing more quality than he usually gets, and at the same time is quite free from the dryness of his historical pictures. The interest and quality in the picture may come from the fact that West repainted it — all but the faces — in 1810, about twenty years after it was first painted. This information comes from a letter from West to Robert Barclay, dated London, Sept. 5, 1810. 1 His price for the picture was not to be augmented because of the additional painting and enrichments, but was to be “ the same as I had for whole length Portraits when the picture was begun — which was sixty guineas a figure for whole lengths.” The effect of light in the picture is quite Rem- brandtesque. The figure of Mrs. Lyle, gowned in white and partially enveloped in a flowing yellow 1 Vide “ Unpublished Letters of West, ” edited by Charles Henry Hart. Pennsylvania Magazine. January, 1908. 346 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of ffine Brts cloak, stands in full light, her two hands upon the sleeve of her uncle’s coat, while Hamilton, soberly- clad in black leans upon a cabinet or table covered with a red cloth, and looks out not too happily upon the spectator. Behind them is a window heavily- draped in red curtains, through which may be seen a very handsome bit of night landscape — trees, water and a clouded sky effulgent with the light of the obscured moon. The composition of the pic- ture is unusual and distinguished, the colour excep- tionally lovely, but the canvas shows evidence of some accidents and is in bad repair. William Hamilton was a man of great wealth and an eminent botanist. He was supposed to have espoused the cause of Great Britain against the Colonies and was tried for treason at Philadelphia, but was acquitted. Hamilton owned the land upon which the city of Lancaster was built and his resi- dence, or country seat, was built upon a high spot of ground overlooking the Schuylkill. The house still stands in what is known as Woodlands Cemetery, which takes its name from the Ham- ilton estate. In this house Hamilton died in 1824. Two signed studies of George III and Queen Charlotte, done in little, complete the West collec- tion in the Historical Society, which preserves also a small study for Sir Thomas Lawrence’s full-length Copyright 1902 by C. S. Bradford. Copyright 1002 by C. S. Bradford. PORTRAITS OF MR. AND MRS. JOSEPH HOPKINSON. By Gilbert Stuart. Ube Dlstorlcal Society of Pennsylvania 347 portrait of the painter, so well known in engraving. The “ Penn’s Treaty,” by West, is a replica. Of the collections of family portraits in the Soci- ety none is more interesting and important than that deposited by Mrs. Oliver Hopkinson, which in- cludes beside West’s portrait of the wife of the founder of the Hopkinson family in this country already mentioned, portraits of Francis Hopkinson by Pine; Mrs. Francis Hopkinson, by Peale; Par- son Duche and his wife (Elizabeth Hopkinson) and Parson Duche and his son, by Thomas Spence Duche; a beautiful unidentified portrait of Dr. Mor- gan and two famous portraits by Gilbert Stuart of Joseph Hopkinson and his wife, Emily Mifflin. The two latter constitute all that the Society has to show from the brush of Stuart, except the replica of the Athenaeum portrait of Washington, pre- sented by Francis Rawle Wharton, and considered one of the best repetitions of this type in existence. The portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Hopkinson belong to Stuart’s best period and were painted toward the close of his residence in Philadelphia, in 1803. Both are signed on the back with the date. The portraits were painted nine years after their marriage, in 1794, and show Joseph Hopkinson, at the age of thirty-three, and his wife as a young and charming woman. Hopkinson, who is of course the second president of The Pennsylvania Academy, 348 pennssltmnia Bcafcems of fine Brts the author of “ Hail Columbia,” so much alluded to in early chapters of this book, and whose portrait as an old man we have studied in the bust of Clevenger, is here presented as he appeared in the early days of his famous career as a lawyer, before he arrived at the dignity of Judge. The pose is distinguished, the character full of vigour and personality and the colour fresh — in short it is Stuart at his best. Mrs. Hopkinson is shown seated before a table, with a crayon in the right hand, in the act of draw- ing. An interesting feature of the picture is a sil- houette of the artist on a paper sliding from the table, in the lower left hand corner of the picture. Both portraits are painted on panels twenty-four by twenty-nine and were of course companion pieces. They came down through their daughter, Mrs. William Biddle. Mrs. Joseph Hopkinson was a daughter of Gov- ernor Thomas Mifflin, whose portrait as a boy and again with his wife, both by Copley, hang on an- other wall of the Institution. A famous portrait is that of Francis Hopkinson, father of Joseph, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, a half-length seated at a table writing, and said to be the first portrait painted by Robert Edge Pine on his arrival in this country. It was done in 1785 and is well known through engravings of the picture by Heath and Longacre. A copy of PORTRAIT OF FRANCIS HOrKINSON. PORTRAIT OF MRS. FRANCIS HOPKINSON. By Robert Edge Pine. By Charles Willson Peale. Ubc historical Society of Pennsylvania 349 the painting in pastel made by Francis Hopkinson himself is the property of the Society and an amu- sing relic. Mrs. Francis Hopkinson, wife of the above, done by Charles Willson Peale, is a distinguished example of this artist. The sitter was Ann Borden. Thomas Spence Duche, a young artist who died before he had had time to show the full force of his undoubted ability, is represented in the Hopkinson Collection by two important works. These are half- length portraits of his father and mother, and of himself and his father on a smaller canvas. The subject of the first picture, the Reverend Jacob Duche, D. D., was that curious character of Revolutionary times whose regrettable letter to Washington, written in terror at the time that the British took possession of Philadelphia, urging him to “ abandon a forlorn hope and to represent to Congress the indispensable necessity of rescinding the hasty and ill-advised Declaration of Independ- ence,” brought upon him the obloquy of the whole nation and resulted in his banishment from the coun- try as a traitor. Outside the wall of St. Peter’s Church Yard is a marble tablet in memory of this amiable and accom- plished man whose whole life was clouded by an error. He was the first chaplain of Congress and in 1775 succeeded Dr. Peters as the rector of Christ 1 350 t>enn 8 £h>ania Bcabems of fftne Brts Church. He devoted his stipend to the relief of the families whose sons had fallen in battle. Parson Duche’s wife, who figures in the picture wearing a cap and looking over her husband’s shoulder, was Elizabeth Hopkinson, a daughter of Thomas and sister of Francis. The second picture is a small canvas, 18 x 18, of Jacob Duche and his son, less interesting than the first one. In both the young artist, who died in his twenty-seventh year, shows pronounced ability. He was a student of Benjamin West, who had been a schoolmate of his father. His best known work, a portrait of Bishop Seabury, now at Washington College, Hartford, Connecticut, is dedicated to West by his friend and pupil. The picture is well known through the engraving by Sharp. An excellent portrait of John Morgan, M. D., the founder of the school of medicine in the United States, is anonymous. A