Dealing Art on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 1860-1940 [1 ed.] 9789004342989, 9789004336971

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Dealing Art on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 1860–1940

Studies in the History of Collecting & Art Markets Editor in Chief Christian Huemer (Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles) Editorial Board Malcolm Baker (University of California, Riverside) Ursula Frohne (Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster) Daniela Gallo (Université de Lorraine, Nancy) Hans van Miegroet (Duke University, Durham) Inge Reist (The Frick Collection, New York) Adriana Turpin (Institut d’Etudes Supérieures des Arts, London) Filip Vermeylen (Erasmus University, Rotterdam)

Volume 2

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hcam

Dealing Art on Both Sides of the Atlantic, 1860–1940 Edited by

Lynn Catterson

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: A popular art and antique auction. Reproduction of a wood engraving after Dalziel after R. Doyle. Bird’s-eye views of modern society, no. VII. London (15 Waterloo Place): Smith, Elder & Co. Wellcome Library no. 12150i. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Catterson, Lynn, editor. Title: Dealing art on both sides of the Atlantic, 1860–1940 / edited by Lynn  Catterson. Description: Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: Studies in the history of  collecting & art markets ; Volume 2 | Includes bibliographical references  and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017015580 (print) | LCCN 2017016194 (ebook) | ISBN  9789004342989 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004336971 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Art—Economic aspects—Europe—History—19th century. |  Art—Economic aspects—United States—History—19th century. |  Art—Economic aspects—Europe—History—20th century. | Art—Economic  aspects—United States—History—20th century. Classification: LCC N8600 (ebook) | LCC N8600 .D43 2017 (print) | DDC  706—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017015580

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2352-0485 isbn 978-90-04-33697-1 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-34298-9 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents 1 Introduction 1 Lynn Catterson

The Artist as Dealer 2 The Many Hats of Mary Cassatt: Artist, Advisor, Broker, Tastemaker 39 Laura D. Corey 3 The Misses Williams in Salem and Rome 59 Jacqueline Marie Musacchio

Dealers Shaping and Influencing Taste 4 “A Public-Spirited Merchant” Samuel P. Avery, Art Dealer, Advisor, Philanthropist 93 Leanne Zalewski 5 Dealing with Cubism: Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler’s Perilous Internationalism 115 Fae Brauer

Supply Created by Dealer 6 Charles Mather Ffoulke and the Market for Tapestries in Late Nineteenth-Century America 161 Denise M. Budd 7 The Art Dealer and the Devil: Remarks on the Relationship of Elia Volpi and Wilhelm von Bode 181 Patrizia Cappellini

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Demand Created by Dealers 8

An Imaginary Italy on the Shores of Florida: Paul Chalfin, Vizcaya and the International Market for Italian Decorative Arts in 1910s 205 Flaminia Gennari-Santori

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Selling French Modern Art on the American Market: César de Hauke as Agent of Jacques Seligmann & Co., 1925–1940 227 Sébastien Chauffour

The Role of Photographs in the Selling of Art 10

Stefano Bardini and C.F. Walker, His London Agent 249 Annalea Tunesi

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Surrogates and Intermediaries: The Informational Role of Photographs in the Art Market 269 Alexandra Provo

The Bureaucratic Network 12

A Lesson in Loopholes: Stefano Bardini, and the Export of the Botticelli Frescoes from Villa Lemmi 291 Joanna Smalcerz List of Illustrations 311 List of Contributors 314 Index 320

CHAPTER 1

Introduction Lynn Catterson In 1896, writing to the Boston collector Quincy Adams Shaw (1825–1908), the Florentine dealer Stefano Bardini (1836–1922) remarked about a marble bas-relief of a Virgin and Child with Angel and Saint John, dated and signed “Bartolommeo Bellano,” that he was hoping to sell to Shaw. Bardini explained that he could not sell it to a foreign museum … because our Government has forbidden me to export it outside of Italy. And this is impossible because museums exhibit the objects in public and it wouldn’t be long before it would be known here. On the other hand, if I sell it to an amateur, this is different. The amateur can keep it in his home without exhibiting it to the public and if finally he has the desire to publish it, it could be very well that the time for the statutory limitation has passed. Please note that this bas-relief is historic and it was taken from a street of Venice. It is the only work by Bellano that we know that is signed Bartolomeus Belani 1401. It has been already published in

* I owe an immense debt to Stefano Casciu, Direttore del Polo Regionale dei Musei della Toscana, Cristina Gnoni Mavarelli and Stefano Tasselli for their kindness and generosity with regard to the material in the Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini in Florence. I am also grateful to the Columbia University Libraries, the Frick Art Reference Library, the Morgan Library, the New York Historical Society, and the Berlin Museum and Zentralarchiv for their incredible assistance in so many areas. Likewise, this research would not have been possible without support from the Frick Center for the History of Collecting, the American Philosophical Society, CASVA, and the International Scholarship Programme at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz, and the Samuel H. Kress and Leon Levy Foundations. Along the way of this project, I’ve found truly collaborative colleagues and many new friends, among them the contributors to this volume. I must thank in particular Denise Budd, Paul Tucker and Kerri Pfister for their help and thoughts throughout. Figure 1.1 Plate depicting medals and plaquettes from Stefano Bardini’s auction (Christie’s, London, May 27th, 1902), annotated with names of buyers; inserted post-sale into photo album. Reproduced with the kind permission of the Archivio Fotografico Bardini (AFEB) della Soprintendente Polo Museale Toscano, Florence. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004342989_002

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Italy and it is precisely after this publication that the government has prohibited me from selling it abroad.1 On the surface, this appears to be a case of the dealer attempting to circumvent Italy’s cultural patrimony protection laws.2 More likely though it was an incisive tactic on Bardini’s part to enhance Shaw’s perception of the level of quality and authenticity of the object in question. 1  Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini, Firenze, hereafter referred to as Florence, ASEB. Copialettere, 20 February 1896: “Florence le 20 février 1896 / Monsieur Quincy A. Shaw / Boston / Je viens de recevoir votre amiable lettre du 6 courant et vous remercie pour l’intérêt bienveillant que vous avez pour moi et ma famille. Les plis de ladite lettre j’ai levé votre cheque de Lit 667.25 pour soldi des frais faits pour votre compte. Le bas-relief marbre par Bellano est toujours chez moi; mais je ne puis pas le vendre à un Musée étranger à cause que notre Gouvernement m’a défendu de l’exporter hors d’Italie. Et cela m’est impossible parce que les Musées exposant les objets en public il ne se passerait longtemps que la chose se saurai chez nous. Par contre si je le vends à un amateur c’est différent. L’amateur peut le garder chez lui sans l’exhiber au public – et si enfin il se décide à le publier il se peut très bien que le temps pour la prescription soit passé.je vous prie de vouloir bien remarquer que ce bas-relief est historique et qu’il fut jadis levé d’une des rues de Venise. C’est l’unique œuvre de Belano que l’on connaisse signée opus Bartolomeus Belani 1401. Il a été déjà publié en Italie et c’est justement après cette publication que le gouvernement m’a apposé le veto de vente à l’étranger. Vous vous souviendrez que le prix demande est de 30,000; le même prix fait à Bode et d’autres. Un autre objet historique cité par Vasari – c’est le vitrail de fenêtre que vous avez vu dans ma salle au tableau – et du quel je vous envoie la photographie. Encore un objet qu’on me défend de vendre hors d’Italie. Je voudrais bien le vendre à un amateur si vous en auriez le placement chez vous – c’est un objet qui serait bien in place dans votre collection in distinguée. Son prix est aussi de 30,000.Mr. Bode va mieux et vient d’avoir un enfant. Sous l’attende de votre nouvelle lettre, je vous prie de vouloir bien présenter mes respects a Madame Shaw et d’agréer mes salutations bien sincères. / Très Dévoué / S. Bardini.” Very often, the American and the Italian write to each other in French.  For the relief, see http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/virgin-and-child-with-angeland-saint-john-58903. With respect to the collection in Boston, see Marietta Cambareri. “Italian Renaissance sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: the early years.” in C.R. Marshall, ed., Sculpture and the Museum. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011, 95–114.  In 1889, Wilhelm von Bode published the terracotta version he had just acquired for Berlin, noting that the marble version now in Boston was at the time in a private collection, for which see, W. Bode, “Amlichte Berichte …,”Jahrbuch der Preußischen Kunstsammlungen, Band 10, Berlin, 1889, Zeitschriftenband, LII. Print.  http://www.digizeitschriften.de/dms/resolveppn/?PID=PPN523141572_0010|LOG_0022.  See also Volker Krahn, Bartolomeo Bellano: Studien zur Paduaner Plastik des Quattrocento. Berlin, Techn. Univ., Diss., 1986, 209ff. 2  For an analysis of the various debates played out in the press and in the academic circles, see Federica Papi.

Introduction

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The importance of art dealers in the formation of collections cannot be underestimated, yet this topic is infrequently addressed in the many studies on collectors and the content of their collections. The essays in this volume, for the most part, derive from a double session at College Art Association’s conference held in New York City in February 2015, co-chaired by Charlotte Vignon, curator of Decorative Arts at the Frick Collection and myself. Our mutual interest in the topic stems from Charlotte’s archival work on the Duveen Brothers and my own archival work on the family and business of Stefano Bardini. The CAA sessions sought to explore the methods and means of transaction of fine and decorative art in the art market on both sides of the Atlantic from about 1860 to 1940 from the perspective of the supplier. With the hope of bringing the marketplace dynamic into sharper focus, we asked for papers which also examined the many other functionaries who participate in the art market network, among them, agents, scouts, intermediaries, restorers, fakers, decorators, advisers and experts. All of the papers were rooted in case studies which gave voice to the various aspects of supply−from branding to marketing, from inventory to display, from restoration to pastiche to fabrication. Each is incredibly rich in their marshalling of primary sources and archival materials; in sum, they present an impressive array of new research. Broadly speaking, the essays are testament to the fact that a very complex social network underpins the art market, which in turn suggests that the often used monographic approach for the study of collectors and their collections would be of limited use when examining the supply side of things. So, in addition to introducing the essays in this volume, I am taking the opportunity to make some observations regarding the social network of the art market. Drawing upon my own archival research on Stefano Bardini that I began in 2010, I would like to preliminarily examine some aspects of the structure of his network, and, in particular, illustrate the incredible complexity of it as seen through specific archival material.3 To begin with, it must be noted that the roles and functions assumed by individuals were simultaneously multiple, over time, from one transaction to the 3  Just as important, though admittedly difficult to work with, are the numerous lacunae – archival material not present, not extant, whether by accident or design. The networks within which Bardini functioned were epic in their complexity and as such, it is naïve to approach the phenomenon of Bardini the dealer as a single individual, or in the context of a biography. Despite the fact that the archive and its contents have occupied my full attention since 2010, I can say that, without a marshalling of digital technologies and the inauguration of a robust collaborative research project with pan-institutional participation, it remains seriously premature to capitulate a definitive account of the man and his business. In the interim, some very lively and curious case studies are imminently forthcoming.

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next, and at times, within one transaction. The morphology of the supply side of the art market was dynamic and quick to adapt strategies and roles in the face of the burgeoning market. Thus, many artists, including successful ones, also worked as agents and outright dealers. Likewise, dealers proffered expertise and in doing so, they effected taste and market trends. On the other hand, the so-called impartial experts often found it more lucrative to establish a private fiduciary relationship with a dealer in addition to those with collectors – Berenson and Duveen were not the first nor were they the only example of this kind of business partnership. Museum agents would function as experts, and to use Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929) as but one example, they would also advise collectors, deal art on the side, and quite often establish a beneficial financial relationship with dealers. From 1860, Europe was the stage for ever increasing pan-continental institutional competition to build world class collections. By 1870, the Americans would begin to enter the fray, bringing with them vast sums of money and, for the most part, uneducated eyes as far as the art was concerned. Just prior to the turn of the century, and moving forward into the next, ever improving methods of transportation – Transatlantic as well as proliferating European railways – combined with technological advancements in the telegraph and photography had an immediate effect on the rate at which the art market grew. Already by the mid-century, the increasing commodification of art and decorative arts necessitated a discernable shift in the organization and categorization of the objects themselves as they were readied for sale.4 Classification gradually changed from the more general, the more random, to the more specific and consequently hierarchical. This can be observed in the public sales at auction as well as in the type of display enacted in the salesrooms of individual dealers like Bardini. With respect to the auction houses and galleries, the trend may be gleaned from a survey of auction catalogs over the course of the century wherein collections and dealers of bric-a-brac and curiosities evolve into collections and dealers of objects of fine and decorative arts.5 Thus, from around 1860, that is, at the beginning of Bardini’s career, a more complex taxonomy evolves which parses inventory on the basis of value and more finely articulated categories which were reflected in the settings and systems of display. The 4  For a study of the art market in London during the first half of the Nineteenth Century, see Mark Westgarth. 5  The Lugt’s Répertoire Online, together with the Arts Sales Catalogues Online (ASCO), published by Brill (http://lugt.idcpublishers.info/) and available onsite at the Frick Art Reference Library is an indispensable research tool for art market studies, and I thank Suz Massen, Chief of Public Services (FARL) for calling it to my attention.

Introduction

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burgeoning use of photographs taken of rooms and assemblages allowed for the inclusion of many objects in in a single photograph which was cost effective. As these illustrations took on an increased presence in auction catalogues and art historical publications, the representation of this new taxonomy was transported via printed matter to the market at large, its collectors, its institutions and their displays. And for them, these illustrations provided a relatively cheap alternative to shopping in Europe, most especially for the Americans. In the case of Bardini, the period room, or so-called house museum, with its evocations of specific past times, also had a strong and lasting marketing effect because the rooms functioned mnemonically. Clients writing to Bardini inquiring about the availability of an object would describe the object by situating it physically within the showrooms as they had seen it, in some cases, many years before. Bardini was not alone in deploying this kind of display, and it is fair to say it must have been mainstream by the turn of the century. Writing to the Roman dealer, Attilio Simonetti (1843–1925), in March 1906, the American architect, decorator, and longtime client of Bardini, Stanford White (1853–1906), commented that he had received from him the wrong painting. White went on to describe the desired painting and within the body of the letter text, he included a small sketched ground plan of a room in Simonetti’s gallery in the Via Vittoria, and marked the location of where he had seen the painting with an “X.”6 In another example of the enduring memories produced by effective installation, the American sculptor and dealer George Grey Barnard (1863– 1938) wrote from Switzerland to Bardini’s son Ugo in 1928, remarking, “[…] I realize it is imperative one sees a work of art before purchasing, yet I did see your father’s collection of art objects, and remember them quite well.”7 Bardini’s systems of display had the effect of enhancing the aura of authenticity, and this was keenly evident in Humphrey Ward’s 1893 description of Bardini’s palace and its installation, which “… gives of course an air of splendor and reality to Signor Bardini’s installation, and tends to impress the casual visitor with the sense that he is there not to buy, but to admire.”8 Earlier in his article, after lamenting recent cultural patrimony protection laws, the rise in the 6  Columbia University, Avery Library, Stanford White Letterpress Book, vol. 34, 280, 2 March 1906. 7  Florence, ASEB, Corrispondenza, 1928: 15 August, 1928, Letter from Barnard in Beotenberg, Switzerland, to Ugo Bardini in Florence. In another (undated) letter of the same year, Barnard takes the opportunity to inform Ugo that he has “[…] created the Gothic museum in America, now the new part of the Metropolitan museum”, which, known today as The Cloisters, is itself an uber-manifestation of the period room as the period museum. 8  Humphrey Ward, 10–15, esp. 12.

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number of skilled forgers and the scarcity of good old objects in the hands of dealers, Ward introduces Bardini as “one of these great dealers – the greatest of all – whom the readers of the Art Journal may care to visit in the writer’s company. This is Signor Stefano Bardini, whose palace – the word is strictly appropriate – is truly one of the sights of Florence, though naturally enough it is not much visited except by students and serious buyers of old works of art.”9 Ward’s motivation for publishing an article on Bardini’s collection is thinly veiled, for in reality, he probably would have received a small percentage of any sales (or some other benefit in kind) that directly resulted from his recommendation. A similar tactic was used by Wilhelm von Bode when he printed and distributed a small postcard in the autumn of 1906. Bardini had recently acquired the Torre del Gallo and Villa la Gallina in the southern hills of Florence as a property in which to expand his gallery showrooms. The photograph on the front of the postcard scenically captures the Torre del Gallo and Villa la Gallina. In print on the verso, Bode lauded Bardini’s recuperation of the ancient property and extolled what would become in effect a new Florentine monument wholly inspired by classic Florentine art.10 Dealers like Bardini pandered to clients and associates who would publish their works, knowing full well that these illustrated printed expertises held a strong sway on museums and collectors during the course of deciding whether or not to purchase an object. Bardini’s lifelong association with Wilhelm von Bode resulted in a large, and generally considered to be authoritative, body of scholarship regarding Italian Renaissance sculpture; it was, and con9  Humphrey Ward, 11. 10  Florence, ASEB, Small printed postcard; recto: photograph of Torre del Gallo; verso: printed text as follows: “Cartolina Postale Italiana (Carte Postale d’Italie) Vossische Zeitung. Berlino 25 Ottobre 1906. Musei sopra Musei a Firenze…… Per Firenze invece e per i suoi visitatori si prepara nel corso del prossimo anno una ben più gradita sorpresa, quando sarà terminata, la villa Torre del Gallo del conosciuto negoziante d’arte Stefano Bardini. Il Palazzo Bardini in Piazza Mozzi di faccia al Palazzo Torrigiani era già rinomato come un ‘piccolo Bargello;’ la sua villa a Marignolle era conosciuta per il suo autentico addobbo e per i suoi numerosi bei mobili antichi, ambedue sorpassa molto la nuova villa. Si, noi non esitiamo a dichiararla la più bella villa moderna in stile antico costruita con vecchio materiale che abbiamo mai veduta. Poco è rimasto dell’antica villa; la moderna è tre volte più grande e addirittura nuova nella pianta e nella disposizione. I fiorentini hanno già criticato su questo, giacche non amano il Bardini, ma ammutoliranno quando potranno vedere la disposizione straordinariamente pittoresca, l’esemplare ispirazione all’Arte classica fiorentina, l’impiego del più splendido materiale che sia mai venuto in commercio, antiche colonne, capitelli, porte, finestre, soffitti ecc. e tutto il mirabile arredo. E per di più la magnifica veduta su Firenze ed i dintorni. La Torre del Gallo diventerà una delle principali attrattive di Firenze. Bode.”

Introduction

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Figure 1.2 Stefano Bardini at Torre del Gallo, 1911. Florence, Archivio Fotografico Eredità Bardini Reproduced with the kind permission of the Archivio Fotografico Eredità Bardini (AFEB) della Soprintendente Polo Museale Toscano, Florence.

tinues to be, thoroughly contaminated with Bardini objects of questionable authenticity.11 11  There is ample evidence of copious amounts of fabrication – particularly for sculpture – which is testified to in several ways. Certain objects existed in multiples and all too often, all of the multiples were originally put into circulation by Bardini. In addition, payroll books (Florence, ASEB) record scores of nominally paid men and women who worked for Bardini, performing unspecified labor, in addition to the household staff and in addition to the scores of laborers who worked the property and grounds, and the builders and stonemasons who restructured his various real estate holdings. For the issue of mul-

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Running chronologically parallel with the increasing commodification of fine art and decorative art, the Universal Expositions – beginning in London (1851, 1862) and later, most successfully in Paris (1867, 1878, 1889, 1900) – functioned as nexuses for the meta-social network for the art market. Ample archival material indicates that Bardini effectively structured his business around these events, sending large quantities of stock and staff to Paris. Long time and potential clients would be sent invitations to visit what was Bardini’s carefully crafted display room. In the months following the close of an Exposition, Bardini and company transferred their stock to London, augmented it, and readied it for auction, accompanied by lavishly produced catalogues.12 The Paris Exposition of 1900 was an incredible hot bed of art market machinations. Bardini sent one of his managers ahead of the Exposition to oversee the arrival of objects from Florence and to supervise the installation of space that Bardini secured in the Palais de le Femme.13 Bardini himself arrived by July, leaving another manager to tend to business in Florence, and yet another manager traveling constantly throughout Italy in order to evaluate potential acquisitions. Although the Expositions were not held every year, they seem to have concretized what would become an unofficial springtime gathering in Paris and London from which many would travel south into Italy. Likewise, collectors would plan their travel itineraries to include a stopover in London or Paris before moving down into Italy. Writing to Bardini from Boston at the end of June 1879, Quincy Adams Shaw, remarked, “… I was sorry not to have been able to go to Europe as I intended – at the last moment matters of importance made it necessary for me to stay at home.”14

tiples, see Lynn Catterson. I have recently identified two American sculptors who worked for Bardini, and this is poised to provide some very interesting insights into a newly defined category of production on the part of some nineteenth-century American expatriate sculptors; this material will be forthcoming as part of my larger book project on Bardini & Co. 12  For example, Médailles De La Renaissance: Collection De M. Stefano Bardini De Florence; Paris, 12 Juin 1885, 1885; Stefano Bardini, Collection Bardini, 5 Juin 1899. Paris: Phototypie Berthaud frères, 1899; Stefano Bardini. Catalogue of a Choice Collection of Pictures, Antiques, Works of Art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, from the Collection of Signor S. Bardini, Etc. London, 1899. 13  Dozens of letters in the archive reveal the machinations to (unsuccessfully) secure space in several possible locations, among them the Padiglione Italiano. Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini, Firenze, Corrispondenza Miscellanea, 1899. 14  Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini, Firenze, Corrispondenza Miscellanea, 30 June 1879.

Introduction

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Figure 1.3 Printed invitation, Paris Exposition, 1900. Florence, Archivio Fotografico Eredità Bardini Reproduced with the kind permission of the Archivio Fotografico Eredità Bardini (AFEB) della Soprintendente Polo Museale Toscano, Florence.

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Figure 1.4 Bardini display, Paris Exposition, 1900. Florence, Archivio Fotografico Eredità Bardini Reproduced with the kind permission of the Archivio Fotografico Eredità Bardini (AFEB) della Soprintendente Polo Museale Toscano, Florence.

Introduction

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In the Spring of 1901, correspondence exchanged among Bardini, his managers, Wilhelm von Bode, and Joseph Henry Fitzhenry (1836–1913),15 a collector, dealer and advisor to the London museums, was peppered with their collective undying curiosity as to the precise arrival in Paris of the American banker, J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913).16 Indeed, on 12 April 1901, Morgan arrived by steamer in Liverpool,17 and he was certainly in Paris for some weeks in May.18 It is uncertain whether Morgan traveled that Spring down into Italy, but a good friend and advisor of Morgan paid three days’ worth of visits to Bardini’s properties in Florence in May, shopping for himself and also on behalf of Morgan for fine art and decorative art for the future Morgan Library in New York.19 From a contemporary perspective one must marvel at how this network functioned so deftly within the pre-internet epistemological conditions of the late Nineteenth Century.20 The marketplace dynamic, at times regionally particular, at other times operating with commonalities across borders and languages, had a robust social network as its structural framework. This network was composed of professional, familial and personal relationships which intersected, resembling a cosmographical map, or a spider’s web, depending upon one’s point of view. Thus, for example, in 1881, Bardini’s 36 year-old sister Margherita (1845–1927) married into a family of marble workers from Pietrasanta.21 At first, Margherita and her husband Giovacchino Ferroni, a stone carver and restorer, lived in Bardini’s home, where Giovacchino worked as a secretary for the Bardini business. By 15   For Fitzhenry, see http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/j/joseph-henry-fitzhenry1836-1913/. 16  Morgan’s acquisitions activity was the talk of the town. In 1902, Berenson wrote at length to Isabella Stewart Gardner regarding an incident that took place with Fitzhenry, for which see Bernard Berenson, Isabella S. Gardner, Mary Berenson, and Rollin N. Hadley, The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1887–1924, with Correspondence by Mary Berenson, (Boston: Northeastern University Press), 1987, 283–284, Letter dated March 2, 1902. 17  “What the Master of Millions Looks like.“ Daily Mail (London, England), Friday, April 12, 1901, Issue 1553, pg. 5. 18  “Mr. Pierpont Morgan left the Hotel Bristol, Paris, on Saturday for London,” Daily Mail (London, England), Monday, May 27, 1901, Issue 1591, 3. 19  More on this is imminently forthcoming. 20  This has been observed by Jeremy Warren, 121–142, esp. 125, where he notes, “One of the most remarkable of Bode’s achievements was his consummate skill in maintaining what can only be described as control over such a large number of people, even by correspondence from distant Berlin.” 21  Florence, ASEB: Documenti e lettere personali per la famiglia, “Copia Autentica,” No. 776 del Repertorio; No. 307 del Fascicolo.

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1890, he relocated to Rome and worked as a dealer there;22 both Bardini and Giovacchino turned to the Ferroni family in Pietrasanta to supply them with stone, architectural fittings and sculpture on a regular basis. In 1896 Bardini began the process of recognizing his 13-year-old illegitimate daughter Emma, who, though likely raised in the home of her mother, was well educated, particularly in foreign languages; she would move in to her father’s home and become his secretary and translator until Bardini died.23 Another illegitimate child, Ugo, recognized in 1912 at the age of 18, was also raised with private tutors; he was trained as a painter, sent to elite schools, and was otherwise prepared to take over the business after his father died in 1922.24 Bardini’s personal social network, that is, apart from family and professional contacts, is difficult to interpret. Although Bardini remained in close touch with his family, the extant archival material, or lack thereof, suggests that Bardini did not actively pursue a rich social life. On the other hand, scores of letters in the archive, bear witness to the fact that when it came to women, he was both promiscuous and misogynistic.25 The men with whom he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, as well as those with whom he fought during Garibaldi’s last campaign, constituted his first substantial personal social network. And, indeed, though many of these relationships endured throughout his life, one gets the sense that any meaningful exchanges were driven fundamentally by business interests.26 What can be said, on the basis of many many little pieces of archival information, is that from the very beginning of his career, he aspired to achieve a higher social class. Letters composed in August 1867 during a trip to Paris 22  According to Jandolo & Tavazzi, Ferroni had come to Rome with limited means at the age of 14, for which see the preface, Galerie Sangiorgi, Catalogue de la vente aprés décés de Mr. Joachim Ferroni, Imprimerie de lʻUnione Cooperativa Editrice, 1909. 23  Florence, ASEB. In this document, notarized by Bardini’s brother, Emma’s mother is identified by name as Annunziata Cheli of Pieve Santo Stefano. 24  On the basis of letters and copies of birth certificates contained in the archive (Florence, ASEB), I can additionally note that another illegitimate son, apparently unaware of his lineage, worked for Bardini as a restorer. Yet another illegitimate son, who was aware of his lineage, maintained a lifelong disdain for Bardini as his many letters to Bardini reveal. 25  There are dozens and dozens of letters from women to Bardini. They are very often on small sheets of pink or blue paper, and in the vast majority of cases, they are undated and signed with either only a first name, or with an otherwise anonymous salutation of affection, such as “la tua.” With respect to Bardini’s promiscuity, the quantity of these letters is telling. Specifically telling is a letter written in 1910 to Bardini from one of his illegitimate sons which begins, “Sono una delle numerose vittime della vostra sfrenata libidine giovanile.” (Florence, ASEB, Corr. Misc., 1910). 26  On the basis of a lack of evidence to the contrary.

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provide some otherwise illusive clues about the personal side of Bardini.27 Writing to a certain Nina who hailed from Vienna, the 31 year-old Bardini effusively professed his love for her. He presented himself as Signore Bardi, from Via dei Bardi, suggesting a Florentine lineage far more noble and ancient than in fact was his own.28 This is not the only time in the 1860s that Bardini presented himself as Signore Bardi; ironically, he can be associated with an address on Via dei Bardi, although it was a storage facility, not a residence. Additional material is testament to his repeated attempts to marry his daughter Emma into nobility; despite his wealth at this point, this venture failed.29 In feigning a higher social class, or attempting to procure one for his daughter, Bardini aimed to increase his access to potential wealthy and worldly clients and their respective networks. Bardini’s relationships with the Florentine nobility deserve serious scrutiny which admittedly is likely to be stymied by a purposefully thin paper trail. Despite the many objects whose provenance prior to Bardini is stated to be 27  Florence, ASEB, Corr. Misc. 1867 [5 August] 1867: Bardini in Paris, writes to a certain Nina. She replies that she is returning home to Vienna, provides her address and that she would be pleased to hear from him. He gives his name as Stefano Bardi, and his address as via dei Bardi, 22. Insofar as the archive preserves these letters, and there are postmarked envelopes, the letters were either returned or retrieved having been delivered evidently after Nina departed Paris.  “Mme. Nina L / Fbg. St. Honoré 157 [Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré] / Si vous ne pouvez pas bien entendre l’Italienne, je efforcer mois de vous écrire en Francaise. Etienne Bardi / Passage Laferrière 14, Paris. // Cara Nina, Io parlo male il Francese e peggio lo scrivo, preferisco dunque scrivervi in Italiano giacché la fine della vostra lettera mi fa sperare che lo conosciate. E me fortunato se l’avessi supposto quando nella gran Sala di Versaglie v’allontanaste da vostro Padre. Forse in poche parole, più eloquenti di qualunque lettera, ci si sarebbe intesi, almeno se mi voi è l’istesso mio sentimento. Quanto a me vi giuro sul mio onore che da nessuna donna ho ricevuto una impressione così forte, e cosi gaia, come ebbi da voi, e sento che, se mi corrispondete, vi amerò come si ama a 15 anni. La cosa terribile è che voi portiate cose presto, e che nel tempo che sono assente da Firenze, mia patria, sia sopraggiunto il Colera, per la qual cosa se voi non eravate io ero già partito, desiderando d’essere con i miei cari nelle disgrazie. Non potrei dunque seguirvi in Austria. Rimarrò pero fino a che voi sarete qua, e procurerò vedervi, se dato non mi sara parlarvi. Per quanto se può vi prego di rispondermi subito, e assicuratevi che non vi potete immaginare il bisogno che ho della seconda vostra lettera. Qualunque caso nasca il mio indirizzo è Stefano Bardi Via dei Bardi No. 22 Firenze. Non dimenticate di darmi il vostro indirizzo a Vienna. Addio mio cara, Affettissimo Stefano.” 28  The Bardi family was an ancient noble family in Florence, active in banking and otherwise powerful from the late 12C. Cosimo il Vecchio de’ Medici’s wife, Contessina was a Bardi. 29  Some six months before her father died, Emma married a painter from the South, very likely in a desperate attempt to leave the Bardini house on account of her father’s increasingly delusional behavior. The marriage lasted no more than six years.

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from a noble family, the archive conspicuously contains little hard evidence to support these statements. A single glaring anomaly is a set of four receipts on stationary from the “Casa Amministrazione Strozzi,” for purchases made between 16 and 21 February 1878 from the Strozzi family.30 One in particular, dated 20 February 1878 records Bardini’s purchase for 100,000 Lire, of the socalled portrait of Clarice Strozzi, attributed to Titian.31 The archive also preserves a handwritten receipt dated 19 February, that is, from the previous day, which documents a payment of 300 Lire that Bardini made to a certain Luigi Bardi to paint a copy of the portrait of Clarice Strozzi. It is not uncommon for collectors and custodians to commission perfect copies of works they own, prior to sale or to decorate other properties, but additional pieces of information suggest something more complicated might have been afoot. The painting of Clarice Strozzi was noted by Julius Meyer (1830–1893) as acquired from Prince Strozzi for the Berlin Gemäldegalerie by April of 1878,32 but Bardini had actively tried to sell it (or a copy of it) to Baron Adolphe de Rothschild (1823–1900)33 at the beginning of February that same year. Bardini was in possession of a handwritten copy of a letter from Rothschild to Prince Strozzi, dated 4 February 1878. Rothschild wrote,

30  Florence, ASEB, Attività commerciale, 1878. Among the receipts are listed 2 antiquities, a “portrait of a Martelli attributed to Bronzino,” a bronze Saint John the Baptist and a “Luca della Robbia.” 31  Florence, ASEB, Attività commerciale, 1878: “Amministrazione del Patrimonio dell’Ecc. ma: Casa Strozzi Ricevuta N._ // A di 20 di Febbrajo 1878 // Io infrascritto Maestro di Casa della suddetta ho ricevuto dal Sig. Stefano Bardini // Lire Italiane centomila per saldo del prezzo ricavato dalla vendita del quadro rappresentante la figlia di R. Strozzi detta la Puttina, opera di Tiziano. // A me sottoscritto contanti, ed in fede….. L. It. 100,000.00 // Vista dal Principe Ferdinando Strozzi malato //Principe R. Strozzi // Piero Strozzi // Maestro di Casa // Cesare Giovanelli.” 32  Titian, Portrait of Clarissa Strozzi, 1542; Oil on canvas, 115 × 98 cm; Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. 160A; acquired 1878. The painting is discussed in a letter from Pietro Aretino to Titian on 6 July 1542, for which see Pietro Aretino. This is followed by its description by Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, 361, CXXXV: Gio. Bottari al sig. canonico Luigi Crespi [22 March 1766], la famosa puttina di Tiziano…. in the palazzo in Rome of Sig. Principe di Forano…. Ritratto della figliuola di Roberto Strozzi, ed e rappresentata in piedi, appoggiata a un piedistallo di marmo in cui e scolpito un bassorilievo….”  Berlin, SMB-ZA, I-GG-4, 1877–1881: Registratur der Königliches Museen, Acta, Vol. 4, where it was at the time additionally noted that the painting had been published by Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. II, 66–68. See also, Luba Freedman, 134–135. Henning Bock, 445–446. 33  https://family.rothschildarchive.org/people/43-adolphe-carl-von-rothschild-1823-1900.

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Figure 1.5 Print illustration of the portrait by Domenico Cunego and Tiziano, 1770. «Filia Roberti Strozzi Nobilis Florentini Vid. Epist. P. Aretini.» Schola Italica Picturae, sive selectae quaedam summorum e schola italica pictorum tabulae aere [Gavin Hamilton] Romae: s.n, 1770, Plate 21, recto. Production detail: ‘Titianus pinxit – Dom. Cunego sculpsit Romae 1770’, and title, continuing: ‘E Tabula in Aedibus Ducis Strozzi Romae asservata’. Stamped: ‘Schola Italica.’ London, British Museum, 1856.0510.232. Etching and engraving; 313 mm × 255 mm. ©Trustees of the British Museum.

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Permit me to confirm to you the offer that I had the honor to make to you through Bardini on the subject of the portrait of the young girl by Titian. In response to your letter of 2 February, I agree, as you asked me, to remit to Bardini – once I have received a certificate in your hand affirming the authenticity of the portrait painted by Titian for an ancestor of your family – a check to your order with the Maison Fenzi for the sum of 150,000 lire. As for the second affair, I reserve to write to you, my Prince, after having seen the objects brought by Bardini.34 On the following day, the now very agitated Rothschild wrote directly to Bardini, I’ve come to telegraph you of my letter today and here is why. // I have learned this morning that a Prince from Poland owns a copy of the painting, representing the young daughter of Strozzi by Titian. It is said that he has the original, having bought it at the celebrated sale of the Duc de Choiseul,35 in the last century. // The grandfather of Prince Ferdinand [Strozzi] had probably acted as the current Prince has the intention to 34  Florence, ASEB, Corr. Misc. 1878. “Copia // 4 février 1878 // 47 Rue de Monceau // Monsieur Le Prince [Strozzi] // Permettez-moi de venir vous confirmer l’offre que si ai en l’honneur de vous faire par l’entremise de Mr. Bardini au sujet du portrait de la jeune fille par Titien. //En réponse à votre lettre du deux Février je m’engage, comme vous me le demandez, à remettre à Mr. Bardini, dès qu’il m’aura sevré votre tableau xxx d’un certificat de votre main constatant l’authenticité du portrait peint par Titien pour un ancêtre de votre famille – une traite a votre ordre sur la Maison Fenzsi pour la somme de Cent cinquante mille lires. // Quant à la seconde affaire je me réserve de vous en écrire, mon Prince, après avoir vu les objets qu’apportera Mr. Bardini. // Veuillez agréer, Monsieur Le prince, l’expression de ma stime bien distinguée, //Baronne Rothschild”. 35  Étienne-François, comte de Choiseul puis duc de Choiseul-Stainville (1719–1785). The painting was sold at auction 6–10 April 1772, Auction house: Nicolas François Jacques Boileau, sur les lieux, rue de Richelïeu, Paris, France, Lugt #2020, 6 April 1772, 38, Lot 119: “Ce tableau représente un enfant debout, vêtu d’une robe blanche: l’on voit autoar [sic] de sa ceinture une chaine d’or à laquelle est attaché un grelot: il est auprès d’une table sur laquelle il tient un petit Chien auquel il présente un échaudé. Le fond de l’appartement est ouvert par une croisée au travers de laquelle on voit un ciel & des lointains. Ce tableau est bien peint.” Sur toile, 2 pieds 11 pouces de large [889mm] sur 3 pieds 9 pouces de haut [1143mm].” The copy of the catalog in the Frick Art Reference Library has an annotation for the buyer as “Brea;” however, different information is given in the annotations of other catalogs, for some of which see the Getty Provenance Index Databases, Sale Catalog F-A277: “très copié [Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA]; “beau tableau. L’enfant est bien dessiné ses yeux ses bras font un effet surprennant.” [Cabinet des

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do, without documenting it in the family archive, such that the current Prince doesn’t know that the substitution was made before he was born. You understand Mr. Bardini that it will not be worthwhile for you to make the journey here and a bring a copy which naturally I would not accept, because it goes without saying that before buying the painting, I would have it examined by the owner of the same painting and by competent experts. // Rothschild Evidently, Rothschild had wasted no time in finding more specific information regarding the Polish Prince and his picture, which he supplied to Bardini in a postscript at the bottom of the same letter: PS I’ve come from the Palace of Prince Czartoryski36 where I have seen the original portrait by Titian. It is therefore useless for you to bring the painting here to me. You, Mr. Bardini, as a friend of the Prince, you would be well advised to sell it on site, because here the original is too well known and indeed in all other large cities, where they have the catalog of the famous collection of the Duc de Choiseul, where the original Titian is described and engraved, as having been bought in Italy at the end of the last century. // Rothschild37 Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France III]” Purchased for 1000 lires by “Bréard peintre en miniature” Post Sales: 1777/04/14 PAREM 0097 comme Charles Quint CONTI. 36   Prince Wladyslaw Czartoryski (1828–1894) http://www.czartoryski.org/wladyslaw. htm Lady with an Ermine was also in the Czartoryski collection. I would like to thank Bernadeta Maj, Sekcja ds Dokumentacji Fotograficznej i Kwerend Naukowych of the Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie for confirming that the Portrait of Clarice was listed in the Czartoryski collection housed in the Hôtel Lambert in Paris, and that there is no indication that it ever returned to Krakow. In any case, the sale from the Duc de Choiseul was 66 years before Prince Czartoryski was even born. 37  Florence, ASEB, Corr. Misc. 1878. “Paris. 47 Rue de Monceau // Ce 5 Fevr. 1878 // Monsieur Bardini // Je viens de vous télégraphier de ma lettre d’aujourd’hui et voici pourquoi. // J’ai appris ce matin qu’un Prince de Pologne possédait le facsimile du tableau, représentant la jeune fille Strozzi du Titien. Il se dit sur de posséder l’original, sont aient l’ayant acheté à la célèbre vente du Duc de Choiseul, le siècle passe. // Le grand-père du Prince Ferdinand aura probablement agi comme le Prince actuel a l’intention de faire, c’est-à-dire qu’il aura substitue une copie à l’original du Titien, sans en faire prendre acte dans les archives de la famille, de sorte que le Prince actuel ne se coute même pas de la substitution qui a été fait avant sa naissance. Vous comprenez donc Mr. Bardini cela ne faudrait pas la peine pour vous de faire le voyage ici et de un’ apporter une copie que naturellement je n’accepterais pas, car il va sans dire qu’avant d’acheter le tableau, je l’aurais fait examiner par le propriétaire du tableau identique ainsi que par des Experts compétents. // J’écris dans ce même

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On the very next day, Bardini received a telegram from Rothschild’s wife, Julie,38 annulling the letter of the previous day because she learned that other experts considered Prince Czartoryski’s version to be a copy. She instructed Bardini that the painting should be sent to Paris, and if experts declared it authentic, then the Rothschilds would maintain their offer.39 The Bardini archive also preserves a handwritten copy of a declaration, dated 6 February, by Prince Ferdinando Strozzi (1821–1878), confirming his acceptance of the Rothschild’s offer of 150,000 Lire, for “the original painting by Titian representing the daughter of Roberto Strozzi,” adding that it has always been in his family as testified to by the most renowned historians.40 Insofar as Bardini frequently sold multiple versions of the same object and also actively marketed a single object to multiple potential buyers simultaneously, in the absence of additional documentary evidence, it is hard to know exactly what actually transpired. This is all notwithstanding, once the painting was published with an engraving in 1770, it was likely to have been copied fairly often.41 The production of copies for legitimate substitutive sens au Prince et vous prie d’agréer mes civilités, // Rothschild // PS Je viens du Palais du Prince Czartoryski ou j’ai vu l’original du portrait du Titien. Il est donc tout-a-faite inutile de m’apporter ici le tableau. Vous, Mr. Bardini, comme ami du Prince, vous serez bien de lui conseiller de le vendre sur place, car ici l’original est trop connu et d’ailleurs dans toutes les autres grandes villes, ou possède le catalogue de la fameuse collection du Duc de Choiseul, ou l’original du Titien est décrit et gravé, comme ayant été acheté en Italie vers la fin du siècle dernier // Rothschild”. 38  Née Julie de Rothschild (1830–1907). 39  Florence, ASEB, Corr. Misc. 1878. [handwritten copy of telegram] “Copia // Ufficio Telegrafico di Firenze // Telegramma // Ricevuto il 6/2 1878 ore 17.45 // Florence de Paris – 37036-33-6-4-5 // Bardini // 3 Via dei Benci – Florence // Altre conoscitore avendo dichiarato falso oggetto Parigino, annullo lettere d’ieri proponente Proprietario inviare qui suo oggetto; se conoscitore lo dichiarano autentico mantengo l’offerta. // Baronessa Giulia [Rothschild].” 40  Florence, ASEB, Corr. Misc. 1878: “Copia // Florence 6 Fevrier 1878 // Je déclare moi soussi que Prince Ferdinando Strozzi avoir reçu de Mme la Baronne Rothschild une lettre de change pour la somme de Cent cinquante mille Lires à mon ordre sur la Maison Fenzi de cette ville, pour prix convenu d’un tableau original du Titien représentant la fille de Roberto Strozzi. Je déclare en outre que ce tableau a toujours été dans ma famille, comme les historiens le plus renommes sont témoignage, et je garantis ces déclaration par le présent certificat signe par moi, et portant le cachet aux armoiries de mon famille // Signe // Prince Ferdinand Strozzi”. 41  British Museum 1856.0510.232, with the following cataloging information given: “Etching and engraving by Domenico Cunego and Tiziano ‘Filia Roberti Strozzi Nobilis Florentini Vid. Epist. P. Aretini.’ Schola Italica Picturae, sive selectae quaedam summorum e schola italica pictorum tabulae aere [Gavin Hamilton] Romae: s.n, 1770. 313 mm × 255 mm; Recto:

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reasons has a long historical tradition; however, the very same mechanism can be put into play in so many other ways. But, in the case of Bardini, objects said to have come from particular ancient families, such as the Strozzi, Pazzi and Torrigiani in Florence, as well as from venerable properties such as Villa Borghese and Palazzo Barberini in Rome at least need to be held to close scrutiny. Often times the objects and the provenance provided by Bardini were for works that were storied – works that had been described and situated in early sources such as Vasari or Baldinucci. Indeed, Bardini owned a full set of Milanesi’s heavily documented edition of Vasari, which had been published recently.42 Additionally, the archive preserves a handwritten transcript of a passage from Filippo Baldinucci’s Notizie de’ professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua (1681–1728) describing a certain villa and its chapel as well as consultation receipts from the Biblioteca Nazionale which indicate Bardini sent others, among them, the painter, restorer, and academician Cosimo Conti (1825–1896), to conduct provenance research. The receipts from the Amministrazione del Patrimonio for the Strozzi, dated slightly later than the correspondence with the Rothschilds, are tightly clustered during the week leading up to the death of the Strozzi family patriarch, Prince Ferdinando, on 23 February 1878.43 He was evidently very ill since the receipts are witnessed and signed, below his name, by his two sons; Ferdinando’s name is followed by the comment, “malato.” That is, in the very days their father lay dying, the family was actively selling off their art. This taken together with Rothschild’s characterization of Bardini as “a friend of the prince,” suggests that the Strozzi were in some measure complicit – though

Plate 21: portrait of Clarice Strozzi, after Titian: a girl aged eleven, seen whole-length, standing next to a table upon which sits a dog, to whom she is giving a biscuit; the table is decorated with a relief representing two putti; in the distance, to right, a landscape. Numbered on plate: ‘21’, top right; lettered with production detail: ‘Titianus pinxit – Dom. Cunego sculpsit Romae 1770’, and title, continuing: ‘E Tabula in Aedibus Ducis Strozzi Romae asservata’. Stamped: ‘Schola Italica.’ ”  A comprehensive list of the art in Palazzo Strozzi was already in print already in 1841, for which see, Emanuele Repetti, 434ff; 435, for the “Puttina” by Titian.  There is a copy in the Royal Cornwall Museum, Royal Institution of Cornwall, Truro: “Previously attributed to British School; Date Earliest: possibly about 1775; Date Latest: possibly about 1875; INV. TRURI: 1000.63; 102 × 82 cm; oil on canvas.” 42  Giorgio Vasari, Firenze: Sansoni, 1878–1885. The Bardini family had a considerable collection of art history resources, among them, Venturi, Richa, and Van Marle. In addition, they kept trophy photographs and clippings of objects they had successfully transacted as well as subject categorized images for comparanda. 43   La Stampa, as reported on 25 February 1878.