second portrait of Dr. Morgan, by Angelica Kauffman, painted when he was a much younger man exists, preserved by col- lateral relatives of his wife, Mary Hgpkinson, sister of Francis, in Baltimore. Of the authorshfp of this portrait in the Historical Society nothing is known, though the canvas is a very fine one, showing the sitter as an old man, with a curled wig, his hand holding a pair of old-fashioned spectacles and rest- ing upon an open book. Dr. Morgan was born in Ube Historical Society of Pennsylvania 351 Philadelphia in 1735, graduated in medicine in Edin- borough in 1763, was professor in theory and prac- tice of medicine in the University in 1765, physician to the Pennsylvania Hospital, 1773-1783, director- general and physician-in-chief of the General Hos- pital of the Army, 1775-1777, and one of the founders of the College of Physicians. He died in 1789- The Historical Society boasts two excellent works by one of the earliest American portrait painters, John Singleton Copley (1737-1815). One is an early work said to be a portrait of Thomas Mifflin as a boy. It comes as the bequest of William Mifflin, a descendant, and was received from Mrs. James Mifflin on April 2, 1910. The canvas has not been through the hands of a restorer and thus far no marks or signature have been discovered. The picture appears to be an orig- inal work of Copley at an early period and is in all respects a worthy example and an extremely valu- able work of art. The boy is presented standing at three-quarter length, resting one hand on his hip and the other on his gun. Further evidence of the sporting nature of the sitter is in the brace of ducks lying on what appears to be the banks of a river and a bird dog swimming in the water beyond. Now Thomas Mifflin, whom the heirs claim was the original of the portrait, was born in Philadelphia 352 Pennsylvania Bcabemy of jftne Bets in 1744, of Quaker parentage, two facts that must be remembered in an attempt to verify the portrait. He appears in the picture to be a lad of not more than fifteen years, so that Copley, who was born in 1737 and was in consequence but seven years his senior, must have painted this portrait when he was only twenty-two years of age, or about a year beifore he sent his “ Boy and the Flying Squirrel ” over to England for a criticism from West, and which was his first picture to bring him into prominence. This seems hardly probable, but the facts must speak for themselves. Though an early work the picture seems to have been painted by a more experienced hand than was Copley’s at twenty-two. It has also very pertinently been inquired whether the costume worn by the boy in this picture would have been in accordance with the strict Quaker form of Thomas Mifflin’s family. He wears a blue suit and a ruffled shirt. For the rest the portrait is charming, the boy a fresh-faced child with a serene outlook at life, and the painting reserved, full of character, well drawn, and the tone is a delicate harmony. The second portrait is said to be of Governor Thomas Mifflin and his wife Sarah Morris. It comes from the other side of the house as the be- quest of Mrs. Esther F. Wistar, who left it to the Society in the name of Dr. Mifflin Wistar. It was PORTRAIT OF GOVERNOR THOMAS MIFFLIN AND HIS WIFE SARAH MORRIS. By John Singleton Copley. Ube Ibistorical Society of Pennsylvania 353 received on May 23, 1900. There is some doubt also as to the identity of this portrait, since it bears not the slightest resemblance to the well known portrait of Governor Mifflin, by Gilbert Stuart, owned by Alexander J. Dallas Dixon of Philadelphia, and of which the Society preserves an excellent copy. The canvas however appears to be an undoubted Copley and is of his very best period. It pictures a thin, angular type of man, smooth shaven and with thin powdered straight hair. He is dressed very correctly in grey with spotless linen and is seated by the side of his wife, holding his forefinger between the pages of a book and pointing it at her with a curious expression on his face. Mrs. Mifflin meanwhile sits looking out at the spectator, her hands employed in the making of some white fringe upon a mahogany frame. She wears a fine muslin cap over her neatly brushed dark hair. There is a monotony in the colour but the drawing is marvel- lous and the finish superb. Copley, the artist, was born in Boston at a time when that city was a small provincial town where art was unknown and good instruction was un- attainable. He is commonly said to have been self- taught but probably received some instruction from his stepfather, Peter Pelham, who died however when Copley was fourteen. In 1760, biographers tell us, he painted his “ Boy with the Flying Squir- 354 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy o t jftne arts rel,” which he sent anonymously to London to Ben- jamin West, who thought it so good that he had it exhibited at Somerset House. In 1767, on West’s nomination, Copley was elected a fellow of the So- ciety of Artists of Great Britain. Two years later he married Susannah Clarke and the first years of their married life were passed in Boston in a soli- tary house on Beacon Hill, where four children were born to them including the son, Lord Lyndhurst, who afterwards became Lord Chancellor of Eng- land. In 1774 Copley sailed for England, where, after a short tour of Italy, he settled permanently and resided until his death. He was patronized by the Royal family and the nobility of England and in 1779 was ma de a full member of the Royal Acad- emy. Though essentially a portrait painter, he made some large historical pictures, of which three, “ The Death of Chatham,” “ The Death of Major Pierson,” and “ The Siege of Gibraltar,” are in the National Gallery, London. Many important por- traits and sketches, including his last portrait of himself, were destroyed by the great fire at Boston in 1872. Included in the collections of the Historical Soci- ety are several canvases by John Neagle, of which the most interesting is the portrait of Gilbert Stuart, presented by Charles Roberts in 1898. ZLbe Ibistodcai Society o t Pennsylvania 355 Neagle painted two portraits of Stuart, to which he refers in his manuscript notes. The stronger of the two is the first one, which belongs to the Boston Athenaeum — the second is a replica of the first, for the completion of which, however, Stuart sat, as recorded by Neagle: “That he (Stuart) should have honoured me, an humble artist and a stranger — by not only sitting for one portrait entire but by sitting for the completion of a copy, is singular. My portrait is the last one ever painted of this dis- tinguished artist. I presented it to Mr. Stuart’s friend, Isaac P. Davis, Esq.” The replica is the one owned by the Society. The painting is extremely good, though done when Neagle was twenty-nine years of age. Stuart was seventy and was suffering from paralysis, on which account he advised Neagle to put the withered side of the face farthest from the eye. That Neagle profited greatly from the elder painter’s teaching is evident and his intercourse (as recorded) during the progress of the painting shows a very pleasant relation between the two. This was in the summer of 1825, three years be- fore Stuart’s death. On the back of the canvas is one of Neagle’s careful inscriptions, which reads as follows : “ Gilbert C. Stuart, Artist. Painted by John Neagle at Boston, Mass. 1825,” and below in the hand of the restorer: “This inscription is a 356 Pennsylvania Hca&emy of fftne Bets copy from the original canvas. T. B. Wilkin- son.” Three interesting sketches of