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likely victimized to attain their complicity – in the manufacture of, at the very least, old provenance. An additional letter, from Bardini to Bode, dated 31 October 1878, contributes information regarding the nature of the relationship between, in this case, Piero Strozzi44 and Bardini. Bardini updated Bode on other matters, and then rather candidly reported that, … Dreyfus45 … on encountering the young Prince Strozzi in Paris before my arrival persuaded [Strozzi] him to sell the bust of Filippo to the Louvre for 40,000 frs, promising him [Strozzi] that Bardini would know nothing about it, thus saving him [Strozzi] from paying Bardini a fee/commission. Well done Dreyfus! He [Dreyfus] doesn’t understand, though, that first of all, that it pays to pay fees/commissions….46 44  Piero Strozzi (1855–1907) was the eldest of Ferdinando’s three sons. For the genealogical tree of the Strozzi family, see http://www.palazzostrozzi.org/allegati/P2.pdf. 45  Gustave Louis Dreyfus (1837–1914). In 1871, the art historian, collector and dealer, Gustave Dreyfus bought en masse the collection of Louis Charles Timbal (1821–1880), which he sold later in 1930 to Joseph Duveen, for which see Alison Luchs, 31–38, with additional bibliography in the notes.  Dreyfus amassed an impressive collection of medals; these were then bought by Duveen, and then by Samuel H. Kress in 1945. See Gaston Migeon, 1–32; Gustave Dreyfus, Joseph D. Duveen, and Clarence Kennedy; Seymour Ricci and Gustave Dreyfus; Gustave Dreyfus, George F. Hill, and Joseph D. Duveen; George F. Hill, J G. Pollard, and Gustave Dreyfus. 46   S MB-ZA, IV/NL Bode 0629: Bardini; o.D., 1875, 1878–1880. “Pregiatissimo Sig. Dottore // Parigi 31 ottobre 1878 // La sua lettera nella quale mi dà facoltà di far restaurare il Ciborio mi ha raggiunto a Parigi. Lunedì prossimo sarò a Firenze e subito farò comunicare la riparazione. // Dreyfus (è stato decorato trovato) il giovine Principe Strozzi a avanti che io vi arrivassi fece tanto da indurlo a vendere il busto del Filippo al Louvre per Franchi 40,000, promettendo che il Bardini non l’avrebbe mai saputo quindi non doveva provvisione. Bravi d’avvero! Dreyfus non capisce che vi è convenienza pagare le provvisione avanti tutto. // Qua mi dicono che Ella vi un articolo dice assai male del mio busto del Soderini. Le sarò grato se un’invierà cotesto articolo. // Torno a Firenze appositamente per avere un oggetto che po’ scoperto veramente straordinario, un cerco fare una buona provvisione. // Intanto me credo con la più distinta stima // Devotissimo // Stefano Bardini // P.S. Non gli parlato della mia collezione di placchette. Dreyfus dice di avere la più forte che esista compresi i Museo; la mia è superiore per la qualità delle prove, è di un terzo più forte nel numero. Certamente è meglio.” With special thanks to Paul Tucker for helping me better understand this letter. The bust discussed is the marble bust of Filippo Strozzi, attributed to Benedetto da Maiano, today in the Louvre (R.F. 289). There is a terracotta version in the Bode Museum Berlin (N. 102) which was sold by Bardini in 1877. On the two busts and earlier bibliography, see Keith Christiansen, Stefan Weppelmann, and Patricia L. Rubin, Cst. 23 & 24 (Julia L. Valiela), 129–132. Print.

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It would seem, on the surface of this letter to Bode, that Bardini furnished something considerably more potent than a certificate of authenticity – that of the Prince himself who proffered in person the bust of his ancestor. However recently located additional archive material only serves to complicate an interpretation, for in fact, the Louvre received the bust from Bardini. On 26 November 1878 Henri Barbet de Jouy (1812–1896),47 an agent of the Musée du Louvre and at that time, a curator for the Musées Nationaux, wrote to Bardini, declaring that he had received on that day the “Bust of Filippo Strozzi from the hands of Stefano Bardini.”48 The bust in question is the marble version of the terracotta bust49 that Bardini sold to Berlin.50 At the end of the following year, and for reasons that are as yet not entirely clear, Bardini drew up an account summary of monies paid to, and received from Piero Strozzi; it was drawn in duplicate, dated 11 December 1879, and signed by Strozzi. Bardini paid Strozzi £.4000 for two old books with miniatures and £.500 for a round picture frame, in sum £.4500. Strozzi paid Bardini for a plaster copy of the bust of Filippo Strozzi, the crating and shipping of it to Pietrasanta, as well as the return shipping, presumably of the marble copy made in Pietrasanta, back to Florence. Also itemized among the payments were the shipment of the marble bust of Filippo Strozzi to the Louvre and the fee

47  http://www.inha.fr/fr/ressources/publications/publications-numeriques/dictionnairecritique-des-historiens-de-l-art/barbet-de-jouy-henry.html. 48  Florence, ASEB, Corr Misc, 1878: “26 Nov 1878 // “Le mardi il 26 novembre 1878 // Je déclare avoir reçu aujourd’hui, aux Musée du Louvre, instant, la buste de Philippe Strozzi des mains da Monsieur Stefano Bardini. //…. Barbet de Jouy // Musée du Louvre”.  Shortly after, on 19 December 1878, Bode wrote to Bardini, “… Come mi scrisse il S. Barbet de Jouy il Louvre ha comprato di pocche settimane il marmo del Filippo; spero che Ella avrà ricevuto la commissione …” (Florence, ASEB, Corr Misc, 1878: Letter Bardini to Bode, 19 December 1878.). 49  For the terracotta in Berlin, see http://www.smb-digital.de/eMuseumPlus?service=Ext ernalInterface&module=collection&objectId=869944&viewType=detailView. See also Volker Krahn, 2012, 34–41. Print. There are sufficient differences between the two to suggest that the marble was not mechanically reproduced from the terracotta. 50  For the marble in Paris, the following is given by http://cartelen.louvre.fr/cartelen/ visite?srv=car_not&idNotice=2336:  “Benedetto da MAIANO; Florence?, 1442 – Florence, 1497; Filippo Strozzi (1426–1491); Marbre; H.: 0,51 m.; L.:,56 m.; Pr.: 0,30 m. Une inscription dans la cavité ménagée sous le buste indique le nom du sculpteur et le nom du personnage représenté (Filippus Stroza Matei Filius: Filippo Strozzi, fils de Matteo). Un document comptable permet par ailleurs de savoir que l’artiste fut payé 15 florins d’or en 1476. Ancienne collection du prince Strozzi; Acquis en 1878; Département des Sculptures; R.F. 289.”

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for Bardini’s mediation of the sale of the bust to the Louvre. In all, Strozzi paid Bardini £.4500, thus reconciling the account summary with a zero balance.51 To begin with, this is a document which, at the least, testifies to the production of a marble copy of a plaster copy of a bust of Filippo Strozzi which was shipped and sold to the Louvre. Indeed, a photograph in the archive of the terracotta version, now in Berlin, is marked in pencil with measurements of projections indicating that there was a plan to replicate it. Taken together, and given Bardini’s proclivity for manufacture, the 15C dating and attribution to Benedetto da Maiano needs to be reconsidered and probably revised to a Pietrasantese sculptor, and dated to 1878.52 51 Florence, ASEB, Att. Comm., 1879: 11 December, 1897: “Alla Casa Strozzi il Sig Stefano Bardini

Per valuta di due libri antichi con miniature Idem di una cornice tonda Pagato per la copia del busto di Filippo Strozzi Idem per il gesso, imballaggio e spedizione del busto a Pietrasanta Idem per spedizione da Pietrasanta a Firenze Idem al Louvre a Parigi per articoli diversi Idem a Aubè ecc Idem per guanti Idem per disegno e fotografia del trono Idem per un baule, incassatura e trasporto a del busto in marmo di Filippo Strozzi consegna, facchinaggi Per mediazione della vendita del detto busto di Filippo Strozzi Fatto in doppio originale le undici Dicembre 1879 Approvo il suddetto Principe Strozzi”

Dare £4000,00 500,00

4500,00

Avere

350,00 35,00 10,00 110,00 60,00 33,00 100,00 312,00 3490,00 4500,00

52  Worth considering for the attribution is the sculptor Giovacchino Ferroni, who married Bardini’s sister Margherita (1845–1927) on 24 April 1881; the documents record him as already living in Via dei Benci, 3, in Florence. He was born in Pietrasanta, the son of the sculptor Giovan Battista Ferroni; his brother Gaetano was also a sculptor. Florence ASEB: Documenti e lettere personali per la famiglia, “Copia Autentica,” No. 776 del Repertorio; No. 307 del Fascicolo. Both Gaetano and Giovacchino were in touch with Wilhelm von Bode, for which see, Berlin Zentralarchiv, Nachlass Bode. Perhaps even more puzzling are the circumstances under which the account summary – an unicum to date with respect to the Strozzi – was recorded with items that conveniently balanced to zero.

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Figure 1.6 Photograph (albumin) of terracotta bust of Filippo Strozzi, annotated in pencil with projection measurements indicated. Reproduced with the kind permission of the Archivio Fotografico Eredità Bardini (AFEB) della Soprintendente Polo Museale Toscano, Florence.

Some years later, on 5 June 1893, Bardini wrote to Wilhelm von Bode letting him know that he was leaving for Paris the following evening, bringing along with him “more beautiful paintings from Casa Torrigiani.”53 He asked Bode for 53  Berlin, SMB-ZA, IV/NL Bode 0629: Bardini; 1893–94: “Firenze 5/VI 1893 // Preg. Sig. Direttore [Bode] // Parto domani sera per Parigi. In tutta segretezza e pregandola di non comunicarlo agli amici l’informo che ho presso di me i più bei quadri di Casa Torrigiani. / Si rammenterà il ritratto di Luca Signorelli e il ritratto del Veronese cosi segnato: “Alessandro Alberti l’anno XXX della sua età Paolo Cagliari e V il ritrasse nel 1573 In Venetia. / È dunque un’opera giovanile di Paolo. / Quest’affare deve rimanere segreto per un poco di tempo, avendo già messo al posto delle copie. / Detti quadri salgono a un prezzo forte. Ora non posso dir più. Mi creda con distinta stima. // Devotissimo / Stef. Bardini.” Translation as follows: “Florence 5 June 1893, Dear Sig. Director [Bode], I leave tomorrow evening for Paris. In all secrecy and asking you not to communicate it to the friends that I have with me more beautiful paintings from Casa Torrigiani. / If you will recall, the portrait of Luca Signorelli and the portrait by Veronese (1528–1588), signed “Alessandro Alberti at age 30.

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his confidence and that he not tell “the friends.” Bardini reminded Bode that one is a portrait by Signorelli,54 while the other is a portrait by Veronese (1528– 1588), signed “Alessandro Alberti at age 30. Paolo Cagliari di V portrayed in 1573 Paolo Cagliari di V portrayed in 1573 in Venezia. / It is therefore an early work by Paolo. / This affair must remain secret for a little while, the works having already been replaced by copies. These paintings go for a high price. Now I cannot say more…. Sincerely, Stefano Bardini….” Indeed, just two days earlier, Bardini’s attorney tendered 100,000 to Filippo Torrigiani for these paintings and other objects and agreed to replace them with “faithful copies.”  The 1893 letter is listed in the register in Valerie Chini Niemeyer, 250, Doc. 258 (LX); in addition to another earlier mention of the painting contained in a letter from Bardini to Julius Meyer, dated 17 January 1879 (Chini Niemeyer, 264, Doc. 20.a (XVIII); see also 99). In this earlier letter, Bardini tells Meyer that, at that time, the Signorelli was unsaleable (Berlin, SMB-ZA, NL Meyer 211 [17 Gennaio 1879]: “… il Luca Signorelli di casa Torrigiani ora invendibile …”). Although Bardini does not say why, it is possible that it was still in the “injured” state when it was seen some twenty years before.  Both the Veronese and the Signorelli portrait were described by Otto Mündler in late September 1856 when he visited Palazzo Torrigiani, for which see C.T. Dowd & J. Anderson, iii–349, esp. 131: “Marchese Torreggiani [sic] has an interesting collection of pictures. The portrait of Signorelli, or at least supposed to be, at all events painted by him: head of an old man, with a red cap; an energetic character. Naked figures and ruins in the background. Unfortunately very much injured.” Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/ stable/41829494. 54  This painting (Luca Signorelli, Portrait of an Elderly Man c.1492, Poplar, 50 × 32 cm, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Inv. 79C.) is mentioned in a guidebook describing the first floor gallery of Palazzo Torrigiani in 1892, for which see Giuseppe Marcotti, 234. In 1893, it was exhibited in London, for which see, L. Signorelli, & Burlington Fine Arts Club, 7, #28: [Torrigiani Palace] “Life-size Portrait of a Man in a red cap and vest. Very fine. Not a portrait of Signorelli, as once supposed.” The organizers of the exhibition of works collocated from the UK and Berlin gave a special acknowledgment to Charles Fairfax Murray for the organization of the show and the preparation of the catalogue.  It was acquired for the Gemäldegalerie in 1894, for which see Rainald Grosshans, 124, #192. However, it is mentioned again as located in Palazzo Torrigiani, some six years after Bardini’s letter to Bode, for which see E. Grifi, 385: “[Room 1:] 71. Signorelli, Portrait of a man in a red cap. Probably his own portrait, the Expression is exquisite.” It is also listed in the 2nd ed., 1899, 426. I am grateful to Juliane Hupka, at the Bibliothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, for some long-range assistance in correcting edition information.  For the most recent bibliography and discussion of this painting, see Keith Christiansen, Stefan Weppelmann, and Patricia L. Rubin, Cat. 37 (Stefan Weppelman), although the date of acquisition by Berlin is incorrectly given as 1884. Another version is in the National Gallery Ireland (NGI.522, Oil on canvas, 27 × 22 cm; Presented, Mr. H. Pfungst, 1901). This version was included in Hans Makowsky, 117–120.

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in Venezia.”55 He comments that the inscription consigns the work to the early career of Veronese. Bardini tells Bode that “the affair must remain secret for a little while,” because the works have already been “replaced by copies.”56 It is difficult to decipher exactly what is going on here, but at the very least, both Bardini and Bode were involved in something that was secretive, involving copies placed in the palace of a noble Florentine family. One might insinuate from Bardini’s letter that he was taking the originals to Paris. However, the archive reveals, time and again, these complex machinations were tightly woven with double-dealing and deceit. To be sure, there was complicity on the part of Bode, and one can only speculate what Bode believed the paintings to be. Bardini heavily invested himself in his professional network – by 1889, he had established nearly 500 active contacts throughout Italy and just as many clients and contacts beyond the peninsula, extending across Europe and the United States.57 Early in my research, it seemed to me that, in the face of a less than spectacular brief stint as a painter, Bardini then turned professionally to restoration. However, as it turns out, the archival presence of countless receipts of monies paid to others for restoration work suggests that Bardini outsourced much, if not the majority of this work, to independent craftsmen as well as to those who worked on Bardini’s premises.58 In addition, Bardini’s 55  This painting is currently in the Washington National Gallery, for which see http://www .nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.41695.html. 56  Not so incidentally, Bardini had been trying to sell works from Palazzo Torrigiani to Quincy Adams Shaw nearly twenty years earlier. Bardini was operating out of the immediate area of Palazzo Torrigiani (conveniently) already in 1867, and rented storage facilities there even before he acquired the property on which he would build his Gallerie Bardini. 57  Florence, ASEB, “Rubrica A” and “Rubrica B,” both dated 1889. Included among them were 80 in London, more than 100 in Paris, some 40 in Berlin, and more than a dozen in America. 58  There is ample evidence in the archive to indicate onsite atelier activity of restoration. In addition, there are hand and typewritten copies of recipes for solvents and varnishes, as well as a record of supplies. There is also evidence that Bardini, or someone in his immediate circle, had academic and impassioned opinions regarding local and foreign institutional restoration practices. And indeed, he was known for certain techniques, especially when it came to the removal and cartage of frescoes. The main point here is that Bardini’s career ambition was to be a dealer and expert, not a practicing restorer.  Likewise, Bardini is often mentioned as a pioneer of art photography. Again, the preservation of hundreds of receipts of monies paid to many different photographers for negatives and prints suggests he subcontracted much of the photography to local professionals. Other photographs depicting different pastiches of the same marble parts

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first documented activity as a dealer occurred already in 1866. Working on a 10% commission, Bardini acted as agent in an attempt to sell more than fifty objects on behalf of a Signora Eugenia Formigli, née Carini. He failed to sell all but the “Sibilla del Guercino Grande con Cornice su allo Originale….. 250,” which was the most highly valued object of the group.59 On the surface, this seems a failure on his part, but more probably it is evidence of what is testified to throughout his career – a cunning brilliance for transacting art. He likely agreed to market the lot knowing full well he would ultimately compromise the whole for the sake of selling the one valuable object. This is all notwithstanding the fact that the vast majority, if not all, of the objects listed exist in their original form in the collections of Palazzo Pitti and the Uffizi, indicating that Signora Eugenia was a professional copyist and from the outset, Bardini tendered copies of “old masters.” Already by the following year, Bardini applied for a passport and we soon find him in Paris, no doubt drawn there by the International Exposition of 1867. At this point, Bardini was working to cultivate a network for dealing in Paris and it seems that his first attempts involved placing his objects on consignment with others, among them, Émile Gavet (1830–1904),60 and also probably Eugène Piot (1812–1890).61 While back home in Florence, his earliest professional associations were with two older Florentine dealers, and these were of tantamount importance in shaping Bardini’s particular career path. The first was Giovanni Freppa (c.1793-c.1868), who worked as an antiquarian in via dei Rondinelli, in the approximate present location of Richard Ginori, the historic Florentine manufacturer of porcelain.62 Already by the mid-Nineteenth Century, Freppa had achieved some level of notoriety as not only being a forger of ceramics, but also by being the dealer for another, also notorious, forger, the sculptor Giovanni

additionally suggest that in certain cases, photographers brought their equipment to Bardini’s galleries. I have recently identified the painter Vincenzo Todaro (1855–1926) as an individual who worked for Bardini as a photographer, and who was sent frequently into the field to photograph potential acquisitions (Florence, ASEB, Corr. 1901). The archive also preserves ten little books of travel expenses, “Viaggi di Todaro,” dated 1896 though 1901. 59  Florence, ASEB, Amministrazione Doc. Attività commerciale 1866. 60  Quincy Adams Shaw refers to a terracotta bust of Bardini’s that he bought from Gavet (Florence, ASEB). For Gavet in general, see Alan Chong, 1–21. 61  Florence, ASEB, Rubrica B. 62   H.C. Wilson, xxiii. One must wonder if the location of Freppa’s shop in the immediate vicinity of Ginori and his production of fake majolica is a coincidence.

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Bastianini (1830–1868).63 It is very likely that the death of Freppa in c.1868 created the void that would consequently allow the young Bardini to step strongly into the Florentine antiquarian market. The other older dealer with whom he had a lasting relationship was Angiolo Tricca (1817–1884), a painter from San Sepolcro. Although Tricca enjoyed a successful career as illustrator and caricaturist, he also produced paintings in the style of the Florentine quattrocento and at least occasionally, he failed to sign them.64 Most often Bardini worked in società, wherein several dealers owned a certain percentage of the object to be transacted. Early on, and throughout his career, Bardini worked with, among others, Vincenzo Ciampolini (1838–1931), Giuseppe Salvadori (d. 1928)65 (both in Florence and in Rome), Giuseppe Giacomini66 and Arnoldo Terracina in Rome. These aforementioned men also had independent relationships, going around Bardini as it were, with clients of Bardini. At least eighteen Italian dealers who worked locally and regionally with Bardini were also themselves in independent contact with Wilhelm von Bode.67 With respect to Bardini, the professional network composed itself, for the most part, along generational lines. That is, those with whom he consistently worked in società were often of the same generation. With respect to the older generation of dealers, Bardini was more likely to purchase objects from them, whereas, the generation younger than Bardini was more likely to offer to sell objects 63  The evidence of the relationship between Freppa and Bardini is the fact that in 1863 Freppa commissioned Bardini to make the curtain for the stage of New Politeama in Florence, for which see Fiorenza Scalia, 12. Shortly after the opening of the theater it was destroyed by fire. See also Chini Niemeyer, 43. For Bastianini, see Giancarlo Gentilini. “Giovanni Bastianini e i falsi da museo,” Gazzetta antiquaria, 2 (1988), 35–47; 3 (1988), 27–43. For additional bibliography on Bastianini, see Anita Moskowitz; it is my opinion, however, that the text and notes are mainly recapitulated from the work of others and it is otherwise fraught with serious errors and omissions. 64  For Tricca, see Martina Alessio & Silvestra Bietoletti, 11–30; Andrea De Marchi, 92–97; Lucia Bassignana, 195–212, 200. 65  Salvadori was a dealer and restorer of tapestries. See Simone Bargellini, for which there is an entry, although no birth/death dates are given. I am grateful to Daniela Degl’Innocenti, Museo del Tessuto, Prato, for locating Salvadori’s death date. Although Salvadori was possibly younger, Bardini would have known his father who, according to Bargellini, was a painter. On Salvadori and his American agent, see the essay in this volume by Denise Budd. 66  Giacomini, together with Vincenzo Capobianchi, conducted a sale of art and furniture from the first floor of Palazzo Borghese, on Via del Basilico, 12, for which see, Paolo Borghese. 67   S MB-ZA, Nachlass Bode, Correspondence.

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on behalf of Bardini, working on a 10% commission.68 Needless to say, these arrangements had the effect of adding multiple layers of opacity to the actual provenance of objects. In one example, the dealer Godefroy Brauer (1857–1923), succeeded in selling quite a few things to J.P. Morgan, but photographic material in the Bardini archive indicates that Brauer obtained some of them from Bardini.69 Equally complicated were the dealings wherein many Bardini objects were acquired on the advice of Wilhelm von Bode by private collectors, such as Rodolphe and Maurice Kann and Oscar Hainauer, and were later bought en bloc by Duveen, or that of James Simon, which was bequeathed to the German Museums. In many cases, the provenances go back only as far as Duveen. Some of Bardini’s contacts were themselves notoriously active, such as the Roman antiquarians and dealers from several generations of the Castellani family, or Augusto and Alessandro Jandolo. Another long term association was with Attilio Simonetti, who operated a robust business out of the Palazzo Odescalchi on Via Vittoria Colonna in Rome. No less important were the scores of regional suppliers, whose names have only just emerged from the archive; the tremendous amount of archival material attests to an incredibly vast network wherein thousands of objects were transacted. And last, but not least, there is the network of various archaeologists and art historians with whom Bardini engaged, at a time when art historical publications were beginning to become vehicles of validation and authentication by consensus.70 68  Writing from Paris on 9 November 1891, Godefroy Brauer (1857–1923), informed Bardini that he was sending to Bardini “two English amateurs,” and that he was expecting a 10 per cent commission on any sales made by Bardini. Florence, ASEB: Corrispondenza, 9 11 1891 and Copialettere n. 9 dal 10 09 1891 al 25 09 1892, page 99; response from Bardini on 11 November 1891. 69  New York, The Morgan Library, Collections Correspondence, 1887–1948 (ARC 1310); Call No.: B. For Godefroy Brauer, see Françoise Barbe, 209–216. It is not clear whether Brauer bought them outright, or acted as an intermediary on a commission; it is clear however that Brauer represented himself as the owner to J.P. Morgan. 70  Individuals with whom Bardini interacted include, for example, Gaetano Milanesi, Wilhelm von Bode, Aby Warburg, Bernard Berenson, Wolfgang Helbig of the Istituto Archeologico di Germania, and Heinrich Ludwig, both in Rome, Albert Pollak, Wilhelm Valentiner, and Adolfo Venturi at the Ministero dell’Istruzione Pubblica, Rome.  Though much has been written on Berenson, and little on Bardini, incredibly, nothing has been written on the relationship between the two of them. This is no small lacuna insofar as Bardini’s generation formulated particular marketplace practices on a global scale, providing the fodder, as it were, for the type of collecting and connoisseurship that was so ebulliently embraced by Berenson. In other words, before Berenson, there was Bardini.

Introduction

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We now turn our attention to the case studies presented in this volume, all consisting of brand new research and fresh insights into the various aspects of supply. Purely for the sake of organization, the essays have been loosely grouped into thematic categories, though each of them reaches beyond a single dimension.

The Artist as Dealer

The first two essays each focus on artists as the original dealer, and in both cases, the subjects are women. Laura Corey examines the market career of the American painter Mary Cassatt and her pivotal role in sparking a demand for Impressionist trophies on this side of the Atlantic. Cassatt leveraged her dual “citizenship” among America’s elite and France’s avant-garde to earn the trust of collectors from Boston to Baltimore, New York to Chicago. Her colorful descriptions animated the pictures she proposed and gave buyers an insider’s perspective on the New Painting unrivaled by any professional sales pitch. Cassatt became a valuable asset to the market by cultivating new clientele and serving as an intermediary in transactions. Her interactions with dealers and artists in this capacity have never been appraised yet are essential to understanding her operations as an adviser. Corey’s essay clarifies Cassatt’s place in the business of Impressionism through a fresh look at the documentation of her advising practice. The next essay by Jacqueline Musacchio lifts out of relative obscurity two sisters from Salem Massachusetts, the “Misses Williams,” who like so many of their fellow late nineteenth-century New Englanders, were fascinated by Italy. The sisters Abigail Osgood (1823–1913) and Mary Elizabeth (1825–1902) Williams were among the many women artists from Salem who went to Italy before, during, and after the American Civil War. The sisters were middle class and unmarried, and needed their art to be self-supporting; Italian travel allowed them to create complex paintings and projects that culminated in the establishment of a successful studio selling Italian art and objects from their Salem home in 1886. They created their own paintings, sought out buyers, entered exhibitions, accumulated objects, and even researched art history, much of it with a focus on supplying middle-class women like themselves with fashionable objects to fill their homes. Their success as women who made and marketed art for and to other women distinguishes them both at home and abroad and demonstrates a new and gendered market that promoted an understanding of Italy and its cultural history in the greater Boston area.

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Dealers Shaping and Influencing Taste

The next two essays examine the careers of dealers from the point of view of shaping and influencing taste. Leanne Zalewski looks at the career of Samuel P. Avery who opened his picture gallery in New York in 1864 with the assistance of Baltimore businessman and art collector William T. Walters. Although he never became a flashy, self-promoting dealer like Joseph Duveen, this unassuming man exercised considerable influence on the arts in New York that resonates today. His print collection formed the basis of the print collection at the New York Public Library. In addition, he founded the Avery architectural library at Columbia University, donated books to Teacher’s College and Barnard College, and became actively involved with the fledgling Metropolitan Museum of Art, among other pursuits. Zalewski examines Avery’s crucial role as philanthropic art dealer at a time when New York struggled to become an international cultural capital. In doing so, Zalewski identifies Avery’s “publicspirited” contribution to New York’s rising reputation. Fae Brauer’s essay examines the rationale, effect and eventual repercussions of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler’s marketing strategies for Picasso and Braque. Acutely aware of the hostility brooked by Cubism at the 1912 Salon d’Automne followed by its politicization in the Chambre des Députés, on 18 December 1912 Kahnweiler inserted a crucial clause into his exclusive contracts with Picasso and Braque: Exhibition of their artwork in France, particularly at the Paris Salons, was forbidden. To cultivate an aura of global celebrity, Kahnweiler pursued an international marketing policy strategically placing Picasso’s and Braque’s Cubist artwork in avant-garde exhibitions stretching from Munich to New York. Yet amidst avant-guerre discourses of persecutionist paranoia and espionage phobia, the very success of Kahnweiler’s tactics aligned his Cubists with Pan-Germanism while he became identified with a spyring of German Jewish art-dealers supposedly conspiring to disrupt French art market supremacy. By unravelling this quandary, this essay reveals why Kahnweiler’s internationalization of Cubism proved perilous, culminating in wartime sequestration of his entire stock. Supply Created by Dealers Denise Budd’s essay examines the career of the collector, scholar and dealer of tapestries, Charles Mather Ffoulke (1841–1909). Once prestigious objects adorning European palaces, physical disintegration and a cultural shift had greatly diminished both the value of, and demand for, tapestries by the mid19th century. Yet by the turn of the 20th century, a new, robust American market had emerged, accompanied by record prices. At the helm of this shift was

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Ffoulke who had retired from the wool trade on account of illness and began to travel abroad, including to Italy, where he made contact with several antiquities dealers. Most notable among these was Giuseppe Salvadori, a seller and restorer of tapestries, who helped facilitate Ffoulke’s purchase of the famed Barberini tapestries in 1889. The scant literature on Ffoulke presents him as an accidental dealer who only sought to purchase a few of the tapestries for his personal residence but was forced to accept the entire 135-piece lot. Yet Ffoulke’s actions bespeak his sense of purpose and astute business acumen. He established a workshop in Florence and then returned to his Washington, D.C. home, where he built a gallery which became both a locus for social life in the city and a showroom for his collection. Ffoulke sold sets of tapestries personally and also though a network of dealers as well as the architect Stanford White. He generated both scholarship and popular interest in the works, the latter through lectures and exhibitions. To wit, Ffoulke not only brought the largest single collection of tapestries to America, but was instrumental in manufacturing the market for them. Patrizia Cappellini’s essay builds on the work that has been done regarding Wilhelm von Bode and his lifelong career with the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. Here, she focuses in particular on Bode’s relationship with Elia Volpi, an ambitious Florentine dealer in the generation after Stefano Bardini. After working for a time with Bardini, Volpi struck out on his own and inaugurated in 1910 the medieval Palazzo Davanzati as the showroom of his business. Upon the basis of letters sent from Volpi to Bode and kept in the Library of Zentralarchiv in Berlin, this essay outlines Elia Volpi’s role as a supplier of art objects to the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, to Bode, as well as to other important private collectors linked to him, showing him to be an active agent in the spread of the taste for Medieval-Renaissance Florentine houses in Europe and elsewhere. Demand Created by Dealers Flaminia Gennari-Santori’s essay is a study of Vizcaya, a Historic House and National Historic Landmark in Miami, Florida, which was built between 1913 and 1916 as an American interpretation of an Italian Baroque villa. Paul Chalfin, Vizcaya’s decorator and mastermind, designed the rooms and the gardens of the residence around objects, sculptures, pieces of furniture, panelling, or architectural elements that he purchased in Italy between 1912 and 1914. His suppliers were the most important art dealers of the time. The residence displays an unexplored collection of Italian decorative arts and a unique collection of pastiches. Until World War I the production of pastiches was a thriving industry. In Italy and the United States the adaptation of the past to the expectations of modern audiences became an industry that sustained complex

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social dynamics. Vizcaya provides an exemplary context to analyze this largely unexplored and yet crucial aspect of the international market for decorative arts and luxury goods. Sébastien Chauffour’s paper focuses on the commercial strategy developed by two French art dealers, J. Seligmann & Co. and Bernheim-Jeune, and their joint efforts to expand their market in the United States during the interwar period. One firm a specialist of Old Masters already established in New York, the other an expert of Modern Art, they combined their respective strengths so as to play an active role on the American market. More specifically, Chauffour examines the means by which Seligmann’s agent, César Mange de Hauke (1900–1965), endeavoured to lure American collectors to French Modernism and considers how he developed a personal and professional network involving dealers, collectors, curators and critics on both sides of the Atlantic and, consequently, his ultimate strategy for promoting the taste for Modern Art. The Role of Photographs in the Transaction of Art The essays by Annalea Tunesi and Alexandra Provo call attention to the important function of the photographic image in the transaction of objects in the newly global art market. Drawing upon a notebook entitled ‘Appunti di Londra’ dated 1892 in the Bardini archive in Florence, Tunesi examines the marketing techniques adopted by Bardini. The notebook, written by Bardini’s agent, C.F. Walker, recorded, in just a few short notes, the habits, tastes and wealth of potential clients. Walker visited them in their homes or in their offices and showed them photographs of the works of art available for sale in Bardini’s collection. Thus photographs assumed the role of the primary ‘language’ of collecting. Tunesi’s analysis of Walker’s notes paints a picture of London’s important collectors and their tastes compared to the dealer and underscores the importance of these notes and photographs as marketing tools adopted by Bardini. Provo’s essay takes as its point of departure, the idea that photographs frequently sent along with letters or under separate cover constitute a vital component of archival correspondence. Drawing upon letters to Bernard Berenson from several dealers (including Paolo Paolini and the firm of Bohler & Steinmeyer), as well as photographs given or sent to Bernard by dealers, Provo examines the photograph as a document of the art market. The letters and the photographs themselves reveal the myriad implications surrogate images had for the success of a deal, including their role in a system of image circulation that also involved the movement of the original objects. Far more than simple aids to memory, photographs were entrenched in the mechanism

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of authentication, becoming carriers of information both visual and textual and at times functioning as expertises. The Bureaucratic Network And last, Joanna Smalcerz’s essay examines the complex bureaucratic network that the dealer Stefano Bardini navigated during the process of his acquisition and exportation of two allegorical frescoes by Sandro Botticelli from the Villa Lemmi near Florence. Discovered under whitewash in 1873 the frescoes immediately attracted attention of Bardini, who finally purchased the frescoes from Dr. Petronio Lemmi in September 1881. After the successful detachment the paintings were sold to the Louvre represented by curator Pierre-Paul Both de Tauzia (1823–1888). Bardini’s deal with Paris was soon jeopardised by the refusal of permission for the export by the Italian Soprintendenza in Florence and the Italian Ministry of Public Education. Smalcerz’s essay tells the story of the aftermath of the refusal: Bardini’s simultaneous sale to the Louvre with the aid of Charles Ephrussi (1849–1905) of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts acting as an intermediary, the clandestine export of the frescoes to Paris in 1882 with the aid of a dealer Giuseppe Baslini (1817–1887), and the investigation of the Italian Ministry on the affair afterwards. In all, the essays in this volume bring to light an incredible quantity of unpublished material which qualitatively and anecdotally gives a rich voice to the many different aspects of the dynamics underlying a complex market for the transaction of art. It is hoped that this volume will raise new questions and contribute to the nascent discourse on historical art market studies.

Works Cited



Archival Repositories



Published Sources

Florence, Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini: ASEB Berlin Zentralarchiv: SMB-ZA New York, Columbia University, Avery Library, Stanford White Letterpress Books. New York, The Morgan Library Archive

Alessio, Martina & Silvestra Bietoletti. “Angiolo Tricca,” in Angiolo Tricca e la caricatura toscana dell’Ottocento. Firenze: Giunti 1993, 11–30. Aretino, Pietro. Il Secondo Libro Delle Lettere Di M. Pietro Aretino: Al Sacratissimo Re D’inghilterra. Parigi: Matteo il Maestro, 1609.

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Barbe, Françoise. “Godefroy Brauer, antiquario e collezionista a Parigi, all’origine della collezione di maioliche arcaiche del Louvre all’inizio del XX secolo.” in Lucio Riccetti (ed.), 1909. tra collezionismo e tutela, (Catalogo regionale dei beni culturali dell’Umbria: Studi e prospettive). Florence: Giunti, 2010, 209–216. Bardini, Stefano. Médailles De La Renaissance: Collection De M. Stefano Bardini De Florence; Paris, 12 Juin, 1885. Bardini, Stefano. Collection Bardini, 5 Juin 1899. Paris: Phototypie Berthaud frères, 1899; Bardini, Stefano. Catalogue of a Choice Collection of Pictures, Antiques, Works of Art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, from the Collection of Signor S. Bardini, Etc. London, 1899. Bargellini, Simone. Antiquari Di Ieri a Firenze. Firenze: Bonechi, 1981. Bassignana, Lucia. “Tricca: Mercanti e Falsari tra Valtiberina e Firenze,” in Arte in terra d’Arezzo: l’Ottocento. Firenze: Edifir, 2006, 195–212, 200. Bock, Henning. Gemäldegalerie Berlin: Gesamtverzeichnis. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 1996. Bode, Wilhelm von. “Amlichte Berichte …,” Jahrbuch der Preußischen Kunstsammlungen, Band 10, Berlin, 1889, Zeitschriftenband, LII. Print. Borghese, Paolo. Catalogue des objets d’art et d’ameublement … du palais du prince Borghese à Rome. La vente … aura lieu … du 28 Mars au 9 Avril 1892. [Rome]: [Imprimerie É ditrice Romana], 1892. Bottari, Giovanni Gaetano. Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura scritte da’ più celebri personaggi dei secoli XV, XVI, e XVII, pubblicata da M. Gio. Bottari, e continuata fino ai nostri giorni da Stefano Ticozzi. (ed. Ticozzi, S. 1762– 1836; Milano, G. Silvestri, 1822–25; First published Rome, 1754–68). Cambareri, Marietta. “Italian Renaissance sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: the early years.” in C.R. Marshall, ed., Sculpture and the Museum. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011, 95–114. Catterson, Lynn. “Stefano Bardini and the Taxonomic Branding of Marketplace Style – From the Gallery of a Dealer to the Institutional Canon,” in Melania Savino and EvaMaria Troelenberg, eds., Images of the Art Museum Connecting Gaze and Discourse in the History of Museology. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017. Chini Niemeyer, Valerie. in Stefano Bardini E Wilhelm Bode: Mercanti E Connaisseur Fra Ottocento E Novecento. Firenze: Polistampa, 2009. Chong, Alan. “É mile Gavet: patron, collector, dealer.” in Virginia Brilliant, Paul F. Miller, and Françoise Barbe. Gothic Art in the Gilded Age: Medieval and Renaissance Treasures in the Gavet-Vanderbilt-Ringling Collection. Sarasota, Fla: John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, 2009, 1–21. Christiansen, Keith. Stefan Weppelmann, and Patricia L. Rubin. The Renaissance Portrait: From Donatello to Bellini. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011.

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Crowe, J.A. and G.B. Cavalcaselle. Titian: His Life and Times: With Some Account of His Family, Chiefly from New and Unpublished Records. London: J. Murray, 1877, vol. II, 66–68. De Marchi, Andrea. “Sulle Tracce dei Falsari: il caso Tricca,” in Florilegium: Scritti di Storia dell’Arte in onore di Carlo Bertelli. Milano: Electa, 1995, 92–97. Dowd, C.T. and J. Anderson. “The Travel Diaries of Otto Mündler, 1855–1858.” The Volume of the Walpole Society 51, 1985, iii–349. Dreyfus, Gustave. George F. Hill, and Joseph D. Duveen. The Gustave Dreyfus Collection: Renaissance Medals. Oxford: The University Press, 1931. Dreyfus, Gustave. Joseph D. Duveen, and Clarence Kennedy. Dreyfus Collection. Florence: MST [i.e. Tyszkiewicz], 1930. Freedman, Luba. “Titian’s Portrait of Clarissa Strozzi: The State Portrait of a Child,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 31, 1989, 165–180. Freedman, Luba, and Pietro Aretino. Titian’s Portraits Through Aretino’s Lens. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995. Gentilini, Giancarlo. “Giovanni Bastianini e i falsi da museo,” Gazzetta antiquaria, 2 (1988), 35–47; 3 (1988), 27–43. Grifi, E. Saunterings in Florence: A New Artistic and Practical Hand-Book for English and American Tourists. Florence: R. Bemporad & figlio, 1st ed., 1896 (with preface dated 1895). Grosshans, Rainald. Gemäldegalerie Berlin. Munich: Prestel, 1998, 6th ed. 2014. Hill, George F.; J G. Pollard, and Gustave Dreyfus. Renaissance Medals: From the Samuel H. Kress Collection at the National Gallery of Art; Based on the Catalogue of Renaissance Medals in the Gustave Dreyfus Collection. London: Phaidon Press, for the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 1967. Jaffé, David et al. Titian, London, 2003. Jandolo & Tavassi (Galerie Sangiorgi). Catalogue de la vente aprés décés de Mr. Joachim Ferroni, Imprimerie de lʻUnione Cooperativa Editrice, 1909. Krahn, Volker. Bartolomeo Bellano: Studien zur Paduaner Plastik des Quattrocento. Berlin, Techn. Univ., Diss., 1986. Krahn, Volker. “Bozzetti Und Pseudo-Bozzetti Aus Terrakotta in Der Berliner Skulpturensammlung.” Techne / Centre De Recherche Des Musées De France – CnrsUmr. (2012): 34–41. Print. London, England. “What the Master of Millions Looks like.” Daily Mail (London, England), Friday, April 12, 1901, Issue 1553, pg. 5. Luchs, Alison. “Duveen, the Dreyfus Collection, and the Treatment of Italian Renaissance Sculpture: Examples from the National Gallery of Art,” Studies in the History of Art 24, 1990, 31–38. Makowsky, Hans. “Ein männliches Bildnis des Luca Signorelli in der Berliner Galerie,” Zeitschrift Für Bildende Kunst. Leipzig: E.A. Seemann, 1900, n.s. 11, 117–120.

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Marcotti, Giuseppe. Guide-souvenir De Florence Et Pays Environnants. Florence: G. Barbèra, 1892. Migeon, Gaston. “La collection de M. Gustave Dreyfus (Medailles et Plaquettes),” Les Arts 80, August 1908, 1–32. Moskowitz, Anita. Forging Authenticity: Bastianini and the Neo-Renaissance in Nineteenth-Century Florence. Firenze: Olschki, 2013. Papi, Federica. Cultura E Tutela Nell’italia Unita, 1865–1902. Todi, (Perugia), Italy: Tau, 2008. Repetti, Emanuele. Notizie e guida di Firenze e de’ suoi contorni. Firenze: G. Piatti, 1841. Scalia, Fiorenza. Il Museo Bardini. Firenze: Società Leonardo da Vinci, 1976. Signorelli, Luca and Burlington Fine Arts Club. Exhibition of work of Luca Signorelli and his school. London: Metchim. 1893. Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori. ed. Gaetano Milanesi. Firenze: Sansoni, 1878–1885. Ward, Humphrey. “Bardini’s at Florence,” Art journal, January 1893, 10–15. Warren, Jeremy. “Bode and the British,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 38. Bd., Beiheft Kennerschaft / Hrsg. Von Thomas W. Gaehtgens Und Peter-Klaus Schuster, 1996, 121–142. Westgarth, Mark. The Emergence of the Antique and Curiosity Dealer, 1815-C.1850. The Commodification of Historical Objects. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. Wilson, H.C. A New Guide of Florence and its vicinity, Second edition, 1860.

The Artist as Dealer

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CHAPTER 2

The Many Hats of Mary Cassatt: Artist, Advisor, Broker, Tastemaker Laura D. Corey “In these days of commercial supremacy artists need a ‘middle man,’ one who can explain the merits of a picture or etching, ‘work of art’ in fact, to a possible buyer. One who can point to the fact that there is no better investment than ‘a work of art.’ ”1 So Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) counseled her friend, the younger artist Carroll Tyson (1878–1956) in 1904. She was espousing the importance of the dealer in this letter, but by serving as an advisor to American collectors, Cassatt too was a crucial intermediary with a knack for elucidating the aesthetic and monetary value of pictures to prospective purchasers. As both a decorous lady from an upper-class American family and a member of the French Impressionist circle of artists, Cassatt was uniquely situated at the junction between buyers and suppliers of art around the turn of the twentieth century. She leveraged her insider position to shape some of the first and most significant collections of nineteenth-century French art on this side of the Atlantic and made important contributions to the burgeoning market for Old Master paintings. This paper seeks to better define Cassatt’s role in the trade. Was she merely an artist enthusiastic about the works of her comrades? An agent for collectors? A ‘runner’ for galleries? A representative for painters? A dealer? A broker? A promoter? Careful examination of the extant documentation of her practice unveils a complicated picture. Mary Cassatt (fig. 2.1) wore many hats, and I contend that much of her significance in the history of collecting is the extent to which she infiltrated the market from all angles. She variously represented collectors, artists, dealers, objects, and her own interests in a multitude of transactions over nearly half a century from the early years of Impressionism until almost the end of her life. Her motives were a blend of altruism and selfinterest: she aspired to bring Fine Art to the American public and art students, to help her friends, and indirectly to promote her own work and legacy. 1  Mary Cassatt to Carroll Tyson, July 11, 1904, in Mathews, 1984, p. 293. Figure 2.4 Claude Monet, Springtime, 1872 (detail). © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004342989_003

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Figure 2.1 Mary Cassatt, Portrait of the Artist, 1878. Watercolor, gouache on wove paper laid down to buff-colored wood-pulp paper, 23 5/8 × 16 3/16 in. (60 × 41.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Edith H. Proskauer, 1975 (1975.319.1).

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Beyond her artistic renown, Cassatt is perhaps best remembered as the “fairy godmother,” “inspiration,” and “guide” to Louisine Elder Havemeyer (1855– 1929), whose first purchase of a Degas pastel, probably in 1877, launched both her collection and Cassatt’s advising career.2 Louisine and her husband Henry Osborne (Harry) Havemeyer (1847–1907) went on to build one of the formidable collections of the Gilded Age, much of which they bequeathed to The Metropolitan Museum of Art.3 While she had the most fundamental and widespread effect on the Havemeyer collection, the ‘Sugar King’ and his wife were not Cassatt’s only clients. Through her friends, family, and art-world colleagues, she assembled a network of more than a dozen advisees across the major American centers of culture and commerce of the day. Erica E. Hirshler’s essay “Helping ‘Fine Things Across the Atlantic’: Mary Cassatt and Art Collecting in the United States” expands upon the familiar Havemeyer narrative to provide an illuminating overview of Cassatt’s activities as an advisor to collectors.4 Her clients included her brother Alexander Cassatt (1839–1906) and Frank Thomson (1841–1899), both executives of the Pennsylvania Railroad based in Philadelphia; Bostonians Frank Gair Macomber (1849–1941), an insurance executive, and Sarah Choate (Mrs. J. Montgomery) Sears (1858–1935), an artist from a Brahmin family; Bertha Honoré (1849–1918) and her husband, developer Potter Palmer (1826–1902), of Chicago; iron magnates Harris Whittemore (1864–1927) and Alfred Atmore Pope (1842–1913) of Connecticut; and James Stillman (1850–1918), president of the National City Bank of New York. In addition, Mary Cassatt proposed works of art for acquisition to museums, among them the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.5 Broadening the scope of the study of Cassatt’s influence from the micro level – individual and institutional collectors – to assess her role in the market at large provides

2  Louisine Havemeyer wrote in her memoirs: “Mary Cassatt and I have been lifelong friends. She has been my inspiration and my guide. I call her the fairy godmother of my collection, for the best things I own have been bought on her judgment and advice.” In Havemeyer, 1993, p. 268. Probably Degas, Rehearsal of the Ballet, ca. 1876, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, F73–30. See Susan Alyson Stein, “Chronology,” in Frelinghuysen et al., 1993, p. 203. 3  For the Havemeyer collection, see Frelinghuysen et al., 1993 and Weitzenhoffer, 1986. 4  Hirshler, 1998. 5  The present author’s dissertation (forthcoming, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) examines Cassatt’s advising career in depth, considering her taste, networks, varied methods, and working relationships with collectors, museums, dealers, artists, and other intermediaries.