Indians painted from life by Neagle in 1821 were presented by him to the Society in 1861. The first is: The Knife Chief of the Pawnee Loups called “ The Bravest of the Braves.” He belonged to a band of men called Braves and he rescued a woman of the Paduca Nation who was taken prisoner by his nation and placed at the stake to be burnt in the presence of a council of the nation. The Brave stood looking on until he could bear it no longer. He sprang for her, rescued her, cut the fastenings that bound her with his knife and flung her on a horse and rode away with her. The act was so daring that it was thought to be the work of the Great Spirit and for this he received his title, “ The Bravest of the Braves.” The second canvas contains two heads. To the left is Big Kansas or Caussetongua and to the right Sharitarische, chief of the Grand Pawnees. Big Kansas wears a sleepy expression and was inani- mate except on important occasions but a dreadful opponent. He had a great friendship for Shari- tarische and would not sit for his likeness unless both were placed on the same canvas. The other Chief of the Grand Pawnees was distinguished in war against the Spaniards and Indians on the con- Ube Historical Society ot ipennsglvmnla 357 fines of New Mexico. These Indians came as a deputation with Major O’Fallon in 1821. Both canvases are inscribed on the face in Neagle’s own hand. One of the finest of the many replicas of the Stuart Athenaeum portrait of Washington is that presented to the Historical Society by Francis Rawle Wharton in 1903. Charles Willson Peale is generously represented. There is an excellent portrait of Benjamin Frank- lin, another of Washington that is well worthy of consideration, and several others. The portrait of Franklin is well known through engravings and copies and is one of the most in- teresting canvases that is preserved of Peale’s pro- lific brush. The colour while artificial is decidedly agreeable and as a portrait nothing could be more carefully accurate, nothing more characteristic of the pedantic personality of the doctor nor of the attitude of the painter toward his art than this curious canvas. A portrait of Anthony Wayne, painted in the year that he died by Henry Elouis (1755-1840), a French painter who emigrated to America at the beginning of the French Revolution, and re- sided some years in Philadelphia, was presented to the Society in 1910, by Mrs. Joseph W. Drexel. The picture was discovered in a deplorable con- 358 iPennsslxmnia Bcafcems of fine Brts dition in Washington, D. C., by Mr. Charles Henry Hart, who has recently issued a pamphlet, in an edition of fifty copies reprinted from The Penn- sylvania Magazine of History and Biography for July, 1911, in which he describes in an interesting manner the identification of the picture as an orig- inal life portrait of Wayne by Elouis. Mr. Hart considers it the original painting from which was made a rare mezzotint, one of the only two known impressions of which is in the collec- tion of the Historical Society. This engraving shows Wayne at three-quarter length, while the portrait is only a bust. This may be explained in one of two ways, either the engraving is an elab- oration of the bust portrait or the canvas has been cut down from a larger size. The last theory has been thought the most plausible on account of the unusual size of the stretcher, twenty by twenty- five, and because of some unexplained detail in the background which might have had place in the painting of the larger canvas. The portrait is important as the best likeness of General Wayne that exists. During his residence in Philadelphia, which was from about 1792 to 1799, Elouis became the draw- ing master of Eleanor Custis and painted minia- tures of her mother and of Washington. The former is in the collection of Mrs. Drexel, while Zbc Historical Society of Pennsylvania 359 the whereabouts of the portrait of the president has yet to be discovered. Amongst the rare canvases is a portrait of Mrs. Clement Plumstead now thought to be by Robert Feke, an early portrait painter of Colonial days, who was born at Oyster Bay, Long Island, about 1725, and died at Barbadoes, West Indies, aged about forty-four. Biographers tell us that he ran away from home when a youth and was carried a prisoner to Spain, where he employed himself in making rude paintings, with the proceeds of which he returned home and settled in Newport and be- came a portrait painter. Many of his portraits are in the Bowdoin Col- lege collection and in that of the Rhode Island Historical Society, in Providence. One of his best is that of Lady Wanton in the Redwood Library at Newport. This portrait, which came down through Miss Helena R. Scheetz, the donor of the Plumstead portraits in the Stuart Collection at the Academy, was supposed to have been by Lely until dates proved the impossibility of that attribution, and is now ascribed on excellent authority to Feke, in which case it must be the third wife of Clement Plumstead, Mary Curry, who is represented. If he painted the portrait from life Mrs. Plumstead must have been a remarkably well preserved 360 Pennsylvania Hcafcemy of jfine arts woman, for she was married to Plumstead between 1720 and 1722, and Feke was not born it appears until 1725. Clement Plumstead was three times mayor of Philaelphia. A portrait in pastel and water colour of Mrs. Benedict Arnold with her infant son is one of the charming things preserved by the Society and has an interesting history. The subject is of course, “ Peggy Shippen.” The portrait descended through the Mcllvaine family and the tradition of the picture as preserved by them is pasted on the back of the picture. It reads : “ Margaret Shippen Arnold and her son Edward Shippen, taken by Sir Thomas Lawrence at Bath, England, in the fourteenth year of his age, and sent to her father Chief Justice Shippen of Philadel- phia.^ This was always credited, despite the evident maturity of the picture, until Dr. G. C. Williamson saw it last December and pronounced it unques- tionably a Dan Gardner, adding that Pierpont Morgan had one of Gardner’s attributed to Gains- borough, and his daughter another listed under Reynolds, these three misattributions showing what an excellent artist Gardner was. Daniel Gardner (1750-1805) was an English portrait painter born in Kendal. He studied at the Royal Academy and was patronized by Reynolds. PORTRAIT OF MRS. BENEDICT ARNOLD (PEGGY SHIPPEN) AND HER SON. By Daniel Gardner. XTbe Historical Society of Pennsylvania 361 His portraits, which were in oil and crayons, were successful and he was enabled to retire early. He died in London. A small canvas depicting “ Congress Voting Independence ” is the one relic in the Historical Society of Pine’s famous schemes for a series of historical pictures of the Revolution. It was begun by Pine and finished by Savage, survived the gen- eral destruction of Pine’s pictures in the fire of 1803 and was purchased by Mr. Hart at the dis- persal of the Boston Museum in 1892. The picture is particularly interesting in that it reproduces the Hall of Independence as it was at the time the Declaration was adopted, and gives evidence of having been painted within its very walls. The portraits of Francis Hopkinson sitting at the president’s table writing, of Charles Carroll to the right of Franklin, talking with Stephen Hop- kins — the figure to the extreme right wearing a hat; of George Read between Carroll and Hop- kinson and of William Pacain, the centre of the standing group of three on the extreme left, talk- ing to Dr. Rush, are all from known originals by Pine. The