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perspective to better evaluate her methods, means, and motives for making such a critical impact on collecting in her native country. Cassatt’s greatest contribution to the market was as a tastemaker, whetting the appetites of her American disciples for the art she most admired. Cynthia Saltzman summarizes in Old Masters, New World that Cassatt had “her own distinctive, iconoclastic taste – a taste for difficult art. She disdained the pretty, the conventional, and the picturesque.”6 Accordingly, she favored the works of Manet, Degas, and Courbet, including their provocative nudes.7 As manifested in her own oeuvre, Cassatt had a predilection for figure paintings, often featuring female subjects. However, in spite of her affinity for depicting mothers and children, she did not show any bias towards Madonnas, such as the Raphael paintings highly prized in this era.8 Cassatt’s preferences derived from a broad spectrum of art yet were particular, nuanced, and sometimes mercurial. She held the art of her own circle in highest esteem and sought to legitimize Impressionism by linking it to past traditions. Among the Old Masters, she was most passionate about Spanish painting, which had inspired her during her training and travels, but she also promoted pictures by Rembrandt, Titian, Ingres, and others. She was deeply rooted in her own era and demonstrated little interest in the next generation, as best exemplified by her disdainful reaction to Gertrude and Leo Stein’s collection of modern art by Picasso and Matisse.9 Yet Cassatt’s interests also extended beyond the Western canon to include Japanese prints, so influential among the Impressionists, and Islamic ceramics imported by dealer Dikran Kelekian. Because of her desire to cultivate American public collections, which she understood would grow through the munificence of private collectors, many of her choices reflect her perceptions of didactic as well as aesthetic merit. She sought American homes for important pictures and profited from an extensive network of wealthy friends through whom she could propagate her taste. Beginning with the impressionable teenaged Louisine Elder, she developed an informal curriculum of indoctrination, in which she escorted budding amateurs to exhibitions, galleries, museums, and private collections to pique their interest in this carefully curated slice of the art market. Louisine recollected in her memoirs,

6  Saltzman, 2008, p. 117. 7  For Cassatt’s contribution to the market for Degas’s challenging nude bathers, see Hirshler, 1998, pp. 183–185. 8  Cf. Brown, 1983. 9  Mathews, 1998, pp. 282–284 and Sweet, 1966, pp. 195–196.

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When we first met in Paris she was very kind to me, showing me the splendid things in the great city, making them still more splendid by opening my eyes to their beauty through her own knowledge and appreciation. I felt then that Miss Cassatt was the most intelligent woman I had ever met, and I cherished every word she uttered and remembered almost every remark she made. It seemed to me no one could see art more understandingly, feel it more deeply or express themselves more clearly than she did.10 Another New Yorker, James Stillman was similarly taken with Cassatt when he became more serious about collecting in his twilight years, many of which he spent in Paris. She accompanied him around the city and, to further calibrate his taste, sent him to visit her advising masterpiece, the Havemeyer collection, when he was home in New York.11 His daughter-in-law Mildred Whitney Stillman recalled, “There is no doubt … that Mary Cassatt’s enthusiasm for the pictures she understood as well as created was a great stimulus and laid the foundation of friendship between them.… Moreover her vitality and interest were difficult for any friend to withstand, particularly one who admired personal force and liked people who accomplished the unusual.”12 Yet unlike Louisine, who was seduced by Cassatt’s vivid descriptions and insider anecdotes, Stillman enjoyed a good-natured debate when deciding to make a purchase. The dealer René Gimpel observed, “Mary Cassatt bullies Stillman, and that’s how she’s made a collector of him. In front of the Velázquez she told him: ‘Buy this canvas, it’s shameful to be rich like you. Such a purchase will redeem you.’ Stillman smiled.”13 Cassatt astutely devised distinct strategies to appeal to her various clients and tailored her recommendations to each collector’s interests and needs, as she perceived them. Stillman, for instance, never fully fell for the Impressionists, yet she helped him accumulate a collection that included works by Rembrandt, Titian, Moroni, and Courbet.14 In turn he became one of the most enthusiastic collectors of Cassatt’s own work.15 10  Havemeyer, 1993, pp. 269–270. 11  Cassatt wrote to Louisine Havemeyer about Stillman on November 29, 1906, “I like the way he is learning and subordinating his taste for the agreeable to the quality of Art – he learnt that in your house.” Quoted in Saltzman, 2008, p. 117. 12  Burr, 1927, p. 295. 13  Gimpel, 1966, p. 145. 14  Gimpel, 1966, p. 11 and Hirshler, 1998, pp. 201–204. 15  See Sharp, 1998, pp. 164–166. The present author’s dissertation will argue that one of the most significant ways Cassatt benefited from her work as an advisor was to indirectly cultivate a greater market and legacy for her own work.

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Cassatt’s presence on the ground of the art market in Europe was one of her main assets to American collectors during an era when transatlantic travel necessitated a commitment of weeks, if not months, and modern French art was just beginning to appear in domestic galleries. Harris Whittemore had deepened his appreciation for Impressionist painting when he went ‘picture hunting’ with Cassatt in Paris in the spring of 1893. After he returned home to Connecticut, he relied on her to find potential additions to his collection, which ultimately tallied over 1,000 objects, now dispersed.16 By the fall, Cassatt was on the lookout for the Whittemores, writing to Harris, “If I do hear of a Degas I will write at once”17 and reiterating the next spring, “I will write to you from Paris if I hear anything likely to interest you” after her report on the latest news in the art world.18 Because she was well connected to artists, dealers, and other intermediaries and located at the heart of the art market in Paris, Cassatt was poised to keep her overseas clientele informed of the latest developments. In 1894 she wrote to Whittemore, “I have an interesting piece of artistic news for you. There was in Paris an amateur by name [Georges] de Bellio, who had a large collection of [Impressionist paintings] … This man has died lately & it is most probable that his collection will be sold at the Hotel [Drouot]. I remember you wanting to buy some good Renoirs, this will be a chance.”19 Face-toface interaction helped Cassatt establish a bond with collectors and earn their trust, yet she proved especially valuable scouting and previewing pictures for her advisees. She encouraged them to evaluate the original works when possible but would also send photographs with her recommendations to equip them to make decisions from afar. While she preferred to exercise her creativity and authority in proposing pictures, she at times would serve as a scout to find a specified type of work desired by a collector. Alexander Cassatt seems to have referred Frank Thomson, his colleague at the Pennsylvania Railroad, to his sister for assistance buying Monets in the 1880s. She may have wished to expand Thomson’s horizons and was quickly exasperated when he did not heed her advice. She wrote to Alexander on September 2, 1886, “Your friend Mr. F. Thompson [sic] … wanted me to send him a letter to Monet, he gave me too little time for that, so I 16  See Smith, 2009. 17  Mary Cassatt to Harris Whittemore, November 14, [1893], in Dumas and Brenneman, 2001, p. 21. 18  Mary Cassatt to Harris Whittemore, March 31, [1894], Whittemore Archives. 19  Mary Cassatt to J.H. or Harris Whittemore, February 15, [1894], in Mathews, 1984, p. 259 and Hirshler, 1998, p. 198. Hirshler footnote 58 clarifies that “this letter seems to have been intended for Harris, not J.H. Whittemore, as published in Mathews.”

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telegraphed to [dealer Alphonse] Portier to call on him & as Mr. T. wanted to buy one or two Monets I hoped that Portier might find a couple at a reasonable price.… I told Portier to take a racing picture of Degas to show Mr. Thompson if it was not sold.”20 She appended a postscript that expresses her disappointment in Thomson: “just got a letter from Mr. Thompson to tell me that Portier brought him two Monets or three, cheap, but he preferred buying one from [dealer Paul Durand-Ruel] at 3000 frcs. I feel rather snubbed! I advised him to buy cheap, but I suppose he is the kind to prefer buying dear. I have very little doubt Portier[’]s were the best pictures.”21 A noteworthy feature of this letter is that it exemplifies Cassatt’s commitment to finding good deals, an indication that she usually, though not exclusively, represented buyers above dealers and artists. Cassatt not only sought out and proposed pictures on the market, but she was also involved to varying degrees in negotiations and purchases. In the case of her brother Alexander, a successful railroad executive who became the seventh president of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1899, Mary served as a proxy, making decisions on his behalf once she felt authorized. On November 18, 1880, she sent photographs of Degas’s work, agonizing, “I don’t like to buy anything for you, without your having some idea of what it would be like.… I feel it almost too much of a responsibility, am afraid you won’t like my selection.”22 This letter was written in the early years of her advising career and reflects a sense of uncertainty she would soon overcome. A year and a half later her father reported to Alexander from Paris, “in addition to the [Pissarro], of which she wrote you she has bought for you a Marine by Monet for 800 fcs – It is a beauty and you will see the day when you will have an offer of 8000 for it. Degas still keeps promising to finish the picture you are to have [fig. 2.2].… You know he would not sell it to Mame [Mary’s nickname], & she buys it from the dealer – who lets her have it as a favor and at a less price than he would let it go for to anyone but an artist.”23 Mary appreciated her brother’s financial sense and was keen to emphasize the value of the pictures she acquired for him, both in terms of present savings and future investment potential. 20  Mary Cassatt to Alexander Cassatt, September 2, [1886], in Mathews, 1984, p. 201. 21  Mary Cassatt to Alexander Cassatt, September 2, [1886], in Mathews, 1984, p. 202. 22  Mary Cassatt to Alexander Cassatt, November 18, [1880], in Mathews, 1984, p. 152. 23  Robert Cassatt to Alexander Cassatt, April 18, 1881, in Mathews, 1984, p. 161. Gary Tinterow proposed that the Monet may be Le Port de Honfleur, 1866, private collection, Wildenstein 1991 no. 2044–77 bis, in Tinterow and Loyrette, 1994, p. 426. Jean Boggs proposed that the Degas is The Ballet Class, ca. 1880, Philadelphia Museum of Art, W1937–2-1 in Boggs et al., 1988, p. 335.

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Figure 2.2 Edgar Degas, The Ballet Class, ca. 1880. Oil on canvas, 32 3/8 × 30 1/4 in. (82.2 × 76.8 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the W.P. Wilstach Fund, 1937 (W1937–2-1).

On January 5, 1884, she relayed to Alexander with confidence, “I wrote to you that we had found a beautiful Monet for you; Manet[’]s sale takes place next month; and I told Portier what to buy for you if the prices were low enough.”24 Her brother was more passionate about his racehorses than his art collection – Mary used Degas’s jockey scenes to entice him to Impressionism – and left most of his ‘picture buying’ to his sister. Her dealings on Alexander’s behalf in the 1880s helped sharpen the bargaining skills she later used for other clients. 24  Mary Cassatt to Alexander Cassatt, January 5, 1884, in Mathews, 1984, p. 177.

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In 1901 Harry Havemeyer entrusted Cassatt with an allowance to make purchases on his account. Cassatt and the Havemeyers had recently returned from an adventurous picture-hunting tour through Italy and Spain that initiated Cassatt into the Old Master trade. She followed up in August, “[Goya’s] Wellington is yours at 17,975 fcs. As you left it to my discretion I bought it on the [principle] I have always seen you follow of getting a fine thing when it came in your way.… Be quite easy as to funds[;] you have over 4000 frcs in my hands … so if [agent A.E.] Harnisch writes that he has found you a Donatello ‘gesso’ I can pay for it without appealing to you.”25 For the most part, however, Cassatt relied on collectors to make ultimate decisions about their purchases, and she let dealers finalize matters of payment and practicalities like shipping. In July 1902 Harry summoned Durand-Ruel to take over for Cassatt in the increasingly tortuous negotiations to acquire El Greco’s Cardinal.26 A year later he wrote to the dealer regarding Cassatt’s role in their pursuit of Goya’s Doña Narcisa Barañana de Goicoechea (fig. 2.3), “She very kindly advises Mrs. Havemeyer and myself in reference to art matters, but the price between us is never mentioned, except as a matter of interest; therefore, she can be entirely eliminated as a medium of conveying to us the price of pictures.”27 While Cassatt did remain involved in discussing prices, her role evolved over time so that dealers typically handled the numbers. Her value as an advisor was rooted in her taste and connections rather than expertise in business. Maintaining some distance from financial affairs helped her preserve the collegial relationships with artists and collectors that were central to her success. The dealer Ambroise Vollard recalled, “It was with a sort of frenzy that generous Mary Cassatt labored for the success of her comrades: Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Sisley and the rest.”28 Just as her connections in the European art world were of great value to her New World advisees, so her network of wealthy American collectors was beneficial to her artist friends. Camille Pissarro wrote to his son Lucien in April 1891 that “she will use all of her influence to push our 25  Mary Cassatt to H.O. Havemeyer, [probably just prior to August 9, 1901], Box 2, Folder 10, Havemeyer Family Papers. Partially quoted in Stein, “Chronology,” in Frelinghuysen et al., 1993, p. 231. Workshop of Francisco de Goya, The Duke of Wellington, ca. 1912, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1963.4.1. This was one of many Goyas Cassatt recommended for which the attribution has since been questioned. 26  Saltzman, 2008, p. 136. El Greco, Cardinal Fernando Niño de Guevara (1541–1609), ca. 1600, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 29.100.5. 27   H.O. Havemeyer to Paul Durand-Ruel, July 31, 1903, in Saltzman, 2008, pp. 137–138. Painting now attributed to Goya (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 29.100.180). 28  Vollard, 1976, pp. 180–181.

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Figure 2.3 Attribued to Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes), Narcisa Barañana de Goicoechea. Oil on canvas, 44 1/4 × 30 3/4 in. (112.4 × 78.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H.O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H.O. Havemeyer, 1929 (29.100.180).

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work in New York, paintings and prints; … she is very influential.”29 Her colleagues were especially grateful for her efforts to expand their markets when sales prospects at home looked bleak. Pissarro’s letters reflect his hope that Cassatt could help shore up his finances by placing his pictures in American collections. Degas too was thankful for her aid when she convinced Louisine Havemeyer to buy her first picture, Rehearsal of the Ballet. Louisine recalled, “I did not know until long afterward how opportune the sale of the picture was for Degas, and then Miss Cassatt told me Degas had written her a note of thanks when he received the money, saying he was sadly in need of it.”30 Cassatt even helped artists with whom she was not as close, as long as she believed in their art. In 1894 she wrote to Whittemore, “Whistler they say is in a bad way, financially. I was asked to propose a picture of his[,] one of his early ones, small & lovely, price 8,000 frs! I wrote to Mrs. H.O. Havemeyer about it[;] if she does not want it I will send you the photograph & perhaps you may know of some buyer. I detest Whistler but not his pictures.”31 Cassatt was also instrumental to the preparations for several of the Impressionists’ exhibitions. While other artists like Caillebotte and Degas spearheaded the organization and recruitment of new members to the group, Cassatt was an active participant and helped finance the final show in Paris in 1886.32 That same year, Paul Durand-Ruel staged his pivotal first exhibition of Impressionist art in New York. It was James F. Sutton, one of the directors of the American Art Association, and not Cassatt, who proposed the idea. Nevertheless, she lent the dealer money, probably helped convince her brother and the Havemeyers to lend pictures, and was an adept diplomat and counselor to both the dealer and the artists in the transatlantic expansion of Impressionism.33 When appealing to Claude Monet to support the plan to expand into the American market, Durand-Ruel repeatedly invoked Cassatt in order to bolster his argument. Writing in November 1884, he said, “For ages Madame Cassatt has told me that you would have great success in New York. Business is so hopeless in Paris and the future so somber for everyone in France 29  Camille to Lucien Pissarro, April 25, 1891 (Letter 655), in Bailly-Herzberg, 1988, p. 68. Author’s translation. 30  Havemeyer, 1993, p. 250. 31  Mary Cassatt to Harris Whittemore, June 19, [1894], Whittemore Archives. 32  See Robert Cassatt (Mary’s father) to Alexander Cassatt, May 5, 1886, in Mathews, 1984, pp. 197–198: “Degas and his friend Lenoir, Madame Manet (Morisot) & Mame – are the parties who put up the money for the rent & are entitled to all profits if there are any (needless to say they do not hope for or expect any).” After Degas invited Cassatt to join the Impressionist group in 1877, she exhibited in the exhibitions of 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1886. 33  See Sweet, 1966, pp. 103–104.

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that I ask myself if I too should not seek to open a new market for our business, and I am convinced that the only good one is the United States.”34 His appeals testify to Cassatt’s credibility among her circle and how having one foot in each world made her an essential ally. Jean Renoir, son of the painter Pierre Auguste Renoir, wrote in his memoirs that his father “believed that Mary Cassatt had been indirectly responsible for the exhibition. He liked her very much, though as a rule he did not care much for women painters.”35 The writings of Cassatt’s contemporaries attest that they viewed her as a colleague and worthy artist in her own right; her American connections did not take precedence over her creative talents in shaping her reputation. Degas, whose relationship with Cassatt was examined in the 2014 Degas Cassatt exhibition at the National Gallery of Art and its catalogue,36 described her as a “distinguished person whose friendship I honour.”37 Degas not only respected her character but also her technique. In 1922 Cassatt recalled, “he was chary of praises but he spoke of [my] drawing of the woman’s arm picking the fruit & made a familiar gesture indicating the line & said no woman has a right to draw like that.”38 Pissarro admired her work as well, writing in 1895, “At the moment Miss Cassatt has a very impressive show at Durand-Ruel’s. She is really very able!”39 Cassatt was motivated to promote the Impressionists by both friendship and commercial exposure. Her fellow artists seem to have sincerely appreciated her marketing efforts without regarding her as any less of a member of their group, a testament to her ability to deftly juggle multiple roles. As the primary dealer for the Impressionists, Durand-Ruel was Cassatt’s main partner in the trade.40 She was an asset to his business since she could engage with her compatriots on a familiar level and had a penchant for finetuning just the right sales pitch rooted in her fluency in the languages of both the American upper class and the French avant-garde. The dealer relied on her to generate a buzz about prize works through her network of eligible buyers, as 34  Paul Durand-Ruel to Claude Monet, November 18, 1884, in Archives Claude Monet, 2006, p. 42. Present author’s translation. 35  Renoir, 1962, p. 227. 36  Jones et al., 2014. 37  Degas to Comte Lepic (Letter 131), in Guérin, 1947, p. 144. 38  Cassatt to Homer Saint-Gaudens, son of the sculptor Augustus and director of fine arts at the Carnegie Institute, December 28, 1922, in Mathews, 1984, p. 335. The work Cassatt mentions was acquired by the Carnegie Institute, now Carnegie Museum of Art in 1922: Young Women Picking Fruit, 1891, 22.8. 39  Camille to Lucien Pissarro, December 5, 1895 in Rewald, 2002, p. 222. 40  For more on Durand-Ruel, see Patry et al., 2015, particularly Jennifer A. Thompson’s essay “Durand-Ruel and America,” pp. 134–151.

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in 1910 when Cassatt wrote to Louisine about Manet’s The Luncheon: “I was to say nothing so this is confidential, but Manet[’]s Dejeuner will be in the market, [Durand-Ruel] thought of Col. [Payne], what think you? A big price.”41 In this case the dealer was the supplier, the artist the informed insider, Louisine the trusted peer, and the Havemeyers’ friend and neighbor Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne (1839–1917) the potential, though not ultimate, purchaser. In other cases Durand-Ruel engaged her to resolve precarious transactions when he believed her word would be stronger than his alone. In July 1905 Cassatt wrote to Louisine that, “Durand-Ruel wants to see me to talk about the Faures’ Manets to impress upon Mr. Havemeyer that the offer he makes is too low and he may miss the three he wants. Now Mr. Havemeyer has seen the pictures and therefore is perfectly able to judge for himself. I must confess personally I would not ‘faire des folies’ for the Bon Bock.”42 Cassatt had been given an assignment to clinch the deal, but, ever the independent woman, she did not hold back from expressing her opinion. Even though she helped Durand-Ruel promote his stock, Cassatt was too committed to her own principles to be considered a representative of the dealer. In her 1998 essay, Hirshler wrote, “It remains as yet unknown whether or not the gallery gave her a commission for the sales she encouraged or perhaps arranged more favorable conditions for the sale of her own work.”43 Upon consultation of the Archives Durand-Ruel in Paris, I can now report that neither of Hirshler’s propositions is supported by the extant evidence.44 In other words, Mary Cassatt was apparently not paid by Durand-Ruel for acting as an intermediary in the gallery’s sales, even though the dealer did pay other individuals

41  Mary Cassatt to Louisine Havemeyer, January 28, 1910, Box 2, Folder 17, Havemeyer Family Papers. Emphasis original. Édouard Manet, The Luncheon, 1868, Neue Pinakothek, no. 8638. Durand-Ruel purchased the painting with fellow dealers Bernheim-Jeune and Paul Cassirer in 1910; it was sold as a gift to the Munich museums the following year for 250,000 Frs. according to Françoise Cachin in Cachin et al., 1983, p. 294. 42  Mary Cassatt to Louisine Havemeyer, no date [July 1905], in Gary Tinterow, “The Havemeyer Pictures,” in Frelinghuysen et al., 1993, p. 50. Durand-Ruel was trying to sell a group of paintings owned by the French collector Jean-Baptiste Faure, including the Bon Bock (1873, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1963-116-9, ex. coll. Carroll Tyson), Le Printemps: Jeanne Demarsy (1881, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2014.62, ex. coll. Oliver Payne), and The Virgin with the Rabbit (1854, location unknown). 43  Hirshler, 1998, p. 192. 44  The author would like to thank Flavie Durand-Ruel and Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel for their insight and generosity in providing access to the Archives Durand-Ruel. The author’s dissertation will address this matter in greater depth.

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in this capacity. Likewise, the archives of Ambroise Vollard lack any indication that Cassatt was compensated as an agent.45 Cassatt’s correspondence reveals her skepticism of advisors who were known to profit handsomely from their work in the trade. She wrote to Louisine Havemeyer in 1903, “Mrs. Jack Gardner has an agent a Mr. Berenson … who boasts he is incorruptible; I was told he took no small commission, but occasionally made a big haul … & Louie he is either most ignorant or, as that is unlikely not incorruptible.”46 Cassatt wanted to be perceived as a trustworthy advisor, not tainted by a financial stake in her recommendations. She appears not to have been paid by collectors;47 nevertheless, close relationships with American buyers stimulated the demand for her work. According to Mary Cassatt: A New Catalogue Raisonné, which accounts for her paintings, watercolors, and pastels, Stillman owned twenty-six of her pictures, the Havemeyers seventeen, the Whittemores eleven, the Sears ten, and the Popes five, among others.48 It is impossible to precisely quantify the benefits Cassatt reaped from her efforts as an advisor, but her dedication to “help[ing] fine things across the Atlantic”49 seems to have been a more important motivator than immediate monetary gain. Further evidence that Cassatt maintained a relatively autonomous position in the market can be found in her tendency to pursue better financial terms by circumventing Durand-Ruel. She advised Thomson to consult Alphonse Portier for a lower price on higher quality Monets in 1886, even though the railroad executive did not follow her advice. In 1897 Cassatt engaged agent Sara Tyson Hallowell to facilitate an acquisition of Corots by Harry Havemeyer on Oliver Payne’s behalf.50 It seems she recruited Hallowell to negotiate directly 45  Vollard Archives, with thanks to Marie-Josephe Lesieur for her assistance. 46  Mary Cassatt to Louisine Havemeyer, February 6, [1903], Box 2, Folder 12, Havemeyer Family Papers. Emphasis original. Partially quoted in Saltzman, 2008, p. 119. This letter refers to Boston collector Isabella Stewart Gardner and her agent Bernard Berenson. For more on Berenson, see Cohen, 2013. 47  There are no known references in surviving correspondence with or about Cassatt to payments from collectors for her advising services. 48  Adelson et al., Mary Cassatt: A New Catalogue Raisonné. 49  Hirshler, 1998, p. 177. Hirshler chose this quotation as the title of her essay. Cassatt wrote to Frank Gair Macomber in 1909, “it has been one of the chief pleasures of my life to help fine things across the Atlantic.” 50  See Weitzenhoffer, 1986, pp. 123–126. The paintings involved were Bacchante with a Panther (1860, Shelburne Museum), Venus Clipping Cupid’s Wings (ca. 1870–73, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, 1987.745), and Mademoiselle de Foudras (1872, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, no. 2858).

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with the Belgian seller in order to secure a more favorable price than DurandRuel had offered. In the end, however, the dealer still had to finalize the sale. This was not the only time Cassatt was one of multiple intermediaries in a given transaction, or that a dealer’s expertise was necessary to close a deal. Cassatt was particularly dependent on a network of emissaries when luring Old Masters out of their native countries. Outside her area of expertise and her physical territory, she engaged the assistance of dealer-agents such as Joseph Wicht and Ricardo Madrazo in Spain and A.E. Harnisch in Italy. Durand-Ruel maintained a role in executing many of the resulting contracts; Cassatt’s contribution was to represent the taste her clients trusted. Cassatt did business with various other dealers in addition to DurandRuel, including Gimpel, Trotti, Kelekian, and Bernheim. She began working with Ambroise Vollard around the turn of the twentieth century both as a vendor for her own art and a source for her clients. As time went by, she engaged Vollard primarily as a source for Cézannes, but also Degases and even Courbets. Cassatt described him as “a genius in his line[;] he seems to be able to sell anything.”51 The respect was mutual. She was the only Impressionist to whom he dedicated a solo exhibition (1908), and one may wonder whether this could have been a gesture of gratitude.52 Vollard acknowledged his debt to Cassatt in his memoirs, writing, “At the time of my first attempts, when I used to ask myself anxiously what the morrow would be like, how often did she get me providentially out of a difficulty! ‘Have you a picture for the Havemeyers?’ ”53 Rarely one to claim credit for her contributions to the market, Cassatt wrote to Louisine in 1913 that, in spite of his great success, Vollard “hasn’t forgotten Mr. Havemeyer having saved his financial life in 1901.”54 That was the year the collectors met Vollard and began buying Cézannes from him, although Cassatt had paved the way, acquiring two Cézanne still lifes of her own in April 1896.55 By helping connect Vollard to the acquisitive Havemeyers during his early financial struggle, she came to his aid much as she had for her artist friends. Cassatt cultivated meaningful relationships with collectors, dealers, and artists, and

51  Mary Cassatt to Louisine Havemeyer, December 4, [1913], in Mathews, 1984, p. 312. 52  Ann Dumas, “Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde,” in Rabinow et al., 2006, p. 14. 53  Vollard, 1978, pp. 180–181. 54  Mary Cassatt to Louisine Havemeyer, July 6, 1913, quoted in Weitzenhoffer, 1986, p. 143. 55  Feilchenfeldt, Warman, and Nash, “Compotier, pommes et miche de pain, 1879–80 (782),” (www.cezannecatalogue.com/catalogue/entry.php?id=413) and “Pommes et linge, 1879– 80 (763),” (www.cezannecatalogue.com/catalogue/entry.php?id=335), in The Paintings of Paul Cézanne, accessed March 28, 2015.

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she sought to assist them all, while primarily working for her cause of fostering a tradition of art collecting in America. In 1903 Cassatt functioned directly as the seller rather than a middle(wo)man when Henry Walters (1848–1931) bought two paintings from her personal collection, Monet’s Springtime (fig. 2.4) and Degas’s Portrait of Estelle Balfour.56 She had known William (1819–1894) and Henry Walters’ agent George Lucas at least since the 1880s, when Lucas was primarily interested in her prints.57 After the turn of the century, Cassatt and Lucas discussed their clients’ activities and informed each other about possible works of interest on the market. The Walters were not initially drawn to Impressionism, but Henry may have recognized the gap in his holdings by 1900, when he bought a Sisley view of the Seine.58 On April 20, 1903 Lucas accompanied Henry Walters on a visit to Cassatt’s Paris apartment, where the collector agreed to buy her Monet and Degas for 25,000 francs.59 There is little documentation of the transaction beyond the notes in Lucas’s diary, but the evidence is sufficient to hypothesize that Cassatt seized the chance to place two Impressionist figure paintings in an important collection that she knew was intended for the public of Baltimore – and in this case she was equipped to supply her own stock.60 Whether she was the seller or one of many intermediaries, whether she was seeking to help an artist, a dealer, or a collector, Cassatt was steadfast in her mission. By placing pictures in the hands of prominent American collectors up and down the Eastern seaboard and as far west as Chicago, she was disseminating a taste not only for Impressionist painting but for her own preferences in art. She accomplished this objective by consulting with collectors about their purchases, scouting works they desired or she endorsed, and educating them more broadly about the market. For the artists in her circle, she was 56  Both paintings are in the collection of The Walters Art Museum: Claude Monet, Springtime, 1872, 37.11 and Edgar Degas, Portrait of Estelle Balfour, 1863–1865, 37.179. 57  The first time Cassatt is mentioned in Lucas’s diary is on April 19, 1884. Randall, 1979, vol. 2, p. 585. The final time she appears is on July 17, 1904 (vol. 2, 931). Lucas owned two of Cassatt’s prints and helped Samuel Putnam Avery (1822–1904) formulate his well-known collection, now at the New York Public Library. See Randall, 1979, Appendix F, p. 49 and diary, pp. 596–779. 58  Johnston, 1999, p. 139. Alfred Sisley, The Terrace at Saint-Germain: Spring, 1875, The Walters Art Museum, 37.992. 59  George Lucas’s diary entry: “April 20, 1903: With H W to Miss Cassatt where he bought a Degas & Monet for 25,000 fs.… H W left for Nice” Randall, 1979, vol. 2, p. 913. 60  Mary Cassatt wrote to Louisine Havemeyer on January 5, 1903 that Lucas told her “Mr. W. was going to give Baltimore his collection.” Box 2, Folder 12, Havemeyer Family Papers.

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Figure 2.4 Claude Monet, Springtime, 1872. Oil on canvas, 19 11/16 × 25 13/16 in. (50 × 65.5 cm). The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Acquired by Henry Walters, 1903 (37.11).

foremost a fellow painter and printmaker but also an appreciated promoter. Dealers valued her deep network and powers of persuasion, even if her loyalties were often divided as she sought the best deals for the best pictures. While she made some missteps along the way and was never in complete control of what collectors decided to acquire, her impact on the market – measured by the quantity and overall quality of works she helped import to America – was tremendous.61 This achievement is noteworthy of its own accord but made all the more remarkable considering Cassatt’s status as a single, upper-class, ex­patriate, female artist who died only seven years after Congress granted women the right to vote in her native country. Cassatt believed strongly in the educational value of art for budding artists and the general public alike and saw in America the potential for a robust museum tradition, supported by generous private collectors. In her quest, 61  See Tinterow in Frelinghuysen et al., 1994, pp. 13–18, for a summary of the attribution issues with some of the Havemeyer’s Spanish paintings, a problem due at least in part to Cassatt’s uneven knowledge of Old Masters.

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she played a multitude of roles in the marketplace, but of all the masters she served, the greatest was her ideal of the masterpiece. She was more loyal to her taste than to any single constituent – collector, dealer, or painter. Her advising practice developed as an extension of her creative impulse, and thus Cassatt became one of the leading figures to nurture a nascent tradition of collecting fine art in America.

Works Cited



Archival Sources



Published Sources

Ambroise Vollard Archives. Fonds Vollard, MS 421. Bibliothèque Centrale des Musées Nationaux, Paris. Access courtesy of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. [cited as Vollard Archives] Archives Durand-Ruel, Paris. [cited as Archives Durand-Ruel] Archives of the Harris Whittemore, Jr. Trust. Copies held at Hill-Stead Museum Archives, Farmington, Connecticut. [cited as Whittemore Archives] Havemeyer Family Papers Related to Art Collecting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives, New York. [cited as Havemeyer Family Papers]

Adelson, Warren, et al. Mary Cassatt: A New Catalogue Raisonné. Adelson Galleries, www.marycassatt.com. Accessed June 29, 2015. Archives Claude Monet: Correspondance d’artiste, collection Monsieur et Madame Cornebois. Artcurial Briest, Le Fur, Poulain, F. Tajan, 2006. Bailly-Herzberg, Janine, editor. Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, vol. 3. Presses universitaires de France, 1988. Boggs, Jean S., et al. Degas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988. Brown, David A. Raphael and America. National Gallery of Art, 1983. Burr, Anna R.B. The Portrait of a Banker: James Stillman, 1850–1918. Duffield & Co., 1927. Cachin, Françoise, et al. Manet, 1832–1883. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983. Cohen, Rachel. Bernard Berenson: A Life in the Picture Trade. Yale University Press, 2013. Dumas, Ann, and David A. Brenneman, editors. Degas and America: The Early Collectors. High Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, 2000. Feilchenfeldt, Walter, et al. The Paintings of Paul Cézanne. www.cezannecatalogue. com. Accessed March 28, 2015. Frelinghuysen, Alice C., et al. Splendid Legacy: The Havemeyer Collection. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. Gimpel, René. Diary of an Art Dealer. Translated by John Rosenberg. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966.

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Guérin, Marcel, editor. Degas: Letters. Translated by Marguerite Kay. Bruno Cassirer, 1947. Havemeyer, Louisine W. Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector. Edited by Susan Alyson Stein. Ursus Press, 1993. Hirshler, Erica E. “Helping ‘Fine Things Across the Atlantic’: Mary Cassatt and Art Collecting in the United States.” Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, edited by Judith A. Barter, Art Institute of Chicago in association with H.N. Abrams, 1998, pp. 177–211. Johnston, William R. William and Henry Walters: The Reticent Collectors. Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Walters Art Gallery, 1999. Jones, Kimberly A., et al. Degas Cassatt. National Gallery of Art, 2014. Mathews, Nancy M., editor. Cassatt and Her Circle: Selected Letters. Abbeville Press, 1984. Mathews, Nancy M., Mary Cassatt: A Life. Yale University Press, 1998. Patry, Sylvie, et al. Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market. National Gallery in association with Yale University Press, 2015. Rabinow, Rebecca A., et al. Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the AvantGarde. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press, 2006. Randall, Lilian M.C., editor. The Diary of George A. Lucas: An American Art Agent in Paris 1857–1909. Princeton University Press, 1979. 2 vols. Renoir, Jean. Renoir, My Father. Translated by Randolph and Dorothy Weaver. Collins, 1962. Rewald, John, editor. Camille Pissarro, Letters to His Son Lucien. Translated by Lionel Abel. Originally published 1943. Artworks, 2002. Saltzman, Cynthia. Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures, 1880–World War I. Viking, 2008. Sharp, Kevin. “How Mary Cassatt Became an American Artist.” Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman, edited by Judith A. Barter, Art Institute of Chicago in association with H.N. Abrams, 1998, pp. 145–175. Smith, Ann Y. Hidden in Plain Sight: The Whittemore Collection and the French Impressionists. Garnet Hill Publishing Co. in association with the Mattatuck Historical Society, 2009. Sweet, Frederick A. Miss Mary Cassatt: Impressionist from Pennsylvania. University of Oklahoma Press, 1966. Tinterow, Gary, and Henri Loyrette. Origins of Impressionism. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with H.N. Abrams, 1994. Vollard, Ambroise. Recollections of a Picture Dealer. Translated by Violet M. MacDonald. Dover Publications, 1978. Weitzenhoffer, Frances. The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America. H.N. Abrams, 1986.

CHAPTER 3

The Misses Williams in Salem and Rome Jacqueline Marie Musacchio In the late nineteenth century, the Massachusetts town of Salem had strong connections to nearby and more cosmopolitan Boston as well as its own substantial community of artists and intellectuals. Like many New Englanders at this time, Salem’s citizens were interested in Italy and a significant number of them traveled abroad.1 In fact, quite a few of the women artists who went to Italy before, during, and after the American Civil War came from Salem. One of the earliest was the sculptor Louisa Lander, who journeyed to Rome to study with Thomas Crawford in 1855. The painter Sophia Peabody lived in Rome and Florence following her husband Nathaniel Hawthorne’s stint as counsel in Liverpool in the late 1850s. Fidelia Bridges, best known for her later representations of the natural world for Louis Prang’s chromolithograph company, traveled to Rome in 1867. Lander, Peabody, and Bridges are among the most accomplished of Salem’s women artists, as well as case studies for the importance of Italy to American artists during this period. This essay examines near contemporaries of these women who were even more engaged with Italy and Italian art: the sisters Abigail Osgood (1823–1913) and Mary Elizabeth (1825–1902) Williams, known collectively as the Misses Williams. Mary rented Lander’s former studio and taught painting to Bridges, and both sisters knew the Peabodys and Hawthornes. The sisters and their friends were part of that larger movement of New Englanders to Italy. However, unlike for example the wealthy Isabella Stewart Gardner, they were from the middle class. And, like Lander, Bridges, and the many other American women they came to know abroad, the Misses Williams were unmarried and needed their art to be self-supporting. As a result they had a very different Italian experience than that of their wealthier, married contemporaries. The Williams sisters and their brother Henry Willard came from a relatively prosperous family but their branch had fallen on hard times and they

A version of this essay was presented at the 2014 Renaissance Society of America conference; my research was funded in part by Wellesley College Faculty Awards. I am very grateful to Alice Friedman, Nancy Siegel, and Joy Sperling for their thoughtful suggestions. 1  Martin 1980, 1–20. Figure 3.2 Mary Elizabeth Williams, Sacro Speco at San Benedetto, Subiaco, detail. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004342989_004

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were orphaned at an early age; Henry became a prominent ophthalmologist in Boston while Abigail and Mary helped him with household matters and, beginning around 1850, taught art and music to Salem’s youth.2 Mary studied in the painting studios of Robert Conner and George Southward, and Abigail in that of her cousin Charles Osgood, but women had few options for formal training and the Boston area had few collections of originals or casts for more informal study. The sisters were enthusiastic about what they did see, in Boston’s Athenaeum, in private collections like those of Colonel Thomas Handasyd Perkins and his son-in-law Samuel Cabot Jr., and even via reproductions in John Boydell’s extravagantly illustrated Shakespeare folio.3 But they wanted to see more. Travel to Italy fulfilled this longing and transformed their lives. During their first trip, in 1861, they created paintings and projects that culminated in the 1886 establishment of a successful studio selling Italian art and objects in their Salem home. Throughout their careers they also sought out buyers, entered exhibitions, accumulated objects, and even researched art history, much of it with a focus on supplying women like themselves with fashionable objects. Their ambition was unusual regardless of gender; in 1891, their friend Jessie Peabody Frothingham wrote to Mary, “I really do think that you and your sister are the most enterprising people I ever knew and equal to anything you undertake.”4 For both sisters, the key to this success was Italy, a country that underwent significant social, economic, and political changes during their lifetimes but nonetheless provided them with the experience and objects they needed to make and market art successfully for the rest of their lives. Traveling abroad in the late nineteenth century entailed arduous sea voyages, unreliable ground transportation, sub-standard accommodations, and long delays in correspondence to and from home, as well as language barriers, currency complications, and safety concerns. Societal conventions heightened the difficulties for women traveling alone, a point demonstrated by the experiences of the characters of Hilda and Miriam in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Marble Faun (1860). Yet more and more women embarked on these trips, driven by the need for artistic training or simply the urge to see new things.5 2  William 1908, 4: 2000 and Adams 1850, 146. 3  Mary E. Williams, “Journal for 1852,” unpaginated (28 March and 11 September), box 1 folder 1 and Mary E. Williams to Mary Ann Bell, 23 July 1852, box 1 folder 1 (MEWP). 4  Jessie P. Frothingham to Mary E. Williams, 6 December 1891, box 1 folder 4 (MEWP). 5  “Budget of Miscellaneous” 1872, 12 (“there are more American ladies now travelling in Europe than men”). For Louisa May Alcott’s quasi-fictionalized account of her 1870 trip with her painter sister and a friend, see Alcott 1915. The next generation of Boston-area women had a somewhat easier experience, since they were able to take advantage of the Women’s Rest Tour Association, founded in 1891.

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Italy had a particular appeal for artists and the Williams sisters felt it. In 1855, while Mary was busy teaching drawing and music to several dozen students, she described her desire to go to Italy as “this height of my worldly ambition.”6 To achieve it, the sisters had to save money and lessen their familial obligations; in 1857 Mary wrote to a friend, “I do not say much about it, for fear something may happen to prevent, but I have decided that, as soon as I am free here, it will be best to go immediately to Florence to continue my studies in painting. You know I always said I intended to go, but I never realized it so fully.”7 It took a while for the sisters to attain that ambition. By the time they departed in 1861, they were 36 and 38, older than most American women – and men – who sought artistic experience abroad. They did not face the same scrutiny as their younger counterparts, and therefore did not have to worry about their reputations. As long as they had the financial means they could do what they wanted with relatively few impediments. Over the course of three trips, they also remained longer than many of their contemporaries; they lived mostly in Italy, and mostly in Rome, for at least fifteen years. But it was not easy; their ongoing need for funds always influenced their activities. The Misses Williams left Boston on the steamship Europa on 21 August 1861; they arrived in Liverpool on 1 September and journeyed through France to Italy, arriving in Florence on 21 September and settling in the Oltrarno.8 At that time Florence was second only to Rome as a destination for Anglo-American travelers, and the resident artists were a close group. The sisters immediately sought out the painter Elizabeth Adams (sister of their friend Annie Adams Fields) and the sculptor Hiram Powers for assistance with housing; through Powers they met the sculptor John Adams Jackson, who invited them to share a large apartment across from the Palazzo Pitti with him and his family.9 By January, more comfortable with the city and their new lives, they moved to their own apartment nearby. During these first months in Florence they made numerous flower studies, sometimes inscribing the date and place where they saw the plant on the verso (Peabody Essex Museum, Salem). They also spent time in Florence’s museums and galleries, finally seeing, and copying, famous works of art they previously knew only through reproductions. Copying was a common practice in most

6  Mary E. Williams to Mary Ann Bell, 22 December 1855, box 1 folder 2 (MEWP). 7  Mary E. Williams to Mary Ann Bell, 18 April 1857, box 1 folder 2 (MEWP). 8  Mary E. Williams to unknown, 4 September 1861 and 14 December 1861, box 1 folder 2 and Abigail O. Williams to Henry W. Williams, begun 21 September 1861, box 1 folder 6 (MEWP). 9  Mary E. Williams to unknown, 14 December 1861, box 1 folder 2 and Abigail O. Williams to Henry W. Williams, begun 21 September 1861, box 1 folder 6 (MEWP).

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European museums, whether by aspiring artists or by professionals hoping to sell their copies of celebrated works to acquisitive travelers. Women artists were especially associated with copies, which were thought to require less skill than originals and therefore fit better with female abilities.10 Although Uffizi copyist records end in 1859,11 the Misses Williams surely set up their easels there and in other Florentine museums as often as possible. In one letter Mary noted that another American, Lydia Edgar, was “painting next to me at the gallery.”12 Though she does not specify which gallery, it seems logical to assume it was the Uffizi, which would have required no further identification for her correspondent. The sisters remained in Florence until perhaps late June 1862, when Mary’s membership at the Gabinetto Vieusseux, a reading room popular with the international community, expired.13 Like most Anglo-Americans, they probably spent the summer months traveling to cooler climates, escaping the much-feared mal aria in the urban centers.14 However, instead of returning to Florence, by November 1862 they were settled in an apartment near the Spanish Steps in Rome, where shops, hotels, apartments, and studios accommodated a large population of English-speaking travelers. Despite deep suspicions about Catholicism, the papal city was the goal of many Anglo-American Protestants, particularly in the temperate winter with its busy social ­calendar.15 Great art collections, available models, and affordable living conditions made Rome ideal for artists, as did the constant influx of travelers who wanted to bring home souvenirs of their visits and were inclined, when possible, to acquire them from their countrymen (and women). In 1869, the painter Frederic Edwin Church noted that Americans were “as plentiful here as ants in an anthill – and just about as active – and the amount of stuff they buy is astonishing – copies, new pictures – sculpture – jewelry – mosaic – antiquities – bronzes, etc etc.”16 The diverse and sometimes quite valuable stuff Church listed fit well with both the Victorian style common to many English and American homes 10  For a copyist friend of the sisters, see Musacchio 2011. 11  Barker 2014, 65–79. 12  Mary E. Williams to unknown, 24 November 1861, box 1 folder 2 (MEWP). 13   Libro dei Soci 5, folio 249 (23 January 1862) (AGV). 14  Rome’s unhealthy summers were a plot device in books like Henry James’s Daisy Miller (1878) and Edith Wharton’s Roman Fever (1934). 15  In 1868, 800 foreigners, surely including the Misses Williams, attended a Christmas Eve gathering hosted by the Anglo-American banker James Clifton Hooker; see “The Papal States” 1869, unpaginated. 16  Novak 2007, 189. The French behaved similarly; see Warren 2005, 739 note 102.

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and early museum collections. It was often referred to by the French term bric-à-brac.17 In 1863, the well-traveled author Henry P. Leland described a Roman shop where these kinds of objects were available; it was filled with “paintings, engravings, intaglios, old crockery, and Bric-à-brac-ery generally.”18 Following the publication of sculptor William Wetmore Story’s book on Roman life, these objects were also described as roba di Roma, which Story defined using John Millhouse’s popular Italian dictionary: “goods, wares, things, articles, property, chattels, estate; stuff, lumber; a robe, gown, dress.”19 Both bric-à-brac and roba were positive terms for these highly desirable and collectable objects. In fact, Story contrasted roba to robaccia, Millhouse’s “trash, trumpery, and stuff.”20 Roba in all its forms came to represent the ideal of Italy as a place of culture and history, and one that travelers wanted to bring home with them. A combination of events made it increasingly easy to acquire roba during the years the Williams sisters were abroad. Early in the nineteenth century, Napoleon I suppressed many Italian religious institutions and confiscated their possessions, some of which dated back centuries, and these objects circulated on the market for many years. In 1866, the government continued to abolish ecclesiastical privileges and confiscate and sell the possessions of churches, monasteries, and convents.21 The extensive demolitions necessary to turn the old center of Florence into a suitable setting for the capital of the newly united Italy in 1865, and similar activity in Rome when the capital moved there in 1871, released further objects on the eager market. Although the antiquarian Alessandro Foresi complained of his brethren selling Italy’s cultural patrimony to foreigners, it was immensely profitable to do so.22 As a result the purveyors of roba di Roma – often with fewer scruples than Foresi – grew in numbers. Men like William Blundell Spence and Stefano Bardini enticed travelers

17  When the Metropolitan Museum opened in 1880 it displayed “a number of cases containing articles of bric-à-brac and virtu” (“American Art Chronicle” 1880, 318). 18  Leland 1863, 145. 19  Story 1863, 1:preface and Millhouse 1861, 2: 450. The phrase grew in popularity, designating not just tangible objects but more abstract concepts, too. A friend of the sculptor Anne Whitney recommended reading Hans Christian Anderson’s The Improvisatore (1835) “for the sketches it gives of roba di Roma;” see Sarah Whitney to Anne Whitney, 17 April 1868, MSS 4.232 (AWP). 20  Story, 1:preface and Millhouse, 2: 450. 21  Paolucci 2011, 18 and Gioli 1997. 22  Warren 2005, 739–740.

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to buy from the tempting stock displayed in their welcoming galleries.23 This multitude of Madonnas, bronze lamps, and textile fragments, some of dubious authenticity, provided a traveler with numerous opportunities to acquire a coveted object and in doing so he, and occasionally she, bought into that Italian ideal. Bardini, for example, was said to have more than two hundred allegedly Renaissance chests ready for sale, increasing the fascination with all things Italian from London to New York and beyond.24 If Bardini’s supply of chests seemed limitless, famous paintings did not. The practice of connoisseurship was in a nascent phase and what seemed then to be certain attributions are sometimes disparaged today. Buyers understood that there were only so many Raphaels or Guido Renis to go around, and those that were available sold for high prices. This led to the production of affordable copies; constant demand for the Madonna della Sedia or the Beatrice Cenci kept many painters busy and steady sales provided them with a livable income. Some painters made exact copies, but others simplified compositions or changed details to please their largely Protestant clientele. The Misses Williams made both types; one painting by Mary has festive music-making angels and seraphim (Peabody Essex Museum, Salem) copied selectively from Raphael’s Coronation of the Virgin of 1504 (Pinacoteca, Vatican). Her edits removed the more overt religious iconography – the Coronation itself – to make the painting appropriate for a typically Protestant New Englander’s home. More adventurous buyers sought out Italian genre scenes instead of, or in addition to, these copies. To paint these scenes artists hired one or more of the many models who loitered on the Spanish Steps in indigenous costume, waiting for a chance to earn money by posing in a studio. Other buyers wanted Italian landscapes; artists accommodated by placing their easels in front of a local view or used their summer travels to build a more diverse portfolio. Original compositions were especially praised; as one newspaper account observed, by mid-May “many of the artists have left their easels for studies in different parts of Europe, which it is to be hoped will result in their making a few pictures not copied from the decayed frescoes of Raphael at the Vatican, or the old masters in the Borghese and Corsini palaces.”25 And indeed the Misses Williams used sketches made during summers in Naples, Venice, Albano, and elsewhere as the basis for paintings they later completed in their Roman studio.26 23  See, for example, Callmann 1999, 338–348 and Catterson’s essay in this volume, as well as Fleming 1973 and 1979. 24  Schubring 1915, 1:vii. 25  “Letter from Rome” 1868, 2. 26  For their travels, see “American Artists in Europe” 1866, 1, Anne Whitney to Sarah Whitney, 16 October 1869, MSS 4.184 and 13 July 1868, MSS 4.159 (AWP), and “Rome” 1871, 1.

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Artists displayed both copies and originals, as well as roba di Roma, in their studios to entice buyers, and guidebooks urged travelers to visit them. According to one guidebook, “Among the characteristics of modern Rome capable of affording high interest to the intellectual visitor, there are few that offer a greater charm than the artists’ studios.”27 Many of these spaces were multipurpose, serving not only as a studio but also as a shop and a home.28 These “staged collections,” as Francesca Baldry described them, essentially created what scholars now sometimes refer to as house museums, displaying the taste and erudition of their residents, as well as, in these cases, saleable objects.29 Some artists were admired for their particular skill at creating attractive spaces. In 1867, Boston sculptor Anne Whitney enviously observed, “Hattie [Harriet Hosmer] has been collecting furniture for her rooms in a leisurely way for many years and has some lovely old things bought at marvelous bargains.”30 Articles in the Anglo-American press stressed the appeal of these oftentimes crowded spaces. Alongside their own paintings, Charles Coleman’s Roman studio was filled with everything from an iron crane to a poisoned poniard to historical textiles, and Henry Roderick Newman’s Florentine studio included Japanese bamboo, Persian carpets, and Italian primitives next to his own work.31 Most, if not all, of the objects in these rooms were for sale if the price was right. Staged photographs of artists’ studios, used to illustrate certain copies of Hawthorne’s Marble Faun, included similar trappings, catering to the expectations of readers who believed all artists lived and worked in such fantastic surroundings (figure 3.1). The only known description of the Misses Williams Roman studio dates from their first few years there and describes it as more New England than Italian.32 But this must have changed as they settled into Roman life and acquired more roba to fill their spaces. Their presence in the city became more widely acknowledged, too. In 1864 the sisters were described as Roman residents in the New York Times and in 1866 they were included in an article in Harper’s; in 1867 they were listed as representatives of “pictorial art” in Rome

27   Handbook of Rome 1869, xlii-xliii; see also Spence 1852 and Bonfigli 1858 and 1860. 28  Mannini 2011, 65–80. 29  Baldry 2011, 47. 30  Anne Whitney to Sarah Whitney, begun 24 December 1867, MSS 4.150 (AWP). 31  “A Roman Studio” 1884, 86–87 and Forman 1884, 525–539. For a similar description of these studios, see “Letters: Trip to Europe,” 10 April and 2 May 1885 (LMHP) and Bruni and Cammeo 2003. 32  Walker 1866, 103–104.

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Figure 3.1 Anonymous (Italian), Artist in Her Studio, late nineteenth century. Photograph inserted in an extra-illustrated edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Marble Faun (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1860). Private collection.

in the American Annual Cyclopaedia alongside Luther Terry, John Rollin Tilton, their distant relation Joseph Ropes, and Emma Conant Church.33 Relationships with other American travelers and artists solidified their position in the city. Bostonian James Hubbard Weeks and his wife Maria arrived in Rome in early November 1862 and within a week they were mingling with 33  S. 1864, 2, Walker 1866, 103–104, and American Annual Cyclopaedia 1867, 6: 323.

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a number of artists, including the Misses Williams. Weeks’s journal reveals a busy calendar of social events and site visits with these artists, but he also saw one of the sisters copying a Dutch Baroque landscape by Paulus Potter in the Borghese Gallery.34 Nothing like the Potter painting, not to mention similar treasures in the Borghese and other galleries across Rome, were available in Boston at this time, and the sisters were eager to learn as much as they could from them. Moreover, the longer they stayed in Italy, exposed to art from the past and present, as well as unfamiliar landscapes and monuments, the more sophisticated their paintings became and the less they had to rely on copies to support themselves. Working with live models, something women artists rarely had the opportunity to do in the more puritanical United States, also helped: Mary was among the few women who attended drawing sessions with nude and costume models at Gigi’s informal academy.35 Painters like the Misses Williams and their sister sculptors, who were condescendingly characterized by Henry James as a “white, marmorean flock,” were usually grouped together by travelers and by the popular press because of gender.36 In fact these women did tend to gravitate to each other. Weeks mentioned the Misses Williams in connection with painters Elizabeth Adams and Emma Conant Church and sculptors Florence Freeman and Emma Stebbins, and the press included others, like sculptors Harriet Hosmer and Edmonia Lewis.37 The Misses Williams’s long residence in Rome also made them a resource for newcomers. In June 1867, when Anne Whitney and her companion, the painter Addy Manning, arrived in Rome, Whitney’s anxious sister Sarah wrote to ask if Anne had met the sisters of her eye doctor, Henry Willard Williams.38 They apparently did not meet until Whitney and Manning returned from their summer travel, but the four quickly grew close. Whitney and Manning watched the procession for the Feast of Saint Carlo Borromeo on 4 November from the Williams balcony, one of their first experiences of the Catholic ceremony that so fascinated – and sometimes repelled – Anglo-American Protestants.39 Even more importantly, the sisters helped their new friends adjust to Roman life. Whitney noted that, “We are indebted to 34  “Journal,” unpaginated, 17 November 1862 (JHW). 35  Mary E. Williams, “The Artistic Atmosphere of Italy,” 37–41, box 1 folder 4 and Abigail O. Williams to Miss Jenks, March 1882, box 1 folder 6 (MEWP). 36  James 1904, 1: 257 and Wallace 1872, 260; for the most recent examination of this group of sculptors see Dabakis 2014. 37  See, for example, Wreford 1866, 177–178. 38  Sarah Whitney to Anne Whitney, begun 24 June 1867, MSS 4.195 (AWP). They apparently did not know each other before Rome, although Whitney ran a school in Salem around 1847 and her friend and travel companion was Mary’s former pupil Fidelia Bridges. 39  Anne Whitney to Sarah Whitney, begun 28 October 1867, MSS 4.147 (AWP).

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them for some xcellent housekeeping hints – one of particular value is, that we can save ourselves the trouble of trying to have roast meats wh. we can’t have by sending them to the eng. bakery from wh. we have our bread, to be baked. The ragazza (girl) takes the crude + it is sent back at the dinner hour, hot + done to a turn, for all wh. accommodation you pay to the urchin who reports 2 cents.”40 A few months later, Whitney and Manning returned to the Williams balcony to watch Carnival festivities and then the Misses Williams came to their apartment, above the Spanish Steps, to watch Easter fireworks.41 The four women even traveled to the Alps together in 1869, although the intrepid sisters continued on their own from Linz to Ancona, partly by boat on the Danube.42 This is not to say that the sisters ignored the men in the Anglo-American communities they encountered. Salem painter Joseph Ropes sailed on the boat they took from Marseille to Genoa on their first trip abroad in 1861.43 I already noted their relationship with John Adams Jackson in Florence. They also knew Kentucky sculptor Joel Tanner Hart; Mary painted his portrait (lost) in his Roman studio in 1869.44 Through their Boston friend, the painter Augusta Homer, they met her husband, sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and he carved an onyx cameo of Mary Queen of Scots for Abigail (Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish).45 They also knew the English collector Morris Moore, best known for condemning conservation efforts at London’s National Gallery and arguing for a Raphael attribution for his Apollo and Marsyas painting. Morris exhibited his painting in Rome for years, and many Anglo-American artists pronounced their opinions of it.46 The Misses Williams were close to the Moore family and strongly supported the attribution; Mary even served as Moore’s agent and tried to sell the painting to curator William MacLeod of Washington’s Corcoran Gallery.47 Mary also urged MacLeod to purchase

40  Anne Whitney to Sarah Whitney, begun 28 October 1867, MSS 4.147 (AWP). 41  Anne Whitney to Sarah Whitney, begun 9 February 1868, MSS 4.151 and begun 17 April 1868, MSS 4.155 (AWP). They returned for the 1871 Carnival; see Anne Whitney to her family, begun 12 February 1871, MSS 4.10 (AWP). 42  Anne Whitney to Sarah Whitney, begun 29 August 1869, MSS 4.163 (AWP). 43  Mary E. Williams to unknown, 24 November 1861, box 1 folder 2 (MEWP). 44  Kurtz 1886, 17. 45  Augustus Saint-Gaudens to Mary E. Williams, 18 December 1874, box 1 folder 3 (MEWP); see also Duffy 2003, 48. 46  Moore 1884 and Haskell 1987, 155–174; for a skeptical view, see Anne Whitney to her family, 29 May 1870, MSS 4.43 and begun 27 March 1871, MSS 4.12 (AWP). Now at the Louvre, the painting is attributed to Perugino. 47  Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 3 October 1877 (CGAR).

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Morris’s other controversial Raphael attribution, a portrait of Dante he insisted Raphael copied from a recently uncovered Giotto fresco in the Bargello.48 The timing was fortuitous; Raphael was always popular, but 1865 was the 600th anniversary of Dante’s birth and the poet had become a national symbol for Italy as well as a subject of interest for American literati. Moore was unable to sell his Dante, which he offered with a companion portrait of Petrarch for £3500. But Mary Williams made and sold at least two copies of it, albeit for much less money since she readily admitted hers were copies.49 Such sales demonstrate the sisters’ awareness of the art market. They knew it was important to respond to contemporary taste and show their work to potential buyers, and their Rome studio was a good place to do this. Unfortunately, their studio address did not appear in any guidebooks until 1867, an omission that probably cost them sales.50 But exhibitions were also important. In 1868 Abigail entered two landscapes in the Boston Athenaeum’s annual exhibition, one of Mount Etna for sale and one of the Bay of Naples owned by her brother, Henry, who probably facilitated the process in her absence.51 In 1871, the sisters joined sixteen Rome-based artists who sent paintings and sculptures to the National Academy of Design in New York to benefit the construction of St. Paul’s Within-the-Walls, the new Anglo-American church in Rome.52 They entered five paintings in the exhibition of London’s Society of Female Artists in 1872, probably prompted by their Roman friends Augusta Freeman and Margaret Foley, both of whom sent sculpture to the exhibition the previous year.53 And, in addition to selling their own paintings, the sisters began to trade in roba di Roma. They sold their friend, Andover Theological Seminary

48  Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 3 October 1877 (CGAR). For the fresco see Barlow 1857, 853–854. It was popular with travelers; James Hubbard Weeks went “to the Pallazzo del Podesta a grand gloomy building now under repair to see the long lost Portrait of Dante – bad light so that much had to be taken on trust.” (“Journal,” unpaginated, 29 October 1862 (JHW)). 49  Mary E. Williams, “Memoranda of our own pictures +c. Sales. Raphael’s Hours,” unpaginated, box 1 folder 5 (MEWP). John Adams Jackson made several marble reliefs based on the Bargello head, too, further indication of contemporary interest in Dante; see Wilkins 1943, 1–3 and Harding and Katz 1984, 44. 50   American Annual Cyclopaedia 1867, 6: 323; for a later example see Loescher 1873, xi. 51  Perkins and Gavin 1980, 153. 52  Nevin 1878, 37–38 and “Art Notes” 1871, 2; the paintings were not sold as quickly as originally planned and were exhibited again at the Somerville Gallery in New York in 1873 (“Fine Arts” 1873, 5). 53  Society of Female Artists 1872, unpaginated (n. 323, 331, 343, 380, and 410).

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professor Edwin A. Park, marble fragments from Caesar’s Palace and, intriguingly, “Raphael’s palette,” although the palette was apparently lost in transit.54 This evidence indicates that their life abroad was rewarding and their work successful. However, shortly before November 1872, the sisters returned to Salem. They installed an exhibition of their Italian paintings in the gallery of the Studio Building in Boston for several months, and Mary took on a group of students, hoping to earn enough to fund their next trip.55 Although they remained in Salem longer than they initially planned, they used this time to promote their professional identity. They sent their paintings and other objects to exhibitions at the Boston Art Club (1874, 1877, 1878, 1880),56 the Museum of Fine Arts (1877, 1879, 1880, and 1881),57 and the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia (1876),58 and they displayed three more paintings in London’s Society of Female Artists exhibitions (1878 and 1879).59 In early 1875 the Misses Williams offered to loan a large group of their paintings to the Essex Institute in Salem.60 This was certainly a boon to the Institute, which had little art at that time, and it provided the sisters with exhibition space and storage. Their sixty-one originals and copies, by them and others, with subjects ranging from sacred scenes to landscapes, genre, and still life, served as the core of the Institute’s first loan exhibition of 346 paintings that March, the majority of which were for sale.61 A second exhibition was held that November, with sixteen of their paintings (perhaps all that remained unsold from the first exhibition) and a group of their antiquities among the 283 54  Edwin A. Park to Miss Williams, 2 July 1870 and 26 July 1871, box 1 folder 9 (MEWP). 55  “Free Art Exhibition” 1873, 2 and “Local Items” 1872, 2. 56  Chadbourne 1991, 410. 57  The sisters loaned a cardinal’s camice in 1877 (Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts 1878, 19), a painting of a Roman beggar in 1879 (Catalogue of an Exhibition … 1879, 19), an unidentified painting and a church interior in 1880 (Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts 1881, 32 and Exhibition of Works … 1880, 6), and a painting by Washington Allston in 1881 (Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts 1882, 29). 58  Both sisters submitted paintings for consideration in the category of “Landscapes, marines, cattle pieces, flowers, and still life in oil”; see “Massachusetts Pictures at the Centennial” 1876, 2. Mary exhibited paintings of a Roman beggar, an alchemist, and a still life of New England wildflowers (Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 29 October 1876 (CGAR)). She stated that she earned an honorable mention, but I can find no corroborating reference beyond her later autobiographical statement; see Kurtz 1886, LII. 59  Society of Lady Artists 1878, unpaginated (n. 351 and 415) and 1879, unpaginated (n. 798). 60  “Quarterly Meeting, Wednesday, February 10, 1875” 1875, 41–42. 61  “Art Exhibition” 1875, 99–100 and “Catalogue of the First Art Exhibition, March, 1875” 1875, 57–63.

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paintings and over one hundred curios on display.62 It was probably after viewing one or both of these exhibitions that Salem native Jones Very penned a poem titled, “To the Misses Williams, on Seeing their Beautiful Paintings of Wild Flowers,” in which he asked why they needed to travel when their rooms were so filled with paintings of nature’s beauty.63 A few years later, in 1879, the sisters showed their work at another Essex Institute exhibition, where Mary’s contributions were singled out in the local press as “notable.”64 Clearly their reputation was growing, and with it their clientele; they became more deliberate about marketing their own work and that of others. Around this time they sold a sixteenth-century parchment signed by Emperor Maximilian I to a trustee at the Abbot Academy in Andover, one of the few secondary schools for women in Massachusetts; the trustee later donated it to the school.65 In 1876 they loaned a painting of a monk by Mary and two Roman views by Antonio Moretti to the Corcoran, hoping the institution would acquire the lot; after much negotiation and halving the initial asking price the gallery finally bought the Morettis for $1000 in 1882.66 The sisters reluctantly reduced the price because they were leaving for another trip to Rome in 1881 and, as Mary wrote to MacLeod, “The money would be specially acceptable now, as we could stay the longer in dear old Rome.”67 As they prepared for their departure in September 1881, they sent two small unidentified paintings to Watson & Company in New York, advertised as “importers of bric-a-brac,” certainly hoping to make a sale while they were out of the country.68 They also loaned three paintings – their copies of work by Guido Reni, Bartolommeo Murillo, and Guercino – to Abbot Academy.69 The forwardthinking sisters, who had no opportunities for formal education when they were young, must have admired the school and its purpose. And the school was eager to buy from them, too, purchasing eight engravings after Old Master paintings while the sisters were in Rome.70 During this trip they kept up other Boston area connections, loaning a painting by fellow Roman resident 62  “The Second Art Exhibition” 1875, 151–162. 63  Very 1993, 561. 64  “Boston and Vicinity” 1879, 2. 65  McKeen and McKeen 1880, 63–64. 66  Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 29 October 1876, 18 January 1879, 18 and 30 July and 5 September 1881, and 7 July 1882 (CGAR) as well as William MacLeod to Mary E. Williams, 13 June 1882, box 1 folder 3 (MEWP). 67  Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 5 September 1881 (CGAR). 68  Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 30 July 1881 (CGAR) and Woollett 1878, unpaginated. 69  “Editors’ Drawer” 1881, 35. 70  “Driftwood” 1884, 29.

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Charles H. Poingdestre to an Art Society exhibition and at least eleven Old Master paintings and Giotto and Perugino copies to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.71 Mary continued to correspond with museum officials like MacLeod, who also enlisted their help in acquiring plaster casts of famous sculptures.72 The sisters failed to sell MacLeod a collection of Ancient Roman glass, but he did agree to install one of Mary’s Dante copies at the Corcoran.73 Their correspondence with potential buyers at home may have been necessitated by a weak market in Rome. In 1882 the watercolorist Caroline Carson, who also lived abroad for an extended period and needed to earn money to support herself, wrote home with perhaps some exaggeration, “Rome is very full but people buy nothing. I shall starve.”74 Almost all of the artists in Rome’s Anglo-American community would have felt this urgency to sell their work. It is no surprise that many of them, including the Misses Williams, petitioned the United States Congress to repeal a prohibitive duty on art imports, arguing that it would deter travelers from making purchases.75 But even these concerns did not detract from the pleasure of being back in Rome, where the sisters had a wide social circle. In a letter to a friend Abigail wrote, “Here we were received by our friends with all the warmth of nine years suppression … if we had no desire to work we could have every moment occupied, for there are afternoon receptions nearly every day in the week, as well as afternoon teas where friends meet and gossip over the best tea, and china, about other friends and newcomers … Then new friends are constantly arriving, and old friends must not be neglected, so our hands are full.”76 Clearly the social expectations for women were the same whether at home or abroad.

71  “Art Society Exhibition” 1884, 4 and Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts 1885, 25. 72  William MacLeod, “Journal,” unpaginated (15 and 22 May, 5, 12, and 13 June, and 31 July 1882) (CGAR) and William MacLeod to Mary E. Williams, 13 June 1882, box 1 folder 3 (MEWP). I am grateful to Marisa Bourgoin and Lisa Strong for assistance with the MacLeod journals. 73  William MacLeod to Mary E. Williams, 13 June 1882, box 1 folder 3 (MEWP) and MacLeod, “Journal,” unpaginated (17 February and 17 and 19 April 1883; 28 and 29 July and 9 August 1886) as well as “Eleventh Annual Report of the Curator for 1883,” Journal of the Official Proceedings of the Trustees, 217 (CGAR). Another collector purchased the glass and donated it to the Museum of Fine Arts; see Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts 1884, 7 and 19. 74  Pease and Pease 2003, 128. 75  United States 1884 and United States 1884. 76  Abigail O. Williams to Miss Jenks, 31 December 1881, box 1 folder 6 (MEWP).

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During this trip both Mary and Abigail began to paint detailed interior views of picturesque churches in Assisi, Palermo, Spoleto, Venice, and elsewhere. In the view of the Sacro Speco at San Benedetto in Subiaco illustrated here, the addition of the praying woman and the lounging men were charming details that buyers seeking an indigenous Italian image would have appreciated (figure 3.2). Before the widespread use of color photography, such paintings were souvenirs of or substitutions for travel, and the sisters made multiple copies of each interior to meet the demand. They journeyed to see and sketch or paint these interiors, spending time in Subiaco, for example, in the summer of 1882.77 These paintings proved quite successful, both in the Anglo-American circle and beyond it, too; Mary’s view of the choir of the Duomo in Spoleto was one of two of her paintings (the other a still life) accepted by the jury to Rome’s Esposizione di belle arti in 1883.78 This made her one of the very few Americans, and one of even fewer women, to participate in this important exhibition. The sisters also bought more roba di Roma, using knowledge of the city gained from years of residence to find the most desirable objects. They sold what they described as Ancient and Renaissance paintings and other objects

Figure 3.2 Mary Elizabeth Williams, Sacro Speco at San Benedetto, Subiaco, circa 1882–1885. Oil on canvas. Private collection.

77  Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 7 July 1882 (CGAR). 78   Catalogo generale ufficiale 1883, 37 and 65.

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from their Roman studio. At times these designations may have been overly generous; a contemporary Italian dealer referred derisively to such sales of “crockery and other knick-knacks.”79 But there was a demand for all sorts of souvenirs that represented Italy’s great past, and the Misses Williams were able to capitalize on it. They probably obtained some of these objects at the Fiera di Cenci, which Mary described as a weekly event where “all sorts of things at all sorts of prices, are bought and sold by all sorts of people, where treasures are bought for almost nothing, and where nothing can be bought which is very costly.”80 The fair was perhaps a bit too authentic for most travelers, who instead preferred the trusted English-speaking shops and studios around the Spanish Steps. But Mary’s familiarity implies that she regularly attended the fair, and probably acquired a great many objects for very little money and profitable resale. A later writer confirmed that, while in Rome, the sisters “gathered such treasures as artists love, finding them in queer little shops, in impoverished palaces, in out of the way places that the mere tourist never sees, but which the true artist knows by instinct.”81 Despite the romance behind this statement, the sisters certainly knew where to find the best roba di Roma. They accumulated enough to make their studio as fantastic as those of Coleman and Newman cited earlier, and though they no doubt enjoyed living amongst these objects their acquisitions must have been intended for future sale. They even considered buying Morris Moore’s portrait of Dante by Raphael; Mary wrote to MacLeod, “I am really almost tempted to buy it myself and make a good sound sum out of it, as I am sure I could.”82 But that painting was almost certainly too expensive for the sisters, even with the promise of eventual profit, and they instead focused on a wide range of less costly objects for display and sale. Their studio apparently made a great impression; after they returned home, their friend Mrs. Frothingham wrote nostalgically, “I remember the beautiful things which you had collected before you left Rome, and to which you must have made so many valuable additions since.”83 The Misses Williams had a practical reason for putting so much effort into their acquisitions; they planned to open another studio, undoubtedly similar to what they had in Rome, after their return to Salem in late 1885. They immediately began to put this plan into place. They reconnected with Anne 79  Warren 2005, 739. 80  Williams, “The Artistic Atmosphere,” 35; for the fair, see Chatterton 1906, 275–283 and Teall 1909, 410–414. 81  Parks 1892, 4. 82  Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 7 July 1882 (CGAR). 83  Jessie P. Frothingham to Mary E. Williams, 19 September 1886, box 1 folder 8 (MEWP).

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Whitney and Addy Manning, whose home on Boston’s Beacon Hill was a gathering place for the cultural elite. The savvy sisters left several of their paintings, among them the church interiors, with these friends for viewing – and hopefully purchase – by prominent visitors like Louisa May Alcott.84 In March 1886 they moved the remaining paintings to Boston’s Studio Building for an exhibition that included eleven copies and thirty-six church interiors, which one critic described as “painted with such fidelity that it is almost as good as visiting them.”85 Whitney and Manning continued to see the Williams sisters during the exhibition and Manning’s stepsister Sarah Manning Sage bought a painting of the interior of San Marco in Venice for $350.86 According to Mary, who pressed MacLeod to purchase or display the interiors, the paintings “were shown to [John] Ruskin by some friends of ours in England, and he was much pleased with them, saying he “had never seen any pictures of the kind which he liked so well, they were so truthful and yet harmonious,” and though he had been quite ill, he insisted on seeing us, and telling us himself what he thought of them.”87 Unfortunately, perhaps because they did meet in person, as Mary states, there is no mention of this encounter in Ruskin’s correspondence. But he was certainly not the only one who found the interiors impressive. MacLeod exhibited four at the Corcoran the following year, and others were displayed at St. Botolph’s Club in Boston in 1891.88 The exhibition of these paintings, both privately and publicly, proclaimed the sisters’ return to the Boston art community. At the same time, they were setting up the studio in their Salem home; by the summer of 1886 they announced its opening to friends and others who might be willing to purchase from them. In July, in another in her series of persistent letters endeavoring to interest MacLeod in a sale or a temporary exhibition, Mary wrote, “My sister and I are here in America again, have built a new studio at our old homestead, and collected our scattered pictures from the hospitable homes where 84  Addy Manning, “Diary,” unpaginated (17 and 18 November 1885 and 26 January 1886), MSS 4 (AWP). 85  “Boston Art Notes” 1886, 102–103. 86  Williams, “Memoranda,” unpaginated (MEWP) and Manning, unpaginated (27 March 1886) (AWP). 87  Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 22 July 1886 (CGAR). On Ruskin, see “Boston Art Notes” 1886, 102–103 and unidentified newspaper clipping, box 1 folder 5 (MEWP); an obituary instead states that the sisters met Ruskin on their third trip abroad (“Mary E. Williams, Artist” 1902, page unknown). 88   For the later exhibitions see “Monthly Record of American Art” 1887, xix and St. Botolph Club Records, 1879–1974 (Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC).

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they have been harbored during our wanderings, making, together with those we have brought home with us, and a few old ones which we have “picked up,” quite a considerable gallery for a private studio. Most of our wanderers have arrived but my little copy of Morris Moore’s Dante by Raphael is still with you, and as it has fulfilled its mission of letting you see the color … will you please forward it to me, to the above address, as soon as convenient.”89 MacLeod sent back the painting, and wrote rather perfunctorily, “I am very glad to hear by your interesting letter of 22d that you have returned to America again + have brought with you such valuable examples of your pencil + that you have gathered these and all your works in a fit studio.”90 There is no evidence, however, that he bought anything from the sisters after this date. Mrs. Frothingham wrote with more warmth to congratulate them: “Your building a studio, where you can properly exhibit your paintings, both new + old, was exactly the wisest thing you could do and you must take the greatest pleasure + comfort in it. What a charming spot it must be + how I should like to visit it + visit you.”91 However, despite her enthusiasm, Frothingham is not recorded as visiting or buying from the studio. But others did visit, and many of those visitors made purchases. The sisters knew that there was a market for Italian art and objects in the Boston area and indeed had been since the early nineteenth century.92 Despite the prevailing anti-Catholic sentiment, it was relatively common for educated Bostonians, and Salemites, to have reproductions of Italian art in their homes, schoolrooms, and churches.93 The Williams studio therefore filled a demand. Photographs, a catalogue, and an incomplete sales record reveal that they dealt in paintings and sculpture as well as roba, encompassing furniture, books, manuscripts, textiles, pottery, Judaica, and more, dating from antiquity to their own time. The sisters made many of the paintings, but the objects came from all over Italy: maiolica from Genoa, Fabriano, Savona, and Perugia, Venetian glass, Etruscan bronzes, Abruzzi lace, an ancient helmet from Lake Trasimeno, and an intarsiated desk from Siena.94 These objects formed a crowded display in several rooms of their home, arranged in both rhythmic groupings and 89  Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 22 July 1886 (CGAR). 90  William MacLeod to Mary E. Williams, 29 July 1886, box 1 folder 9 (MEWP). 91  Jessie P. Frothingham to Mary E. Williams, 19 September 1886, box 1 folder 8 (MEWP). 92  See, for example, Freddolini 2015. This market was closely aligned with the flourishing bric-a-brac market cited earlier; see “Bric-a-Brac” 1887, 192–193. 93  On this paradox, see Manoguerra 2003. 94   Catalogue of Pictures, Majolicas, &c., in the Studio of the Misses Williams, unpaginated, box 1 folder 5 (MEWP).

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Figure 3.3 Studio of the Misses Williams (northern end), between 1886–1902. Photograph. Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem.

seemingly haphazard installations that crossed time and place (figure 3.3). The similarities to Italian studios made the space familiar for Americans who had traveled abroad and returned home with their desire for roba not yet satisfied. And, of course, it gave those who did not travel a source for the same roba their peers had. Most importantly, the overflowing studio identified the sisters as both creators and collectors; this was a house museum where the objects were both biographical and for sale, and the novelty of a Roman studio in a New England farmhouse must have added to the appeal.95 The catalogue valued the Williams studio stock at over $46,000, although the incomplete sales record only accounts for $5850.96 Prices ranged widely, 95  Baldry 2011, especially 49–50. Establishing such a studio became popular even for artists who had not been to Florence or Rome; paintings and photographs indicate that William Merritt Chase’s New York studio resembled this type as early as the 1880s, though he did not visit Italy until 1907. 96   Catalogue of Pictures …, unpaginated and Williams, “Memoranda,” unpaginated ( MEWP).

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from a painting by Baroque artist Carlo Cignani for $3000 to a bronze bead for 50 cents. But most of the objects – whether a flower study, a maiolica plate, or a newly excavated Etruscan vase – were priced well under a hundred dollars each. These were certainly a step up from inexpensive mechanical reproductions like chromolithographs, but their relatively modest prices enabled buyers to bring home that piece of Rome – or Italy more generally – that they coveted. The sisters understood their market well. Despite the photographs of the studio, the minimal descriptions and undoubtedly ambitious attributions in both the catalogue and the sales record make it impossible to recreate their inventory. One of the most intriguing objects was a marble Madonna relief by Donatello, sold to Susan Cornelia Clarke Warren, the wife of paper manufacturer Samuel Dennis Warren, Sr., for $225.97 Many of the objects in the Warren collection went to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, where several members of the family were trustees, but none can be identified as this alleged Donatello. Mrs. Warren was an important collector with considerable funds at her disposal.98 This was recognized by some of the major dealers of her time; in 1896, Bernard Berenson offered Titian’s Rape of Europa to Warren before he offered it to Isabella Stewart Gardner, who quickly claimed it.99 Although Warren’s collection grew to include a significant cache of Barbizon school paintings, the Titian may have been beyond her means. Nevertheless, she seems to be the most affluent customer to purchase from the Misses Williams, making it all the more unfortunate that I cannot identify this relief today. It is also interesting that Mrs. Warren made this purchase, and not her husband. The Williams sales record actually includes a preponderance of female buyers. It is logical to assume that, when venturing into what was a predominantly male art market, even or perhaps especially on this modest level, some women might more readily buy from other women, and, conversely, that the Misses Williams might more readily sell to other women, too. In this way the sociable sisters were able to turn many friends and acquaintances in Salem, Boston, and elsewhere – women who had the means to purchase objects, though not necessarily on the scale of someone like Isabella Stewart Gardner – into clientele. These women bought the more expensive church 97  Williams, “Memoranda,” unpaginated (MEWP); the catalogue describes this as “School of Donatello” and prices it at $250 (Catalogue of Pictures …, unpaginated (MEWP)). I am grateful to Marietta Camberari for information on the Warren collection. 98  Hirschler 1988, 53 note 8. 99  I am grateful to the anonymous reader of this essay for pointing out this connection; see Samuels 1979, 244–245.

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interior paintings, the smaller and less costly watercolors, pastels, and studies, and the glass, rugs, lace, and jewelry that the sisters had on offer. The smallest purchase they recorded was by a Miss Ropes, who bought a vase painted with red passion flowers by Mary for $1, while the largest was Sarah Manning Sage’s acquisition of the painting of the interior of San Marco in Venice, mentioned earlier, for $350.100 Few women had the same cash at their disposal as Mrs. Warren did, so the availability of objects at lower prices opened up the market to them, similar in many ways to the sales strategies of the newly popular department stores of this same era. The Misses Williams allowed these women to buy authentic roba di Roma, even if it was on a smaller scale than what wealthier male collectors acquired from other sources. And this largely female clientele reflected contemporary belief in women’s roles in ornamenting the domestic interior, a topic discussed in tracts by contemporaries like the sisters Catharine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe.101 No matter how covetous their female buyers were, and how tempting their studio contents, the Williams sisters needed to market themselves and their objects to generate the sales required to support themselves. Fortunately transportation between Salem and Boston was frequent and convenient; some 48 trains went back and forth daily, and the horse-carriage that met the trains literally passed by their door four times an hour as it made a circuit of their town.102 But they couldn’t always count on buyers coming to them, so the sisters continued to send their paintings and other objects out on exhibition. Mary shipped her portrait of Joel Tanner Hart to the Southern Exposition in Louisville in 1886, together with two church interiors and one of her copies of Moore’s Dante.103 The sisters loaned seventeenth- and eighteenth-century clothing, shoes, a doll, and a Renaissance painting to the Museum of Fine Arts in 1887 and 1888 and that same painting again in 1893.104 Mary sent one of her church interiors to the Boston Art Club in 1888.105 Always persistent, they unsuccessfully offered paintings for sale to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and London’s National 100  Williams, “Memoranda,” unpaginated (MEWP) and, for the purchase by Sage, Manning, unpaginated (27 March 1886) (AWP). Miss Ropes may have been Alice or Sarah Ropes, both distant relations of the Williams who purchased other objects from the studio. 101  Beecher and Stowe 1869, especially 84–103 and, for a modern analysis, McClaugherty 1983, 1–26. 102  Mary E. Williams to William MacLeod, 2 August 1886 (CGAR). 103   Illustrated Account of the Art Gallery … liii and Mary E. Williams to Charles M. Kurtz, 10 July and 25 August 1886 (CGAR). 104  Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts 1888, 35, Museum of Fine Arts 1889, 14, and Museum of Fine Arts 1893, 8. 105  Chadbourne 1991, 410.

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Gallery in 1890.106 Mary even ventured into art history. For several years she researched Raphael’s Hours, classicizing female allegories described by early authors as part of a fresco in one of the Vatican’s private chambers; limited access made the precise location of these allegories a mystery.107 Although she never saw the cycle, Mary accurately hypothesized its location on the vault of the Sala dei Pontefici in the Borgia apartments and tracked its appearance over time through rare prints she found in collections around Europe and the United States.108 In 1886 she sent her findings to Edward Robinson, then curator of antiquities at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, for his review. Robinson was impressed by the analysis, and encouraged her to publish it.109 But it was not that simple. An untested author in Boston’s competitive publishing world, Mary needed to fund the venture herself. Undeterred, she sold 210 subscriptions at $10 each to some of the most prominent Italophiles in the Boston area; her record of subscribers starts with author and art historian Charles Eliot Norton and includes astronomer Edward Pickering, author W.D. Howells, Museum of Fine Arts director Martin Brimmer, and artist friends Sarah Wyman Whitman and Addy Manning, among many others.110 The identities of her subscribers seem to demonstrate the ways in which the sisters were embedded in Boston’s intellectual and artistic communities. However, as with their studio customers, the vast majority of individual subscribers were women, 140 out of 166, and all eighteen copies sold from the Salem studio also went to women, who were presumably visiting to browse the available stock.111 In 1891, Mary published the folio, with sixteen full-page engravings, and dedicated it to her sister. Proud of her work, she sent it to the Woman’s Building Library at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.112 It was widely and positively reviewed, and after she deducted her expenses Mary calculated an impressive $1900 profit.113 106   H.G. Marquand to Mary E. Williams, 30 April 1890, box 1 folder 4 and J. Hanson Walker to Miss Williams, 10 June 1890, box 1 folder 4 (MEWP). 107  Mary corresponded with curators in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna beginning in 1885 for this project; see documents in box 1 folder 3 (MEWP). The location of the frescoes was much debated; some said they were in a “pavilion near Rome” (Stowe 1858, 143) while others said they were in “the so-called bath-room of Cardinal Bibbiena” in the Vatican or in the Villa Spada (Clauss 1877, 212). 108  Williams 1891; more recently, see McGrath 2004, 171–194. 109  Edward Robinson to Mary E. Williams, 13 November 1886, box 1 folder 3 (MEWP). 110  Subscriber notebook, unpaginated, box 1 folder 5 (MEWP). 111  Subscriber notebook, unpaginated, box 1 folder 5 (MEWP). 112  Clarke 1894, 17. 113  Williams, “Memoranda,” unpaginated (MEWP).

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That profit came in handy; despite the fact that their Salem life was busy, the sisters still yearned to travel. At some time after May 1894, when they were 69 and 70, the sisters took a final trip abroad, traveling first to Europe but continuing on to Egypt, Greece, Turkey, and possibly Tunisia. This was a difficult journey for anyone, but for women of their age, using the conveyances of that era, it must have been particularly arduous. They were probably inspired by the English Egyptologist Amelia Edwards, whose lecture series they attended in Boston in 1889.114 While sailing on the Nile they sent a letter to be read at Salem’s Thought and Work Club, a progressive women’s organization founded by author Kate Tannatt Woods.115 They also sent at least one letter to the Salem Gazette, describing their time in Turkey.116 These letters kept their names on buyers’ minds, as did the loan of a group of their paintings to the about-to-open Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, arranged by their friend Charles Eliot Norton.117 Mary died in 1902, and Abigail in 1913. They had the foresight to plan a number of bequests which went into effect at Abigail’s death. Several organizations received money, including the Salem Hospital, as well as, somewhat surprisingly given Protestant opinion, the Chiesa Cattolica Riformita d’Italia.118 More money, paintings, and other objects went to Salem’s Essex Institute, including manuscripts and printed books, the engraved plates from Mary’s Raphael book, and an assortment of old wallpaper, shoemaker tools, and various housewares, although most are now lost.119 One of the most interesting objects to survive is a large, damaged Tuscan antiphonary from the second half of the fourteenth century, which they attributed to the artist known today as Niccolò di Ser Sozzo.120 Fragments of one of the sisters’ Banco di Napoli statements, placed as markers throughout the volume, indicate pages where they excised or planned to excise illuminated initials.121 According to their studio catalogue, they sold small parchment initials like these for five to ten dollars 114  Box 1 folder 12 (MEWP) and “Wonders of Egypt” 1889, 5. 115  Meeting Minutes, 1893–1897, 123 (26 January 1895), box 1 folder 4 (TWCR). 116  “From the East” 1895, unknown page. 117  “Our Weekly Boston Letter” 1894, 8 and Charles H. Moore to Miss Williams, 4 May 1894, box 1 folder 10 (MEWP). 118  “Many Bequests Made by Misses Williams of Salem” 1902, 28. 119   Annual Report of the Essex Institute for the Year Ending May 4, 1914 1914, 13 and 52. 120  “Estate of the Late Abigail O. Williams,” Essex Institute Library Accessions 10 October 1910–31 December 1914, 252 (May 1913) (Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem). I am grateful to Lilian Armstrong for examining these illuminated manuscripts with me. 121  Unfortunately these fragments were removed and discarded by the library before I could document them fully.

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Figure 3.4 Studio of the Misses Williams (southern end), between 1886–1902. Photograph. Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem.

each, as well as a large one for $35, so they seemed to use this volume, probably damaged from the time they acquired it, as fodder for sales.122 These cuttings might still be identifiable in Boston-area private collections of this era. A second antiphonary, still in its heavy leather binding and signed and dated by Fra Serapho de Santo Casso in 1649, survives intact; it is visible on a chair in the foreground of one of the studio photographs (figure 3.4). The sisters also left more than fifty prints to the Fogg Museum, and a few years later that institution acquired two paintings that came through their studio but were donated by others, a devotional panel attributed to Lippo di Benivieni and a domestic panel attributed to Marco Zoppo.123

122   Catalogue of Pictures …, unpaginated (MEWP). 123   Official Register of Harvard University … 1914, 232 and Fogg Art Museum 1919, 105 and 194. The Lippi appeared in the Williams’ studio catalogue for $1500, and the Zoppo for $200 (Catalogue of Pictures …, unpaginated (MEWP)).

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Their museum experiences in Europe made the sisters appreciate the concept of national art collections, something the United States did not have during their lifetimes. Mary lamented this, commenting, “it will be impossible for America to make up for the opportunities which have been lost to her by her indifference, as a nation, to such an important subject as the founding of a national gallery at Washington. Something can yet be done, and every effort should be made for the early establishment of such an artistic necessity.”124 The sisters tried to urge this by leaving instructions to exhibit their paintings together at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts or the Corcoran until an actual national gallery was established in Washington. But their executors apparently did not or could not make these arrangements, and no trace of the rest of their estate has been located.125 Washington’s National Gallery, of course, was not founded until 1937, long after Abigail’s death. The success of the Misses Williams as women who made and marketed art distinguishes them both at home and abroad. Their studio could not compete with the contemporary operation of someone like Stefano Bardini in Florence; they did not have the investable funds, objects, or clientele to do so. Instead, their tendency to sell art and objects to women like themselves demonstrates a market that responded to the demand for fashionable items at affordable prices for a group of new buyers. The sale of Italian art and objects, whether original or fake, gave the sisters the funds, and the freedom, to live as they wanted. In their own way they promoted an understanding of Italy and its cultural history, reaching a very different audience than dealers whose sights were set on wealthier customers. Several years after their deaths, in an article about early Italian painting, art historian Frank Jewett Mather Jr. commented evocatively on their role as dealers, as well as ladies identified by their gentility and culture: “I imagine [the Misses Williams] versed in their Lord Lindsay and Mrs. Jameson, acquainted with the genealogies of the reigning houses of Europe, and in their later years “walking with Hare” in real lace caps and black grosgrain silk.”126 Mather should not have been so patronizing. After so many years abroad, the sisters did not need to consult Augustus Hare’s popular guidebooks; they could have written such books themselves, from the comfort of their Salem studio, surrounded by their roba di Roma. 124  Williams, “The Artistic Atmosphere,” 8–9, box 1 folder 4 (MEWP). 125  “Boston Museum to Get Works of Salem Artist” 1913, 1. I am grateful to Maureen Melton and Victoria Reed (Boston Museum of Fine Arts), Maygene Daniels (National Gallery of Art), and Ellen Alers (Smithsonian Institution) for assistance; no evidence for the Williams donation or even correspondence regarding it can be found at these institutions. 126  Mather Jr. 1920, 85.

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Works Cited

Archives

Corcoran Gallery of Art Records, 1860–1947. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC (CGAR). Essex Institute Library Accessions. Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. Louise Manning Hodgkins Papers, MSS 3P. Wellesley College Archives, Wellesley, Massachusetts (LMHP). Charles M. Kurtz Papers, 1843–1990. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC (CMKP). Libro dei Soci. Archives of the Gabinetto Vieusseux, Florence, Italy (AGV). St. Botolph Club Records, 1879–1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Thought and Work Club Records, 1891–1974, MSS 211. Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts (TWCR). James Hubbard Weeks, Journal, 1862–1864, MSS S193. Boston Athenaeum, Massachusetts. (JHW). Anne Whitney Papers, MSS 4. Wellesley College Archives, Wellesley, Massachusetts (AWP). Mary E. Williams Papers, MSS 253. Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts (MEWP).



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Perkins, Robert F. and William J. Gavin. The Boston Athenaeum Art Exhibition Index 1827–1874. MIT Press, 1980. “Quarterly Meeting, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 1875.” Bulletin of the Essex Institute, vol. 7 n. 3, March 1875, pp. 41–42. “Rome.” Evening Post (New York), 10 August 1871, p. 1. S., “American Art Abroad.” New York Times, 6 March 1864, pp. 1–2. Samuels, Ernest. Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Connoisseur. Harvard University Press, 1979. Schubring, Paul. Cassoni. Truhen und Truhenbilder der italienischen Frührenaissance. Hiersemann, 1915. Society of Female Artists. Sixteenth Exhibition. n.p., 1872. Society of Lady Artists. Twenty-Third Exhibition. n.p., 1878 Society of Lady Artists. Twenty-Fourth Exhibition. n.p., 1879. Spence, William Blundell. The Lions of Florence and its Environs. Le Monnier, 1852. Story, William Wetmore. Roba di Roma. Chapman and Hall, 1863. Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher. “Raphael’s Hours of the Night.” Littell’s Living Age, vol. 750, 9 October 1858, p. 143. Teall, Gardner. “A Rag-Fair Day in Rome.” The World To-Day, vol. 16, n. 4, April 1909, pp. 410–414. “The Second Art Exhibition.” Bulletin of the Essex Institute, vol. 7, n. 11 and 12, November – December 1875, pp. 151–162. “The Papal States.” Galignani’s Messenger, 9 January 1869, unpaginated. Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts. Second Annual Report. Alfred Mudge & Son, 1878. Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts. Fifth Annual Report. Alfred Mudge & Son, 1881. Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts. Sixth Annual Report. Alfred Mudge & Son, 1882. Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts. Eighth Annual Report. Alfred Mudge & Son, 1884. Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts. Ninth Annual Report. Alfred Mudge & Son, 1885. Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts. Twelfth Annual Report. Alfred Mudge & Son, 1888 United States, Senate. Petition of American Artists in Rome, Praying for the Repeal of the Duty on Works of Art.” 48th Congress, 1st session, Mis. Doc. No. 38, 7 January 1884. United States, House of Representatives. Duty on Works of Art. 48th Congress, 1st session, Report no. 1324, 21 April 1884. Very, Jones. The Complete Poems. Edited by Helen R. Deese, University of Georgia Press, 1993. Walker, Katharine C. “American Studios in Rome and Florence.” Harper’s Magazine, vol. 33, June 1866, pp. 101–105. Wallace, Mrs. E.D. A Woman’s Experiences in Europe. D. Appleton and Co., 1872. Warren, Jeremy. “Forgery in Risorgimento Florence: Bastianini’s ‘Giovanni delle Bande Nere’ in the Wallace Collection.” Burlington Magazine, vol. 147, November 2005, pp. 729–741.

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Wilkins, Ernest Hatch. “The Jackson Dante.” Italica, vol. 20, 1943, pp. 1–3. William, Richard Cutler, ed. Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts. Lewis, 1908. Williams, Mary E. The Hours of Raphael in Outline. Little, Brown, & Co., 1891. Williams, Misses. “From the East.” Salem Gazette, 14 September 1895, page unknown. “Wonders of Egypt.” New York Times, 10 December 1889, p. 5. Woollett, William M. Old Homes Made New. A.J. Bicknell & Co., 1878. Wreford, Henry. “Lady-Artists in Rome.” Art-Journal, n.s. 5, June 1866, pp. 177–178.