parts of the picture painted by Savage are easily distinguishable for their inferiority. There are two excellent examples of the work of Jacob Eichholtz in the collection. These are por- 362 Pennsylvania Bcafcemy of fine Brts traits of Captain John Nice of the Revolutionary Army and of Andrew John Shultz, Governor of Pennsylvania from 1823 to 1829. These show Eichholtz in the height of his power and give a much more interesting aspect of his art than the pictures in the collections of the Pennsylvania Academy. A third canvas from his hand, though only a copy of a portrait of an Inman, is well worth looking at as an example of what a copy might be. It is spirited and full of character. The subject is John Marshall, the eminent jurist and statesman, and the original hangs in the Law Association of Philadelphia. Sully is but indifferently represented by a num- ber of portraits, none of them first class. Amongst them is a portrait of himself, one of Bishop White, another of John Vaughan and a replica of the head of the Lafayette in Independence Hall, painted in 1845 for the Colonization Society and deposited by that organization with the Historical Society with a number of other portraits, virtually the pos- session of the Society since the Colonization So- ciety has gone out of existence. Of Inman, also, there is nothing of importance, his one canvas being one of his numerous replicas of Bishop White, of which the original is owned by Bishop Doane of Albany, and that is very fine. There are several canvases by Rembrandt Peale TTbe Ibtstortcal Society of Pennsylvania 363 in his dry, statistical manner, including portraits of Martha Washington, Edmund Pendleton Gaines and one of himself. In the department of miniatures are several in- teresting and rare exhibits. These include a signed portrait by Copley, of Sir John St. Clair, adjutant general of Braddock’s Army when defeated near Monongahela in 1775. The date is 1758, when Copley was but nineteen years of age and before he had had any foreign influence. Two miniatures of John Kittera and his wife are good examples of the work of Robert Fulton, the inventor, and two beautiful ones of George and Martha Washington are by James Peale, who excelled in this branch of the fine arts. John Trumbull is represented by what is practically a miniature on wood, of Colonel William Jackson, private secretary of Washington. John Trumbull (1756-1843) was a contempo- rary of Stuart, his junior by only six months, and his survivor for fifteen years. They met in the studio of Benjamin West, and became fast friends, though politically their opinions were sadly at variance, Trumbull being an ardent American pa- triot, while Stuart was a runaway Tory. Before he was twenty Trumbull had become a colonel on Washington’s staff. While in London studying with West he was arrested for treason and cast 364 Pennsylvania Bca&emy ot jflne Brts in the tower, but was eventually liberated on the intervention of West and Copley, who guaranteed that he would leave the kingdom. Without being technically a miniature painter Trumbull was chiefly gifted as a painter in little. He made many small cabinets on panels similar to this one of Colonel William Jackson, of which a beautiful collection hangs in the Yale School of Fine Arts, to which the painter gave his whole collection of paintings for an annuity of $1,000. He has the misfortune to be known by his poor- est works, which are the four large historical pic- tures in the Capitol at Washington. His best life- size portraits are the whole length of George Clin- ton and a bust of Alexander Hamilton. The Society possesses also an unidentified Shar- pies crayon. The landscapes, of which there are a number scattered about the building, include Krimmell’s original sketch for his missing picture of “ Elec- tion Day at the State House,” and also an excellent engraving of the finished picture ; “ The Blowing up of the Frigate Augusta,” an interesting relic from Peale’s Museum, and several landscapes and early views of the city by Thomas Birch. Winner has contributed two quaint pictures to the collec- tion in which he introduces the old Mayor’s Office at Fifth and Chestnut Streets, with the “ Pie Man,” XTbe ibtstortcal Society of Pennsylvania 365 an early figure in our city streets, and “ Crazy Nora,” a local character who dressed partly in men’s clothes and was the sport of the street gamin. In the Hopkinson Collection is a very beautiful “ Roman Ruins,” by Antonio Canaletto, from the Joseph Bonaparte Collection. The canvas is of striking beauty and noble composition. The Royal Arms of England, admirably painted on wood, date from the reign of Queen Anne. They bear the motto, “ Semper Eadem,” which Queen Anne in 1702 ordered used. This symbol of sovereignty was displayed in the Provincial Hall and Court House that once stood at Second and Market Streets, and was no doubt placed there at the time that Queen Anne reigned over our fore- fathers. It was presented to this society after 1844. A complete catalogue of the works of art owned by the Historical Society is in contemplation as well as a rehanging of the pictures according to some better system than at present, which will greatly facilitate the work of students and visitors attracted there by its choice possessions. THE END. ■ . . ■ u $&& jwa Bibliography PAINTERS AND SCULPTORS Armstrong, Sir Walter. — Sir Joshua Reynolds. (London, William Heineman, 1900.) Berenson, Bernhard. — North Italian Painters of the Re- naissance. (New York, 1907.) The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance. (New York G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894.) Lorenzo Lotto : An Essay in Constructive Art Criticism. (New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895.) The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance. (New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896.) Bryan. — Dictionary of Painters. (New York, Macmillan, I 9°3-) Crowe and Cavalcaselle. — A History of Painting in North Italy. (London, John Murray, 1871.) History of Painting in Italy. (New York, Charles Scrib- ner’s Sons, 1903.) Clement and Hutton. — Artists of the Nineteenth Century. (Boston, 1880.) Cunningham, Allan. — Lives of British Painters, Sculp- tors and Architects. (London, John Murray, 1829.) Dunlap, William. — History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States. (New York, 1834.) Duret, Theodore. — Histoire de J. McN. Whistler et son CEuvre. (Paris, 1904.) Flagg, Jared B. — Life and Letters of Washington Allston. (New York, 1892.) Fromentin, Eugene. — The Old Masters of Belgium and Holland (Les Maitres d’autrefois). Translation by Mrs. Mary C. Robbins. (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1882.) Galt, John. — Life and Studies of Benjamin West. (Lon- don, 1816.) Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. — Republican Court. Hart, Charles Henry. — Gilbert Stuart’s Portraits of Women. ( Century Magazine. Vols. 33 to 37.) 