Dealers Shaping and Influencing Taste

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CHAPTER 4

“A Public-Spirited Merchant”

Samuel P. Avery, Art Dealer, Advisor, Philanthropist Leanne Zalewski Unusual for any era, Samuel Putnam Avery (1822–1904) played the multivalent, pioneering role of dealer, educator, connoisseur, and advisor to his clients, while fulfilling philanthropic pursuits despite his modest wealth. A humble, native New York printmaker-turned-dealer, Avery worked quietly but forcefully to improve the arts in New York. This “Avery period” lasted from about 1868 through the 1890s, when he promoted contemporary European art and the arts in general. His name stood for integrity at a time when art dealers’ reputations’ inspired wariness rather than trust. He avoided any shady dealings. His principled business practice preceded – by almost 100 years – the Art Dealers Association of America, founded in 1962 to promote connoisseurship and ethical practice. The synergy between Avery’s self-imposed civic responsibilities and commercial enterprises advanced the arts in private and public collections. Although he never became a flamboyant, self-promoting (or self-mythologizing) dealer, this unassuming man exercised considerable influence on the arts in New York that resonates today. Cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu argued that cultural brokers (i.e. art dealers) and producers (i.e. artists) determine cultural ideologies.1 Avery, uncontested in his day as the most knowledgeable man in art matters, served as a primary cultural broker of late nineteenth-century New York, at a time when New York struggled to become an international capital of culture. Although Paris-based Baltimorean George A. Lucas (1824–1909); New York-based William Schaus (1820–1892); Michael Knoedler (1823–1878), of M. Knoedler & Co., successor to Goupil & Co.; and Adolphe Goupil (1850–1884) of the Paris firm of Goupil & cie. also facilitated the transfer of artworks, they dealt with art commercially rather than divide their time and energies for the * I wish to thank Andrea Lepage and Lindsay Twa for their valuable input on earlier drafts of this article. 1  Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, ed. John Thompson, trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 168–169. Figure 4.1 Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, Samuel P. Avery (1822–1904), 1876, oil on wood, 24 × 19 1/4 in. (61 × 48.9 cm), Gift of the family of Samuel P. Avery, 1904, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004342989_005

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greater good. In this early stage of New York’s developing art market and nascent museum-building, Avery straddled both worlds. His close relationships, wide social networks, and kind demeanor combined with his broad knowledge of the European art market, having spent three to five months abroad annually, inspired confidence.2 He appealed to a generation of fledgling collectors, many of whom, like himself, rose up from humble beginnings. His munificence, coupled with his business acumen, allowed for his unusually impartial involvement in New York’s artistic blossoming. Avery’s significance as a principal cultural broker, which encompassed his individual roles as dealer, philanthropist, and museum trustee has yet to be fully acknowledged. Few people today are familiar with Avery’s wide-ranging philanthropy, yet colleagues and fellow club members struck a commemorative medal (fig. 4.2) in honor of his lifetime achievements when he turned seventy-five. Austrian medalist, Anton Scharff (1845–1903), created a profile image of Avery with representations of art, books, and prints, his passions, on the verso.3 However, he received little other recognition in his lifetime and was too modest to seek it out on his behalf. His only institutional recognition came from Columbia College, which conferred on him an honorary Master of Arts degree in 1896 for his service to the arts. That same year, the Century magazine published a short article, “Souvenirs of a Veteran Collector,” highlighting some of the cordial relationships Avery enjoyed with European artists, but lacked information regarding his philanthropy.4 The word “collector” rather than “picture dealer” or “art dealer” in the title emphasizes Avery’s collecting rather than associate him with the commercial aspect of his work. His gifts and steadfast service as a trustee, committee member, and unofficial art advisor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art stand out among his accomplishments, more so because he performed his philanthropic service alongside his art dealing career. A. Hyatt Mayor (1901–1980), Curator Emeritus of Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stated that Avery had become a “patron saint” of the museum and of the arts in general.5 Another phrase, “A Public-Spirited Merchant,” heads the privately printed Editorials and 2  Samuel P. Avery, The Diaries 1871–1882 of Samuel P. Avery, ed. Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort, Herbert L. Kleinfield, and Jeanne K. Welcher (New York: Arno Press, 1979), p. vii. 3  The allegorical figure of the arts contemplates a reduction of Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa. The Venus de Milo stands at the left. The “AD” on the portfolio of prints is Albrecht Dürer’s monogram. 4  William Coffin, “Souvenirs of a Veteran Collector,” Century Magazine 53, no. 2 (December 1896), pp. 231–245. 5  A. Hyatt Mayor, foreword to Samuel P. Avery, The Diaries 1871–1882 of Samuel P. Avery, ed. Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort, Herbert L. Kleinfield, and Jeanne K. Welcher (New York: Arno Press, 1979), p. i.

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Figure 4.2 Anton Scharff, Samuel P. Avery (1822–1904): Commemorating His SeventyFifth Birthday, 1897, Silver, Diam. 2 1/2 in. (64 mm), Gift of Samuel P. Avery, 1901, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org.

Resolutions, an eighty-two-page tribute, including written memorials from many of the philanthropic organizations and clubs to which Avery belonged. Published soon after his death, the tribute begins: “The full extent of the late S.P. Avery’s usefulness may never be known. […] he gave modestly from the surplus of his collections to many country institutions, ever fostering the love of art in its feebler beginnings.”6 This article investigates Avery’s “usefulness” in promoting the arts, but will still fall short of uncovering the full array of his civic endeavors. His many active club memberships provide evidence of his civic involvement.7 No biography about Avery exists nor did he ever publish a book about his gallery or dealings or artists, such as Durand-Ruel had done (and Avery owned 6  Editorials and Resolutions in Memory of Samuel Putnam Avery (New York: Privately Printed, 1905), p. 3, 46. 7  They are: American Geographical Society, American Geological Society; American History Society; American Museum of Natural History; American Zoological Society; Architectural League; Art Commission, City of New York; Century Association, member for almost forty years; Chamber of Commerce; City Club of New York; Civil Service Reform Association, member 1882–1904; Committee for erecting the Statue of Liberty; Cooperative Social Settlement Society, life member; Grolier Club, co-founder 1884, president 1896 to 1900; Lotos Club; Manhattan Club; Metropolitan Club; National Academy of Design; National Sculpture Society, vice president; New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, life member; New York Public Library, board of trustees; founder of Prints Division; Players; Society of Colonial Wars; Society of Columbia University Architects; Society of Iconophiles; Sons of the American Revolution; Scripture Society; Tuxedo Club; Typothetae (Master Printers); Union League Club, 1868–1904.

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a copy.)8 He wrote a straightforward, brief history of New York auction sales and prefaces to some exhibition catalogues, but published little else.9 His business diaries as well as letters he received from Spanish artist Ignacio León y Escosura (1834–1901) have also been published.10 The diaries only cover the years 1871 to 1882, though he began dealing in 1864 when he was around forty and retired in the late 1880s, passing the business on to his son Sam (1847– 1920). He recorded artists’ names, subjects of works, dealers (frequently George Lucas), packers, and collectors, among other notes. Avery collected many letters from European and American artists, although letters from Avery are far fewer.11 Also extant are ten bound photo books depicting just a fraction of works that passed through his hands.12 However, there are no records or stock books from Avery’s gallery and few personal letters extant. His diaries and scattered letters as well as information gleaned from contemporary journals serve as the basis for reconstructing his business and philanthropic practices. Avery is mentioned sporadically in various histories, but Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort, who worked with Avery’s heirs, has written most extensively on Avery’s work as

8  Maisons Durand-Ruel, Galerie Durand-Ruel, recueil d’estampes, gravées à l’eau-forte, préface par Armand Silvestre (Paris, 1873). 9  Samuel P. Avery, “Some Notes on the History of Fine Arts in New York City During the Past Fifty Years [1883],” in History of New York City, Embracing an Outline Sketch of Events from 1609 to 1830, and a Full Account of Its Development from 1830 to 1884, ed. Benson John Lossing (New York: Perine Company, 1884), pp. 840–843. See The Collection of Paintings, Drawings and Statuary, the Property of John Taylor Johnston, Esq. (New York: Somerville Art Gallery, 1876); Metropolitan Museum of Art, Illustrated Catalogue: Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1905), pp. 195–244. 10  Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort, Richard P. Welcher, and Jeannine K. Welcher, Letters & Sketches: Addressed to Samuel Putnam Avery, 1884–1899 (Ann Arbor, MI: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints [Series], V. 541, 2004). 11  See Autographs and sketches from artist friends to Samuel P. Avery, 1874–1880; Autograph letters in memory of S.P. Avery; Samuel P. Avery: Papers, [ca. 1850]-1905, Thomas J. Watson Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, hereafter referred to as SPA MMA. 12  Album titles are as follows: Photographs from Paintings by Knaus, Cabanel, Breton, Gerome, Tissot, Rosa Bonheur, Vautier, Gallait, Muller & c.; Photographs from Paintings by Meissonier, Willems, E Frère, Talabert, Stevens, Dejonghe, Dubufe, Comte, Jacque & c.; Photographs from Paintings by Foreign Artists, 2 vols.; Photographs from Paintings by Various Foreign Artists; Les Artistes Contemporaines Lithographs from the Works of Celebrated French Artists, 2 vols.; Photographs from Paintings by American Artists, all in Avery Classics Collection, Columbia University, New York.

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a dealer.13 Fidell-Beaufort offers valuable historical and biographical information as well as an explanation of his role in the broad context of the market for contemporary French art in the United States. This dealer, more than any other, laid the groundwork for several major institutions. He paved the way for a permanent collection of contemporary European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, co-founded the Print Collection of the New York Public Library and donated 17,775 prints to establish its core collection, and founded the Avery Architectural Library, in honor of his son, Henry Ogden Avery (1852–1890), an architect. Learning about Avery’s philanthropic endeavors helps us understand better the artistic foundations of several major cultural institutions. As Fidell-Beaufort rightly noted in a modest exhibition of Avery’s achievements, his generation also laid the groundwork for the New York art market.14 1

Avery the Dealer and Advisor

From an impoverished childhood, the industrious young Avery began his early career as a printmaker. In the 1840s and early 1850s, he made wood engravings for magazines such as Harper’s Monthly and the short-lived Crayon, as well as for other publications.15 Through his engraving business, he cultivated relationships with many American artists. At some point in the 1850s, Avery probably began buying art directly from artists, among them Thomas Cole (1801–1848), 13  Avery, Diaries, 1979; Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort, “Art Collecting in the United States after the Civil War. Civic Pride, Competition, and Personal Gains,” in Artwork through the Market: The Past and the Present, ed. Ján Bakos (Bratislava: VEDA, 2004), pp. 125–136; ——, “A Measure of Taste. Samuel P. Avery’s Art Auctions, 1864–1880,” Gazette des beaux-arts 100 (September 1982), pp. 87–89; ——, “The American Art Trade and French Painting at the End of the Nineteenth Century,” Van Gogh Museum Journal (2000), pp. 101–107; Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort and Jeanne K. Welcher, “Some Views of Art Buying in New York in the 1870s and 1880s,” Oxford Art Journal 5, no. 1 (1982), pp. 48–55. See also Malcolm Goldstein, Landscape with Figures. A History of Art Dealing in the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 47–53. 14  Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort and Jeanne K. Welcher, Samuel P. Avery: Pioneer American Art Dealer (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979), p. 2. 15   For biographical information on Avery, see Madeleine Fidell-Beaufort, Herbert L. Kleinfield, and Jeanne K. Welcher, Introduction, in: The Diaries 1871–1882 of Samuel P. Avery (New York: Arno Press, 1979), pp. vii-lxxix; and Ruth Sieben-Morgen, “Samuel Putnam Avery (1822–1904), Engraver on Wood. A Bio-Bibliographical Study,” Master’s thesis, Columbia University, 1942.

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Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), and Asher B. Durand (1796–1886), in order to make engravings after them, which he sold individually or to publishers of books or journals.16 He continued building relationships with artists through informal art gatherings at his Brooklyn residence, where his artworks hung, and built social networks through various art, social, and philanthropic clubs.17 One of his most important liaisons, William T. Walters (1820–1894), began forming his own collection of American art in Baltimore and met artists in New York through Avery.18 Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Walters moved to Paris because of his Southern sympathies and business relations, but the two remained in touch. With Walters’ assistance, Avery opened his picture gallery in New York in 1864. Walters sold his French and other European works through Avery in April that same year; this was Avery’s his first auction.19 A few months later to support his new shop, Avery’s American artist friends signed an invitation attesting to his honor for the opening of his new art rooms at no. 8, 694 Broadway at Fourth Street. Those forty-eight American artists included Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902), James Suydam (1819–1865), Elihu Vedder (1836–1923), and Worthington Whittredge (1820–1910).20 Two years later, Avery sold Walters’ American paintings, most of which sold poorly for less than a hundred dollars each.21 Avery sold his own collection of American paintings, amassed over the previous fifteen years, and his sizable library to provide funds for his first trip abroad.22 The occasion for that trip jump-started his career. Although a dealer 16  Fidell-Beaufort, Kleinfield, and Welcher, 1979, pp. xiv-xv, xix. According to Fidell-Beaufort, no records exist for Avery’s art gallery prior to 1871. 17  Fidell-Beaufort, Kleinfield, and Welcher, 1979, p. xii. 18  Fidell-Beaufort, Kleinfield, and Welcher, 1979, p. xv. See also William R. Johnston, William and Henry Walters, the Reticent Collectors (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 13, 16–18, 39–40. Walters made his fortune in liquors and railroads. 19  The pictures had been collected over a period of three years and were consigned to Avery by William T. Walters; see Catalog of Paintings Never Before Exhibited (New York: Henry H. Leeds & Co., 1864). Artists included Constant Troyon (1810–1865), Edouard Frère (1819– 1886), Hugues Merle (1823–1881), Charles Jalabert (1819–1901), Ludwig Knaus (1829–1910), and Eugène Verboeckhoven (1798–1881). 20  Invitation dated 20 December 1864 bound with catalogs in Catalog of Paintings Never Before Exhibited, 1864, Thomas J. Watson Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The bookplate says “presented by Samuel P. Avery.” At that time, he advertised his shop as an engraving, publishing, and picture shop. 21   Catalogue of a Remarkably Fine Collection of Oil Paintings by the Best American Artists (New York: Henry H. Leeds & Miner, 1866). 22   Catalogue of the Entire Art Library of Mr. S.P. Avery (New York: Bangs, Merwin & Co., 1867); Catalogue of the Private Collection of Oil Paintings, by American Artists, made by Samuel P.

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for only a few years, his contemporaries, including artists, elected him as Art Commissioner for the United States Committee for Works of Art at the 1867 Paris Universal Exposition – this despite the fact that he did not yet speak French. His position included supervising the installation of works and representing the collectors and artists involved. Several of Avery’s early clients, collectors and a dealer, also served on the committee with him.23 This trip exposed him to contemporary European art and provided him with learning and networking opportunities. Through Walters, he met George Lucas, who would become a long-time business associate. Avery continued to sell through auctions as well as privately after his return from Paris, though he sold primarily French paintings and smattering of other European works. With no experts available in the United States, Avery served as a trustworthy consultant, and this appointment only furthered his reputation. Avery maintained amiable relations with American and European artists, dealers, and collectors and soon advised the leading collectors in New York, acting as their intermediary and communicating with dealers and artists in Paris and London. He or Lucas would accompany American collectors to the artists’ studios, galleries, and museums. Avery stressed personal relationships in his business practice. He maintained his connections with the many American artists he befriended in his early engraving career, despite selling European paintings. He asserted this camaraderie in notes inside the covers of his photo books documenting American art. His inscription read: “Collected by S.P. Avery during many years. Many of the originals having passed through my hands every one of the artists being my friends.”24 The New York Evening Post captured the general feeling of trust Avery inspired: “The humbug that so often surrounds picture-dealing he [Avery] was incapable of practicing […].”25 Avery also maintained cordial relationships with the European artists whose studios he visited on his annual buying trips.26 Avery maintained equally Avery, (New York: Henry H. Leeds & Miner, 1867); Fidell-Beaufort, Kleinfield, and Welcher, 1979, p. xxii. 23  These men included dealer Michael Knoedler, and collectors Robert Leighton Stuart (1806–1882), sugar refiner, Robert Morrison Olyphant (1824–1918), first involved in the China trade, then president of Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, later Delaware and Hudson Railroad), and John Taylor Johnston (1820–1893), who each bought minor European paintings from Avery’s 1864 sale. 24   Photographs from Paintings by American Artists, Avery Classics Collection, Columbia University, New York. 25   Editorials and Resolutions, p. 3. 26  See for example, a note regarding his visit to Ernest Meissonier in Poissy in 1875. Ernest Meissonier to Avery Poissy 29 August 1875, Autograph letters. European, SPA MMA.

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collegial relationships with collectors without being a sycophant. William Henry Vanderbilt (1821–1885) wrote a gracious note to Avery, warmly noting that their “time was so delightfully spent with the different artists” in Paris.27 To his client, John Taylor Johnston (1820–1893), president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1870 to 1889, Avery wrote a very frank assessment of the outrageously high prices of modern paintings, and even complained that Americans in Paris tended to buy more freely (and perhaps foolishly) abroad than when back in New York.28 Absent from extant letters is language meant to flatter or incite rivalry by praising or mentioning other clients’ collections. For example, Knoedler wrote to Collis Huntington (1821–1900), requesting to borrow his Alexandre Cabanel painting, Mary Hearing the Voice of Christ after His Resurrection for ten weeks, stating that “A public exhibition of it will make it known as a standard work” as well as do “credit to the owner” of the picture, appealing to the collector’s ego.29 Avery never flattered his patrons in a cloying manner nor directly compared any of his client’s collections to another. Avery worked diligently but straightforwardly to create collections he had hoped would elevate the arts in New York through public exhibition. Ultimately, though, none of his clients would form a single-collection art museum or permanent gallery with their collections; however, two collections, those of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1828–1887) in 1887 and Collis Huntington in 1900, which he helped form, were donated en bloc to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Although the Huntington bequest occurred during Avery’s lifetime, it remained with Huntington’s wife, Arabella, and then his son, Archer, who relinquished his life interest and sent the works to the museum in 1925. Avery’s legacy, the William Henry Vanderbilt collection, would hang in the museum temporarily, but never become part of the museum’s collection. 2

Avery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art

While working successfully as an art dealer, Avery also pursued numerous philanthropic activities, including a longstanding relationship with the 27  Letter dated 15 June 1878 from William H. Vanderbilt to Samuel P. Avery, box 10 folder 70, William H. Vanderbilt letters to Samuel P. Avery, 1878–1880, SPA MMA. 28  Letter dated 31 July 1872 from Samuel P. Avery to John Taylor Johnston, reprinted in FidellBeaufort and Welcher, 1982, pp. 53–55. 29  Letter dated 14 February 1876 from Goupil & Co., M. Knoedler & Co. Successors, to Collis P. Huntington, Collis Potter Huntington Papers, series 1, reel 9, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.

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Metropolitan Museum of Art. An obituary in the New York Evening Post appropriately sums up Avery’s civic service: “His long and honorable career seems to us peculiarly exemplary because of the dignity with which he filled public positions, and more especially because of the ease with which he turned from his business to public service.”30 His involvement in the museum lasted from its inception until his death, longer than his career as an art dealer. Avery served as secretary of the Union League Club’s art committee when club members gathered to discuss the founding of an art museum. Artists, dealers, and collectors mingled in this club of “American aristocrats” and its important committee on art that founded the Metropolitan Museum of Art included artists John F. Kensett (1816–1872), Eastman Johnson (1824–1906), poet, journalist, and New York Evening Post editor, William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878), landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903), sculptor J.Q.A. Ward (1830–1910), architect Richard Morris Hunt (1828–1895), and collectors William H. Aspinwall (1807–1875), John Taylor Johnston, and Robert Hoe (1839–1909), among others appeared in the charter.31 Avery was among the founding members and subscribers of the museum, which received its charter in 1870. It opened to the public in 1872, and already on Avery’s trip to Paris that year he dealt with museum business as well as his own. Avery served unofficially as the museum’s leading art adviser. As one newspaper noted, Avery’s “knowledge, judgment, and correct business principles have caused him to be often called upon as an expert in various ways.”32 Foreign dealers harangued him to buy dubious Old Master paintings for the new museum, but Avery pointedly avoided these paintings to circumvent problems with attributions.33 In official capacities, he served on its Board of Trustees for over thirty years, from 1872 until his death at age eighty-two in 1904. From 1885 on, he served on the Executive Committee and on the Committee on Painting. Additionally, he joined the Committee on Prints, Books and Textile Fabrics that same year and left in 1891. In 1885, he joined the Committee on Art Schools. His efforts in forming and maintaining the short-lived art school of the Metropolitan Museum of Art involved advertising, arranging lectures, and 30   New York Evening Post, 13 August 1904, reprinted in Editorials and Resolutions, p. 6. 31  Union League Club, A Metropolitan Art-Museum in the City of New York (New York: Printed for the Committee, 1869); Benson John Lossing, History of New York City, Embracing an Outline Sketch of Events from 1609 to 1830, and a Full Account of Its Development from 1830 to 1884 (New York: G.E. Perine, 1884), p. 835. 32   New Pictures at Avery’s Art Galleries (New York, 1879), p. 4. 33  Letter dated 31 July 1872 from Samuel P. Avery to John Taylor Johnston, reprinted in FidellBeaufort and Welcher, 1982, pp. 53–55. See Lynn Catterson’s introduction to this volume on dealer Stephano Bardini’s shady dealings in Old Master works.

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donating books and one hundred dollars when the committee realized subscriptions were needed to keep the school going. After the indebted art school closed in 1895, Avery managed the dispersal of school property, including its cast collection. Although he dealt in European works, his loans and donations to the museum included anything but European paintings. Avery helped assemble the leading painting collections of his day, and he also bought modestly for himself in the less expensive areas of prints, books, medals, and porcelains for over forty years. He regularly donated an occasional sculpture, books, prints, and other material objects throughout the rest of his life.34 His first of many modest loans and donations to the museum occurred in 1875 when he lent Chinese and Japanese pottery along with a bronze urn.35 Three years later he lent Chinese and Japanese porcelains for another loan exhibition.36 The museum raised funds to buy Avery’s collection of 1,388 porcelains in 1879. Avery’s collection inspired Siegfried Bing to donate a Qing dynasty Chinese porcelain covered vase to the museum in 1882 to supplement the collection.37 Avery spent time with Bing, who owned numerous Japanese prints and objets d’art and a later a shop, La Maison de l’Art Nouveau.38 Numerous other donations of etchings, photographs, decorative objects, books, American paintings and sculpture ensued.39 His first donation, an 34  The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual reports provide donation information. I thank Glenna Gray, who helped me gather annual reports dated 1872–1905. 35  Metropolitan Museum of Art, Board of Trustees, Sixth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Association for the Year Ending May 1876 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1876), p. 14 (hereafter noted as MMA, Annual Report, year). 36   M MA, Eighth Annual Report, 1878, p. 19; Ninth Annual Report, 1879, p. 16. 37  Letter dated 2 October 1882 from Siegfried Bing to Louis Palma di Cesnola; and letter n.d. from Samuel P. Avery to Louis Palma di Cesnola, Bing, Mr. S 1882–83, 1889–90, 1894, 1896, 1906, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives, New York, NY (hereafter MMAA). The vase’s accession number is 82.5a, b. I thank Barbara File and James Moske for their assistance in the archives. 38  For Bing’s marketing, see Gabriel Weisberg, “Lost and Found: S. Bing’s Merchandising of Japonisme and Art Nouveau,” in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 4, no. 2 (Summer 2005), http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/summer05/212-lost-and-found-sbings-merchandising-of-japonisme-and-art-nouveau- (accessed 26 June 2015). 39  Other donations include an etching by Munkácsy, photographs of the National Academy of Design, and several books and catalogues, MMA, Fifteenth Annual Report, 1885, pp. 18– 19; decorative objects in 1888, MMA, Nineteenth Annual Report, 1889, p. 25; forty-two books and twenty pamphlets, MMA, Twentieth Annual Report, 1890, p. 16; Launt Thompson’s (1833–1894) marble bust of artist Charles L. Elliot (1812–1868), MMA, Twenty-First Annual Report, 1891, p. 15; self-portrait by G.P.A. Healy (1813–1894) and Thomas Doughty’s

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etching by Hungarian artist Mihály Munkácsy (1844–1900), occurred in 1883.40 In the 1890s, he donated two oil paintings by P.P. Ryder (1821–1896) and a collection of medals and plaques by Jules Clément Chaplain (1839–1909) and Louis Oscar Roty (1846–1911).41 In 1894, he donated Francisco Goya’s (1746– 1828) study for etching number sixty of the Caprichos (1799), as well as some gems, a medallion, pottery, and portraits of Benjamin Franklin and General Lafayette by Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827).42 During 1895, he gave four more American oil paintings and an autograph letter by Joseph Duplessis (1725–1802), who painted Benjamin Franklin’s portrait.43 Several years later came seventy more medallions, this time by David d’Angers (1788–1856).44 He had also offered his extensive print collection to the museum, but it was not accepted. Instead it formed the print collection at the New York Public Library in 1900.45 His steady, if relatively modest support certainly exceeded that of any other dealer. However, he left his greatest contribution to the museum’s collections through his clients’ donations and through his efforts to bring works to the museum. 3

Avery and the Wolfe and Vanderbilt Collections at the Museum

Although Avery could not afford to leave a collection of contemporary paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he worked to acquire contemporary European art for the museum. The first attempt failed. With Avery’s guidance, John Taylor Johnston assembled a widely-regarded art collection, but an unfortunate reversal of fortune led him to sell the collection. Avery directed the sale and wrote the notice for the catalogue, in which he praised its quality and regretted its dispersal. He began: (1793–1856) On the Hudson, and 212 books for the library, MMA, Twenty-Second Annual Report, 1892, pp. 21, 24; two American paintings and a bust of artist and dealer, Daniel Cottier (1838–1891), MMA, Twenty-Third Annual Report, 1893, p. 29; thirty-seven medals and plaques, two engravings, a portrait, and a pastel, MMA, Twenty-Eighth Annual Report, 1898, p. 21. 40   M MA, Fourteenth Annual Report, 1884, p. 20. 41   M MA, Twenty-Fourth Annual Report, 1894, p. 20. 42   M MA, Twenty-Fifth Annual Report, 1895, p. 30. 43   M MA, Twenty-Sixth Annual Report, 1896, p. 20. 44   M MA, Twenty-Ninth Annual Report, 1899, p. 20. 45  Calvin Tomkins, Merchants and Masterpieces. The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1989), p. 238. The Metropolitan Museum formed a print department in 1916.

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This collection of works of art needs no introduction to the public. Through the generosity of the owner the majority of them have been for years freely exhibited in this and other cities of the Union. Many of the productions have a fame as master pieces in the art centres of the world; and the whole collection has been accepted by the best judges as one of the finest, if not the finest, most varied, and complete collection ever brought together on this continent. The writer of these lines having been a witness of the growth of the collection, can testify to the great care and liberality exercised by the collector […] and many regrets caused by this dispersion will be mitigated by the fact that a wide distribution of them will be an ultimate benefit to the cause of art.46 Avery judged this collection to be the best to date, and stressed that Johnston lent works to public exhibitions. Avery must have been disappointed that the president of the Metropolitan Museum could not donate his collection to the museum. Eleven years would pass before the museum would finally acquire a collection of contemporary European art. In the interim, Avery advised the president, negotiated purchases and loans, bequests, and acted as curator, installing and removing pictures, selecting wall colors, and making numerous suggestions for hanging, lighting, and all aspects of display. Yet he had no permanent collection of contemporary European art with which to work. He complained about the low quality of the museum collection in 1885 and that same year favored a small loan exhibition of Impressionist paintings, including ones by Mary Cassatt (1844–1926). He added that this type of artwork was beyond the comprehension of the artgoing public but desired the exhibition nevertheless.47 Impressionist painting would have to wait its turn. Instead, academic works, Avery’s mainstay, would first enter the museum’s permanent collection. Avery received and mediated with the executor of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe’s 1887 bequest of 142 paintings and watercolors that she left en bloc to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.48 In addition, she included a $200,000 46   The Collection of Paintings, Drawings and Statuary, the Property of John Taylor Johnston, Esq., (New York: Somerville Art Gallery, 1876). 47  Letter dated 1885 from Samuel P. Avery to Louis Palma di Cesnola, Paintings & Sculpture Committee on 1882–85, 1887, Office of the Secretary Subject Files, MMAA. 48  Her will is reprinted in Metropolitan Museum of Art, Annual Reports of the Trustees of the Association, from 1871 to 1902 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1902), p. 383, and MMA, Eighteenth Annual Report, 1888, p. 12. For more on Wolfe, see Margaret Laster,

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endowment for collection maintenance and for future purchases. Avery, along with several other dealers, including Knoedler, helped form the collection, and he worked diligently to oversee the collection’s transfer to the museum. However, that transition lagged. Wolfe’s will stipulated that the collection hang together in fireproof galleries, which the museum lacked, and her prickly executor, David Wolfe Bishop (1834–1901), refused to send the pictures to the museum without fulfilling that stipulation. The pictures were to be transferred within six months of the probated will for a November opening exhibition, a tight deadline for the work involved to prepare the galleries. Museum trustees appointed a committee, chaired by Avery, with artist Daniel Huntington (1816–1906), and collectors Darius O. Mills (1825–1910) and president Johnston to handle the transfer of the pictures. Avery visited Wolfe’s residence to measure the pictures in order to plan the space needed in the museum and to assess their condition.49 From the outset delays and difficulties plagued the collection’s delivery to the museum. Not only did the museum quickly need to find funding to build fireproof galleries, it also relied on Huntington to make copies of Wolfe’s portrait by Alexandre Cabanel (1823–1889) and Wolfe’s father’s portrait by Huntington to replace those works for Bishop before sending the originals to the museum. To further complicate matters, Bishop refused to include Léon Bonnat’s (1833–1922) painting, Roman Girl at a Fountain (fig. 4.3), because it had been attached to a piece of furniture, so he considered it furniture rather than an artwork. Avery worked closely with museum director Louis Palma di Cesnola (1832–1904), and others to prepare the galleries, manage relations with Bishop, and argue that the Bonnat painting belonged to the museum.50 Avery urged Cesnola to ask Bishop for as much information regarding the pictures’ provenance and any other information Wolfe had in order to make the

“Catharine Lorillard Wolfe. Collecting and Patronage in the Gilded Age,” Ph.D., Graduate Center, City University of New York, 2013; Rebecca A. Rabinow, “Catharine Lorillard Wolfe. The First Woman Benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Apollo, 433 (March 1998), pp. 48–55. 49  Letter undated [Monday p. m., April 1887?] from Samuel P. Avery to Louis Palma di Cesnola, Wolfe, Catharine L. –Coll. Corres. April-July 1887, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, MMAA. 50  Letter dated 23 January 1888 from W.C. Prime to Mr. [Cornelius] Vanderbilt, Wolfe, Catharine L. –Collection Bonnat’s Roman Girl 1887–88, 1893, 1931, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, MMAA. See also Laster, “Catharine Lorillard Wolfe,” pp. 63–65. The Bonnat picture issue continued beyond the opening reception.

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Figure 4.3 Léon Bonnat, Roman Girl at a Fountain, 1875, Oil on canvas, 67 × 39 1/2 in. (170.2 × 100.3 cm), Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Bequest of Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, 1887, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org.

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catalogue educational and interesting.51 He also requested biographical information on Wolfe, knowing that museum-goers would be curious about this great benefactress.52 As evidenced by the flurry of letters between April and October of 1887, they worked feverishly to settle all of the matters and to get the pictures in the museum in time for the opening. Building new fireproof galleries would have been cost prohibitive, so existing galleries needed fireproofing, at least as a temporary fix, but that would have taken at least five weeks.53 Bishop posed an added difficulty by not giving a definitive transfer date. He wanted the fireproof galleries first, but with no indication of when he would deliver the pictures. He also replied slowly to correspondence from the museum when every minute mattered. During August, now only two months before the opening, they feared Bishop would not transfer the pictures in time, and Avery voiced his anxious concern about the embarrassment this would cause the museum.54 The fireproof gallery, ready August 31st, remained empty waiting for the Wolfe pictures. Avery urged Cesnola to seek legal counsel regarding the pictures, both to get the paintings and to protect the museum, and regretted waiting too long to fireproof the gallery.55 Bishop finally alleviated their fears. After waiting over a month, the pictures finally arrived in mid-October, in time for the scheduled opening.56 The collection occupied two galleries, named the

51  Letter undated [1887] from Samuel P. Avery to Louis Palma di Cesnola, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection – Corres. April-July 1887, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, MMAA. 52  Letter dated 10 October [1887?] from Samuel P. Avery to Louis Palma di Cesnola, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection – Corres. 1871, 1880, 1882, 1919, 1924, 1929, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, MMAA. 53  Letter dated 11 August 1887 from Louis Palma di Cesnola to Daniel Huntington, Wolfe, Catharine L. – Coll. Corres. Aug 1887, January 1888, 1998, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, MMAA. 54  Letter dated 26 August 1887 from Samuel P. Avery to Louis Palma di Cesnola, Wolfe, Catharine Lorillard 1871, 1880, 1882, 1919, 1924, 1929, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, MMAA. 55  Letter dated 8 September [1887] from Samuel P. Avery to Louis Palma di Cesnola, Wolfe, Catharine L. –Coll. Corres. Aug 1887, January 1888, 1998, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, MMAA. 56  Official receipt dated 18 October 1887 signed by Louis Palma di Cesnola for Wolfe pictures to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with quotation from section 6 of Wolfe’s will, Wolfe, Catharine L. –Coll. Agreement, Receipt & Lists 1885–87, 1890–92, 1907, 1929–30, 1942, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, MMAA.

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Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Gallery, and opened November 1887, accompanied by a handbook Avery wrote.57 While working on the Wolfe pictures, Avery brokered other important bequests. Avery acted as agent for Judge Henry Hilton (1824–1899) at the Alexander T. Stewart sale held in 1887. Hilton was Stewart’s executor. Stewart (1803–1876) built his fortune through his dry goods business and amassed one of the leading collections in the country. The most famous picture, 1807, Friedland (fig. 4.4), by Ernest Meissonier, anchored his collection. Avery purchased the picture on Hilton’s behalf for $66,000. Avery received the painting on the museum’s behalf, and Avery’s friend, Johnston, president of the museum, expressed gratitude for the generous gift.58 Hilton promptly presented it to the museum and wrote in his letter to Johnston that he donated Meissonier’s painting to benefit the public. Avery represented another friend and client, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who paid $53,000 for Rosa Bonheur’s Horse Fair, which he, too, promptly donated to the museum. Avery undoubtedly urged these important donations. Not until 1902, just two years prior to Avery’s death, did Avery’s true tribute, the William Henry Vanderbilt collection, make it to the Metropolitan Museum.59 After making a fortune in railroads, Vanderbilt, then the wealthiest man in the United States, rapidly formed a collection and built a gallery in his Fifth Avenue mansion with a separate public entrance. Avery bought most of the works on Vanderbilt’s behalf, but tactfully denied assertions that he formed the collection.60 He accompanied and introduced Vanderbilt to artists, but Vanderbilt presumably bought only what he liked. Regardless, Vanderbilt dismayed Avery, who fully expected the collection, which he considered the

57  “Art Notes,” Art Review 2, no. 1–3 (September-November 1887), p. 49; and Metropolitan Museum of Art, Part I. The Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection; Part II. Pictures by Old Masters, in the East Galleries (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1887); “The Reopening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Studio 4, no. 1 (December 1888), p. 9. See also Rabinow, 1998, p. 53. 58  Metropolitan Museum of Art, Annual Reports … 1871–1902, p. 381. See also Constance Cain Hungerford, 1807, Friedland, in Ernest Meissonier Rétrospective (Lyon: Musée des beaux-arts, 1993), pp. 220–225; “Another Princely Gift: Meissonier’s Masterpiece Now the City’s,”New York Times, 3 May 1887, p. 1. 59  Leanne Zalewski, “Art for the Public. William Henry Vanderbilt’s Cultural Legacy,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide 11, no. 2 (Summer 2012), http://www.19thc-artworld wide.org/summer12/leanne-zalewski-william-henry-vanderbilts-cultural-legacy (accessed 30 November 2014). 60  Samuel P. Avery, “W.H. Vanderbilt’s Pictures on View,” New York Times, 4 May 1902, p. 15.

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Figure 4.4 Ernest Meissonier, 1807, Friedland, ca. 1861–75, Oil on canvas, 53 1/2 × 95 1/2 in. (135.9 × 242.6 cm), Gift of Henry Hilton, 1887, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, www.metmuseum.org.

best, to remain intact and for public display.61 Although Vanderbilt had a strong relationship with Avery, left $100,000 to the Metropolitan Museum, and paid $100,000 to move an Egyptian obelisk to Central Park directly behind the museum, he did not donate his collection. Vanderbilt attempted to buy land opposite his mansion for an art gallery but his attempt failed. He died suddenly, left the collection to his family, but specified that it remain intact in his private gallery, overseen by a male Vanderbilt heir. In spite of Avery’s involvement in the Metropolitan Museum, and Vanderbilt’s trust in him, it seems that he placed more trust in his immediate family. However, the pictures finally made it to the museum. At Avery’s behest, Vanderbilt’s son and heir, George W. Vanderbilt (1862–1914), loaned the pictures for a year, but they remained on view for nearly eighteen years, from 1902 to early 1920, as the William H. Vanderbilt Collection of Modern Pictures, adjacent to the Wolfe Gallery.62

61  Avery, [1883], p. 843. 62  Letter dated 1 April 1902 from Louis Palma di Cesnola to George W. Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt, William H. –Loan Collection Lent by Geo. W. Vanderbilt 1902–03, 1905–09, 1911–12, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, MMAA; Editorials and Resolutions, p. 4.

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Avery surely must have been pleased to see this collection finally hanging in the museum. This collection served as Avery’s legacy, which contemporaries acknowledged as Avery’s testament to the museum.63 Fortunately for Avery, the collection still hung in the museum during his lifetime. Well after Avery’s death, it was returned to the family who eventually sold it at auction when they sold the mansion for commercial development.64 A Victoria’s Secret store stands now where Vanderbilt’s elaborate mansion with its gallery full of then-famous pictures once stood. Neither his mansion nor his art collection survived beyond the next generation of Vanderbilts, and Avery’s testament was dispersed and forgotten. Yet, Avery was the first art dealer in New York to act as a steward to such a prominent collection. 4 Conclusion From his appointment as commissioner at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867 until his death, still a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Avery remained actively involved with the museum as well as in other philanthropic endeavors. Judicious use of his time, expertise, social network, and money enriched numerous institutions and organizations. Contemporaries did not apply the term, “cultural broker,” to Avery, but he bore his responsibility as virtually the sole, most qualified art expert and carried out this responsibility throughout his career. As Fidell-Beaufort and Goldstein both noted, Avery’s art dealing posed no conflict with his role as trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.65 An astute, honest, and intelligent man, Avery surely must have recognized that he was living in an emerging market, and threw himself with gusto into the task of bringing the fine and decorative arts into New York. Despite his heavy involvement in the museum, he wished he could have devoted even more time to it.66 His name may never grace the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as Joseph Duveen’s does Tate Britain and the British Museum, but Avery generously gave needed resources and time for the museum administration, 63   Editorials and Resolutions. Authors include the New York Evening Post, p. 55; Russell Sturgis, p. 67; and J.P. Morgan p. 77. 64  Letter dated 20 January 1920 from Edward Robinson to Cornelius Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt, William H. – Loan Collection Lent by Geo. W. Vanderbilt 1902–03, 1905–09, 1911–12, Office of the Secretary Correspondence Files, MMAA. 65  Fidell-Beaufort and Welcher, 1982, p. 50; Goldstein, 2000, p. 52. 66  Letter dated 27 November 1882 from Samuel P. Avery to Louis di Palma Cesnola, Paintings & Sculpture Committee on 1882–85, 1887, Office of the Secretary Subject Files, MMAA.

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collections, and art school. He divided his time between his art dealing and the museum and continued to work with the museum after he retired. His busy retirement included work for and donations to Columbia University, the New York Public Library, the Grolier Club, and more beyond the scope of this article. Avery truly contributed to the “general progress of art throughout the United States.”67 He serves as an anomaly in the history of art dealing and is perhaps the most dedicated contributor to the foundation of the arts during the early Gilded Age.

Works Cited

CPH

Collis Potter Huntington Papers (microfilm), Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. MMAA The Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives, New York, NY. SPA MMA Samuel P. Avery: Papers, [ca. 1850]–1905, Thomas J. Watson Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. “Another Princely Gift: Meissonier’s Masterpiece Now the City’s.” New York Times 3 May 1887: 1. Print. “Art Notes.” Art Review 2.1–3 (September-November 1887): 37–60. Print. Catalog of Paintings Never before Exhibited. New York: Henry H. Leeds & Co., 1864. Print. Catalogue of a Remarkably Fine Collection of Oil Paintings by the Best American Artists. New York: Henry H. Leeds & Miner, 1866. Print. Catalogue of the Entire Art Library of Mr. S.P. Avery. New York: Bangs, Merwin & Co., 1867. Print. Collection of Oil Paintings by American Artists. New York: Henry H. Leeds & Miner, 1867. Print. The Collection of Paintings, Drawings and Statuary, the Property of John Taylor Johnston, Esq. New York: Somerville Art Gallery, 1876. Print. Editorials and Resolutions in Memory of Samuel Putnam Avery. New York: Privately Printed, 1905. Print. “From the ‘Evening Express’.” New Pictures at Avery’s Art Galleries New York: n. p., 1879. 3–5. Print. “The Re-Opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Studio 4.1 (December 1888): 5–11. Print.

67   Editorials and Resolutions, p. 35.

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Avery, Samuel P. The Diaries 1871–1882 of Samuel P. Avery. Eds. Fidell-Beaufort, Madeleine, Herbert L. Kleinfield and Jeanne K. Welcher. New York: Arno Press, 1979. Print. Avery, Samuel P. Photographs from Paintings by American Artists. New York: n. p., n. d. Print. Avery, Samuel P. “Some Notes on the History of Fine Arts in New York City During the Past Fifty Years [1883].” History of New York City, Embracing an Outline Sketch of Events from 1609 to 1830, and a Full Account of Its Development from 1830 to 1884. Ed. Lossing, Benson John. New York: Perine Company, 1884. 840–843. Print. Avery, Samuel P. “W.H. Vanderbilt’s Pictures on View.” New York Times 4 May 1902: 15. Print. Bourdieu, Pierre. Language and Symbolic Power. Trans. Raymond, Gino and Matthew Adamson. Ed. Thompson, John. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. Print. Coffin, William. “Souvenirs of a Veteran Collector.” Century Magazine 53.2 (December 1896): 231–245. Print. Durand-Ruel, Maisons. Galerie Durand-Ruel, recueil d’estampes, gravées à l’eau-forte, préface par Armand Silvestre Paris, 1873. Print. Fidell-Beaufort, Madeleine. “The American Art Trade and French Painting at the End of the Nineteenth Century.” Van Gogh Museum Journal (2000), 101–107. Print. Fidell-Beaufort, Madeleine. “Art Collecting in the United States after the Civil War: Civic Pride, Competition, and Personal Gains.” Artwork through the Market: The Past and the Present. Ed. Bakos, Ján. Bratislava: VEDA, 2004. 125–136. Print. Fidell-Beaufort, Madeleine. “A Measure of Taste: Samuel P. Avery’s Art Auctions, 1864– 1880.” Gazette des beaux-arts 100 (September 1982): 87–89. Print. Fidell-Beaufort, Madeleine, Herbert L. Kleinfield, and Jeanne K. Welcher. “Introduction.” The Diaries 1871–1882 of Samuel P. Avery. New York: Arno Press, 1979. vii-lxxix. Print. Fidell-Beaufort, Madeleine, and Jeannine K. Welcher. “Some Views of Art Buying in New York in the 1870s and 1880s.” Oxford Art Journal 5.1 (1982), 48–55. Print. Fidell-Beaufort, Madeleine, and Jeannine K. Welcher. Samuel P. Avery: Pioneer American Art Dealer. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979. Print. Fidell-Beaufort, Madeleine, Richard P. Welcher, and Jeannine K. Welcher. Letters & Sketches: Addressed to Samuel Putnam Avery, 1884–1899 (Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints (Series), V. 541). 2004. Print. Goldstein, Malcolm. Landscape with Figures: A History of Art Dealing in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Print. Hungerford, Constance Cain. “1807, Friedland.” Ernest Meissonier Rétrospective. Lyon: Musée des beaux-arts, 1993. 220–235. Print. Johnston, William R. William and Henry Walters, the Reticent Collectors. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Print.

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Laster, Margaret. “Catharine Lorillard Wolfe: Collecting and Patronage in the Gilded Age.” Ph.D. Graduate Center, City University of New York, 2013. Print. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Annual Reports of the Trustees of the Association, from 1871 to 1902. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1902. Print. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part I. The Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection; Part II. Pictures by Old Masters, in the East Galleries. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1887. Print. Rabinow, Rebecca A. “Catharine Lorillard Wolfe: The First Woman Benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Apollo 433 (March 1998): 48–55. Print. “The Re-Opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Studio 4.1 (December 1888): 5–11. Print. Sieben-Morgen, Ruth. “Samuel Putnam Avery (1822–1904), Engraver on Wood; a BioBibliographical Study.” Master’s thesis. Columbia University, 1942. Print. Tomkins, Calvin. Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1970. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1989. Print. Union League Club. A Metropolitan Art-Museum in the City of New York. New York: Printed for the Committee, 1869. Print. Zalewski, Leanne. “Art for the Public: William Henry Vanderbilt’s Cultural Legacy.” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide. 11.2 (Summer 2012), http://www.19thc-artworld wide.org/summer12/leanne-zalewski-william-henry-vanderbilts-cultural-legacy. Accessed 30 November 2014. Web.

CHAPTER 5

Dealing with Cubism: Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler’s Perilous Internationalism Fae Brauer Just after the Court d’Appel exonerated Captain Alfred Dreyfus of all charges of German-Jewish espionage, the twenty-three year-old Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler opened his discrete two-room Galerie Kahnweiler at rue Vignon. Strategically close to Bernheim-Jeune and the Madeleine, this zone was fast becoming what Kahnweiler called “the commercial art centre”.1 Following Louis Vauxcelles’ concept of the modern dealer as a rebel independent of the Paris gallery hierarchy known as “la bande des requins”, Kahnweiler put his faith in the avant-garde of his generation and they in him, as captured by him being photographed in Picasso’s studio (Fig. 5.1).2 Zealously he attended the Salon des Artistes Indépendants and began buying the Fauve paintings of André Derain and Maurice Vlaminck, as well as those of Georges Braque and Kees Van Dongen.3 Intrepidly he exhibited Braque’s early Cubist paintings rejected by the 1908 Salon d’Automne. So avidly did he collect Cubism that by the time Pablo Picasso had painted his Cubist portrait of him during thirty sittings (Fig. 5.2), Kahnweiler had invested much of his 25,000 francs yearly income in acquiring two-thirds of Picasso’s studio with more artwork 1  Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and Francis Crémieux, My Galleries and Painters; 1st pb. Mes Galeries et Mes Peintres (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1961; London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1971) pp. 34– 35: I had to look for a shop. The commercial art centre, after having been for dozens and dozens of years in rue Le Peletier and rue Lafitte, was in the process of shifting into the neighbourhood of the Madeleine. The house of Bernheim-Jeune, which had been in rue Lafitte, had opened one shop at the corner of boulevard de la Madeleine … Druet, who had been in faubourg Saint Honoré, was moving to rue Royale, and it was in the same area that I found a little shop at 28 rue Vignon. It was occupied by a Polish tailor … he rented it to me for 2400 francs a year, and it had only cost him 1800. 2  Pierre Assouline, L’Homme de l’art: D.-H. Kahnweiler 1884–1979 (Paris: Éditions Balland, 1988) p. 60. 3  Ibid., p. 35: Every year I had visited the Salon des Indépendants, which in those days was truly the nursery of modern art, where everyone with the single exception of Picasso, exhibited. It was always open in those days, and there I began buying paintings by Derain and Vlaminck. This was in the middle of the Fauve period. Figure 5.2 Picasso’s portrait of Kahnweiler. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004342989_006

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Figure 5.1 Pablo Picasso, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler in Pablo Picasso’s studio, 11 boulevard de Clichy, Paris, as photographed by Picasso, Autumn 1910; Succession Picasso – Gestion droits d’auteur. Photo (C) RMN-Grand Palais; Musée Picasso de Paris.

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Figure 5.2 Pablo Picasso, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Autumn 1910, oil on canvas, 39 9/16 × 28 9/16 in. (100.4 × 72.4 cm), Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mrs. Gilbert W. Chapman in memory of Charles B. Goodspeed, 1948.561. © 2016 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

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by Braques, Juan Gris and Fernand Léger than any other gallery. Quickly acquiring the reputation of “le marchand parisien des cubistes”,4 Kahnweiler cultivated such French patrons as Roger Dutilleul,5 alongside German, Russian, Czech and Swiss collectors.6 Yet after the Morocco crisis when L’Action Française launched its German-Jewish conspiracy campaign while other newspapers engaged in sensationalizing German infiltration of French culture as “pénétration pacifique”, a rupture and transformation ensued in Kahnweiler’s strategies. Once Cubism became politicized as a German-Jewish conspiracy and a form of “pénétration pacifique” concocted by German art dealers to sabotage the French art market, no longer did Kahnweiler endeavour to cultivate French collectors. Instead he pursued an exclusive international marketing policy strategically placing Cubist artwork by Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger in avant-garde exhibitions stretching from Heinrich Thannhauser’s Modern Munich Gallery to Michael Brenner’s Washington Square Gallery. Yet the very success of Kahnweiler’s internationalist tactics to cultivate an aura of global celebrity and selectivity around his artists, amidst avant-guerre discourses of persecutionist paranoia and espionage phobia, paradoxically inscribed his Cubists with Pan-Germanism. Correlatively he became aligned with a spyring of German Jewish art-dealers conspiring to disrupt French art market supremacy with dire ramifications. By the outbreak of the First World War, his gallery stock had become branded as “enemy goods”. By unravelling the constellation of culturo-political conditions in which this transpired, this chapter will endeavour to reveal why Kahnweiler’s internationalization ultimately proved so perilous to his entire stock and why, after the Armstice, every artwork that he had collected and stored in France was sequestered by the French State.

4  Jacques de Gachons, “La Peinture d’après-demain(?)”, Je sais tout, 15 April 1912. Even then, he was closely questioned about his nationality and that of his artists. 5  Les Années Cubistes 1907–1920: chronologie, 1907: II fait la connaissance du collectionneur Roger Dutilleul. 6  Liliane Meffre, «Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler: entre commerce et histoire de l’art», HiCSA – histoire culturelle et sociale de l’art, univ-paris1.fr/documents/pdf/CIRHAC, mentions Hermann Rupf, Wilhelm Uhde, Carl Einstein, Gottfried Friedrich Reber and Vincenc Kramář “client venu de Prague, … un des premier acheteurs de toiles de Picasso (il acquit en 1911 chez Vollard l’autoportrait de Picasso peint en 1907), fréquente assidûment la rue Vignon.

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Dealing with Anti-Germanism and Anti-Semitism: The Morocco Crisis, “Jewish-German Espionage” and “pénétration pacifique”

By the Morocco crisis in 1911 when France and Germany were on the brink of war, Kahnweiler’s art dealing business had quietly burgeoned. Although Braque’s November 1908 Cubist exhibition had been the first and last oneman show at the Galerie Kahnweiler, the latest paintings of Braque, Picasso, Manolo, Derain, Vlaminck, Gris and Léger were continually hanging on his gallery walls covered with sackcloth where they could be viewed by such international clients as the Czech, Vincenc Kramář, and the Russian modernist collectors, Sergei Stchoutkine and Ivan Morosov.7 Successfully aligning his Modernist painters with Modernist writers, Kahnweiler had launched his Livres d’artistes, Éditions Kahnweiler, Derain designing the emblem and illustrating Guillaume Apollinaire’s L’Enchanteur pourrissant in 1909 with Picasso illustrating Max Jacob’s Saint Matorel in 1911.8 At Roger Fry’s behest, Kahnweiler had made his first tentative foray into the London art market, sending three paintings by Derain and five by Vlaminck to the 1910 Manet and the PostImpressionist exhibition at the Grafton Galleries.9 That year, he had also sent on consignment to the Neue Künstlervereinigung in Munich, four paintings each by Braque, Derain and Vlaminck with three drawings by Picasso and had despatched paintings by Derain, Vlaminck and Van Dongen to the WallrafRichartz Museum in Cologne.10 This marks the inception of Kahnweiler’s policy of internationalism, particularly in Germany, which would become far more dynamic and strategic after the “German-Jewish Expionnage” and “pénétration

7  Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and Francis Crémieux, My Galleries and Painters, 1971, pp. 36–37. 8   Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, “Chronologie et Documents”, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler: Marchand, Éditeur, Écrivain (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1984) pp. 100–103. 9  Assouline, L’Homme de l’art, pp. 150–151, mentions that Kahnweiler sent three paintings by Derain and five by Vlaminck. In “Manet and the Post Impressionists: a checklist of exhibits”, The Burlington Magazine, CLII, December 2010, p. 791, Anna Gruetzner Robins has identified these paintings, and also pointed out that this consignment included one Seine landscape by Pierre Girieud (no. 138). While Vlaminck’s Le Pont (no. 109) was bought by Clive Bell, Derain’s Le parc de Saint-Carrières (no. 118) is now in the Courtauld Gallery. 10  Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, “Chronologie et Documents”, 1984, p. 104. These forays also include a photograph of a Cubist study by Picasso that Kahnweiler had sent to The New Age, at their request, which had been published by them in November 1911, and which had been described by G.K. Chesterton in “Impudent”, Daily News, 9 December 1911, as “a piece of paper on which Mr. Picasso has had the misfortune to upset the ink and tried to dry it with his boots.”

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pacifique” campaigns erupted following the Morocco crisis, Salon d’Automne Cubist scandal and the politicization of Cubism. In 1909 when Braque had exhibited his Cubist painting at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants, the term “Cubists” gained currency.11 By the Morocco crisis, Braque and Picasso had completed over one hundred Cubist paintings, including Picasso’s Cubist portrait of Kahnweiler (Fig. 5.1), as well as his Cubist portraits of Wilhelm Uhde and Ambroise Vollard. However none of these were shown at either the Salon des Artistes Indépendants or the Salon d’Automne, Kahnweiler regarding a policy of exclusivity as far more efficacious in cultivating cudos for his artists than one of public exposure, particularly amidst the prickly Anti-German and Antisemitic cultural politics that erupted with the Morocco crisis.12 Before the Morocco crisis, Cubists were inscribed by the national press as “farceurs”, “fumistes” and “mystificateurs”, particularly Albert Gleizes, Henri Le Fauconnier, Léger and Jean Metzinger when they had exhibited in Salle 41 at the 1911 Salon des Artistes Indépendants.13 After the Morocco crisis and the Franco-Prussian Accord, a dramatic discursive shift ensued. This was as evident in press discourses as it was in the spate of anticubist cartoons spawned from the moment the controversial “Disaccord” was negotiated between France and Germany to settle the Agadir Crisis at the same time as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa – known in France as La Joconde – disappeared from the Louvre.14 When Germany had refused to leave Agadir until French troops had withdrawn, and refused to grant France its protectorate over the Moroccan people until Germany had been ceded the French Congo, the Franco-German Accord had been negotiated. Spurned by L’Action Française as the “Désaccord”, from this moment onwards this virulent Antisemitic Royalist newspaper ran a series 11  Fae Brauer, Rivals and Conspirators: The Paris Salons and the Modern Art Centre (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), p. 333. 12  In Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Mes Galeries et mes peintres. Entretiens avec Francis Crémieux (Paris: Gallimard, 1961; 1982) p. 59, Kahnweiler maintained: Ce n’est pas vrai que je le leur défends. C’est de leur propre mouvement qu’il s’abstiennent de prendre part aux Salons et aux expositions périodiques. However, he also declared: Ils ont ainsi l’avantage de ne pas se mélanger à la foule et de garder une certain attitude discrète et aristocratique. Moi-même, je n’aime pas beaucoup cet esprit exhibitionniste des expositions. One of the conditions stipulated in the contracts he drafted towards the end of 1912 was that his artists not exhibit in the Salons. 13  Fay Brauer, L’Art Révolutionnaire: The Artist as Alien. The Discourses of Cubism, Modern Painting and Academicism in the Radical Republic, PhD Thesis, The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1997, pp. 178–186. 14  Jeanne-Bathilde Lacourt, Brouillon Kub, Les artistes cubistes et la caricature 1911–1918: le catalogue (Musée de l’Art Moderne de Villeneuve d’Asq, 2014).

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of articles in which scaremongering tactics were relentlessly deployed to convey the impression that France was under siege. From 17 September 1911 until the outbreak of the First World War, L’Action Française regularly published unsubstantiated reports of German-Jewish conspiracies under the ominous headline, “Jewish-German Espionage”.15 In these articles, the alien and the French-based German Jew were conflated into a single traitor conspiring with Germany to sabotage France not just militarily, but industrially, commercially and culturally. From the first article, the French Jew was accused of conspiring with Germans to bring about the invasion of French forts in the East while sabotaging France financially.16 By the First Balkan War when L’Action Française was well into its second series, their readers had been warned of French corporate takeovers by German conglomerates, the sabotage of French mines by Krupp and the German infestation of French car manufacturers.17 They were also warned that German-Jewish infiltration extended to major government positions as supposedly demonstrated by Berthold Frischauer’s purported manipulation of the Zola Monument Committee and Salomon Reinach’s promotion to Keeper of the National Museums.18 Upon the theft of the Mona Lisa in August 1911, their Anti-Germanism and Antisemitism reached fever pitch. Immediately L’Action Française announced that it was the result of a GermanJewish sabotage of the Louvre masterminded by Reinach.19 The Louvre was lambasted by Charles Maurras for having become a hotbed of Jews who were responsible for debasing a place which epitomized “le point du monde où l’esprit de la tradition leur a manifesté son avantage décisif sur l’esprit des Révolutions.”20 In an article ominously entitled “Le vol de la «Joconde»: Le Louvre enjuivé”, Maurras’ colleague, Léon Daudet, connected its disappearance

15  Initially this series, L’Espionnage Juif-Allemand, ran weekly but by the end of October 1911, it ran every two to three days for a decade. 16  Fay Brauer, “Commercial spies and Cultural Invaders: The French press, PénétrationPacifique and Xenophobic Nationalism in the shadow of war”, Printed Matters: Printing, publishing and urban culture in Europe in the modern period, eds. Malcolm Gee and Tim Kirk (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2002) p. 108. 17  “L’Espionnage Juif-Allemand II”, L’Action Française, 14, 16 and 25 August 1912; 1, 7, 11, 15, 16, 18 and 19 September 1912. These were all front-page reports. 18  Léon Daudet, “L’Espionnage Juif-Allemand”, L’Action Française, 17 September 1911, p. 1. An ardent anti-Dreyfusard, not surprisingly Daudet virulently opposed any monument being erected to Émile Zola. Despite the immense distinctions earned in archaeology by Reinach, as well as in his position as Director of Musée des Antiquités Nationales at SaintGermaine-en-Laye, it was his family of German-Jewish bankers that Daudet stressed. 19  “Au Musée du Louvre: La «Joconde» volée”, L’Action Française, 23 August 1911, p. 1. 20  Charles Maurras, “Au Louvre,” L’Action Française, 31 August 1911, p. 1.

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with the German-Jewish takeover of the Louvre and the long-standing Jewish cultural conspiracy that he maintained had begun upon Separation of Church and State in 1905 with the pillage of treasures from churches, convents and bishoprics.21 “Jews who do not traffic in money and human flesh”, he gleefully explained to his readers, “generally traffic in artworks.”22 Since Reinach’s “compatriot”, as Maurras called Alfred Dreyfus, had supposedly no compunction in selling secret documents on French national defence to Germany, so Daudet contended that Reinach, as one of the so-called “Juifs de Joconde”, had followed suit “masking and camouflaging the stolen painting just as he had masked and camouflaged so many artworks for American collections.”23 This “ritual murder of French masterpieces”, as Daudet called it, was not just prompted by the profit motive but, he asserted, was part of a Jewish plot to takeover the entire culture of France.24 Already those called “Jews and méteques” by Maurice Pujo in L’Action Française had, he asserted, taken over the Paris Salons, particularly the Salon d’Automne which he claimed they had invaded in “fantastic proportions”.25 Already they had also taken over art-dealing, according to L’Action Française art critic, Louis Dimier.26 “The reign of the barbaric merchant”, as Dimier called it, that had supposedly displaced civilized connoisseurs was caused, he maintained, by Jewish gallery owners, although he refrained from casting specific aspersions, secure in the knowledge that his readers would have been sufficiently aware that these Jewish gallery owners included Nathan Wildenstein, Joseph (Josse) and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune, Berthe Weill, Adolphe Basler and Kahnweiler.27 Once the xenophobic dimension of these conspiracy theories was pursued with a vengeance by the national press, it was not a French-born 21  Léon Daudet, “Le vol de la «Joconde», Le Louvre enjuivé”, L’Action Française, 25 August 1911, p. 1. 22  Ibid.: Les juifs qui ne trafiquent pas sur l’argent et la chair humaine, trafiquent en général sur les objets d’art. I am most grateful to Professor Neil McWilliam for bringing this quotation to my attention. 23  L.D., “Juifs de Joconde: Les Reinach et Paul Léon”, L’Action Française, 26 August 1911, p. 1: Il nous manque encore l’opinion d’un juif de Joconde: le juif mystérieux et caché qui se propose de maquiller et camoufler la tableau volé comme il a maquillé et camouflé tant d’objets d’art pour collections américaines. 24  Daudet, “Le vol de la «Joconde», L’Action Française, 28 August 1911. 25  Maurice Pujo, “La Peinture au Salon d’automne,” L’Action Française, 28 October 1909. 26  L. Dimier, “Chronique des Arts”, L’Action Française, 7 December 1913, p. 4. 27  Ibid.: Une véritable barbarie envahit le monde des acheteurs…. Le nombre des amateurs éclairés diminue; les marchands sont en train d’éliminer ce qui reste. De plus en plus, la confiance que le public mettra dans les érudits sera le seul obstacle opposé au règne de la

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Catholic, legimitated by the principle of jus sanguinis, who stood as the accused for the theft of the Mona Lisa and two Iberian statues subsequently found missing from the Louvre. Instead it was a “métèque” supposedly born in Poland of a Jewish family with German affiliations and who was the writer most closely identified with Cubism: This was none other than Wilhelm de Kostrowitzky who had become known as Guillaume Apollinaire.28 Hence despite Kahnweiler’s tactics of keeping his Cubists out of the public domain, unbesmirched by abject associations, Cubism became identified with Germanism, Semitism and invasion by infiltration. By no means limited to L’Action Française, this “invasion” was sensationalized by the national press as “pénétration pacifique”. Even before L’Action Française had headlined the admission of German Jewish thieves to the Paris stock exchange, Paris-Midi had already done so.29 Such other newspapers as the centrist, Le Matin, and the Radical Republican, Le Radical, published reports of German products saturating the French market at the same time as German businessmen took over French businesses. They were joined by the popular Anarcho-Communist magazine, L’Assiette au Beurre to which many avant-garde artists contributed cartoons, including František Kupka. Like the articles in L’Action Française, its cartoons seemed to seek to expose, albeit with ironic exaggeration and parodic distortion, the possibility of German “invasions” facilitated by strategies of dissimulation contrived by Jewish people. In a cover by Ricardo Floret where English toothpaste, American shoes and Egyptian cigarettes were depicted alongside cases marked champagne de Paris, beneath the title, “La Contrefaçon Allemande (MADE IN GERMANY)”, Germany was portrayed as counterfeiting other nations’ commodities, which it then exported as forgeries (Fig. 5.3).30 Only when country of origin needed to be divulged did the barbarie marchands. I am most grateful to Professor Neil McWilliam for bringing this quotation to my attention. 28  Apollinaire was arrested in the evening of 8 September 1911. “Les Vols au Louvre, Une Arrestation”, L’Action Française, 9 September 1911, p. 1, was the first of many references to Apollinaire being Jewish, which included an accusation by Arthur Craven, published in Maintenant, March 1914. This connection may have been prompted by Apollinaire’s mother’s long liaison with Jules Weil although, as Apollinaire explained in a letter, Antisemites could not imagine a Pole not being a Jew. 29  “L’Introduction des voleurs allemands à la Bourse de Paris”, Paris-Midi, 15 September 1911, p. 1; Léon Daudet, “Le Bilan du Trimestre”, L’Action Française, 4 October 1911, p. 1. The cartoon entitled La Caricature à l’étranger, which appeared on the front page of Paris-Midi, became a regular feature. 30  Ricardo Floret, “La Contrefaçon Allemande (MADE IN GERMANY), L’Assiette au Beurre, no. 559, 30 December 1911, front cover.

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Figure 5.3 Ricardo Floret, “La Contrefaçon Allemande (Made in Germany)”; L’Assiette au Beurre, No. 559, 30 December 1911, cover design; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Gallica; Public Domain.

Germans reluctantly do so, as signified by another cartoon in this issue showing a stereotype image of a Jewish man wielding a paint-brush over packaging to create the words, “MADE IN GERMANY” (Fig. 5.4).31 So alarming had this invasion become that, according to the moderate, centrist newsapaper, Le Matin, “the protest against the insidious infiltration of anonymous German products, or those which masquerade under a French pseudonym, is mounting every

31  “La Contrefaçon Allemande (Made in Germany)”, L’Assiette au Beurre, no. 559, 30 December 1911, p. 4.

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Figure 5.4 Ricardo Floret, “La Contrefaçon Allemande (Made in Germany)”; L’Assiette au Beurre, No. 559, 30 December 1911, unpaginated; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Gallica; Public Domain.

day.”32 Yet when the abduction of national art treasures sensationalized by L’Action Française was followed by the French Police Commissionaire’s confirmation that the Mona Lisa and two Iberian statues had been stolen from the Louvre, French art was perceived as vulnerable to “pénétration pacifique”, as well as to corruption by such an alien art as Cubism promoted by Kahnweiler. This polemic came to a head when the Cubist room, Salle XI, at the 1912 Salon d’Automne opened with artworks by the Russian, Alexander Archipenko, the Czech, Kupka, 32  “L’Opinion française commence à s’alarmer”, Le Matin, 8 October 1912, p. 1.

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Figure 5.5 “La Salle des Cubistes au Salon d’Automne”, 10th Salon d’Automne, 1 October–8 November 1912, Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, Paris, Salle XI showing left to right František Kupka, no. 925, Amorpha, fugue à deux coleurs (painting, left wall); Amedeo Modigliani, nos. 1211–1217, Têtes ( four shown of seven sculptures); Alexander Archipenko, no. 1357, Madonna (sculpture group); Francis Picabia, no. 1350, La Source (centre); Jean Metzinger, no. 1195, Danseuse (painting); Henri Le Fauconnier, no. 1002, Montagnards attaqués par des ours (painting, right wall); photograph, L’Illustration, No. 3633, 12 October 1912 ( Journal Collection of the Author).

the Austrian, Moriz Melzer, the Portuguese, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoza, the Pole, Louis Marcoussis and the Italian, Amedeo Modigliani, as illustrated by Fig. 5.5.

Dealing with Scandal: Salon d’Automne Salle XI and the Politicization of Cubism

Even before the 1912 Salon d’Automne vernissage, Gil Blas had forewarned its readers that they would need to remind themselves that the Grand Palais had been sanctioned for French art.33 Yet when it opened on 1 October 1912 in the midst of the First Balkan War, the outrage exceeded all expectations. Immediately Salle XI at the centre of this Salon was attacked, which only

33  “Au Salon d’Automne”, “Les Arts”, Gil Blas, 11 September 1912, p. 5: Le Grand Palais n’est plus le paisible asile favorable aux bucoliques…. Les éleveurs placides ont fait place aux peintres ardents et aux décorateurs fiévreux, car parfois, rarement encore, on se souvient que le Grand-Palais consacré est à l’Art français…. Et de quel œil les jeunes cubistes, intransigeants, impitoyables….

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intensified when the Maison Cubiste opened there a fortnight later.34 Far from being welcomed as “Le Triomphe de Cubisme”, as parodied in a series of cartoons by Louis Marcoussis in which even the Salon Carré in the Louvre appeared cubified,35 Léger’s La Femme en bleu, Metzinger’s La Danseuse au café, and Le Fauconnier’s Montagnards attaqués par un ours, which can be glimpsed in Fig. 5.5, were denounced as “intellectual deformations”,36 their Cubist bodies being likened to decomposing syphilitics.37 No stranger to invective, Apollinaire expressed surprise at this sudden crescendo of horror, venom and “gnashing of teeth” with accusations of degeneracy, disease, madness and abjection over avant-garde art.38 Like others, he suspected it had erupted because Cubism had hit a raw nerve pertaining to the national psychopathology over degeneracy. So rampant did degeneracy appear in the French Radical Republic by the 1912 Salon d’Automne, particularly “the venereal peril”, that it was identified as the source of France’s depopulation and the reason for its relative industrial and technological decline by comparison to Germany. From Neo-Darwinian and Neo-Lamarckian perspectives, France’s degeneracy was also viewed as an omen of devolution and ultimately, racial extinction. Although there were critics who recognized the connections between Cubism and the research being conducted on Non-Euclidian geometries, particularly by Henri Poincaré, most read their multiple perspectives of corporeal form experienced sensorially over time as signifying deformed and decomposing bodies.39 As a corollary, they deduced that Cubism was trying to expose the decomposition of the French body, 34  Located by the prestigious Nineteenth Century Portrait Exhibition, the Cubist Room was regarded as being at the centre of this tenth Salon d’Automne, which was only reinforced by spectators having to pass through it in order to reach the Portrait Exhibition. 35  Louis Marcoussis, “Le Triomphe du cubisme”, La Vie Parisienne, no. 3642 (12 December 1912), p. 366; Brauer, Rivals and Conspirators, 2013, p. 359. 36  Paul Sentenac:  … une déformation intellectuelle; Brauer, Rivals and Conspirators, 2009, p. 354. 37  M.-C. Jacquemaire, “Le Salon d’Automne”, L’Homme Libre, 24 November 1913, p. 1. Inutile de dire que les lumières et les ombres sont réparties au hasard. Une autre formule est celle des chairs tombant en décomposition. Les visages coulent de toutes parts. Les yeux tombent sur le nez, le nez dans la bouche et les cheveux tout autour. Cela est répugnant … la laideur, l’extravagance et le désordre. 38  Guillaume Apollinaire, «Jeunes peintres ne vous frappez pas», Bulletin de la Section d’Or, Galerie la Boétie, 9 October 1912: Pourquoi tant de colères, messieurs les censeurs. Les cubistes ne vous intéressent-ils point? Ne vous y intéressez donc point. Mais voilà des cris, des grincements de dents, des appels au gouvernement…. 39  Fae Brauer, “The Einstein Eclipse: The Paradigmatic Fourth Dimension in Modern Art Before and After Relativity”, Art History (Vol. 39, Iss. 1 February 2016) pp. 182–188.

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particularly from “the venereal peril” of syphilis, and the degeneration of the French race. Since it represented the antithesis of the Radical Republican NeoLamarckian mission to regenerate the body through modern sport and physical culture, it was perceived as un-French, if not anti-French and unpatriotic.40 Yet not only did the Cubist body appear as the evolutionary opposite of the healthy, wholesome “regenerated body”, but also as a form of madness able to induce madness, as epitomized by Le Figaro’s cartoon showing the guardian of Salle XI so “enragé” that he needed to be escorted out by guards.41 While Jean Claude in Le Petit Parisien branded the Cubists as degenerate, Vauxcelles likened their art to the ravings of idiots for which he was physically attacked by two of the Salle XI Cubists.42 In engendering what Le Matin senior art critic, Georges Lecomte, called “repugnant deformations”, Picasso and the Salon d’Automne Cubists were accused of betraying French art. Although conspicuously absent from this Salon, long had Picasso been mythologized as the leader of Cubism, as confirmed by Gris’ Cubist portrait of him displayed six months earlier at the 1912 Salon des Artistes Indépendants.43 As Picasso’s Cubism, just like the Cubism displayed in Salle XI, was seen as un-French and equivalent to “Made in Germany” products and personnel peacefully infiltrating France, Cubism became inscribed as an alien and abject art that had been promoted by a German-Jewish art dealer to corrupt French taste and to 40  For the Radical Republic Neo-Lamarckian mission to regenerate the French body, refer Fae Brauer, “Becoming Simian: Devolution as Evolution in Transformist Modernism”, Chapter Seven, Picturing Evolution and Extinction: Regeneration and Degeneration in Modern Visual Culture, eds. Fae Brauer and Serena Keshavjee (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015) pp. 127–156; Fae Brauer, “Eroticizing Lamarckian Eugenics: The Body Stripped Bare during French Sexual Neoregulation”, Art, Sex and Eugenics: Corpus Delecti, eds. Fae Brauer and Anthea Callen (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2008) pp. 97–138. The cultural politics of the regenerated body is the subject of my current book entitled Regenerating Men’s Bodies: Modernist Biocultures, Neo-Lamarckian Eugenics and the Fitness Imperative. 41  “C’est le guardien des fauves qu’on emmène … Il est devenue enragé”, Max Aghion, “Au Salon d’Automne – Les Victimes”, Les Temps, 8 October 1912, p. 4; Archives Nationales de France. 42  Guillaume Apollinaire, “Vernissage, l’inauguration du Salon d’Automne, Un petit incident au Grand-Palais”, L’Intransigeant, 1 October 1912, p. 1; also refer Louis Vauxcelles, L’Intransigeant, 3 October 1912, p. 2: Mon cher directeur,… l’Intransigeant d’hier annonce que quelques peintres cubistes … «m’ont injurié copieusement». Faites-moi l’honneur de croire qu’il n’est pas de mon caractère de me laisser injurier «copieusement» sans répondre à l’insulteur. J’ai, en effet, répliqué aux deux jeunes malappris que l’incident aurait sa solution normale sur le terrain. 43  Brauer, Rivals and Conspirators, 2013, pp. 333–334.

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corrode the supremacy of French art from the inside. Once incribed as degenerate and conpiratorially identified with “pénétration pacifique”, this is why it became so quickly the subject of political intervention. “Never had nature and the human form been subjected to such outrage”, declared the powerful Paris Councillor, Pierre Lampué, in his open letter to the Arts Minister. “In this Salon where it spreads, ugliness accumulates.”44 The artists who had produced it were no better than, he declared, “a band of hooligans who behave in the world of arts like apaches”.45 In correlating the Salon d’Automne Cubists to “apaches”, Lampué was identifying them with the violent criminal underworld subculture known as “the sore of Paris”, which had become notorious for their assaults and muggings with folding knives and pistols in most arrondissements, particularly Belleville.46 Since the State’s most prestigious monument for contemporary art in Lampué’s constituency seemed to have been defiled by the most vulgar human deformations that he considered had ever been perpetrated in the history of French art, this is why Lampué likened the Cubist perpetrators to dangerous gangsters, as he did those who had let this happen. Seizing Lampué’s letter, Le Matin was the first Parisian daily to publish it in full on its front page under the provocative headline, “The Salon d’Automne is a Scandal”.47 It also published Lampué’s brutal indictment of the Salon d’Automne President, Frantz Jourdain for permitting this exhibition, with a photograph of his head wedged between photographs of two Cubist paintings, Femme en bleu and Paysage, exhibited by Léger, who by this time had become one of the Cubists represented by Kahnweiler.48 This appeared below the sensationalist headlines: “Don’t bother searching, this is art; the State lends … the Grand Palais to it and the Arts Minister inaugurates it”.49 As a corollary of the stigmatization of Cubism as an alien, criminal art, Jourdain was vilified as a felonious alien simply for having been born in Brussels. Amidst paranoia seething over “Made 44  Pierre Lampué, Lettre ouverte à M. Bérard, Sous-Secrétaire d’État aux Beaux-Arts, 5 October 1912 (Paris: Archives Nationales de France):… la nature et la forme humaine n’ont jamais subi de tels outrages … dans ce salon on étale, on accumule les laideurs…. 45  Ibid.:  … une bande de malfaiteurs qui se comportent dans le monde des arts comme des apaches…. 46  “L’Apache est la plaie de Paris. Plus de 30,000 rôdeurs contre 8,000 sergents de ville”, Le Petit Journal (20 October 1907): Front cover. 47  For a reproduction of this letter in Le Matin, refer Brauer, Rivals and Conspiators, Figures 9.41. 48  For a reproduction of this article in Le Matin, refer Brauer, Rivals and Conspiators, Figure 9.42. 49  «Ne cherchez pas, c’est de l’art, L’État prête à ça les murs du Grand-Palais ET UN SOUSSECRÉTAIRE D’ÉTAT L’A INAUGURÉ», Le Matin, 6 October 1912, p. 1.

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in Germany” commodities “peacefully penetrating” France, as captured by Figs. 5.3 and 5.4, as well as the Alsation, Henri Zislin’s cartoon of a German businessman taking over Jacques Bonhomme’s business, Cubism became indicted as a German-Jewish conspiracy concocted by its German-Jewish dealer.50 Fuelled by the sensationalist German-Jewish espionage reports published almost daily by L’Action Française, the very discretion with which Kahnweiler conducted his affairs became vulnerable to misconstrual as “pénétration pacifique”. Not hesitating to sensationalize the seeming collusion between Cubism and its German-Jewish dealer, a pamphlet on “the deplorable Cubists” had been circulated at the 1912 Salon des Artistes Indépendants.51 Headed The Kubistes and Konistes, it declared that they “have understood nothing about my [use of] ‘K’ ”.52 This replacement of the letter “C” with an alliteration of the Germanic “K”, subtly identified the Cubists as German or, at least, as conspiring with a German whose surname began with ‘K’, which only seemed to be corroborated by the glowing articles in the German arts magazine, Pan, entitled “Kubisme”.53 The invasion of this alien art had supposedly left the Salon d’Automne open to more alien artists from Germany, according to the prestigious art critic for Le Temps, François Thiébault-Sisson, who had eclipsed French Art with their nightmarish fabrications.54 Their takeover of the Salon d’Automne exhibition and Jury, as well as French contemporary art, was described by Thiébault-Sisson in the same terms as “pénétration pacifique”

50  Zislin, “Quand Jacques Bonhomme veut faire du commerce avec la Teutonie”, Le Matin, 2 September 1912, p. 1; for a reproduction of this cartoon, refer Fay Brauer, “Commercial Spies and Cultural Invaders”, 2002, p. 110. 51  La Palette, “La protestation”, Courrier des Ateliers, Paris-Journal, 18 March 1912, p. 4. 52  Ibid. In this article, “Les Protestations”, André Salmon, writing under the pseudonym of “La Palette” in “Courier des Ateliers”, Paris-Journal, pointed out that exhibitors at this Salon had received a typed sheet called “Indépendance et Nouvelle Interview”, headed Les Kubistes et Konistes n’ont rien compris à mon K, denouncing “les déplorables tendances excentristes, cubistes, fauvistes et futuristes”. Although anonymous, Salmon detected the hand of Maurice Robin, renown for his antipathy towards Modernism and its defenders, particularly Apollinaire on whom he unleashed his most venomous invectives. 53  In his Esprit de Corps. The Art of the Parisian Avant-Garde and the First World War, 1914–1925 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989) p. 11, Kenneth E. Silver identifies how spelling the word Cubist with a “K”, given the near non-existance of this letter in French, “makes it ostentatiously Germanic”; for articles in German art magazines, on Cubism, refer Max Deri, “Die Kubisten und der Expressionismus”, PAN, No. 31, 20 June 1912. 54  Thiébault-Sisson, “Le Salon d’Automne, LA PEINTURE,” La vie artistique, Le Temps, 1 October 1912, p. 4.

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having wrought, he concluded, “La crise de la peinture française”.55 That these alien Cubists, spelt with the German “K”, had supposedly conspired with their German-Jewish dealer to invade the Salon d’Automne and degrade French art was sensationalized by the Antisemitic press. It was also hinted at when Cubism and through its association with it, the Salon d’Automne, became the subject of debates in the Chambre of Deputies. As the Député, Vincent Auriol, declared to the Chambre of Deputies, French art was being seriously menaced by the persistent efforts of neighbouring nations, particularly Germany.56 How the greatness of France’s artistic patrimony had been damaged by degeneracy and madness being exhibited in its Grand Palais, as epitomized by Cubism, was passionately expounded in the Chambre of Deputies Cubism debates by the Socialist Deputé, Jean-Louis Breton.57 His inflammatory supposition that Cubism had been perpetrated by alien artists, and exhibited in France’s great palace in order to disgrace French art, immediately galvanized support across parliament.58 Only the Socialist Député for Montmartre who wholeheartedly supported avant-garde art, Marcel Sembat, questioned why Cubism had been indicted as an alien art when the Salon Cubists were predominantly French.59 He also rhetorically questioned why the entire 1912 Salon d’Automne exhibition of 1,770 artworks had been denounced due to 32 Cubists, and why the Cubist exhibition in two rooms out of thirty at the 55  Ibid.: Ouvrez le catalogue du Salon d’automne, comptez les exposants qui y figurent, faites le tri des Français d’un côté, des étrangers de l’autre: vous arriverez pour les premiers au chiffre de 655, pour les seconds à celui de 315. 56   Journal officiel, Chambre des Députés, 29 November 1912, p. 2835. 57   Suite des Beaux-Arts, Chambre des Députés, Session extraordinaire de 1912, Journal Officiel, 3 December 1912, p. 2924: Depuis quelques années, sous prétexte de rénover l’art, de moderniser ses procédés, de créer des formes nouvelles, des formules inédites, certains exploiteurs de la crédulité publique se sont livrés aux plus folles surenchères d’extravagances et d’excentricités. Je ne songe nullement à leur en contester le triste droit, mais je ne puis admettre que notre administration des beaux-arts se prête à ces plaisanteries de très mauvais goût et livre gracieusement nos palais nationaux pour des manifestations qui risquent de compromettre notre merveilleux patrimoine artistique. (très bien! très bien! sur divers bancs.). 58  Ibid.: Et cela d’autant plus que ce sont pour la plupart des étrangers qui viennent ainsi chez nous, dans nos palais nationaux, jeter consciemment ou inconsciemment le discrédit sur l’art français. 59  Ibid., Marcel Sembat: … le Salon d’automne a eu, cette année, l’honneur, toujours périlleux et flatteur, d’être un objet de scandale. C’est aux peintres cubistes qu’il l’a dû. By this time, the Cubist Salon group was discursively acknowledged as consisting of Braque, Gleizes, Robert Delaunay (despite his dissension), Georges Deniker, Marcel Duchamp, Roger de la Fresnaye, Gris, Le Fauconnier, Léger, Lhote, Jean Marchand, Metzinger, Félix Tobeen (Saint-Valery-sur-Somme), and Jacques Villon who were all French artists.

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Salon d’Automne had been likened to an invasion.60 In his answer, Sembat pointed out how, during this avant-guerre when France and Germany were at war by subterfuge and when outcries over German espionage, commercial takeovers and cultural infiltration erupted daily, this was why so many were so easily alarmed by “revolutionaries”.61 Two years earlier when the Munich Decorative Arts exhibition had opened at the 1910 Salon d’Automne, a similar furore had erupted. French critics had expressed alarm at the threat to the charm, harmony, lightness, elegance and grace of French art posed by the severe geometries and awkward heaviness of German designs.62 The very geometricity of Cubism, its decomposition of harmonious form and its seeming absence of grace not only made it seem un-French but also aligned it with Germanism, an inscription that became widespread during the First World War when Cubism became identified with the destructiveness of Germans and their purportedly compulsive death-drive to destroy all French art and culture.63 Amidst this siege avant-guerre psychosis, French cultural supremacy was perceived as threatened by this invasive art alien to the French culture led by such alien artists as Picasso, not just by journalists and art critics, but by politicians. Since Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger were perceived within this delusive trope as being controlled by the German-Jewish art dealer of Cubism, this left Kahnweiler in a precarious position. If he wished to continue dealing from the modern art centre of Paris, as I have called it, Kahnweiler realized that he would need to withdraw from the French art market altogether, abjure any contact with the Paris Salons and not draw any public attention to his gallery where he hung the latest Cubist artwork by Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger.64 His strategy of concealment to the point of invisibility in France was to be complemented by his counter strategy of maximum exposure and visibility outside of it. This entailed developing an exclusive international marketing policy and the cultivation of an extensive network of international collectors. As Kahnweiler surmized more than forty years later to Francis Crémieux, “my business has always been much more an export business than a business within 60  Ibid., Marcel Sembat: Oui, cette année, nous avons été envahis par les cubistes … Le Salon de 1912 renfermait exactement 1770 numéros … Or, de ces 1770 numéros, nous étions affligés en tout de 32 Cubistes! … Je le répète, l’excès déplorable de cette année…. 61  Ibid., p. 2925, Marcel Sembat: Dans les milieux, l’on est le plus vite alarmé sur les tendances révolutionnaires. 62  Brauer, “Rivals as Conspirators: The Salons at War”, Chapter Nine, Rivals and Conpirators, 2013, pp. 329–331. 63  Jean-Marc Hofman, 1914–1918 Le Patrimoine s’en va-t-en guerre (Paris, Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine: Norma Éditions, 2016). 64  Brauer, Rivals and Conpirators, 2013.

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France.”65 He then elaborated what this meant: “You must realize that the foundation of my activity has always been relations with other countries, the organization of exhibitions in other countries. In fact, in our total volume of business, exports outweigh sales in France by a very large margin.”66

Dealing with Enmity: Exclusive Contracts, La Peau de l’Ours and Internationalization

To cultivate this “export business”, Kahnweiler decided to take control of artistic production by issuing exclusive contracts to his artists. In exchange for a monthly salary, his artists would then give him exclusive rights to their output and agree neither to sell their artwork to any other dealer nor exhibit it publicly in France − particularly at the Paris Salons. “At that time I really did have written contracts, something I no longer do”, Kahnweiler explained. “The painter promised to sell me his whole production. I promised to buy it, and the prices were determined by the dimensions, as it has always been done.”67 At the height of the Paris Council furore over Cubism, on 30 November 1912 Braque was issued with a one-year exclusive contract for his paintings and drawings, as well as his papiers-collés.68 During Sembat’s “defence of Cubism” in the Chambre of Deputies, a one-year exclusive contract was prepared for Derain.69 Just after Sembat’s “defence of Cubism”, a three-year contract was negotiated with Picasso stipulating that he would receive a monthly salary on condition that he could only sell his paintings, sculptures, drawings and engravings to Kahnweiler at prices stipulated in the contract – the highest of all those

65  Kahnweiler and Crémieux, My Galleries and Painters, 1961; 1971, p. 104. 66  Ibid., p. 74. 67  Ibid., p. 36. 68  Assouline, L’homme de l’art, 1988, p. 192: Georges Braque est le premier de ses peintres auxquels il envoie, le 30 novembre 1912, une simple lettre-contrat manuscrite. L’un s’engage à tout vendre. L’autre à tout acheter pour la durée d’un an. Les prix s’échelonnent de 60 francs (pour une toile au-dessus de 41 24 cm) à 400 francs (pour une toile entre 116 81 cm et 130 89 cm) avec tous les paliers intermédiares selon les formats.… une “clause” spéciale mentionne les papiers collés “ papiers bois, marbre ou tout autre accessoire”…. 69   Monod-Fontaine, “Chronologie et documents”, 1984, p. 113; Assouline, L’Homme de l’art, 1988, pp. 192–193. Sembat’s engagement in the Chambre of Deputies debates was sensationalized by some of the national press as La défense du cubisme; refer André Doriac, La Chambre, La défense du cubisme. Elle est spirituellement présentée par M. Marcel Sembat, au cours de la discussion du budget des Beaux-Arts, L’Excelsior, 4 December 1912, p. 2; refer Brauer, Chapter Four, L’Art Révolutionnaire: The Artist as Alien, 1997.

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negotiated – with the exception of artwork Picasso needed to keep for himself.70 After the Salon d’Automne regulations were changed to prevent foreign artists from holding office,71 an exclusive contract was issued on 20 February 1913 to Gris and on 1 August 1913 to Léger.72 These contracts meant that Kahnweiler had the power to place these artist’s works in whatever international exhibition and with whatever dealer he considered would be beneficial for their international validation, without requiring their permission. These contracts also gave him the power to elevate their sale prices internationally. With his artists’ work being shown in Amsterdam, Budapest, Cologne, Frankfurt, Munich, New York and London, paradoxically, as Pierre Assouline observes, “when the artworld was saying over and over again that it is to Paris that all must go, Kahnweiler, himself, exhibited everywhere save Paris.”73 Once these contracts were secured, Kahnweiler devoted his energy to expanding his international network in Germany, particularly through his business partner in Düsseldorf, Alfred Flechtheim, who had opened a gallery at Alleestrasse 7, and had reputedly spent his wife’s dowry on acquiring Cubist artwork from Kahnweiler.74 As internationalist and antinationalist as Kahnweiler, Flechtheim readily accepted the artwork of Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger on a sale or return consignment basis with the profit margin to be divided equally between them.75 He also accepted Kahnweiler’s condition that no reciprocal arrangement would be extended for him to take Flechtheim’s stock.76 Exhibiting Cubism in his gallery in Dusseldorf, with the sponsorship of Paul Cassirir, Flechtheim was soon able to sell six Cubist paintings by 70  Ibid., Assouline, pp. 193–194. On 18 December 2012 Picasso sent his contract to Kahnweiler: “Je vous confirme notre conversation comme suit. Nous avons convenu pour une période de trois ans à partir du deux décembre 1912. Je me engage pendant cette période à ne rien vendre à qui que ce soit en dehors de vous. Sont seuls exceptés de cette condition les tableaux et dessins anciens que me restent.… Il est bien entendu que pendant trois ans je ne aurai pas le droit de vendre les tableaux et dessins que je garderai pous mois. Vous vous engagé de votre côté pendant trois ans à acheter au prix fixés tout ce que je produirai de tableaux et de goaches ainsi que an moins vingt dessins par an…..” 71  Brauer, Rivals and Conspirators, p. 360. 72  Ibid., Monod-Fontaine, “Chronologie et documents”, 1984, p. 113: Lettre-contrat donnant à Kahnweiler l’exclusivité sur le travail de Gris (20 février); p. 115: 1 août, contrat (sur papier timbré) donnant à Kahnweiler l’exclusivité (pour trois ains) sur le travail de Léger. 73  Assouline, L’Homme de l’art, 1988, p. 202: Au moment où le milieu de l’art dans le monde répète: c’est à Paris que tout se passe, Kahnweiler, lui, expose partout sauf à Paris. 74  Christian Zervos, “Entretien avec Alfred Flechtheim”, Feuilles volontes, supplément à Cahiers d’art, no. 10, 1927, pp. 1–3. 75  Assouline, L’Homme de l’art, 1988, pp. 209–210. 76  Ibid.

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Picasso to collectors and paintings by Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger to major institutions.77 With a network stretching across Germany and Switzerland, Flechtheim was also instrumental in placing Picasso and Braque’s work in Basel, Berlin, Cologne and Zurich, as well as at the Second Der Blaue Reiter exhibition at the Neue Kunst Hans Goltz Gallery in Munich and at Herwarth Walden’s Galerie der Sturm in Berlin.78 He was just as instrumental in exhibiting their artwork with the cosmopolitan Sonderbund Artists’ Association with as many as sixteen paintings by Picasso being hung at their international exhibition in Cologne alongside seven Braques.79 Through Kahnweiler’s other business partners, Heinrich Thannhauser and his son, Justin, as well as his close connections with Adolphe Basler, Otto Feldmann,80 Vincenc Kramá, Hermann and Margit Rupf, Ivan Morozov, Sergei Shchukin, Roger Fry, John Quinn, and Alfred Stieglitz, Kahnweiler was able to mediate the exhibition and sale of his Cubist stock far and wide.81 After organizing a solo exhibition of Picasso’s drawings at the Stafford Gallery in London, Kahnweiler negotiated with Roger Fry to hang four Braques, seven Derains, nine Vlamincks and as many as thirteen Picassos in the Second Post Impressionist Exhibition at the Grafton Galleries in London, including his Head of a Man.82 Not wasting a moment, in January 1913 Kahnweiler was able to exhibit two Braques alongside five Derains and three Vlamincks at the Rheinischer Kunstsalon in Cologne.83 The following month he was able to show Braque’s and Picasso’s paintings as well as Picasso’s etchings for 77  Pierre Daix and Joan Rosselet, Picasso, The Cubist Years, 1907–1916: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings and Related Works (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979): Pablo Picasso’s artwork consigned by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler to Alfred Flechtheim and sold by Flechtheim includes Femme au poires, 1909; Arlésienne, 1912; Guitar and Sheet-music, 1912; Les oiseaux morts, 1912; Guitar and Coffee Table, 1912, and Glass, pipe and clock on mantelpiece, 1914. 78  One Braque and four Picassos were shown alongside Picasso’s “beaux livres”, L’Enchanteur pourrissant and Saint Matorel. 79   Internationale Kunsthauss Kunstausstellung des Sonderbundes. 80  Otto Feldmann and Flechtheim were friends, Feldmann having executed a full-length pencil portrait of Flechtheim in 1911. When living in Paris, Feldmann was introduced to Kahnweiler by Flechtheim and subsequently negotiated to show artwork from Kahnweiler’s gallery at the Rheinischer Kunstsalon. 81  This network stretched from Amsterdam, Barcelona, Basel, Berlin, Breslau, Budapest, Bremen, Cologne, Dublin, Frankfurt, Liverpool, London, St. Petersburg, Prague, Stockholm, Vienna and Zurich to New York and Washington. 82  The Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition was held in London from 5 October until 31 December 1912. 83  Monod-Fontaine, Chronologie et documents, 1984, p. 113.