367 368 JSibUograpbs Stuart’s Lansdowne Portrait of Washington. ( Harper’s Monthly. Vol. 93.) Original Portraits of Washington. ( Century Magazine. Vols. 15, 18 and 21.) Matthew Harris Jouett, Kentucky’s Master Painter. ( Har- per’s Monthly. Vol. 98.) A Limner of Colonial Days. (Harper’s Weekly. July 4, 1896.) The Earliest Painter in America. ( Harper’s Monthly. March, 1898.) The Story of a Portrait. ( Harper’s Weekly. March 16, 1896.) Hints on Portraits and How to Catalogue Them. (Phila- delphia, 1898.) Browere’s Life Masks of Great Americans. (New York, 1899.) Jackson, Henry E. — Benjamin West, his Life and Work. (Philadelphia, The John C. Winston Co., 1900.) Leslie, Charles Robert. — Memoirs of John Constable, R. A. (London, 1843.) Autobiographical Recollections. Edited by Tom Taylor. (Boston, i860.) Mason, George G — Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart. (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1894.) Menpes, Mortimer. — Whistler, as I Knew Him. (New York, Macmillan, 1904.) Michel, Emile. — Rembrandt, sa vie, son oeuvre et son temps. (Paris, Hachette, 1893.) A Translation of the above by Florence Simmons. (Lon- don, William Heineman, 1894.) Great Masters of Landscape Painting. (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1910.) Pennell, E. R. and J. — The Life of James McNeill Whistler. (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott, 1908.) Sensier, Alfred. — La vie et l’ceuvre de J. F. Millet ( Paris, A. Quantin, 1881.) Stanley, George. — Painters of the Dutch and Flemish Schools. (London, Henry G. Bohn, 1855.) Sweeter, M. F. — Life of Washington Allston. (Cambridge, 1879) Taft, Lorado. — History of American Sculpture. (New York, Macmillan, 1903.) Tuckerman, Henry T. — Book of the Artists. (New York, 1867.) Vandyke, John C. — A Text Book of the History of Paint- ing. (New York and London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1894) JBibUograpbg 369 Vasari, Giorgio. — Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects. ENGRAVERS, ETC. Hind, A. M. — A Short History of Engraving and Etching. (Boston, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1908.) Kepple, Frederick. — The Golden Age of Engraving. (New York, Baker & Taylor Co., 1910.) Koehler, Sylvester R. — Etching. (Cassell and Co., Ltd., 1885.) Wedmore, Frederick. — Fine Prints. (New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1897.) CERAMICS, ETC. Barber, Edwin AtLee. — Maj olica of Mexico. ( Phila., Pa., Museum, 1908.) Lead Glazed Pottery. (New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1907 ■) Marks of American Potters. (Philadelphia, 1904.) Salt Glazed Stone Ware. (New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1907.) Tin Enameled Pottery. (New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1907.) Artificial Soft Paste Porcelain. (New York, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1907.) Tulip Ware of the Pennsylvania German Potters. Pottery and Porcelain of the United States. Anglo-American Pottery. American Glassware Old and New. Bushell, Stephen W., and William M. Laffan. — Cata- logue of the Morgan Collection of Chinese Porcelains. (New York, Metropolitan Museum, 1907.) Chaffers, William. — Handbook of Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelains. (London, Reeves & Turner, 1901.) Dillon, Edward. — Glass. (New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907.) Dunlop, M. A. Wallace. — Glass in the Old World. (Lon- don, Field & Tuer.) Earle, Alice Morse. — China Collecting in America. (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1892.) Fowice, Frank Rede. — The Bayeux Tapestry. (London, George Bell & Sons, 1898.) Halsey, R. T. Haines. — Pictures of Early New York on Dark Blue Staffordshire Pottery. (New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1898.) 370 SSibliogcapbs Havard, Henry. — Les Arts de l’Ameublement : La Cera- mique. (Paris, Charles Delagrave.) Hodgson, Mrs. Willoughby. — How to Identify Old Chinese Porcelain. (Chicago, A. C. McClurg & Co., 1907.) How to Identify Old China. (London, George Bell & Sons, 1904.) Hooper, W. H. and W. C. Phillips. — A Manual of Marks on Pottery and Porcelain. (New York, Macmillan, 1900.) Jacquemart, A. — Les Merveilles de la Ceramique. (Paris, Hachette, 1866.) Jourdain, M. — Old Lace : A Handbook for Collectors. (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909.) Litchfield, Frederick. — How to Collect Old Furniture. (London, George Bell & Sons, 1904.) Lockwood, Luke Vincent. — The Pendleton Collection. (Rhode Island School of Design, 1904.) Colonial Furniture in America. (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1901.) Marryat, Joseph. — Pottery and Porcelain. (London, John Murray, 1857.) Monkhouse, Cosmo. — Chinese Porcelain. (New York, Cas- sell & Co., Ltd.) Moore, N. Hudson. — 'The Old China Book. (New York, A. Stokes & Sons, 1903.) Palliser, Mrs. Bury. — History of Lace. (London, Samp- son, Low, Marston & Co., Ltd., 1902.) P’ien, Hsaing Yuan. — Chinese Porcelain. Translated and annotated by Stephen W. Bushell, C. M. G., M. D., Ox- ford. (Clarendon Press, 1908.) Pollen, Mrs. John Hungerford. — Seven Centuries of Lace. (New York, Macmillan, 1908.) Prime, William C. — Pottery and Porcelain. (New York, Harpers, 1878.) Solon, L. M. — The Art of the Old English Potter. (New York, Appleton, 1886.) A Brief History of Old English Porcelain. (London, Bemrose Sons, Ltd., 1903*) Old French Faience. (Cassell & Co., Ltd., i 9 ° 3 -) History and Description of Italian Majolica. (Cassell & Walters, H. B. — History of Ancient Pottery. (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905.) Winston, the late Charles. — Memoirs Illustrative ot the Art of Glass Painting. (London, John Murray, 1865O Van de Put, A. — Hispano-Moresque Ware of the XV Cen- tury. (London, Chapman & Hall, Ltd., 1904-) Unbei Adam brothers, 281. Adams, John, 96, 316, 318. Adams, John Quincey, 321. Agnew, Dr. D. Hayes, 136. Alexander, Cosmo, 73. Alexander, John W., 312. Allen, William, 40, 329, 330, 33i. Allston, Washington, 49, 56, 57, 58, 126, 199, 202. Ancora, Peter, 114. Angelico, Fra (Giovanni da Fiesole), see Fiesole. Anne, Queen, 365. Anshutz, Thomas P., 136, 137- Anthony, Joseph, 43, 96. Appleton, Thomas G., 216. Armstrong, General John, 10, 14. Armstrong, W. G., 108. Arnold, Mrs. Benedict, 360. Audubon, John James, 70. Avery, Samuel P., 83, 127. Bache, Richard, 14. Baird, Matthew, 19. Baker, Sir Henry Lorraine, 95, 96. Baldems, Jan, 290. Baldwin, L., 87. Banks, Sir Joseph, 16. Bannister, Mr. and Mrs., 73. Barber, Edwin AtLee, viii, 224, 226, 227, 228, 233, 242. 250, 251, 252, 257, 263, 286, 288, 291. Barbison School, 173, 175, 299, 302. Barclay, Robert, 345. Barlow, Joel, 191, 192. Barry, James, 56. Bashkirtseff, Marie, 307. Bastien-Lepage, Jules, 307. Bayard, Andw., 6. Bayeux Tapestry, 280. Beach, Ralph Bagnall, 240. Beaux, Cecilia, 138. Beck, Paul, 17, 89, 162. Beckett, Henry, 32 7. Bellows, George, 144. Belmont, 220. Bennett, E. and W., 241. Bennett, James, 240. Bergey, Benjamin, 232. Bernal Collection, 288. Bernardo, 243. Biddle, Charles, 6. Biddle, Nicholas, 10, 11, 121. Biddle, Mrs. William, 348. Biddle, W. S., 6. Big Kansas, 356. Bingham, William, 17, 81, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 219. Bingham, Mrs. William, 80, 85 . Binney, Horace, 6, 57. Birch, Thomas, 15, 238, 239, 364. Birckhead, Pollard E., 117. 372 fn&ei Blanchard, Misses, 169. Blodgett, Mrs. Samuel, 80, 98, 99, 100, 103. Bloomfield-Moore Collection, 224, 263, 265, 266, 267, 269, 270, 280. Bloomfield-Moore, Mrs. 152, 223. Boldini, Jean, 186. Bonaparte, Joseph, Collec- tion, 17, 18, 160, 273, 365. Bonheur, Auguste, 179, 180. Bonheur, Rosa, 179, 180. Bonnin and Morris, 240. Borden, Ann, see Mrs. Fran- cis Hopkinson. Bordley, Elizabeth Beale, 99, 100. Bordley, John Beale, 100. Bosschsert, Nicholas, 151. Bossuet, 84. Both, Jan, 300. Botticelli, 135. Boudin, Eugene, 186. Bowen, Daniel, 324. Bouguereau, Wm. Adolphe, 164, 204. Boydell, 77. Bracquemond, 174. Braddock, General, 363. Bradford and Inskeep, 124, 125. Bradford, Thomas, Jr., 6. Bravest of the Braves, 356. Breck, Samuel, 220. Breckenridge, Hugh H., 205. Breton, Jules, 174, 307. Breughel, Pieter, 152, 310, 3II-. Bronzino, 310. Browere, John H. I., 333. Brown, David Paul, in. Brown, Peter A., 6. Browne, Dr., 319. Brush, George de Forrest, I3S Burd, Charles, 237. Burd, Edward, 6. Burney, Fanny, 45. Burr, Aaron, 318. Byron, Lord, 169. Caesar Borgia, 167. Calame, Alexandre, 166. Calder, A. M., 207. Calder, Alex. Stirling, 203, 206, 207, 208. Caliari, Paolo, 156, 157, 176. Campbell, Ferdinand Stew- art, 101. Campbell, Lady Archibald, 296, 297. Canaletto, Antonio, 365. Canova, 10, 192, 200. Capo di Monte, 287, 288. Caravaggio, 156, 159. Carbo, Mariano Fortuny y, 182. Carey, Edward L., 7, 24, 109. Carey, Henry C., 126. Carlyle, Thomas, 59. Carnarvon, Henry, Earl of, 76. Carr, James, 239. Carracci, Annibale, 153, 154. Carracci, Ludovico, 153. Carroll, Charles, 361. Cazin, Jean Charles, 178. Centennial Exhibition, 27, 28, 87, 219, 220, 239, 263, 267, 293, 318. Ceracchi, Giuseppe, 2, 10, 192, 193 - Ceres, 188. Cerezo, Mateo, 156. Chalmers, Thomas, no. Chandron, Simon, 193. Channing. Dr., 57. Channing, William F. 83. Channing, Mrs., 83. Chapu, Henri, 204. Charles I, 339. Charles II, 261, 262, 339. Charles V, 260. •ffit&et 373 Charlotte, Queen, 345. Chase, William M., 130-131, 132, 30S, 3 i i- Chatham, Earl of, 65. Chauncey, Chs., 6. Cheney, John, 99, 109. Chia-Ch’ing, 264, 270. Ch’ien-lung, 264, 265, 267, 268, 270. Childs, Cephas G., no, 112. Ch’ing Dynasty, 264. Ching T’ai, 271. Ching-te-chen, 266. Chlapowski, Helena Mod- jeska, 165. Chretien, 325. Claghorne Collection, 217. Claghome, James L., 7, 19, 217. Clark, Clarence H., 169. Clark, Charles, 6. Clarke, Edward S., 263. Clarke, Susannah, 354. Clarkson, Mr., 39. Clay, Henry, 1 16. Claypoole, James, v, vi, 60. Cleveland, Duke of, 201. Clevenger, Shobal Vail, 202, 203, 348. Clinton, George, 364. Clinton, DeWitt, 247. Clodion, 14. Clothier, Isaac H., 147. Clymer, Edwin S., 206. Clymer, George, 6, 7, 13, 68. Coates, Charlotte, 77. Coates, Edward H., 7, 21, 22, 147, 169, 171, 206. Coates, John R., 6. Cockburn, Admiral, 96. Colden, Cadwallader, 63. Colomb, Michel, 149. Columbianum, vi, 1, 3. Condy, J. W., 6. Constable, John, 162, 297, 298, 299. Constable, William, 88. Constitution, 191. Converse, John H., 169. Cooke, George Frederick, 17, 106, 107, 124, 125. Cooper, J. Fennimore, 200. Cooper, Thomas Apthorpe, 125. Cope, Caleb, 7, in. Cope, Thomas Pym, in. Copley, John Singleton, 64, 102, 348, 351, 353, 354, 363, 364 - Corot, J. B. C., 166, 173, 175. Correggio, Antonio Alle- gri da, 153, 154. Cottet, Charles, 306. Courbet, Gustave, 177, 178; 303- Couture, Thomas, 144, 146, 166, 176. Coxe, John Redman, 5, 6. Coxe, Tench, 13. Cramond, Henry, 95. Crawford, Wm. Harris, 109. Cresson, William Emlen, 23. Croke, Alexander, 15, 16. Cromwell, Oliver, 60, 333. Cruikshank, George, 75. Cruikshank, Charles, 102. Cunningham, Allan, 55. Curry, Mary, 359. Custis, Eleanor, 100, 358. Dagnan-Bouveret, P. A. J., 168. Dallas, Alexander James, 6, 96. Dana, Charles E., 276. Dampt, Jean, 204. Darwin, Charles, 317. Daubigny, Charles Francois, 166, 178. Daumier, Henri, 173. David, Jacques Louis, 44, 55, 69, 160, 176, 192. Davis, Charles H., 22, 138. Davis, Isaac P., 87, 355 - 374 fltt&ei Davy, Mrs. Elizabeth, 162. De Camp, Joseph, 127, 128,205. Decatur, Stephen, 315. Delacroix, F. V. E., 303, 304. Demidoff, Prince, 201. Denon, Dominique Vivant, 55, 69. Detaille, Edouard, 180, 181. De Vos, Cornelis, 310. De Vos, Simon, 310. Diaz de la Pena, 178. Dickerson, Mahlon, 6. Dillwyn, William, 127. Dixey, John, 193. Dixon, Alexander J. Dallas, 353- Doane, Bishop, 362. Dorsey, John, 6, 9. Dou, Gerard, 151. Drayton, Tom, 213. Drexel, Mrs. Joseph W., 208, 357, 358. Drummond, Archbishop Rob. Hay, 41. Duche, Jacob, 39, 347, 349, 350. Duche, Mrs. Jacob, 347, 350. Duche, Thomas Spence, 347, 349, 350. Dudley, Earl of, 201. Dugan, Jos., 7. Dunlap, William, 74, 317. Dunlop, Mr., 126. Du Ponceau, Peter S., 5. Dupre, Jules, 178. Duran, Carolus, 131, 165. Dutton, W., 87. D’Yrujo, Marchioness, 80. Eakins, Thomas, 21, 135-136, 137, 204. Earl, Clayton, 115. Earl, Cornelia, 116. Earl, Harrison, 116, 121, 166. Earl, Ralph, 78. Earle, Mr. and Mrs. George H., Jr., 189. Eichholtz, Jacob, 120, 121, 361, 262. Elias, Nicholas, 150. Elkins, William L., 121, 169. Elouis, Plenry, 357, 358. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 127. Este, Marquis of, 169. Etting, Reuben and Frances Gratz, 70. Evainetos, 189. Ewer, Sam’l, 6. Falcone, Aniello, 155. Faruffini, Federigo, 167. Feke, Robert, 359. Fenton, Lyman and, 241. Field, John W., 26, 129. Field, Mrs. John W., 26, 103, 129. Fielding, Henry, 127. Fiesole, Giovanni da, 157. Fitch, John, 343. Fleury, Tony Robert, 204. Ford, Mrs. John, 158. Fortuny y Carbo, Mariano, 17 1, 182, 183, 184, 185. Fortuny, Madame, 183. Fothergill, Dr. John, 77, 97, 98. Fouche, Joseph, 55. Fox, Geo., 6. Francia, Giulio, see Raibolini. Franklin, Benjamin, 10, 62, 83, 190, 193, 320, 357, 361. Franklin, Walter, 6 . Franks, Col. Isaac, 95, 186. Fraser, C. W., 6. Frazee, John, 199-200, 334. Frazer, Robt., 6. Frederick, Charles, 238. Fromentin, Eugene, 186, 301. Fulton, Robert, 8, 9, 30, 159, 343, 363. Furness and Hewitt, 19. Furness, Horace Howard, 127, 128. Furness, Wm. Henry, 127. In&ei 375 Gaines, Edmund Pendleton, 363. Gainsborough, Thomas, 75, 76, 77, 90, 299, 360. Galle, Emile, 248. Galt, John, 62. Garesche, T. P., 6. Gardner, Daniel, 360, 361. Garrett, T. Harrison, 217. Garrick, David, 324. Gastaldi, Andre, 169. Gates, Horatio, 318. Gatliff, Samuel, 101. Gatliff, Mrs. Samuel, 100, 101. Gautier, Theophile, 304. George I, 332. George II, 332. George III, 36, 4B 45, 332, 346 . George IV, 122. Gerard, Chevalier, 314, 315, 316. Gerome, J. L., 168, 186. Gibbon, Edward, 169. Gibbs, Col. George, 83. Gibbs, Oliver Wolcott, 97. Gibson, Henry C., 19, 25, 26, 95, 172, 179, 184-187. Gibson, James, 6, 100. Gilmore, Robert, 340. Gilpin, Henry D., 7, 19, 127. Giotto di Bondone, 37. Girard, Stephen, 106, 240. Gladstone, W. E., 128. Glentworth, Plun. F., 6. Godfrey, Thomas, 39. Goodman and Piggott, 108. Gozzoli, Benozzo, 157. Graff, Frederick, 247. Graff, Henrietta, 247. Grafly, Charles, 204-206, 208. Grasbeek, 151. Gratz, Simon, 6. Grant, Capt., 201. Grant, William, of Congal- ton, 75, 76. Gray Collection, 216. Gray, Francis Calley, 216. Grayson, Peter, 119. Greco, El, see Theotocopuli. Greco, Paolo, 155. Greenough, Horatio, 43, 199- 201. Greenleaf, James, 96. Griffin, Elizabeth Corbin, see Mrs. Samuel Gatliff. Griffin, Samuel, 101. Griswold, Rufus Wilmot, 103. Grimes, John, 118. Grosvenor, Lord, 45. Gross, Dr. Samuel David, 136. Haldeman Paris, 165. Hallowell, John, 6. Hals, Franz, 150. Hamilton, Alexander, 2, 193, 318, 364- Hamilton, Andrew, 328, 329. Hamilton, Governor James, 40, 314, 327-329, 344- Hamilton, John McLure, 128. Hamilton, William, of Woodlands, 345, 346. Hammer, William, 272. Harrison, Alexander, 22, 137, 203, 312. Harrison, Charles C., 169. Harrison, Mrs. John, 279, 293 . Harrison, Joseph, 332. Harrison, Mrs. Joseph, 36, 66, 164, 209, 331, 332. Hart, Charles Henry, viii, 22, 83, 86, 87, 88, 91, 95, 100, 107, 1 17, 120, 327, 333, 339, 345, 358, 361. Hassam, Childe, 141. Hastings, Marquis of, 21 1. Heath, Thomas, 88, 348. Heckewelder, John Gottlieb Ernestus, 120. Heine, Heinrich, 300. Helmuth, Henry K., 5. 