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Saint Matorel in Budapest.84 Finally in March at Moderne Galerie Heinrich Thannhauser in Munich, Kahnweiler was able to mount the largest solo exhibition ever of Picassos: Over six weeks 76 paintings and 38 artworks on paper, including Picasso’s Femme au Violon, which had been shown earlier at the Sonderbundes.85 For the Armory Show travelling from New York to Boston and Chicago, Kahnweiler sent three Braques and four Picassos, including his Woman with a Mustard Pot, which was reproduced for the catalogue, and Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), which was reproduced in the New York Times and which helped to colour the Show as Cubist and unleash a spate of ­satire.86 By October 1913, fifty Picasso paintings were on permanent display in Moscow at Shchukin’s Gallery’s huge Picasso Room. By December 1913, they were exhibited at Le Valet de carreau exhibition in Moscow; Feldmann’s Neue Gallery in Berlin; Emile Richter’s Kunstsalon in Dresden; Galerie Mirthke in Vienna; Gottfried Tanner’s Moderne Galerie in Zurich; the Basel Kunsthalle and the Edinburgh Society of Scotch Artists.87 Through Kahnweiler’s exclusivist strategy, Werner Spies surmizes that Picasso and Braque “quickly became the invisible heroes of Cubism. The journals did not cease to speak of them – but in Paris it was only possible to see them in the gallery on rue Vignon.”88

84  Ibid., pp. 113–114. 85  Sam Sherman, Uncle Heinrich and his Forgotten History (2010). Kahnweiler contributed 29 paintings to this exhibition. Heinrich Thannhauser made up the rest with his own collection and that of Wilhelm Uhde. Heinrich’s son, Justin, wrote the catalogue, “Austellung Pablo Picasso”, concluding: And if any spectator who generally gives more than a superficial view leaves the gallery with the conviction that he has before him the work of a serious artistic will, a consistent artistic character, and a whole man – then this exhibition will not have failed its purpose. Justin, who met Kahnweiler and Uhde at the Café du Dome in Paris, considered that meeting Kahnweiler had introduced him to “a profitable relationship with Picasso”. Justin recalled that the Picasso show in 1913 was always considered by Picasso to be “the beginning of his appreciation in the world” (Daniel Catton Rich Papers). 86   The International Exhibition of Modern Art, Association of American Painters and Sculptors, 69th Regiment Armory, Lexington Avenue, NYC: The Armory Show, 17 February– 15 March 1913. 87  Artwork by Picasso and Braque had been exhibited twice at the Rheinischer Kunstsalon in Cologne; Le Valet de carreau exhibition in Moscow; Feldmann’s Neue Gallery in Berlin; Rheinischer Kunstsalon in Cologne; Emile Richter’s Kunstsalon in Dresden; Galerie Mirthke in Vienna; Gottfried Tanner’s Moderne Galerie in Zurich; the Kunsthalle in Basel and at the Edinburgh Society of Scotch Artists. 88  Werner Spies, “Vendre des tableaux – donner à lire”, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler: Marchand, Éditeur, Écrivain (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1984) p. 20: Ce qui aboutit en réalité au fait que Picasso et Braque deviennent très vite les héros invisibles du cubisme. Les journaux

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To secure this exposure, Kahnweiler’s marketing policy entailed the promotion of articles and catalogues for which he readily provided photographs of all the works in his inventory on the stipulation that their reproduction be accompanied by an acknowledgement of his gallery. That this marketing ploy proved successful is illustrated by the massive mass media coverage excavated by the newspaper cutting services that he employed to document his strategy: Argus de la Presse and Courrier de la Presse. Not only did they reveal how the number of articles increased exponentially since Kahnweiler embarked upon his internationalist strategy but how they also became bigger and more ­international.89 Copious references to Kahnweiler’s artists were not just cited in the Volkstimme in Frankfurt, Berliner Morgenpost in Berlin, Gazetta del popola of Turin, Le Journal of Brussels but British and American newspapers from the Pall Mall Gazette to The New Freewoman.90 That Kahnweiler’s internationalism swiftly proved to be a culturally and financially viable strategy is demonstrated not only by this escalating press coverage in tandem with the extensive exhibitions and sales. It is also demonstrated by the inventory done of Kahnweiler’s Picassos at the end of May 1913, which revealed that his thirty-three oil paintings – including Trois femmes − were worth 158,550 francs.91 The success of Kahnweiler’s strategy is revealed by the substantial increase in financial rewards his artists reaped, as illustrated by Picasso’s income in 1913. After paying Picasso 27,250 francs for twenty-three recent paintings in March that year, less than nine months later Kahnweiler had given him 24,150 francs, making Picasso earnings for this year, according to Michael C. Fitzgerald’s calculations, “his top salary so far”.92 The success ne cessent de parler d’eux – mais à Paris on ne peut guere les voir que dans la galerie de la rue Vignon. 89  That his publicity strategy proved successful is confirmed by Christopher Green, “The Crystal and the Flame: Cubism and the 1914–18 War”, Cubism and War: The Crystal in the Flame (Adjuntament de Barcelona, Museo Picasso, 2016) p. 12: Their German dealer DanielHenry Kahnweiler might have cultivated a tiny circle of French, American and Swiss collectors willing to buy their work, while keeping them away from the Parisian Salon d’Automne and Indépendants, but he made sure that the Cubism he promoted was known from New York to London to Amsterdam to Cologne to Prague to Moscow. 90  The Sunday Times, The Literary Digest, Illustrated London News, The Daily News, The Daily Chronicle, The New Age, Morning Post, Pall Mall Gazette and The New Freewoman. A survey of these extensive press cuttings was conducted by me at the Kahnweiler Archives, Galerie Louise Leiris, from 1983 until 1985, thanks to the cordiality of Maurice Jardot and Claude Laurens. 91  Michael C. Fitzgerald, Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1996), p. 31. 92  Ibid., p. 44.

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of Kahnweiler’s internationalist strategy is well demonstrated by the contract he negotiated in 1914 with Michael Brenner in New York – known as the Brenner-Coady contract − for two annual exhibitions of ten Picasso and ten Gris paintings in Brenner’s Washington Square Gallery and for Brenner to be given exclusive rights to sell their artwork in the United States for no less than 2,500 francs.93 So lucrative did this deal prove to be that only a month and a half after signing this contract, Brenner and Kahnweiler decided to extend it until 1 May 1916 for double the minimum sales figure, which was subsequently increased a month later to 6,000 francs.94 Yet the success of Kahnweiler’s exclusive internationalist strategy was demonstrated even more by the unexpectedly high prices attained by Kahnweiler’s artists at La Peau de l’Ours Auction at the Hôtel Drouot.95 While Kahnweiler encouraged Morozov and Schukin to bid on some of the twelve Picasso paintings that were auctioned, particularly Les Bateleurs, otherwise known as La Famille des saltimbanques, it was Kahnweiler’s German business partner, Heinrich Thannhauser, who acquired it for 12,650 gold francs – nearly thirteen times the amount paid for it only five years earlier.96 In “the blinking of an eye”, wrote Simone Ricci, the sale prices of almost every Modernist lot at the Hôtel Drouot far surpassed the reserves set by the es-

93  Monod-Fontaine, “Chronologie et documents”, 1984, p. 119; Assouline, L’Homme de l’Art, 1988, p. 219: Kahnweiler leur accorde l’exclusivité, pour les États-Unis, de la vente de Braque, Gris, Léger, Picasso. En échange, Brenner et Coady s’engagent à lui acheter pendant la durée du contrat pour au moins 2500 francs d’œuvres. Ils prendront à leur charge les frais de transport et d’assurance dès que les tableaux auront quitté la rue Vignon. 94   Ibid., Assouline, with reference to the Kahnweiler archives, Galerie Louise Leiris, pp. 219–220: Un mois et demi à peine après la signature de ce contrat, Brenner et Kahnweiler s’accordent pour le prolonger jusqu’au 1er mai 1916, dans les mêmes conditions, mais en élevant à 5000 francs la somme de leurs achats. Et le 22 avril 1914, un ultime additif étend le traité à tous les artistes de la galerie Kahnweiler moyennant un minimum d’achats supplémentaires de 6000 francs. 95   Collection de la Peau de l’Ours … dont la vente aux enchère publiques aura lieu à Paris Hôtel Drouot, salles n[umér]os 7 et 8 le lundi 2 mars 1914, à 2 heures (Paris: Moderne Imprimerie, 1914) INHA, Paris, with the following note: Les frères Josse Bernheim-Jeune et Gaston Bernheim de Villers furent marchands d’art et éditeurs; Ils reprirent la galerie fondée par leur père en 1863 et toujours en activité; Eugène Druet, photographe, fut également expert et marchand d’art. 96   Thannhauser: The Thannhauser Collection of the Guggenheim Museum, ed. Mathew Drutt (New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2001) p. 10. In 1909, Picasso’s painting had been acquired by Kahnweiler for 1,000 francs. Heinrich Thannhauser crowed that he would have been willing to spend twice that. The painting now resides in the District of Columbia’s National Gallery.

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tablished Parisian art dealers, Eugène Druet and Bernheim-Jeune.97 Far from liquidating avant-garde art, particularly Cubism, as the neo-nationalist press had eagerly anticipated, this auction proved that their sales prices were rapidly appreciating. With the sale total representing quadruple of La Peau de l’Ours group investment directed by André Level, this auction demonstrated the investment viability of collecting avant-garde art, as well as its profitability for avant-garde artists given that 20% of the sales were set aside for droit de suite.98 “The proof was all too clear”, Assouline surmizes. “Modern art sells.”99 However the conspicuous presence and activity at the auction of the Germanbased art dealers, Flechtheim, Pietro Gaspari, Guthier and Thannhauser struck an ominous note amongst many participants. When Thannhauser proved to be what Seymour de Ricci called the “the hero of the day”, buying the most highly priced Picasso, “the star-turn of the sale”, as de Ricci called it, “for well over its timidly set estimate of 8,000 francs”, in order to “import it to Germany for 11,500 francs”, the financial success of this auction was vulnerable to conflation with German infiltration of French culture.100 As the German art dealers at the auction were linked with Kahnweiler, and as the highest price was paid by his business partner, Thannhauser, the record prices attained at La Peau de l’Ours were construed by the neo-nationalist press as masterminded by a German-Jewish auction ring formed to bid-up the sale prices of Cubism and modern painting as part of a conspiracy to corrupt French art. Of all the aspersions cast by the neo-nationalist press, the most vicious came from Paris-Midi. In Paris-Midi’s publication of the report by the British Consult-General to Dusseldorf, Germany was presented as being the most productive and prosperous nation in Europe.101 With exports having doubled between 1912 and 1913, coal production having quadrupled and iron production having increased six times since 1880, German industry and exports well outstripped French 97  Seymour de Ricci, “La Peau de l’ours”, Gil Blas, 3 March 1913, p. 4: Le total inespéré, est de 106,250 francs. Toutes les demandes de MM. Druet et Bernheim jeune sont dépassés en un clin d’œil…. 98  Guy Habasque, “Quand on vendait la peau de l’ours”, LŒil, no. 15, March 1956; as referenced by Assouline, p. 222. 99  Assouline, L’Homme de l’Art, 1988, p. 223: La preuve est faite: la peinture moderne se vend. 100  Ricci, “La Peau de l’ours”, 1913, p. 4: Reconnu dans l’assistance quelques marchands étrangers: M. Alfred Flechtehim, de Dusseldorf; M. Gaspari, de Munich; M. Guthier, de Dresde; M. Thannhauser, qui sera le héros de la journée…. Le clou de la vente était la grande composition de Picasso, Les Bateleurs, œuvre capitale et qui n’a pas atteint son prix: les experts, timidement, en demandent, 8,000 francs. Pour 11,500 francs, M. Thannhauser l’emporte en Allemagne: il eût volontiers payé deux fois plus cher. 101  “Un jugement sur l’Allemagne, ses importations et exportations ont triplé en trente ans”, Paris-Midi, 20 November 1913, 2. It was also known as the Kœnig Report.

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although, as Paris-Midi hastened to add, Germany still had to import most of its grain, beef and wine.102 Unsettled by its rapid growth in power, Germany had been represented by Paris-Midi throughout 1913 as not just being militarily threatening and penetrating French retail markets, but industrially and commercially rivalrous of France. While readily reporting German rigging of the French stock exchange and sabotaging of industry, this newspaper was not reticent to portray Germany as envious of France’s cultural supremacy, especially once the quadrennial International Art Exhibition (Internationale Kunstavsstellvng, Glaspalaste) opened at the Munich Glass Palace just before the 1913 Salon d’Automne.103 Following an article entitled Chez les indésirables, the term “indésirables” had also been used by Paris-Midi to represent the Cubists as invaders.104 In its reference to the 1913 enquêtes conducted by Francis Carco in L’Homme Libre, the Cubists were derided by Paris-Midi as “indésirables” for supposedly being closely allied with German culture.105 Through Apollinaire at L’Intransigeant and André Salmon at Paris-Journal and Gil Blas, there were also regular reports of French Modernism, particularly Cubism, being acquired by German ­collections.106 Even Salmon’s proclamations that French modern painting occupied “la place maîtresse” at Alfred Flechtheim’s Dusseldorf Gallery in January 1914, particularly with Picasso’s “austères compositions cubistes”, paradoxically left Cubism vulnerable to misconstrual and contempt.107 Following 102  Ibid. 103  The French participation in this exhibition, last held in Munich in 1909, was sanctioned by the Sous-Secrétaire d’État des Beux-Arts, Bérard, who granted Armand Dayot, InspecteurGénéral des Beaux-Arts and the French Commissaire Général, autonomy in the selection of French art. 104  M. Delcour, “Chez les indésirables”, Paris-Midi, 2 January 1914; Kahnweiler Archives, Galerie Louise Leiris. 105  M.D., “Les “indésirables” en Allemagne, Petite Gazette des Arts”, Paris-Midi, 8 November 1913, p. 2. Carco’s investigation was misconstrued as a means of gauging Germany’s responses to the impact of Cubism upon the German Expressionists and the future of German art. However, connections between Picasso and Max Pechstein had been drawn from Pechstein’s Was ist mit dem Picasso in PAN, followed by PAN’s publication of M.R. Schlönlank’s letter to Pechstein early in 1912. Connections between Cubism and Expressionism were also identified by Max Deri in Die Kubisten und der Expressionismus, PAN, No. 31, 20 June 1912. 106  Les Autres,” L’Art français en Allemagne”, Gil Blas, 13 February 1913, p. 4; La Palette, “UN IMPRESSIONNISTE RHENAN”, Les Arts, Gil Blas, 10 July 1913, p. 3. 107  La Palette, “L’EXPOSITION DE DUSSELDORF”, Les Arts, Gil Blas, 3 January 1914, p. 4. Kahnweiler and Flechtheim’s close exchanges at this time − documented by their weekly if not daily correspondence in the Kahnweiler Archives at the Louise Leiris Gallery − would have also exacerbated this issue. This correspondence was only revealed in 1990.

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the high prices paid for these so-called “indésirables” by German collectors at La Peau de l’Ours auction, Paris-Midi then seized upon this as new controvertible evidence of German intervention and, more specifically, of a German conspiracy deliberately hatched to inflate the market values of Cubist painting. This was expounded in an article that was all too consistent with “pénétration pacifique”, tellingly entitled “Before the Invasion”.108 Already its author, Maurice Delcourt, had penned diatribes on Cubism. In this article, he asserted that Germans had deliberately pushed up the prices at this auction, particularly of the so-called “pasticheur”, Picasso, and what he called, “le bluff Cubiste”, in order to disrupt French art.109 As pastiches of Picasso’s pastiches would then supposedly spread like a contagion to corrode French art, Delcourt speculated how the qualities of measure and order would gradually disappear from French national art to the great joy of Thannhauser and his compatriots.110 “In the coming days”, he dramatically concluded, they “will no longer buy Picassos but ransack freely the Louvre museum, which will not be defended by either the blind snobs or the intellectual anarchists who comprise their unconscious accomplices. The money that they spent yesterday will have been well placed.”111 By no means was Kahnweiler immune from other attacks. Even the Jewish art critic, Louis Mayer, known as Louis Vauxcelles, renown for his defence of avant-garde art, slyly pointed out that Kahnweiler was hardly the compatriot of père Tanguy, that Braque no longer swears by Kahnweiler and concluded “that there were a few too many Germans and Spaniards … in the Fauve and Cubist business.”112 108  M. Delcour, “Avant l’Invasion”, Paris-Midi, 8 March 1914, p. 1. Enfin les mœurs allemandes elles-mêmes ne participent-elles pas de façon intime à la vie des pseudo-rénovateurs de l’art français … Or, une nouvelle preuve de cette ingérence allemande est éclatante … Des «gros prix» y ont été atteints par des œuvres grotesques et informes d’indésirables étrangers et ce sont des Allemands, qui, comme nous n’avons cessé de le prédire, et pour cause, depuis quinze jours ont payé ou poussé jusqu’à ces prix. 109  Ibid.: Leur plan se précise. De naïfs jeunes peintres ne manqueront pas de tomber dans le piège. Ils imiteront l’imitateur Picasso, qui pasticha tout et ne trouvant plus rien à imiter, sombra dans le bluff cubiste…. 110   Ainsi les qualités de mesure et d’ordre de notre art national disparaîtront-elles peu à peu, à la grande joie de M. Tannhauster et de ses compatriotes…. 111  Ibid.:  … qui, le jour venu, n’achèteront plus des Picasso, mais déménageront, gratis, le Musée du Louvre que ne sauront pas défendre les snobs aveulis ou les anarchistes intellectuels qui se font leurs complices inconscients. L’argent qu’ils ont dépensé hier aura été bien placé. 112  Louis Vauxcelles, “La “jeune peinture française””, Gil Blas, 21 October 1912, p. 4: On peut … extraire une racine cubique. Je ne voudrais pas davantage invoquer l’argument nationaliste, et soutenir à mon tour que toute cette agitation vient de l’étranger…. Qu’il y ait un peu trop

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Hence paradoxically the very success of Kahnweiler’s global market strategy during avant-guerre discourses of persecutionist paranoia and espionage phobia led to his Cubists becoming inscribed with Pan-Germanism while Kahnweiler became identified with a spyring of German Jewish art-dealers conspiring to disrupt French supremacy in the art market. This was not just continually reinforced by the neo-nationalist press, but inadvertently by those critical supporters of Kahnweiler’s artists, particularly Apollinaire, Roger Allard, Salmon and Maurice Raynal and their trumpeting of the German demand for Cubism.113 Their exuberant reports of the success of Cubist exhibitions in Germany only cemented suspicion of Cubism’s linkage with Germany, not France. Yet in light of this complexifying web of discourses in which Franco-German relationships were decoded as spy rings, the association of Kahnweiler, Uhde, Flechtheim, Heinrich Thannhauser and Basler with Germanism, Judaism and the international market for French art was ripe for conspiratorial conflations. This was brutally encapsulated by Tony Tollet’s paper, On the Influence of the Jewish-German Corporation of painting dealers in Paris on French Art.114 d’Allemands et d’Espagnols dans l’affaire fauve et cubiste, et que Matisse se soit fait naturaliser berlinois, et que Braque ne jure plus que le marchand Kahnweiler ne soit pas précisément compatriote du père Tanguy et que ce paillard de Van Dongen soit natif d’Amsterdam, ou Pablo de Barcelone…. This was part of Vauxcelles’ review of André Salmon’s book, La jeune peinture française (Paris: Messein, 1912) in which he not only managed to attack his fellow contributor in the same newspaper, but also attempted to demolish his argument on the revolutionary nature of Cubism by insisting upon it constituting merely an offensive reversal of the École des Beaux-Arts: … une misère scolastique; refer Brauer, L’Art Révolutionnaire, 1997, Chapter Five. Assouline, 1988, p. 171, notes how such accusations coming from a quotidien de gauche, as well as an imprecator whose true name was Mayer, were inevitably cause for alarm. Yet he adds, Kahnweiler lit, observe, compte les points mais veut s’attacher à l’essentiel. 113  Apollinaire and Kahnweiler’s differences appeared to come to the fore over Kahnweiler’s known preference of Fritz Burger’s Cézanne und Hodler: Einführung in die Probleme der Malerei der Gegenwart (München: Delphin-Verlag, 1912), and Max Raphael’s Von Monet zu Picasso: Grundzüge einer Ästhetik und Entwicklung der modernen Malerei (München: Delphin-Verlag, 1913), to Apollinaire’s Les Peintres Cubistes: Méditations ethétiques (Paris: Eugène Figuière & Cie, Éditeurs, 1913). Their correspondance between 27 March 1913 and 3 April 1913, when Apollinaire’s self-aggrandizing allegation – J’ai défendu seul comme écrivain des peintres que vous n’avez choisis qu’après moi – denigrating Kahnweiler as his follower, elicited Kahnweiler’s deflective response that he preferred to laugh than be angered. Yet these differences seemed to have sealed a breach in their relationship. 114  Tony Tollet, De l’influence de la corporation judéo-allemande des marchands de tableaux de Paris sur l’art français (Lyon, 1915) pp. 6–7. Tollet’s speech, delivered to the Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres, et Arts de Lyon, 6 July 1915, is in the Bibliothèque Nationale

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Presented to the Lyon Académie des sciences et belles lettres et arts, Tollet accused German Jewish art-dealers of doubling as German spies in order to launch assaults on French culture and contaminate French taste.115 The evidence he cited for this cultural conspiracy conducted by a “cartel” of GermanJewish art dealers was the prevalence of avant-garde art, particularly Cubism, as illuminated by the following speech. I want to speak to you of the crushing and pestilent influence that the cartel of painting dealers has had on French art for the last twenty years. I want to show you by what manœuvres they come to falsify French taste; what influence they exerted to force the specimens with which they had first furnished their offices on our great public collections, and how they had imposed works stamped with German culture – Pointillist, Cubist, and Futurist, etc. – on the taste of our snobs….116 Vitriolic as it was, Tollet’s paper was by no means an isolated case but one of many examples demonstrating the intensification of persecutionist paranoia in which Cubism became conflated with Germanism. Just before France declared War against Germany, the nation was portrayed as having become so invaded by German commerce and culture that it was posited as an outpost of Germany, with Cubism spelt with a K like its Maggi namesake − Kub-brand bouillon cubes – construed as a strategic Germanic instrument in its cultural imperialism, which was parodied by Picasso in his 1914

de France. On 28 March 1916, he delivered another speech to the Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres, et Arts de Lyon, in which he blamed the Impressionist contamination of the Louvre upon the “juif Camondo” – Isaac de Camondo’s collection having entered the Louvre in 1910–1911. 115  Ibid., as quoted by Assouline, L’Homme de l’art: D.-H. Kahnweiler, 1988, p. 236: Tout cela ne sont que des affaires et l’on peut dire que des Juifs marchands de tableaux sont dans leur rôle, en agissant ainsi; he wrote. Mais si par surcroît, ils sont doublés de Germains, alors on comprendra la lutte méthodique qu’ils ont entreprise contre la culture française, l’influence qu’ils ont essayé et souvent réussi à prendre sur le goût français. 116  Ibid., as translated and quoted by Silver, Esprit de Corps, 1989, p. 8, note 10, p. 403: Je veux vous parler de l’influence croissante et néfaste qu’avait prise sue l’art français, pendant ces vingt dernières années, la corporation de marchands de tableaux. Je veux vous montrer par quels agissements ils étaient arrivés à fausser le goût français; quelles influences ils ont mises en œuvre pour faire entrer dans nos grandes collections publiques des spécimens d’un art dont ils avaient au préable amplement garni leurs offices, et comment ils ont imposés à l’admiration de nos snobs des œuvres empreintes de la culture allemande, pointillistes, cubistes, futuristes…..

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Cubist painting in which the word “Kub” is central.117 Five days after War had been declared, the French Government ordered all advertisements for Maggi to be destroyed. This was even followed by a proposal from the Académie Française to eliminate the letter ‘K’ from the French alphabet.118 “Everything”, Tollet complained, “music, literature, painting, sculpture architecture, decorative arts, fashion everything − suffered the noxious effects of the asphyxiating gases of our enemies.”119 That the German bombardment of French troops during the war was directly analogous to its pre-war assault on French culture was illuminated by Adolphe Willette’s cartoon (Fig. 5.6) entitled “It’s not new!” While the French soldier is depicted as asphyxiated with poisonous gas, the French people were revealed as faring no better. Plagued with products marked Made in Germany, this includes beer, as signalled by Willette’s waitress standing on a Munich labelled keg, as well as books, as signified by such authors as Friedrich Nietzsche and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe plus its excremental art − as epitomised by the juxtaposition of a Cubist painting with a toilet.120 After the Battle of Somme in a cartoon entitled L’offensive Cubiste, Willette’s colleague, the satirist Lucien Métivet, caricatured the war as a battle between a geometrical monster and “Artistes de France”, represented by Jean-Antoine Watteau, Eugène Delacroix and Honoré Daumier.121 So prevalent did the coupling of Cubism become with German painting, as signified by the term, Cubisme est peinture boche, that in 1916 these assertions by the revanchist-nationalist art writer, Camille Mauclair, and Salon des Artistes Français painter, Émile Bayard, were pastiched in a double-page spread in a

117  J.-Edouard Drialt, Souvenez-vous! 1914. Rien d’Allemand!!! Des Allemands (Paris: L. Tenin, 1918): La France, avant la guerre, était envahie par les produits allemands; elle s’était mise à l’école de l’Allemagne. As an art of corporeal syphilitic decomposition designed to corrode the wholesome French body and to destroy French art, Jacquemaire demanded a law be passed to prohibit the Cubists praxis. 118   Eberhard Demm, “Propaganda and Caricature in the First World War”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 1993, p. 177. 119  Tollet, De l’influence de la corporation judéo-allemande des marchands de tableaux, 1915, as quoted by Silver, p. 8, note 10, p. 403; Tout, musique, littérature, peinture, sculpture, architecture, art décoratif, mode, tout subissait déjà l’influence délétère des gaz asphyxiantes de nos ennemis. 120  Adolphe Willette, “Ce n’est pas nouveau!”, Le Journal, No. 3254, 3 May 1915, p. 1. 121  Lucien Métivet, “L’Offensive cubiste”, Le Rire rouge, no. 134, 9 June 1917, p. 4: Par Watteau, Delacroix et le père Daumier! Serrez vos rangs. Artistes de France, contre ce sauvage qui se dit canaque, mais n’est que boche.

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Figure 5.6 Adolphe Willette, “Ce n’est pas nouveau!”, Le Journal, No. 3254, 3 May 1915, p. 1; photograph of the Author.

new art journal supportive of Cubism and flanked with the art and statements by Cubists who were fighting against Germany in the war.122 Due to his internationalism and particularly his dependence upon his German network, Kahnweiler was denounced as anti-France and therefore its enemy. This was why as soon as War with Germany was declared, Kahnweiler was classified as an “enemy alien” and forbidden to return to France. So much of an enemy had Kahnweiler become that within the first few months of war, Gris had requested that he not send letters to him in Paris but to Gris’ sister in Madrid, in order to avoid arousing his concièrge’s suspicions.123 “They say appalling things in the canteens of Montmartre and Montparnasse” Gris explained in a subsequent letter, “and make terrible accusations against myself

122   “Aux camarades: Cubisme est peinture boche”, L’Élan, no. 8, January 1916, with quotes from Mauclair’s response to an enquête, Le Cubisme serait boche: Lui connaîtriezvous un précurseur allemand? Non, dès qu’apparut le Cubisme les Allemands se mirent à l’imiter. 123   Juan Gris to D.-H. Kahnweiler, 16 August 1915; Letters to Juan Gris, collected by D.-H. Kahnweiler, trans. and ed. Douglas Cooper (London: 1956) pp. 8–9.

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and against anyone who had dealings with you.”124 Throughout the War, Kahnweiler’s enemy status and alignment with the destruction of French culture through Cubism, would have only been exacerbated by the exhibitions continually mounted in France to reveal the mutilation of France’s artistic heritage by German barbary, epitomized by the year-long Exposition d’œuvres d’art mutilées ou provenant des régions dévastées par l’ennemi, organized by the SousSecrétaire d’État des Beaux-Arts and the Ville de Paris that opened at the Petit Palais on 25 November 1916.125 Images of this devastation circulated rapidly through the national newspapers, postcards, and in art magazines, as illustrated by the poignant photograph on the front page of Les Arts of the bombed chapel of Rheims in which its statue of the crucifixion was the only object left almost miraculously intact with the arms of Jesus appearing upraised as if railing against this catastrophe.126 The rancour stirred by this exposure became further inflamed by the neo-nationalist press conflation of Germany’s decimation of France’s cultural heritage nationwide with the Cubist supposed contamination of French art initiated by Kahnweiler. Even though Kahnweiler continued to pay rent on his rue Vignon Gallery, on 12 December 1914 his entire stock was sequestrated by the French State as enemy property. Even though Braque and Léger fought for France, throughout the war and afterwards, Cubism continued to be identified as “la peinture boche”: Krout painting.127 Even though Picasso’s collaboration with Jean Cocteau, Eric Satie, Serge Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes on Parade was organized for the benefit of the mutilés de guerre of the Eastern Ardenne region, performances were reportedly booed with outcries of “trahison”, “métèques”, “art munichois” and “Boches”!128 The outrage galvanised by exposure of Germany’s decimation of France’s cultural heritage nationwide was further inflamed by Métivet’s weekly 124  Silver, Esprit de Corps, 1989, p. 6, note 7, p. 402. Juan Gris to D.-H. Kahnweiler, 19 April 1915; Letters to Juan Gris, collected by D.-H. Kahnweiler, trans. and ed. Douglas Cooper (London: 1956) p. 26. 125  Hofman, 1914–1918 Le Patrimoine s’en va-t-en guerre, p. 30. This exhibition, which ran from 25 November 1916 until 4 December 1917 at the Petit Palais, revealed in photographs and objects the devastation that had been wrought. The Inspecteur des Monuments announced its aim in no uncertain terms: Conçue dans un esprit différent de ce qui a été réalisé, cette exposition, témoignage irrécusable de la barbarie allemande, ne montrerait que des œuvres d’art mutilées, martyriées, ayant subi le supplice de leur beauté dévastée…. 126   Les Arts, No. 134, April 1916. 127  Christopher Green, Cubism and War: The Crystal in the Flame (Barcelona: Museu Picasso, 2016); also refer Picasso: The Great War, Experimentation and Change (New York: Scala:, 2016). 128  Silver, Esprit de Corps, p. 116. Silver also mentions that some witnesses recalled, “no doubt apochryphally”, that the audience was on the verge of assaulting the performers until a uniformed, bandaged and decorated Apollinaire intervened on behalf of the cast.

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caricatures, particularly his 16-page cartoon entitled “Marianne et Germania”, to reveal how the embodiment of French poise and grace had become corrupted by Art Nouveau designs, the Ballet Russes, Wagnerian music – banned from the French stage since 1915 – and most of all by Cubism.129 “With indulgent smiles she watches as people are tricked by the ridiculous work of the Cubists”, Métivet wrote, “cucubists, “art nouveau” furniture made by fraudulent cabinet makers.”130 After linking Cubism with German “junk” and “pseudo-imitation false rubbish” that Germany had supposedly “emptied” into France, Métivet then concluded with a dramatic exclamation to capture how this had culminated in Germany’s bloodthirsty obsession with demolishing France’s cultural heritage encapsulated by the Exposition d’œuvres d’art mutilées. “Kultur! Burn it down! Plunder it! Burgle it! Shoot it! Cut its throat! Let the fields and orchards be ravaged! Kultur! Then the universe will tremble, admire, applaud!131 Amidst this hostility, the well-connected French art dealer, Léonce Rosenberg, who had begun collecting Cubism before the War, was purportedly encouraged by Picasso to “save Cubism”.132 Far from reticent to respond, as soon as Rosenberg began work as a volunteer for military service, he wrote to Kahnweiler’s Cubists, acquiring Picasso’s Harlequin as early as January 1915 and buying paintings directly from Gris three months later. Identifying himself as the saviour of Cubism and its new champion, by the end of 1916 he had contracted Braque and Gris, as well as Henri Laurens, Diego Rivera, Metzinger and Jacques Lipchitz, paying them all enough in monthly stipends to keep them working.133 By 20 December 1916, when the modernist art market had began to revive, Gris eagerly wrote to Rosenberg of “the artist’s stock exchange” at the Rotonde in Paris.134 This burgeoning market was nourished by the new modernist journals, SIC, Nord-Sud and particularly, L’Élan, named after Henri Bergon’s “L’élan vitale” and launched in April 1915 by Amédée Ozenfant to foster French avant-garde art, including Cubism. With optimism buoying the modernist art market and critical support growing for Rosenberg’s Cubists amongst the avant-garde, by the end of 1918 Rosenberg felt sufficiently confident to open his Galérie de L’Effort Moderne with a succession of exhibitions by Laurens, 129  Lucien Métivet, “ ‘Marianne et Germania’: histoire d’un Bonnet et un Casque”, contée et imagée par Lucien Métivet, La Baïonette, No. 146, 18 April 1918. 130  Ibid., p. 252: Avec sourires indulgents elle regarde se pâmer les gens devant les saugrenus travaux de cubistes, cucucubistes, des ameublements “art nouveau” dus à des ébénites fumistes. 131  Ibid., p. 254: Kultur! Incendiez! Pillez! Cambriolez! Fusillez! Égorgez! Que le champ soient ravagés et les vergers! Kultur! – Alors l’Univers tremblera, admirera, applaudira! 132  Fitzgerald, Making Modernism, pp. 55–66. 133  Green, “The Crystal and the Flame”, pp. 15–16. 134  Bibliothèque Kandinsky Archive, C5 9600 400: Letter from Gris to Léonce Rosenberg, 20 December 1916.

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Metzinger, Léger, Braque, Gris, Gino Severini, Picasso, María Blanchard and Lipchitz. Yet despite the increasing visibility of Cubism, Vauxcelles remained undeterred in his anti-Cubist campaign in Le Carnet de la Semaine. By June 1918 in the article launching this campaign from 28 July–1 September 1918 under his pseudonym “Pinturrichio”, Vauxcelles maliciously announced the extinction of Cubism: “Integral Cubism is becoming exhausted, vanishing; evaporating”.135 This so-called ‘evaporation’ of “Integral Cubism” may have seemed paradoxically exacerbated by the Cubists themselves. Disturbed by the continual besmirching of Cubism with France’s enemy and the alignment of them with traitors, many seemingly capitulated their avant-garde gambit and succumbed to the neo-nationalist imperative for French artists to return to French Classicism and recreate, if not regenerate their patrimony. The beginning of this aesthetic rupture was observable in April 1916, according to the critic, Roger Bissière, who had written an article for L’Opinion tellingly entitled “The Wake-up of Cubists”, concluding that the “usefulness [of Cubism] has ceased to make itself felt, and whose disappearance seems almost a fait accompli.”136 In his French Classicism associated with Ingres, this aesthetic shift seemed to be epitomized by Picasso’s pristine line drawings, particularly his portraits. Although this was pursued by Picasso alongside what Christopher Green has aptly called his ‘Crystal Cubism’, a rationalization or crystallization of his prewar Cubism, in January 1919 the Czechoslovakian Cubist painter, Otakar Kubin, noticed on settling back in Paris: “Cubism is something so outdated that one talks about it as one does of old news. Picasso now paints like Corot … just recently he was painting like Ingres.”137 This aesthetic shift was also observable in the Ingresesque line drawings of Gris, particularly in his portrait of Kahnweiler (Fig. 5.7). In stark contrast to Fig. 5.2, in Gris’ portrait of Kahnweiler executed in September 1921, every trace of the multiple perspectives and dissolution of form and space evident in Picasso’s Cubist portrait painted a decade earlier has been expunged. As Gris endeavoured to explain to Kahnweiler: 135  Pinturrichio, “Le Carnet des ateliers”, Le Cartnet de la Semaine, 9 June 1918, p. 9, as quoted by Christopher Green, Cubism and Its Enemies: Modern Movements and Reaction in French Art, 1916–18 (London: Yale University Press, 1987) p. 7. 136  Bissière, “Le Réveil des cubists”, L’Opinion, 15 April 1016, p. 382: … l’utilité a cessé de se faire sentir et dont la disparition semble un fait à peu près accompli. 137  Archive of the National Gallery, Prague, fond 134, sign. 3716: Otakar Kubin, letter to Otaker Spaniel, 23 January 1919; as trans. Nicholas Sawicki, “Between Montparnasse and Prague: Circulating Cubism in Left Bank Paris”, Chapter 4, Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris, 1870–1914: Strangers in Paradise, eds. Karen L. Carter and Susan Waller (Burlington, VT and Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2015) p. 78.

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Figure 5.7 Juan Gris, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 1921, pen and ink on paper, 26 × 32.5 cm., Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Public Domain.

I have been thinking about what is meant by “quality” in an artist … Well, now I believe that the “quality of an artist derives from the quantity of the past that he carries in him – from his artistic atavism. The more of this heritage he has, the more “quality” he has.138 To align Cubism with French tradition, in 1919 Raynal had linked its ‘science of measure’ to Classicism, as had Rosenberg in his pamplet, Cubisme et tradition. Nevertheless their arguments and the Ingresque Classicism of Gris and Picasso did not deter Camille Mauclair. Even after the Treaty of Versailles when Kahnweiler had been permitted to return to Paris, Mauclair could not resist reinscribing Cubism as “the ugliest and most grotesque” manifestation of “the Krout mentality” in his article “Cubisme et Bochie”.139 It was precisely because Cubism appealed to this “Krout mentality” that, Mauclair argued, it had attracted Krout dealers, who promoted it as a strategy of discrediting France. Confounded with betrayal and treason through Cubism and his international art dealing, when legislation was passed to liquidate all enemy property after the Treaty of Versailles, Kahnweiler’s claim on his stock was dismissed as unlawful. Only in February 1920 was Kahnweiler able to return to Paris. By May, he was able to lure both Braque and Gris back to his fold with lucrative contracts, as well as Laurens. Six months later he opened another gallery at 29 bis de la rue d’Astorg, prudently not in his own name but that of his French friend, André

138  Letter from Juan Gris to Kahnweiler, 27 November, 1921, Letters, ed. Cooper, p. 128. 139  Camille Mauclair, “Cubisme et Bochie”, L’Ouest, 1 June 1921 (Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, 7164 Fonds Picabia).

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Simon.140 Optimistic about accessing his stock sequestered by the French State and showing it in his Galerie Simon, his hopes were soon dashed. No sooner had Germany defaulted on its compensations to France agreed under the Clauses of Reparation determined by the Treaty of Versailles – dubbed the “War Guilt Clause” – than the French State decided to sell all the stock sequestred from Germans who had resided in France.141 Yet given the swiftness with which the first auction of Kahnweiler’s stock was organized and held on 13–14 June 1921, after the League of Nations had agreed upon the final reparation figure of £6.6 billion only in April 1921, it would seem as if the French State were merely awaiting a pretext for doing so. Due to the identification of Kahnweiler’s and Uhde’s collections with Cubism and its connection with German and Jewish cultural conspiracies as well as an international, rather than a national, network of German-Jewish art dealers, according to Christian Derouet, this is one of the major reasons why all of their collections were designated to be sold at auction.142 It was, Derouet concludes, an act of revanchist nationalism against the avant-garde and their dealers, specifically the German dealer of Cubism.143 That it felt like bitter betrayal to Kahnweiler is revealed by his memoirs. “There was … the absolute hostility of my colleagues”, he recalls, 140  Kahnweiler’s Galerie Simon opened in September 1920. Since Germans were not permitted to own their own businesses in France at this time, Kahnweiler would have no alternative than to register his gallery in the name of his friend and business partner, André Jacques Simon Cahen. However, in light of the ‘aryanization’ of Jewish art collections following the Nazi invasion of France in June 1940, it proved a prudent move. In 1941, the gallery was registered in the name of Kahnweiler’s French-born, non-Jewish sister-in-law, Louise Leiris (née Alexandrine Louise Godon), who successfully fought the Nazi occupation administration against any further attempts at ‘aryanization’. 141  From the time that this Clause came into effect, Germany’s coal deliveries were below the agreed level. Despite the attempt to resolve this dilemma at the Spa Conference in July 1920, specifically through payment of Germany for its coal, Germany continued to default on its obligations leading to a crisis in the Reparation Commission by 1922. When Germany defaulted on its coal deliveries for the 34th time in three years in January 1923, it was then that French and Belgian soldiers occupied the Ruhr. 142  Christian Derouet, “Quand le cubisme était un ‘bien allemand’ ” …, Paris Berlin 1900–1933 (Paris: Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou, 12 July-6 November 1978) p. 44: Les mécontents furent trop heureux de faire du cubisme un amalgame lié à la “juiverie” allemande lorsque la guerre éclata. Derouet also speculates: Pour avoir voulu éviter le service militaire que aurait entraîné la naturalisation dans sa patrie d’adoption, Kahnweiler avait tout perdu. However, Derouet seems to overlook Kahnweiler’s position as a commited Pacifist who abhored the very thought of taking up arms. He also overlooks the ramifications of becoming a French soldier which, as Kahnweiler points out, would have entailed him taking up arms against members of his own German family. 143  Ibid., p. 46: C’était sans doute un des derniers procès qui fut intenté en France à l’avant-garde au nom d’un nationalisme revanchard.

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“the people in and around rue La Boétie who really hoped to ruin me.” Through ruining him, Kahnweiler concluded, “they simply hoped to ruin Cubism.”144 Every artwork that Kahnweiler had stored throughout the War and all of the remaining livres d’artiste he had commissioned were sold in four auctions from 1921 until 1923, followed by an auction of his private property that included his suits, hats and even his underwear.145 As if to add insult to injury, Kahnweiler’s major rival, Léonce Rosenberg, who had opportunistically seized Kahnweiler’s position as the art dealer of Cubism during the First World War, was appointed as expert on three of the Auctions. Providing valuations for the auctioneers at the Hôtel Drouot and preparing the catalogues, nevertheless, as Derouet observes, invariably it was the Cubists whose artwork Rosenberg dealt with that were illustrated in the catalogue.146 By no means were others unaware that Rosenberg was manipulating the auction for the benefit of his gallery and the ruin of Kahnweiler despite his protests that it would be the “triumph of Cubism”. This was vividly illustrated by Braque’s verbal and physical assault upon the dealer followed by Matisse’s exclamation in support: “Braque is right, this man has stolen France and it is well known that he is doing this to steal France!”.147 No doubt Braque’s ire was inflamed by the prices of his artwork at these Auctions dropping before his very eyes by more than two-thirds. Not only was his substantially worked Cubist oil painting, Bouteille de Rhum, worth around 4,000 francs, blandly retitled as Nature Morte but also sold as Lot 19 – as revealed by the auction sticker on the front (recto) of the canvas visible in the 144  Kahnweiler and Crémieux, My Galleries and Painters, 1961; 1971, p. 68. 145   Vente de Biens Allemands ayant fait l’objet d’un mesure de séquestre de Guerre. Collection Henry Kahnweiler, Tableaux, Sculptures & Céramique Modernes. Art Nègre. Livres en Édition de Luxe. Première Vente, Paris les 13 et 14 juin 1921, (Paris: Ateliers Moreau Frères, 1921); Vente de Biens Allemands ayant fait l’objet d’un mesure de séquestre de Guerre. Collection Henry Kahnweiler, Tableaux Modernes. Deuxième Vente (Paris: Imprimerie Photomécanique, Catala Frères, les 17 et 18 novembre 1921); Troisième Vente (Paris: Imprimerie Photomécanique, Catala Frères, 4 Juillet 1922); Quatrième et Dernière Vente, Paris les 7 et 8 Mai 1923 (Paris: Imprimerie Photomécanique, Catala Frères, 4 Juillet 1923). 146  Derouet, “Quand le cubisme était un ‘bien allemand’ ”, 1978, p. 45: Un antiquaire parisien, Léonce Rosenberg fut chargé de l’expertise du séquestre. C’était le rival de Kahnweiler qui, inconséquent, avait vendu sa collection de Douanier Rousseau à Paul von Mendelson de Berlin peu avant 1914 pour accroître ses achats d’œuvres de Braque et de Picasso…. Il avait entreprise une propagande ruineuse et exaltée de toutes les formes du cubisme mais échoua dans sa tentative de se substituer à Kahnweiler…. Il acquitta avec compétence de la rédaction des catalogues, maintenant toutefois des imprécisions en ce qui concerne Kahnweiler, qu’il orthographiait généreusement de deux “II” et favorisant la reproduction des œuvres de Metzinger et de Léger, ses propres artistes. Durand-Ruel was the expert appointed for the fourth auction. 147  Assouline, L’Homme de l’art, 1984, p. 322: “Braque a raison, cet homme a volé la France et on sait bien ce que c’est que de voler la France.”

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lower left hand corner of Fig. 5.8 – for as little 510 francs.148 Yet by no means were Braque’s paintings the most devalued, as Malcolm Gee’s research has shown, those of Gris and Léger falling by nearly 90%.149 Within this plummeting market, Gris’ portrait of Kahnweiler after his first sequestration sale and the auction of Uhde’s collection may then be regarded as a defiant assertion of Kahnweiler’s endurance and integrity as an art dealer dedicated to Braque’s, Gris’ and Leger’s artwork, regardless of this overwhelming hostility, as signified by the paintings stacked directly behind him in Fig. 5.7, which enframe Kahnweiler’s face and body. Nevertheless Kahnweiler was powerless to prevent this fall. Not permitted to bid at these auctions, Kahnweiler formed a syndicate called Grassat with his brother, Gustav, Flechtheim, Hermann Rupf and his sisterin-law, Louise Leiris, to endeavour to buy back some of his stock. Although Kahnweiler gave them a list of lots to bid on, with few banks granting loans during the post-war recession, and with limited funds to do so, there was a limit to what they could do.150 Nevertheless in the first sequestration sale, they did manage to acquire 28 of the 130 paintings sold, including work by Braque, Gris and Léger, as well as all of Manolo’s sculptures. However, none of the 26 paintings listed by Picasso, let alone his sculptures, gouaches, drawings or etchings for Max Jacob’s Saint Matorel, seem to have been salvaged by Grassat – not even Picasso’s portrait of Kahnweiler (Fig. 5.2).151 Despite Kahnweiler’s estimate that it was worth at least 5,000 francs, it was significantly undervalued by Rosenberg at 3,000 francs and was sold in the First Auction for 2,000 francs to a M. Grunwald at 86 rue Notre Dame des Champs.152 Even though Grassat 148  Anna Jozefacka and Luise Mahler, “Catalogue of the Collection”, Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection, eds. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014) p. 256. 149  Malcom Gee, Dealers, Critic, and Collectors of Modern Painting: Aspects of the Parisian Art Market Between 1900 and 1930 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1981), Appendix F, pp. 19–78. 150  Of the 22 paintings listed by Braque in the first auction, Luise Mahler estimates that the Grassat syndicate acquired 11; of the 9 paintings listed by Gris, Mahler estimates that they acquired 8 and 3 of the 7 paintings of Léger. Most of this stock entered Kahnweiler’s Galerie Simon on the understanding that when the artwork was sold, the partners of Grasset would be reimbursed. 151  Picasso’s paintings are listed numbers 65 to 90 in the first auction; his sculptures listed in lot 139 consisted of 5 bronze polychromed versions of Le verre d’absinthe; his etchings in lot 152 consisted of over 100 exemplars for Saint Matorel. Mahler points out that the lots for Picasso’s artwork were not on Kahnweiler’s list given to Grasset. This may have arisen from Picasso’s lingering resentment of Kahnweiler for not having paid him some 20,000 francs for paintings that Kahnweiler had taken from him just before the outbreak of war. It may have also arisen from Picasso’s contractual arrangement with Rosenberg. However, it is hard to imagine that Kahnweiler would not have wished to retrieve Picasso’s portrait of him. 152  Derouet, “Quand le cubisme était un ‘bien allemand’ ”, 1978, p. 46.