376 fn&ex Helmuth, John K., 6. Hemphill, Judge Joseph, 235- 237 . Hemphill, Tucker and, 222, 226, 236, 238. Henderson, Eliza, 339. Henner, Jean Jacques, 186. Hennig, Rudolph, 135, 136. Henry, Ann, 343. Henry, William, 38, 40, 342, 343. Herbert, 78. Hermans, Charles, 166. Hesselius, Gustavus, v, vi, 339-342. Hesselius, John, 64, 340. Hesselius, Lydia, 339. Hewitt, Furness and, 19. Hoe Sale, 288. Hogarth, William, 43. Hoguet, Charles, 166. Holbein, Hans, 278. Holloway, Thos., 83. Homer, Winslow, 132-134. Hopfer family, 215. Hopkins, James, 6. Hopkins, Stephen, 361. Hopkinson, Elizabeth, see Mrs. Jacob Duche. Hopkinson, Francis, 39, 62, 323, 324, 347-350, 361. Hopkinson, Mrs. Francis, 347, 349- Hopkinson, Joseph, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 15, 30, 202, 347, 348. Hopkinson, Mrs. Joseph, 347, 348. Hopkinson, Mary, 350. Hopkinson, Mrs. Oliver, 347. Hopkinson, Thomas, 350. Hopkinson, Mrs. Thomas, 39, 343, 345- Hoppner, John, 122, 161, 162. Houdon, Jean Antoine, 11, 12, 69, 189-191, 206, 316, 335, 336. Hulme, Thos., 235, 237. Hulme, Tucker and, 235, 236. Hunt, Wm. Morris, 144-146, 176. Hunt, Wilson, 6. Hunter, Dr. William, 72. Hutchinson, Chas. Hare, 23, 340. Ingersoll, Joseph R., 7, 127. Ingres, J. A. D., 176. Inman, Henry, 27, 109-112, 362. Inskeep, Bradford and, 124, 125. Irvine, Gen’l William, 190. Jackson, Ann Willing, 103. Jackson, Mrs. Rosalie V. Tiers, 64. Jackson, William, 363, 364. Jackson, Mrs. William, 103. Jacquemart, 264 Jacques, Charles, 173. James, Thos. C., 6. Jameson, George, 73. Jarvis, John Wesley, 109, no. Jay, John, 82, 198. Jefferson, Thomas, 69, 96, 190, 318. Jervis, Sir John, 77. Johnson, John G., 295. Johnson, Mary, see Mrs. Thos. Hopkinson. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 324. Jones, John Paul, 190. Jordan, Dr. John Woolf, viii, 343- . Jouet, Daniel de, 118. Jouet, Matthieu de, 118. Jouett, Matthew Harris, 92. Juarez, President, 259. K’ang-hsi, 264-265, 267, 270. Kauffman, Angelica, 161, 350. Keller, Dr. Ferdinand, 223, 276, 278. Kemble, Fanny, 108, 109. Kendall, John Philip, 77. unsex 377 Kerr, Walter, 6. Kimon, 189. King, Charles B., 217. King, Samuel, 57. Kittera, John, 363. Kline, Phillip, 231. Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 152, 340. Koehler, Sylvestre R., 212, 215, 216. Koninck, Philip, 300, 301. Krimmell, John Lewis, 15, 33-35, 194, 364. Kuhl, Henry, 6. Kurlbaum and Schwartz, 239. Laessle, Albert, 203, 208, 209. Lafayette, General, 190, 200, 201, 246, 247, 314, 316, 320, 321, 322, 335, 362. Laing, David, 59, Lambdin, James Read, 127. Lambert, John, 114. Lambinet, Emile, 166. Lamborn, Robert H., 272. Lanseer, Sir Edwin, 124. Lansdowne Estate, 85, 86, 219, 220, 231. Lansdowne, Marquis of, 84, 86, 88, 126. Lansdowne Portrait of Washington, 17, 84-89. La Touche, Gaston, 171. Latrobe, Benj., 9, 334. Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 162, 346, 360. Lawson, Alexander, 35, 117. Le Brun, Charles, 159. Lee, Richard Henry, 316. Leinster, Duke of, 77. Lely, Sir Peter, 338, 339, 359- Leslie, Chas. Robert, 24, 123- 127. Levi, Samson, 6. Leviter, Marie, 310. Levy, Moses, 6. Lewis, Dr. Francis W., 147, 1 66, 223, 263, 269, 271, 272, 2 76, 277. Lewis, John Delaware, 87. Lewis, John Frederick, viii, 7. Lewis, Miss Mary, 223, 271, 276. Lewis, W., 6. Lewis, William, 93. Leys, Baron Hendrik, 186. Liberi, Pietro, 159. Lieb, Michael, see Munkacsy. Lippi, Filippino, 135. Lippincott, Mrs. J. Dundas, no. Lincoln, Abraham, 333. Lincoln, Rebecca, 333. Livingston, Chancellor Rob- ert R., 10, 314, 318. Longacre, J. B., 348. Loti, Carlo, 159. Louis XIV, 315. Louis XV, 161. Louis Philippe, 303. Lough, John Graham, 210, 211. Lowestoft, 283-286. Luzerne, Chevalier de la, 61, 3 r 5- Lyle, Ann Hamilton, 345. Lyman and Fenton, 241. Lyndhurst, Lord, 354. Lyon, Pat, 112-114. MacEwen, Walter, 140. McKean, Jos. B., 6. McLain, John, 108. Macaulay, Thos. B., no. Maccari, Cesare, 186. Macchiavelli, 167. Maclise, Daniel, 162. Madison, Dolly, 90, 104, 318. Madison, James, 90. Madrazo, 183. Malbone, Edward Greene, 57. Manchester, Duke of, 77. Manet, Edouard, 176, 305. Marsh, George P., 216. 378 fn&ei Marshall, John, 362. Mary, Queen, 332. Masaniello, 155. Mason, George C., 42. Mauritz, Johann, 289. Maximilian, 260. Mead, Dr., 239. Meadows, J. Kenny, 162. Mease, Dr. James, 240. Meeher, Samuel, 6. Meissonnier, J. L. E., 180. Melchers, Gari, 139, 140. Menefee, Jouett, 118. Menefee, Mrs. Sarah B., 119. Meredith, William, 6. Metcalf, Willard L., 140. Michel, Georges, 185. Michetti, Francesco Paola, 186. Mifflin, Miss Elizabeth, 100. Mifflin, Emily, see Mrs. Joseph Hopkinson. Mifflin, Mrs. James, 351. Mifflin, Gov. Thomas, 348, 351, 352. Mifflin, Mrs. Thomas, 352, 353- Mifflin, William, 351. Miller, Susan Earl, 121. Millet, Jean Francois, 144, 146, 173-175, 302. Milnor, James, 6. Ming Dynasty, 264, 265, 270, 271. Mintzenburg, Johan, 290. Modjeska, Helena, see Ma- dame Chlapowski. Monet, Claude, 147. Monroe, James, 315, 318, 320, 322. Moore, Bloomfield H., 224. Moore, Clarence B., 241. Moran, Benj., 322. Morgan, Benj. R., 6. Morgan, Dr. John, 347, 350, 35i. Morgan, Pierpont, 360. Morland, George, 162. Morris, Bonnin and, 240. Morris, Harrison S., 22. Morris, Henry G., 19. Morris, John T., 169, 226, 239, 248. Morris, Robert, 67, 93, 103, no, 316, 323, 342 . Morris, Sarah, see Mrs. Thos. Mifflin. Morse, S. F. B., 57. Munkacsy, Mihaly, 185, 307, 308. Munthe, Ludvig, 166. Murillo, 18, 344. Napoleon I, 2, 10-12, 14, 16, 149, 160, 191, 193. Nase, John, 231. Neagle, Garrett C., 114. Neagle, John, 27, 70, 92, 112- n 7, 354-357- Neesz, Johann, 231. Neuville, Alphonse de, 180, 181. Newton, Dr. John, 40. Nice, John, 362. Nicholas, Emperor of Rus- sia, 332. Niell, Lewis, 5. Nixon, John, 93, 94, 314. Northumberland, Duke of, 77- Norton, William, 243. O’Fallon, Major, 357. Offermans, Tony, 166. Ogden, Robert C., 147. Oldden, James, Jun., 5. Opie, John, 56, 162. Orleans, Due d’, 303. Otis, Bass, 32, 33, 1 14, 1 16, 1 17, 187. Ovid, 210. Owen, Mr., 283. In&ei 379 Pacain, Wm., 361. Pacheo, Francisco, 311. Packard, John H., 23. Palma, Jacopo (II Vecchio), 158. Palmer, J. W., 318-320. Pannini, Giovanni Paolo, 158-159- Parke, Dr. Thomas, 11 6. Patterson, Daniel F., 188. Patterson, Maj. Robert, 337. Patterson, R., 67. Paxton, Wm, M., 206. Peale, Anna and Margaretta, 70. Peale, Charles Willson, 1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 27, 42, 64-67, 70, 78, 313, 314, 3i6, 340, 347, 349, 357- Peale, James, 70, 316, 363. Peale’s Museum, 2, 65, 66, 313, 364. Peale, Raphaelle, 3, 68. Peale, Rembrandt, 3, 6, 68, 69, 70, 103, 129, 314, 340, 362. Pelham, Peter, 353. Penington, Edw., 6. Penn, Admiral, 338. Penn, Granville, 338, 339. Penn, John, 85, 219, 331. Penn, William, 60, 331, 333, 338. Pepper, George S., 7, 21. Perrier (master of Ch. Le Brun), 160. Perry, Marsden J., 83. Perugino, Pietro (Vanucci), 135, 158. Peters, Dr. Richard, 349. Peters, Richard, 70, 220. Peters, Richard, Jr., 6, 26, 70, 103, 129. Peters, Mrs. Richard, Jr., 103, 129. Petrich, 18. Petticolas, 114. Phidias, 210. Phillips, John S., 26, 212-216. Phillips, Zalegman, 6. Physick, Philip Syng, 117. Piggott, Goodman and, 108. Pine, R. E., vi, 3, 57, 314, 315, 322-325, 347, 348, 361. Pinhey, John, 139. Pitt, William, 161. Plumstead, Clement, 359, 360. Plumstead, Mrs. Clement, 359- Plumstead, George, 102. Plumstead, Mrs. George, 101, 102. Plumstead, William, 102. Poussin, Nicholas, 160. Powell, Elizabeth, 161. Powers, Hiram, 201, 202. Poyntell, Wm., 6, 9. Pratt, Hannah, 61. Pratt, Henry, 6, 60. Pratt, Henry, of Lemon Hill, 63, no, in. Pratt Mansion, in. Pratt, Matthew, vi, 42, 59-61, 63, 64, 78, 102, in, 327-329. Preble, Commodore Edward, 13- Preston, Wm., 77. Price, Joseph L., 206. Pyne, James Baker, 163. Raeburn, Sir Henry, 76. Raffaelli, Jean Frangois, 305, 306. Rahmeckers, Derk, 261. Raibolini, Francesco (Fran- cia), 157, 158. Ramsay, Allen, 314, 332, 333. Raphael, Sanzio di Urbino, 17, 154, 158. Rawle, Wm., 6. Rayneval, Conrad Alexandre Gerard de, see Chevalier Gerard. Read, George, 361. 380 fln&er Redfield, Edward W., 141- 143, 206. Reed, John, Jr., 6. Reed, Jos., 5. Regnault, Alexandre Georges Henri, 183. Reid, Alexander, 296. Reid, Joseph, 39. Reinold, Henry, 95. Rembrandt van Rijn, 150, 301. Reni, Guido, 153. Renniers, Antoine, 310. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 41, 43- 45, 56, 75, 192, 360. Ribalta, Francisco, 156. Ribera, Josef, 155, 156, 309. Richards, William T., 22, 137 . Rigaud-y-Ros, H. F. H. M. P. A. J., 84. Ritchie, Craig D., 247. Ritchie, Henrietta, 247. Ritchie, John and Craig, 248. Roberts, Charles, 354. Robinson, Theodore, 146, 147. Robusti, Jacopo, 309, 310. Rodin, Auguste, 209. Rogers, Fairman, 19, 21, 188. Romney, George, 76, 90, 100. Ronner, Henrietta, 166. Rosa, Salvator, 154, 155, 159. Roseberry, Earl of, 84, 86, 87. Rosengarten, J. G., 147. Ross, Denman, 252. Ross, James, 106, 108. Ross, John, 102. Rothermel, Peter F., 186, 187. Rousseau, Theodore, 166, 178, 185. Roybet, F. V. L., 180. Rubens, P. P., 152, 309. Ruisdael, Jacob, 301. Rush, Benjamin, 197, 316, 318, 361. Rush, John, 333. Rush, Joseph, 333. Rush, Richard, 6. Rush, William, v, vi, 1, 6, 9, 34, 193-197, 200, 314, 333- 336. Saint Memin, Chas. B. J. F. de, 315, 325, 326. Sargent, John Singer, 129, I 3 1 -. Sartain, John, 19, 36. Savage, Edward, 324, 361. Seabury, Bishop Samuel, 350. Seawell, Wm. Joyce, 207. Schalken, Godfried, 151, 152. Schenck, August F. A., 179. Schidone, Bartolommeo, 154. Schofield, W. Elmer, 141, 143, 205. Scholl, Jacob, 231. Schussele, Christian, 21, 166. Schwartz, Kurlbaum and, 239. Schwartzman, H. J., 220. Shakespeare, William, 45, 72, 123. Sharitarische, 356. Sharp, William, 215, 350. Sharpies, James, 313, 315, 317-320, 364. Shee, Sir Martin Archer, 76. Sheetz, Helena Ross, 102, 359. Shelburne, Earl of, 84. Shewell, Elizabeth, 41, 60-63. Shinn, Earl, ix. Shippen, Chief Justice Ed- ward, 93, 360. Shippen, Edward, 360. Shippen, Peggy, see Mrs. Benedict Arnold. Shoemaker, Samuel, 6. Shultz, Andrew John, 362. Sieling, J. H., 245. Simon, Lucien, 171, 306, 307. Smith, Charles, 6. Smith, Horace Wemyss, 344- Smith, Joseph Allen, 13, 15, I53-I55- fnbei 381 Smith, Nathan, 194. Smith, Sidney, 46. Smith, William, 6, 38740, 79, 80, 93, 98, 343, 344* Smith, William Moore, 79. Smybert, John, 57, 340, 341. Snyders, Frans, 152. Solon, M. L., 286, 287. Spaight, Richard Dobbs, 315, 325, 326. Spinola, Marquis Ambrogio di, 289. Spofford, Ernest, viii. Stanfield, Wm. Clarkson, 163. Staniforth, Rev. T., 288. Starr, Dr. Isaac, 206. St. Clair, Sir John, 363. Steen, Jan, 301. Steuben, Frederic William Augustus, 316. Stevens, Alfred, 181, 182, 186, 305, 306. Stevenson, Mrs. Cornelius, 259, 275. Stewardson, Edmund A., 203. Stewart, A. T., 202. Stewart, Gilbert, 72. Stiegel, Wm. Henry, 244, 245- Stimmer, Tobias, 278. Stotesbury, Edward T., 169. Struys, Alexander, 167. Stuart, Gabriel (Gilbert), 88. Stuart, Gilbert, viii, 27, 42, 43, 57, 71-90, 105, 106, 1 15, 118-121, 129, 186, 238, 314, 315, 320, 3L47, 348, 353-355, 3 6 3 . Life of, 71-81. Portraits of Men, 93-98. Portraits of Women, 98- 104. Portraits of Washington, Si- 89; Athenaeum type, 89- 347, 357 ; Lansdowne type, 84-89; Vaughan type, 82, 238. Sully, Lawrence, 105. Sully, Thomas, 17, 27, 105- 109, 1 12, 1 1 5, 120, 127, 186, 187, 314, 315, 320-322, 362. Sweetbriar, 220. Swift, Charles, 6. Sylvestre, 303. Taft, Lorado, 196. Tait, Caroline Gibson, 187. Talleyrand, 55. Tanner, Henry Ossawa, 140. Tarbell, Edmund C., 141. Tatem, James, 6. Temple, Joseph E;, 25, 28, 130, 1 66, 167, 221. Teniers, David, 301. Thackeray, Wm. M., 45. Theotocopuli, Domenico (El Greco), 311. Thompson, Miss Cornelia, 263. Thompson, Samuel Gustine, 295 . Thomson, Charles, 314. Thoreau, Henry, 178. Thorwaldsen, 199, 200. Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista, 3 11 - Tilghman, William, 6. Tilmore, Joseph, 116. Tintoretto, II, see Jacopo Ro- busti. Tissot, James Jacques, 186. Titian (Vecelli, Tiziano), 58. Tod, William H., 6. Toft, Thomas, 261, 262. Tosti, Cardinal Antonio, 216. Tosti Collection, 216. Trask, John E. D., viii. Trouillebert, Paul Desire, 166. Trumbull, John, 42, 69, 78, 193, 363, 364- Troyon, Constant, 179, 180. Ts’ang Yinghsuang, 265. Tucker and Hemphill, 222, 226, 236, 238. 382 IFn&ei Tucker and Hulme, 235, 236, 237 . Tucker, Benjamin, 234. Tucker, Thomas, 236. Tucker, William Ellis, 233, 234, 235. Tuckerman, Henry T., 202. Turner, J. M. W., 43. Twachtman, John H., 141. Tyler, Lyon G., 242. Van Asch, Pieter Janszoon, 151- Van Balen, Hendrik, 152. Van der Faes, see Sir Peter Lely. Van der Heist, Bartholo- meus, 149, 150, 309. Van der Meulen, Antoine Francois, 151. Van der Neer, Aert, 300. Van der Poel, Egbert, 151. Van der Vliet, Jan Joris, 151. Van Dyck, Anton, 56, 73, 153, 309. Van Goyen, Jan, 151, 300. Van Lint, Pieter, 151. Van Marcke, Emile, 179. Van Ostade, Adrien, 151. Van Poelenburgh, Cornelis, 151- Van Schendel, Petrus, 166. Van Tol, Dominicus, 151. Vanuxen, James, 194. Vanuxen, Miss, 34, 194. Vasari, Giorgio, 158. Vaughan, John, 338, 362. Vaughan Portrait of Wash- ington, 82, 238. Vaughan, Samuel, 83. Vaux, Richard, 128, 129. Vaux, William S., 272. Velasquez, Diego Rodriguez da Silva y, 301, 31 1. Vergennes, Count de, 315. Ver Meer of Delft, Johannes, 150. Vernet, Claude Joseph, 17, 160, 161. Veronese, Bonifazio, 158. Veronese, Paolo, see Paolo Caliari. Verplanck, G. C., 198. Victoria, Queen, 109, 21 1. Wager, Peter, 6. Wager, Philip, 6. Wallace, John B., 5. Wain, Jacob S., 6. Walpole, Horace, 73. Wan-li, 270, 271. Wanton, Lady, 359. Ward, William, 76. Warden, W. S., 127. Warren, William, 125. Warren, E. Burgess, 169. Washington, Bushrod, 9. Washington, George, v, vi, 2, 65, 68-70, 78-85, 87, 88, 95, 100, 104, 123, 186, 190, 192, 194, 200, 231, 238, 314, 315, 317, 318, 322, 323, 326, 335, 347,. 357, 358, 363. Washington, Portraits of: Athenaeum, 82, 89 ; Lans- downe, 17, 81, 84, 86-88; Vaughan, 82, 83. Washington, Martha, 80, 316, 363. Watson, John, 340, 341. Watts, D., 6. Waugh, Sam’l. B., 127. Wayne, Anthony, 316, 318, 357, 358. Webster, Noah, 318. Weir, J. Alden, 147. Wells, John, 197. Welsh, John, 328. Welsh, Herbert, 321. Wertmuller, Adolph Ulric, 15, 339- Wesley, John, no. West, Benjamin, 7-9, 13, 17, 18, 36-56, 59-64, 68, 73-75, IFnfcex 383 77, 79, 106, 1 15, 122, 126, 314, 321, 327, 329, 331, 332, 342-347, 350, 352, 354, 363, 364. West, John, 63. West, Thomas, 331. Wharton, Francis Rawle, 89, 347 , 357 - Wharton, Joseph, 42, 43. Whelen, Henry, 7. Whipple, Henry C., 213, 216. Whistler, James A. McNeill, 295-297. White, Bishop William, 62, 93, 262. Whitman, Walt, 178. Wilcocks, Benj. Chew, 105. Widener, Geo. D., 169. Wiedman, Thomas, 5. Wilkes, John, vi, 324. Wilkie, Sir David, 43. Wilkinson, T. B., 329, 356. William III, 152, 332. Williams, Jonathan, 106. Williams, Samuel, 86, 87. Williams, Timothy, 87. Williams, William, 38. Williamson, G. C., 360. Willing, Abigail, see Mrs. Richard Peters, Jr. Willing, Anne, see Mrs. William Bingham. Willing, Elizabeth, see Mrs. William Jackson. Willing, Thomas, 85, 103. Wilson, Richard, 162. Wilstach, W. P., 294. Wilstach, Mrs. W. P., 294, 303. Winder, Levin Yeardley, 318. Winner, Wm. E., 70, 364. Winter, John, 342. Wistar, Mrs. Esther F., 352. Wistar, Dr. Mifflin, 352. Wister, Mrs. Owen, 280. Wister, William Rotch, 79. Woollett, William, 215. Wordsworth, William, no. Wouverman, Philip, 151. Wright, Joseph, 42, 122, 123. Wright, Patience Lovell, 122. Wycoff, Mr., 14. Yeardley, Sir George, 319. Yorke, Mrs. Edward, 260. Young, Charles Morris, 143. Yung-cheng, 264, 267. Zantzinger, Thos. Ballou, 6. Ziem, Felix, 166. Zucchi, Antonio, 161. GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 3 3125 00649 2819