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Figure 5.8 Georges Braque, Bouteille de Rhum, Spring 1914, oil on canvas, 148×99 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Promised Gift from the Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection. The small black rectangle appended on the front (verso), left-hand corner of this painted canvas, with the number 19 is the lot number allocated to this painting in the second Sequestration auction, Vente de Biens Allemands ayant fait l’objet d’un mesure de séquestre de Guerre. Collection Henry Kahnweiler, Tableaux Modernes. Deuxième Vente, Hôtel Druout, 17 and 18 November 1921.

were able to acquire 32 lots at the next sequestration sale, and further lots at the third and fourth sequestration sales, the auction prices were severely depressed, particularly of any artwork identified with Cubism. Only the nonCubist artwork by Derain “held up, as one says on the stock exchange”, according to a vengeful Vauxcelles in his article provocatively entitled “The Morality of A Sequestration”. “It seems to me”, he smugly concluded, “that the reign of the Cubists has come to an end”.153 In looking back upon Kahnweiler’s art dealing strategies from the perspective of these sequestration sales and the public disgrace they engendered, it is possible to conclude that while Kahnweiler’s internationalism proved remarkably successful in launching his artists and Cubism globally, when more than eight hundred of the artworks he had so assiduously fostered and stored were 153  Pinturrichio, “Moralité d’un Séquestre”, Le Carnet de la Semaine, 27 November 1921, p. 8, as quoted by Green, Cubism and Its Enemies, p. 62.

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sold in four auctions by the State, ultimately it seemed to prove utterly perilous. Within Anti-German, Anti-Semitic neo-nationalist discourses, his internationalism indelibly inscribed him as an internationalist, not a French nationalist, who conducted business for the benefit of a network of German-Jewish art dealers and collectors, not French non-Semitic Christian ones. Within avantguerre neo-nationalism, his conduct would have been construed as a form of betrayal of the nation in which he had made his home. This betrayal would have been regarded by such staunch Anti-German and Anti-Semitic revanchists as Léon Daudet and Camille Mauclair, as equivalent to treason. Within this constellation of culturo-political conditions, the auction of Kahnweiler’s entire stock and his personal affects may then be regarded as an act of revenge to bring Kahnweiler’s dealings with Cubism to an abrupt end. At a time of relative economic recession, it was a means of flooding the market with the cream of cubism, effectively devaluing it and earning the contempt and distrust of the very artists that Kahnweiler had supported, particularly Derain and Vlaminck. “When I think, Kahnweiler, that in rue Vignon you showed me a piece of paper with a few lines drawn on it in charcoal and a bit of newspaper glued to it, and told me it was beautiful”, lamented Vlaminck, “And the sad part, Kahnweiler, is that I believed you!”154 As Kahnweiler so astutely recognized, since no market in the world could withstand what he called the “avalanche” of Cubist artworks to be auctioned, it was not just a means of ruining Cubism, but of liquidating it from which it would not recover for more than twenty years.155 Hence ultimately the Kahnweiler auctions may be regarded as a malicious tactic of both punishing Kahnweiler for having the temerity of dealing with Cubism internationally, of purportedly betraying France and of publicly disgracing him – an experience that was so humiliating and traumatic that he poignantly likened it to “assisting at his own execution”.156

Works Cited

Aghion, Max. “Au Salon d’Automne – Les Victimes”, Les Temps, 8 October 1912, p. 4. Apollinaire, Guillaume. «Jeunes peintres ne vous frappez pas», Bulletin de la Section d’Or, Galerie la Boétie, 9 October 1912. 154  Assouline, L’Homme de l’art, 1984, p. 71. 155  John Richardson, A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917–1932 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007) p. 185. 156  Assouline, L’Homme de l’art, 1984, p. 320. In their correspondance about the auction of their respective collections, Uhde and Kahnweiler had used the German word for execution, “Hinrichtung”. As Assouline writes: On y survit, commente, stoïque, Wilhelm Uhde tandis que Kahnweiler dit boire jusqu’à la lie “le plaisir d’assister à ma propre exécution”.

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Apollinaire, Guillaume. Les Peintres Cubistes: Méditations ethétiques (Paris: Eugène Figuière & Cie, Éditeurs, 1913). Assouline, Pierre. L’Homme de l’art: D.-H. Kahnweiler 1884–1979 (Paris: Éditions Balland, 1988). Au Musée du Louvre: La «Joconde» volée”, L’Action Française, 23 August 1911, p. 1. “Aux camarades: Cubisme est peinture boche”, L’Élan, no. 8, January 1916. Brauer, Fae. “Magnetic Modernism: František Kupka’s Mesmeric Abstraction and Anarcho-Cosmic Utopia”, Utopia: The Avant-Garde, Modernism and (Im)possible Life, eds. David Ayers, Benedikt Hjartarson, Tomi Huttunen, Harri Veivo, European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies (Berlin & Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2015) pp. 123–153. Brauer, Fae. “The Einstein Eclipse: The Paradigmatic Fourth Dimension in Modern Art Before and After Relativity”, Art History (Vol. 39, Iss. 1 February 2016) pp. 182–188. Brauer, Fae. “Becoming Simian: Devolution as Evolution in Transformist Modernism”, Chapter Seven, Picturing Evolution and Extinction: Regeneration and Degeneration in Modern Visual Culture, eds. Fae Brauer and Serena Keshavjee (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015) pp. 127–156. Brauer, Fae. Rivals and Conspirators: The Paris Salons and the Modern Art Centre (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013). Brauer, Fae. “Eroticizing Lamarckian Eugenics: The Body Stripped Bare during French Sexual Neoregulation”, Art, Sex and Eugenics: Corpus Delecti, eds. Fae Brauer and Anthea Callen (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2008; Routledge, 2016) pp. 97–138. Brauer, Fae. “Commercial spies and Cultural Invaders: The French press, PénétrationPacifique and Xenophobic Nationalism in the shadow of war”, Printed Matters: Printing, publishing and urban culture in Europe in the modern period, eds. Malcolm Gee and Tim Kirk (Hampshire, UK and Burlington, USA: Ashgate Publishing, 2002) pp. 105–132. Brauer, Fae. L’Art Révolutionnaire: The Artist as Alien. The Discourses of Cubism, Modern Painting and Academicism in the Radical Republic, PhD Thesis, The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1997. Burger, Fritz. Cézanne und Hodler: Einführung in die Probleme der Malerei der Gegenwart (München: Delphin-Verlag, 1912). Chesterton, G.K. “Impudent”, The Daily News, 9 December 1911; The Wit and Wisdom of G.K. Chesterton, ed. Bevis Hillier (New York and London: Continuum, 2010) pp. 88–89. Collection de la Peau de l’Ours … dont la vente aux enchère publiques aura lieu à Paris Hôtel Drouot, salles n[umér]os 7 et 8 le lundi 2 mars 1914, à 2 heures (Paris: Moderne Imprimerie, 1914). Daix, Pierre and Joan Rosselet, Picasso, The Cubist Years, 1907–1916: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings and Related Works (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979). Daudet, Léon. “Le Bilan du Trimestre”, L’Action Française, 4 October 1911, p. 1. Daudet, Léon. “L’Espionnage Juif-Allemand”, L’Action Française, 17 September 1911, p. 1

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Daudet, Léon. “Le vol de la «Joconde», Le Louvre enjuivé”, L’Action Française, 25 August 1911, p. 1. Daudet, Léon. “Juifs de Joconde: Les Reinach et Paul Léon”, L’Action Française, 26 August 1911, p. 1. Delcour, M. “Chez les indésirables”, Paris-Midi, 2 January 1914, p. 1. Delcour, M. “Avant l’Invasion”, Paris-Midi, 8 March 1914, p. 1. Deri, Max. “Die Kubisten und der Expressionismus”, PAN, No. 31, 20 June 1912. Derouet, Christian. “Quand le cubisme était un ‘bien allemand’ ”, Paris Berlin 1900–1933 (Paris: Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou, 12 July–6 November 1978). Dimier, L. “Chronique des Arts”, L’Action Française, 7 December 1913, p. 4. Drialt, J.-Edouard. Souvenez-vous! 1914. Rien d’Allemand!!! Des Allemands (Paris: L. Tenin, 1918). Demm, Eberhard. “Propaganda and Caricature in the First World War”, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 1993, pp. 163–192. Floret, Ricardo. “La Contrefaçon Allemande (MADE IN GERMANY), L’Assiette au Beurre, no. 559, 30 December 1911, front cover. Fitzgerald, Michael C. Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth-Century Art (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1996). Gee, Malcom. Dealers, Critic, and Collectors of Modern Painting: Aspects of the Parisian Art Market Between 1900 and 1930 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1981). Green, Christopher. Cubism and War: The Crystal in the Flame (Barcelona: Museu Picasso, 2016). Green, Christopher. Cubism and Its Enemies: Modern Movements and Reaction in French Art, 1916–18 (London: Yale University Press, 1987). Letters to Juan Gris, collected by D.-H. Kahnweiler, trans. and ed. Douglas Cooper (London: 1956). Gruetzner Robins, Anna. “Manet and the Post Impressionists: a checklist of exhibits”, The Burlington Magazine, CLII, December 2010, pp. 782–793. de Gachons, Jacques. “La Peinture d’après-demain(?)”,  Je sais tout, 15 April 1912. “Au Salon d’Automne”, “Les Arts”, Gil Blas, 11 September 1912, p. 5. Habasque, Guy. “Quand on vendait la peau de l’ours”, LŒil, no. 15, March 1956. Hofman, Jean-Marc. 1914–1918 Le Patrimoine s’en va-t-en guerre (Paris, Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine: Norma Éditions, 2016). Jacquemaire, M.-C. “Le Salon d’Automne”, L’Homme Libre, 24 November 1913, p. 1. Journal officiel, Chambre des Députés, 29 November 1912, p. 2835. Suite des Beaux-Arts, Chambre des Députés, Session extraordinaire de 1912, Journal Officiel, 3 December 1912, p. 2924. Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry. Mes Galeries et mes peintres. Entretiens avec Francis Crémieux (Paris: Gallimard, 1961; 1982) Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry and Francis Crémieux, My Galleries and Painters (London: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1971).

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Lacourt, Jeanne-Bathilde. Brouillon Kub, Les artistes cubistes et la caricature 1911–1918: le catalogue (Musée de l’Art Moderne de Villeneuve d’Asq, 2014). Lampué, Pierre. Lettre ouverte à M. Bérard, Sous-Secrétaire d’État aux Beaux-Arts, 5 October 1912 (Paris: Archives Nationales de France). La Palette, “La protestation”, Courrier des Ateliers, Paris-Journal, 18 March 1912, p. 4. “L’Apache est la plaie de Paris. Plus de 30,000 rôdeurs contre 8,000 sergents de ville”, Le Petit Journal (20 October 1907). Les Autres,” L’Art français en Allemagne”, Gil Blas, 13 February 1913, p. 4. “L’Espionnage Juif-Allemand II”, L’Action Française, 14, 16 and 25 August 1912; 1, 7, 11, 15, 16, 18 and 19 September 1912. “Les Vols au Louvre, Une Arrestation”, L’Action Française, 9 September 1911, p. 1. “L’Introduction des voleurs allemands à la Bourse de Paris”, Paris-Midi, 15 September 1911, p. 1. “L’Opinion française commence à s’alarmer”, Le Matin, 8 October 1912, p. 1. Mahler, Luise. “Index of Historic Collectors and Dealers of Cubism: Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry”, Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 2015). Marcoussis, Louis. “Le Triomphe du cubisme”, La Vie Parisienne, no. 3642 (12 December 1912), p. 366. Mauclair, Camille. “Cubisme et Bochie”, L’Ouest, 1 June 1921. Maurras, Charles. “Au Louvre,” L’Action Française, 31 August 1911, p. 1. Meffre, Liliane. «Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler: entre commerce et histoire de l’art», HiCSA – histoire culturelle et sociale de l’art, univ-paris1.fr/documents/pdf/CIRHAC, 2010. Métivet, Lucien. “L’Offensive cubiste”, Le Rire rouge, no. 134, 9 June 1917, p. 4. Métivet, Lucien. “Marianne et Germania”: histoire d’un Bonnet et un Casque”, contée et imagée par Lucien Métivet, La Baïonette, No. 146, 18 April 1918. Monod-Fontaine, Isabelle. “Chronologie et Documents”, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler: Marchand, Éditeur, Écrivain (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1984). «Ne cherchez pas, c’est de l’art, L’État prête à ça les murs du Grand-Palais ET UN SOUS-SECRÉTAIRE D’ÉTAT L’A INAUGURÉ», Le Matin, 6 October 1912, p. 1. Pinturrichio, “Le Carnet des ateliers”, Le Cartnet de la Semaine, 9 June 1918. Pinturrichio, “Moralité d’un Séquestre”, Le Carnet de la Semaine, 27 November 1921, p. 8. Pujo, Maurice. “La Peinture au Salon d’automne,” L’Action Française, 28 October 1909. Raphael, Max. Von Monet zu Picasso: Grundzüge einer Ästhetik und Entwicklung der modernen Malerei (München: Delphin-Verlag, 1913). de Ricci, Seymour. “La Peau de l’ours”, Gil Blas, 3 March 1913, p. 4. Richardson, John. A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917–1932 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). Salmon, André. La jeune peinture française (Paris: Messein, 1912). Salmon, André. La Palette, “Les Protestations”, “Courier des Ateliers”, Paris-Journal, 18 March 1912, p. 4.

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Salmon, André. La Palette, “Un Impressionniste Rhenan”, Les Arts, Gil Blas, 10 July 1913, p. 3. Salmon, André. La Palette, “L’exposition de Dusseldorf”, Les Arts, Gil Blas, 3 January 1914, p. 4 Sherman, Sam. Uncle Heinrich and his Forgotten History (2010); http://kittymunson .com/Thannhauser/Uncle%20Heinrich_Final.pdf Silver, Kenneth E. Esprit de Corps. The Art of the Parisian Avant-Garde and the First World War, 1914–1925 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989). Spies, Werner. “Vendre des tableaux – donner à lire”, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler: Marchand, Éditeur, Écrivain (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1984). Thannhauser: The Thannhauser Collection of the Guggenheim Museum, ed. Mathew Drutt (New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2001). The International Exhibition of Modern Art, Association of American Painters and Sculptors, 69th Regiment Armory, Lexington Avenue, NYC: The Armory Show, 17 February–15 March 1913. Thiébault-Sisson, François. “Le Salon d’Automne, LA PEINTURE,” La vie artistique, Le Temps, 1 October 1912, p. 4. Tollet, Tony. De l’influence de la corporation judéo-allemande des marchands de tableaux de Paris sur l’art français (Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres, et Arts de Lyon, 6 July 1915). Vauxcelles, Louis. “La ‘jeune peinture française’ ”, Gil Blas, 21 October 1912, p. 4. Vente de Biens Allemands ayant fait l’objet d’un mesurede séquestre de Guerre. Collection Henry Kahnweiler, Tableaux, Sculptures & Céramique Modernes. Art Nègre. Livres en Édition de Luxe. Première Vente, Paris les 13 et 14 juin 1921 (Paris: Ateliers Moreau Frères, 1921). Vente de Biens Allemands ayant fait l’objet d’un mesurede séquestre de Guerre. Collection Henry Kahnweiler, Tableaux Modernes. Deuxième Vente, Paris les 17 et 18 novembre (Paris: Imprimerie Photomécanique, Catala Frères, 1921). Vente de Biens Allemands ayant fait l’objet d’un mesurede séquestre de Guerre. Collection Henry Kahnweiler, Tableaux Modernes. Troisième Vente, Paris, le 4 juillet 1922 (Paris: Imprimerie Photomécanique, Catala Frères, 1922). Vente de Biens Allemands ayant fait l’objet d’un mesurede séquestre de Guerre. Collection Henry Kahnweiler, Tableaux Modernes. Quatrième et Dernière Vente, Paris les 7 et 8 Mai 1923 (Paris: Imprimerie Photomécanique, Catala Frères, 1923). Willette, Adolphe. “Ce n’est pas nouveau!”, 1915, Le Journal, No. 3254, 3 May 1915, p. 1. Zervos, Christian. “Entretien avec Alfred Flechtheim”, Feuilles volontes, supplément à Cahiers d’art, no. 10, 1927, pp. 1–3. Zislin, “Quand Jacques Bonhomme veut faire du commerce avec la Teutonie”, Le Matin, 2 September 1912, p. 1.

Supply Created by Dealer

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CHAPTER 6

Charles Mather Ffoulke and the Market for Tapestries in Late Nineteenth-Century America Denise M. Budd The historical fortunes of tapestries as art objects have been as changeable as those of the noble houses which elicited their production. Once the prized possessions of royal courts and aristocratic estates, by the late 18th century they were thoroughly undervalued. Many of the great tapestry-producing workshops in Europe were dissolved. In ruinous condition following decades of neglect, many tapestries were reportedly used as rags or burned as a means of extracting precious metals woven into the fabric.1 But fortunes would turn again – decidedly – in the final decades of the 19th century. Objects that were sold for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars from the 1850s through the 1880s were selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars in the early 1900s.2 In fact, in 1901, the New York-based antiques dealer Obadiah Sypher (1833–1907) suggested that a judicious investment of $25,000 in tapestries just a few years before would then yield half a million dollars at sale, as wealthy American collectors began vying for possession of European treasures.3 As the American taste for tapestries developed, many notable collectors emerged alongside even more influential dealers, operating in complex international networks. Of these, no individual can be argued to have had a greater impact on the radical shift in the marketplace than Charles Mather Ffoulke (1841–1909), who was responsible for bringing the largest single collection of tapestries to the United States with his acquisition of the famed Barberini tapestries in 1889. (Fig. 6.1). He attracted new collectors not only through the gallery he constructed shortly thereafter as a part of his Washington, D.C. home, but by organizing some of the earliest American exhibitions of tapestries, giving public lectures, and embarking on a scholarly agenda. The latter of these included a planned three-volume book which would have been the earliest

1  Rorimer, 1947, 91. 2  Rorimer, 1947, 92. 3  Bowdoin, 1901, 55. Figure 6.3 Tapestries from the Diana Series in the dining room of the Anderson House, detail © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004342989_007

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Figure 6.1 Charles Mather Ffoulke. Courtesy of Olivier Havenith.

extensive treatment of the material in English, had his death not cut short his endeavors.4 Even as his activities gained him recognition as a scholar, Ffoulke was establishing his own commercial enterprise, working with restorers and dealers abroad, notably in Florence and Paris. At home, he sold some of the tapestries himself, utilizing his powerful connections on the elite Washington social circuit, while dispensing of others through dealers in New York, including Sypher & Company, as well as French & Company, a firm whose establishment he helped to finance specifically for that purpose.5 Recognizing the limited nature of this market, given the large scale of the items he was attempting 4  “Notes: Mr. Charles M. Ffoulke on Tapestries,” 1913, 1155. He began work on the book in 1892. 5  Bremer-David, 2003–04, 40.

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to broker, Ffoulke also worked closely with Stanford White (1853–1906) of the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White, who was engaged in the construction of Gilded Age mansions for wealthy clients, for which he then procured the decoration. Relegated to minor mentions and footnotes in the literature both on tapestries and on the history of collecting, Ffoulke should instead be regarded as a collector, scholar, and dealer who created the market from which he would reap substantial profits. Charles Mather Ffoulke was born in Quakertown in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on July 25, 1841. Along with his parents, Benjamin Green and Jane (nee Mather), he was a descendant of an important Welch family that had established roots in America as far back as 1698. He was raised as a Quaker, and his earliest years were spent largely within the circle of the Society of Friends. His first employment was as a teacher at the Friend’s School in Philadelphia, and he was principal of a similar institution in Quakertown for one year in 1860, at a time when he was not much older than the students.6 Beginning in 1861, Ffoulke worked in Philadelphia as a merchant for the wool firm of Davis, Fiss & Banes, which was reorganized with Ffoulke as a partner as Davis & Foulke in 1869.7 However, in 1872, Ffoulke retired, reportedly on account of ailments which made it impossible to meet the rigorous physical demands of his job.8 It is perhaps the earliest evidence of the rheumatism that would plague, and eventually disable, Ffoulke in the later years of his life. In July of 1872, Ffoulke applied for a passport and began what appears to be the first of many extended periods of travel in Europe.9 While abroad, Ffoulke met twenty-year-old Sarah Adeline Cushing (1852–1926), who had likewise traveled from America to Europe with her uncle and aunt, Caleb (1831–96) and Helen Dailey Bucklin Seagrave (1835–1912), and possibly her stepmother, in 1872.10 She was the only child of Horace Cushing (1821–65) of Dorchester, 6  “Charles M. Ffoulke,” 1903, 382. See also “FFOULKE, Charles Mather,” 1918, 442, and Ffoulke, 1913, 6. 7  “FFOULKE, Charles Mather,” 1918, 442. The partners in the firm were Charles Henry Banes, George W. Fiss, and Henry C. Davis. 8  Ffoulke, 1913, 6–7. Ffoulke traveled extensively, often on horseback, visiting ranchers and farmers. 9  Passport Applications, 1795–1905, passport for Charles M. Foulke, roll 186, search.ancestry. com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=USpassports&h=1464640. 10  Sarah’s passport was issued 10 April 1872. Passport Applications, 1795–1905, passport for Sarah A. Cushing, roll 181, search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=USpasspor ts&h=1463671. Caleb Seagrave’s passport was issued 12 April 1872. Passport Applications, 1795–1905, passport for Caleb Seagrave, roll 181, search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?in div=try&db=USpassports&h=1463794. Caroline E. Cushing’s passport was issued the

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Massachusetts and his second wife, Harriet Clarke Fletcher (1825–55) from Providence, Rhode Island, whom he married in October of 1850.11 Her mother had died when Sarah was just three years old.12 Horace remarried, this time to Caroline Elizabeth Wright (b. 1823) of Boston in 1858.13 It was reported that his business was very negatively impacted by the Civil War, which led him to commit suicide in early 1865 at the age of 43 by jumping out the second story window of his New York home.14 Though he was identified in the press as a silk merchant,15 the probate paperwork of his estate and the accompanying inventory of his possessions suggest he was dealing primarily in whiskey, an industry that was very heavily taxed beginning in 1862 as a way to fund the conflict. He had very few assets at the time of his death.16 Sarah’s financial situation, which would have been dire in 1865, was markedly improved in 1866 and 1867, upon the deaths of first her paternal and then her maternal grandfathers. Abel Cushing (1785–1866) was a lawyer, who also served as a Justice of the Police Court in Boston from 1843 to 1858. His first will would have bequeathed Sarah the sum of $1000, but a codicil following the death of Horace made her the inheritor of one third of his estate.17 Thomas Fletcher (1798–1867) was owner of the Fletcher Manufacturing Company of Rhode Island, which produced “small wares” – dyed cotton yarn that was turned into wicks, laces, and similar products.18 Fletcher named his orphaned granddaughter in his will, arranging that Sarah would receive payments every six months until her twenty-first birthday, at which time she would receive the previous month, on 26 March 1872. Passport Applications, 1795–1905, passport for Caroline E. Cushing, roll 180, search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?ti=0&indiv=try&db=uspassport s&h=1463144. 11  Cushing, 1905, 418, no. 811 and 544, no. 1163. 12  Fletcher, who died on 29 August 1855, was Cushing’s second wife. They married on 30 October 1850. Cushing, 1905, 418, no. 811. His first wife, Rebecca Lewis, died just six months into their marriage. She died at age 23 ½ on 7 July 1847. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620–1988, “Deaths and Internments in Boston: Rebecca A S Cushing,” search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=MATownVital&h=43697581. 13  The marriage on 1 November is recorded as #1816 in the list of Boston marriages of 1858. On the register, he is listed as a merchant from New York City. He was 37 and she was 34. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620–1988, “Marriages registered in the City of Boston,” search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=MATownVital&h=67587220. 14  Cushing, 1905, 418, no. 811. 15  “New York Items,” 1865, 1. 16   New York, Wills and Probate Records, 1659–1999, probate inventory of Horace Cushing. 17   Probate Docket Books, and Record Books (1793–1916), probate records for Abel Cushing. 18  Bishop, 1868, 393–394.

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whole of her inheritance.19 Her new-found assets may have provided the additional funds that would have allowed the couple to begin collecting art, or at the very least, to travel in Europe in the earliest years of their marriage. Charles and Sarah married in Paris on December 10, 1872,20 and returned to the United States nearly two years later, arriving on a boat from Liverpool, England, on September 2, 1874.21 They settled in Philadelphia, where Charles held positions as Secretary and Treasurer of the Conglomerate Mining Company through the early 1880s. In June of 1884, Charles and Sarah applied for passports for yet another trip abroad, this time accompanied by their first four children, Horace, Helen, Gladys and Gwendolyn, as well as a servant.22 Initially, the Ffoulkes resided in Nice, though the Imperia Earthquake of February 1887 resulted in the desertion of much of the city as many visitors and inhabitants fled towards Paris.23 Italy, rather than France, had suffered the brunt of the damage, with tremors reportedly felt as far away as Rome; nevertheless, the Ffoulkes moved south to Florence. Sarah was artistically inclined, having studied in her youth with the New York portrait painter Jacob Hart Lazarus (1822–91),24 and she and Charles developed a mutual interest in art. Although Sarah had already expressed a desire to purchase tapestries while in Nice, it was apparently during this year-long stay that Charles began his study of tapestries, particularly at the Palazzo della Crocetta in Florence where the newly instituted Regia Galleria degli Arazzi e Tessuti occupied the top floor of what would later become the Museo Archeologico.25 The Ffoulke family returned to the United States in 1888, at which time they moved their permanent residence from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., purchasing a home on Massachusetts Avenue.26 Although, in the arts, Washington lagged behind New York City, the cultural relevance of the capital was ascending, as more and more wealthy Americans resided there, seasonally, if not year round. The local press wrote of this phenomenon: “There are few rich 19   Providence (R.I.) Probate Files (1646–1894) and Indexes (1646–1899), probate records of Thomas Fletcher. 20  The witnesses at their wedding were Caleb and Harriet Seagrave, and Gratiot Washburn. The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, 1996–97, 90. 21   New York, Passenger Lists, 1820–1957. They appear there as “C.M. Foulke” and wife. 22   Passport Applications, 1795–1905, passport for Chas. M. Foulke, roll 266, search.ancestry. com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=USpassports&h=1286387. Their fifth child, Charles Mather Jr., was born in 1889. 23  “The Riviera Earthquake,” 1887, 1. 24  Ffoulke, 1913, 7–8. 25  “Art,” 1913, 468. 26  Their address, originally 2013 Massachusetts Avenue, was officially renumbered as 2011.

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Americans who now consider their winter complete without a month or two spent at the National Capital, and after the first season or two, if society gives them the glad hand, it always means a handsome house here, and another notable collection of art to be added to the already famous ones”.27 By this point Ffoulke seems to have largely retired from his previous business endeavors, though he maintained at the very least some nominal interest in the Fletcher Manufacturing Company through Sarah’s maternal family, where he held the title of Director.28 Ffoulke’s involvement with the firm may have proven shortlived, however, and by the time Ffoulke applied for yet another passport in 1889, he reported his occupation as “none”.29 Already when Ffoulke departed for Europe in May of that year, his tapestry collection, regarded as “one of the finest this side of the Atlantic,” was a topic of discussion on the Washington social circuit.30 Initially, Ffoulke’s casual interest in, and collecting of, tapestries, seemed more than fitting given his involvement in the wool trade. Yet at some point in the late 1880s, this interest evolved into its own full-fledged business. The story is told in the catalogue of Ffoulke’s tapestries published by his dealers, French & Company, shortly after his death, with the counsel and collaboration of his wife, Sarah. The text describes the serendipitous way that Ffoulke purportedly came into possession of the most prestigious and sizeable part of his collection in 1889: “It was owing to this thorough knowledge and keen appreciation of textiles that the opportunity was given him, through an Italian friend, to meet the Princess Barberini, and it was in conversation over the tea cups that the famous Barberini collection of tapestries passed into the hands of Mr. Ffoulke.”31 The identity of the unnamed princess is never specified, though it has been postulated to be either Anna Barberini-Colonna di Sciarra of Palestrina (1840–1911) or her sister Luisa (1844–1906).32 One contemporary report suggested that the sale of the tapestries was to raise the necessary funds for the dowry of the daughter of the princess.33 The tapestries had reportedly been in storage in cedar chests, and had last been seen several decades before, in 1854, when they were in the 27  “Art Tips and Topics,” 1916, 18. 28  “Charles M. Ffoulke,” 1903, 382. His children too would maintain an interest in the company. 29  Passport Applications, 1795–1905, passport for Charles M. Ffoulke, roll 322, http://search .ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=USpassports&h=1361464. 30  “Social Matters,” 1889, 2. 31  Ffoulke, 1909, n.p. 32   “Armida About to Kill the Sleeping Rinaldo; Provenance.” Flint Institute of Arts, http://192.96.217.76/art/collections/european/artists/vouet/armida_about_to_kill.html”. Accessed 13 April 2017. 33  McCabe, 1900, 726.

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Roman church of Santa Maria in Trastevere.34 It was written that Ffoulke’s initial interest was only in one or two sets of tapestries for his own residence, but that the Barberini family was unwilling to divide the collection; consequently, Ffoulke purchased the entire lot of one hundred and thirty-five pieces. The cost to Ffoulke for the tapestries isn’t recorded, though one report of the 1890s gave the improbably low price of approximately $50,000.35 Other assets of the Barberini family were similarly sold off, including their library of some 60,000 volumes and 8,000 manuscripts to the Vatican in 1901,36 and their Etruscan collection to the Florentine dealer Elia Volpi in 1908.37 Just as the account of the purchase of the tapestries is opaque regarding the identity of the princess, it likewise fails to identify the Italian friend. There is, however, no doubt that the anonymous Italian was Giuseppe Salvadori (d. 1928), the collector, dealer and restorer specializing in tapestries, to whom Ffoulke was introduced by the painter Michele Gordigiani (1835–1909).38 Since 1878, Salvadori had established a working relationship with Stefano Bardini (1836–1922), the most important Florentine antiquarian and dealer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Salvadori had already been instrumental in the formation of Ffoulke’s taste in regards to tapestries, even if it may have been, at the time, unbeknownst to Ffoulke. The collection of the Galleria degli Arazzi e Tessuti in Florence, where Ffoulke first began to informally pursue his studies, was largely acquired from the dealer’s father, Salvadore Salvadori, with whom Giuseppe operated as a part of the antiquarian firm S. Salvadori e Figlio.39 After securing the purchase of the tapestries, Ffoulke seems to have returned home in short order, by which time his rheumatism was impeding upon his mobility.40 The tapestries did not immediately follow him, as Ffoulke seemed reticent to import them, at least in part on account of the high duties levied against objects manufactured abroad that were brought into the United States. The contemporary press in Washington D.C. reported on Ffoulke’s plight: “So great is Mr. Ffoulke’s love for this rare department of art that he leases an 34  McCabe, 1900, 726. 35  Ballou, 1893, 182. 36  Goldschmidt, 1970, 227, fn. 10. 37  “Barberini Collection Sold,” 1908, 7. 38  Ffoulke, 1913, 9. 39   Archivio Storico delle Gallerie Fiorentine, Anno 1884, Galleria degli Arazzi, 5-Campionario di stoffe antiche acquistate da Salvadore Salvadori. 40  “Social Matters,” 1890, 2: “Mr. Ffoulke, who is a connoisseur of tapestries and who selected and brought the handsome pieces that adorn his rooms from Europe, greeted the guests from a chair in the drawing room, to which all were taken to be presented. Mr. Ffoulke has suffered much during the past year from an attack of rheumatism and is not able to stand for any length of time.”

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abandoned convent in Florence for the sole purpose of keeping there tapestries belonging to him which he cannot enjoy at home, because of a high tariff.”41 For fifteen years prior to the Civil War, imported art was free from taxation, but beginning in 1861, to raise revenue, art was taxed at a ten percent rate.42 This number was raised to thirty percent in 1883.43 When the McKinley Tariff Act was being formulated, before its passage in 1890, the argument had been made that art should again be made duty-free. However, fearing political fall-out resulting from the disparity between highly-taxed materials like wool and those that would escape the tariff altogether, a compromise was drawn, and art remained taxed at fifteen percent.44 Thus, at the time that Ffoulke purchased the tapestries, the tariff was thirty percent, but quickly was lowered to half of that rate. While an improvement, art was still being taxed at a historically high level. The function of the tariff was essentially protectionist, with an interest in fostering production in the United States by disadvantaging production of all matter of goods abroad. With the tariff in place, firms like Baumgarten & Company in New York became the first makers of Gobelin tapestries stateside in 1893, manufacturing alternatives to the prized Baroque luxury items.45 Though Ffoulke may well have commissioned modern tapestries for his collection, publicly he refuted the comparable value of such contemporary imitators in 1894: “It takes ten to twelve years to educate a master weaver in all the mysteries and intricacies of his art at that national establishment, notwithstanding its marvelously superior advantages over any private atelier that exists or could be started either here or in Europe.”46 He likewise argued, in private correspondence with one of his clients, that the expenses associated with the creation of modern tapestries were so high, that the historical ones he offered were a relative bargain.47 While the tariff could be viewed simply as the cost of doing business, efforts were soon underway to have the art tariff eliminated altogether. The uncertainty of the situation might have compelled Ffoulke to store the tapestries in Italy on a temporary basis. In 1891, a group of artists and other interested parties formed the National Art Association in Washington, D.C., with the First 41  Field, 1892, 195. 42  Barber, 1999, 210–212. 43  Barber, 1999, 218. 44  Field, 1894, 145. 45  DeVillo, 2015, 118. 46  “Current News of the Fine Arts,” 1894, 13. 47  Twombly/Burden Papers, box 2, series 5, folder 9.

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Lady, Caroline Harrison (1832–92), as Honorary President and Vice-President Levi Morton (1824–1920) and his wife Anna Street Morton (1846–1918) as Honorary Vice-Presidents. Their President was the painter Daniel Huntington (1816–1906), and among the numerous Vice Presidents was Ffoulke. They held their first Congress in May of 1892, coinciding with their inaugural national loan exhibition in the chapel of the Smithsonian Institution, the primary focus of which was the removal of the art tariff. The group was legitimized by an official act establishing the National Academy of Art, which was passed by the first session of the 52nd Congress as public act #179, and was approved 28 July 1892. It also authorized the incorporators, which included Ffoulke, to create a National Museum of Art.48 Ffoulke undoubtedly would have kept the tapestries in Italy for a period even without the ongoing discussion regarding the tariff, as he would have required some time and considerable space to restore the objects, which were said to have been “very old and neglected”.49 Ffoulke relined some, if not all of the tapestries – purportedly removing the monogram of Cardinal Francesco Barberini in the process50 – and must have had other repairs done to prepare the works for the market. Anecdotally, this was noted by his contemporaries: “Mr. Ffoulke had secured the services of a score of patient nuns in the convents of Florence, who were engaged in the careful restoration of the frayed and torn, but valuable fabrics. When every piece should be brought as nearly as possible to its original condition, the whole was to be shipped to America.”51 The operation, however, was more sophisticated and less picturesque than what was described. Ffoulke was reported to have maintained workshops both in Florence and in Paris,52 and Salvadori remained responsible for all immediate and future work that was required to maintain and improve the condition of the tapestries.53 As an assurance of quality, Ffoulke claimed that his shop had been inspected numerous times by Édouard Gerspach (1833–1906), director of

48  Sarah Ffoulke sent a copy of their incorporation act to J.P. Morgan. Pierpont Morgan Papers, ARC 1310, F Misc. Ffoulke, S.C. (Mrs. Charles). 49  Ballou, 1893, 182. 50  Siple, 1930, 237. 51  Ballou, 1893, 182. 52  “Current News of the Fine Arts,” 1894, 13. Confirmation for the existence of Ffoulke’s Florentine studio, as well as to the number of workers, is given by Helen Churchill Candee (1912, 238), who lived in Washington D.C. and traveled in Italy in early 1912 while researching tapestries: “Repairing is almost an art in itself … The studio of the late Mr. Ffoulke in Florence kept twenty or thirty girls occupied.” 53  Bremer-David, 2003–04, 64, note 9.

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La Manufacture Nationale Des Gobelins in France.54 During the years in which the tapestries were stored in Florence, Ffoulke saw to it that they were accessible for viewing and ensured that someone – presumably Salvadori – could show them to both potential clients and dealers as required.55 Ffoulke’s relationship with Salvadori continued beyond the first years after the purchase, and beyond the Barberini tapestries; as late as 1905, Ffoulke wrote to a client on letterhead from Salvadori’s shop in Via de’ Serragli, 6, offering that he and Salvadori could acquire a set of tapestries on the client’s behalf.56 Ffoulke heaped praises on Salvadori, and referred to him as the “Curator of my tapestries.”57 With repairs made and permissions secured, Ffoulke arranged to import some of the tapestries and place them into storage, mostly in the vaults of the Provident Life and Trust Company of Philadelphia, where his brother, J. Roberts Foulke, was a trust officer. At this point, Ffoulke began to actively pursue the means by which he might raise the value of these works, as Sypher had noted. Just as Ffoulke simultaneously assumed the roles of collector, dealer and expert, his strategy for the sale of the tapestries was likewise many-faceted, though three major themes predominate. First, Ffoulke had to create value in terms of scholarship and history, which included all assurances of authenticity. Second, Ffoulke had to generate interest and publicity for a broader public. Finally, he had to effectively market his vision to his affluent clientele. In terms of scholarship, Ffoulke’s long term goal was an ambitious, threevolume scholarly text which he began writing in 1892. It was intended to be published in both English and French, which was strategic. While the original version would have been among the earliest English-language books on the subject, the French translation would have provided information about American collectors to a wider audience and situated the text within a longer scholarly tradition. The arrangement of the volumes would have served 54  Ffoulke, 1894, 126. 55  Stanford White correspondence and architectural drawings, Stanford White Letterpress Books, Vol. 7, p. 141. Stanford White wrote to Ffoulke in a letter dated 6 January 1893: “I sail on Saturday the 14th. Will you not kindly give me a note [?] of introduction to whoever is in charge of the tapestries in Florence…. Would it be possible to arrange to have a fair example of each of the sets of tapestries picked out and hung … about that time?” That White did in fact view the tapestries in Florence is confirmed in a letter to Ffoulke of 1 June 1893. (Vol. 7, p. 221.). 56  Anderson Family Collection. Letter from Charles M. Ffoulke to Larz Anderson, 23 June 1905. 57  Anderson Family Collection. Letter from Charles M. Ffoulke to Larz Anderson, 29 June 1905. In an earlier article by Ffoulke, he describes the head of his atelier, who, though unnamed, is certainly Salvadori, as “one of the most widely-known art-artisans in the Old World”. Ffoulke, 1894, 126.

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Ffoulke and American collectors – his clients among them – well: the first was to have been a history of the medium, the second was to have been specifically about Ffoulke’s tapestries, and the third was to have been a broader overview of tapestries in America.58 In the 1890s, Ffoulke traveled for his research, at one point making a visit to view the Bayeux Tapestry – really an embroidery, as he noted – and giving his analysis regarding its state of preservation.59 Unfortunately, the project was plagued by misfortune, most notably when a fire destroyed his manuscript and Ffoulke was forced to begin the text anew; in his later years, Ffoulke’s involvement with various arts societies and his illness slowed his progress, and he left the manuscript incomplete at the time of his death. Sarah continued to work on the series with the hopes of completing it quickly, presumably to increase the value of the Ffoulke collection which was newly up for sale, including the majority of those works kept at their Massachusetts Avenue home. In a letter to John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) seeking photographs of some of his tapestries for the publication, Sarah characterized the work as advantageous not only to the Ffoulkes, but to Morgan: “Necessarily the future value of a tapestry will be much increased if its illustration can be found in my husband’s work, as it will be a book of reference, and only the highest works of art will find a place there.”60 Aside from this larger planned text, Ffoulke also wrote descriptions of varying lengths for many of the Barberini series and other tapestry sets, often supplying his clients with typescripts. One of Ffoulke’s most devoted buyers was Phoebe Elizabeth Apperson Hearst (1842–1919), widow of the United States Senator from California, George Hearst (1820–1891). Phoebe Hearst had likewise been a founding member of the National Academy of Art, and she and Ffoulke occupied the same social circuit in Washington. In 1896, Ffoulke sent a letter to Hearst, who had been left a sizeable fortune following the death of her husband, regarding the sale of two sets of tapestries, the 10-tapestry Artemisia series (now in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts), which he offered for $70,000, and the 8-tapestry Dido and Aeneas series, which was priced at $40,000 (now in the Cleveland Museum of Art).61 She also purchased from Ffoulke the 5-tapestry Coriolanus series (now in the Brooklyn Museum) and the 12-tapestry Story of Constantine series (now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art). Ffoulke provided her with a typescript for a set of tapestry-covered furniture she owned and 58  “Notes: Mr. Charles M. Ffoulke on Tapestries,” 1913, 1155. 59  “Tapestry Art Treasures,” 1894, 19. 60  Pierpont Morgan Papers, ARC 1310, F Misc. Ffoulke, S.C. (Mrs. Charles). Letter of 8 February 1910. 61  It is certain that Hearst completed the sale of the Artemisia tapestries, though she did not immediately accept delivery of them and they were still in storage as late as 1901.

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wrote other short volumes for some of the sets she purchased, including the Dido and Aeneas and Artemisia series.62 Ffoulke followed suit with his other clients as well, including financier Hamilton McKown Twombly (1849–1910), husband to Florence Adele Vanderbilt Twombly (1854–1952). To accompany his set of ten tapestries (now in the Flint Institute of Arts), Twombly was given a typescript for “Monograph of the Series Rinaldo and Armida Composed of ten tapestries,” written by Ffoulke and dated April 22, 1893, still bearing the handwritten edits.63 Ffoulke’s clients would have appreciated such manuscripts, insofar as they not only concretized the historical value of their tapestries, but would serve to increase their resale value. Even while generating his own scholarship and situating the Barberini tapestries within it, Ffoulke consulted documents as a means of assuring his buyers of the authenticity of the works they were purchasing. Ffoulke, accompanied by Salvadori, was said to have verified the origins of the tapestries sold to him by the Princess Barberini by consulting the family’s archive, including a manuscript containing descriptions of tapestries given to Cardinal Francisco Barberini by King Louis XIII.64 Despite this seeming diligence, documents suggest that many of the tapestries were Barberini purchases, and not royal gifts, but whether Ffoulke misinterpreted or ignored the evidence is unclear.65 In other instances, Ffoulke offered affidavits and substantial written opinions of other recognized experts to satisfy his clients. In addition to his scholarly endeavors, Ffoulke worked tirelessly to increase the public’s awareness of, and interest in, tapestries, expanding simultaneously the value of the works and the potential scope of his market. Ffoulke gave many public lectures, often in series, and established the presence of his objects in major American cities. When the new Corcoran Gallery building

62  Two of these shorter texts were Description of the Coriolanus Set of Tapestries Belonging to Mrs. Hearst and Eight Tapestries Composing the Dido and Aeneas Series from the Barberini Palace, Rome. The lengthier Description of Artemesia tapestries belonging to Mrs. Hearst was seemingly published after Ffoulke’s death, but he is noted in the text as the author. Ffoulke mentioned that he had written descriptions for the tapestries in a letter to Hearst in which he attempted to finalize the sale. (George and Phoebe Apperson Hearst papers, Box 68: 15, Reel 109. Letter from Charles Mather Ffoulke to Phoebe Hearst, 19 April 1901). 63  Twombly/Burden Papers, box 2, series 5, folder 10. 64  Ffoulke, 1909, n.p. The specific mention of Ffoulke and Salvadori in the archive together appears in a later letter to Larz Anderson (Anderson Family Collection. Letter from Charles M. Ffoulke to Larz Anderson, 23 June 1905). 65  Cavallo, 1955, 21.

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was opened in Washington, D.C., Barberini tapestries adorned the staircase.66 The 1890s saw a notable rise in the number of exhibitions dedicated to the art of tapestry, and Ffoulke’s were featured prominently, including at the Art Institute of Chicago (1896) and the Pennsylvania Museum (1896); in 1905, tapestries from the Ffoulke collection would be shown at the Exposition d’Art ancient bruxellois in Brussels.67 One of the most visible and high-profile exhibitions was the World’s Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893. Ffoulke’s “Antique Tapestries” were shown under the name of Sypher & Co., with the report referencing not only their Barberini provenance and the supporting documentary evidence, but also their “perfect preservation.”68 An even better opportunity for promotion came in the form of the Columbian Exposition’s New York State Building, which was designed by Stanford White’s architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White and decorated with, among other things, tapestries and furniture supplied by Sypher, the former undoubtedly provided by Ffoulke.69 With the pairing of McKim, Mead & White’s modern Renaissance palace and Ffoulke’s Baroque tapestries, there was the opportunity to showcase what the most elite of the twenty-seven million visitors to the exhibition could procure for themselves. This manner of exhibiting tapestries in what amounted to a house-museum was yet another component of Ffoulke’s strategy. Apart from Ffoulke’s scholarly writing and the public promotion of the tapestries, Ffoulke needed to captivate the imagination of potential clients. To this end, a crucial component of Ffoulke’s enterprise was the large gallery which he had constructed onto the eastern side of his Massachusetts Avenue home by 1892. (Fig. 6.2). The gallery became a locus of Washington society as a popular site of lectures, performances and receptions. The appeal of the space was noted in the opening passages of the introduction of a posthumously published book on his collection: “Isolated tapestries have existed in our country for many years, but in Mr. Ffoulke’s well-known gallery in Washington they were seen for the first time used as covering for the entire wall space, and cultured Americans, with 66  Kilvert, 1898, 426. The author noted the serendipitous correlation between the Barberini tapestries and the curator’s name, Dr. Barberin. 67  Ffoulke’s daughter, Helen, would marry the Belgian ambassador Emmanuel Havenith in March 1908. She was reportedly an “expert on rugs and tapestries,” studying them for the four years during which Havenith was the minister to Persia. “Expert on Rugs and Tapestries,” 1912, 4. 68  Stockbridge, 1901, 1458. 69  Howland, 1893, 177.

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Figure 6.2 The gallery of Ffoulke’s home in Washington, D.C. Courtesy of Gladys Levié.

their keen appreciation of beauty, were quick to show their admiration and delight.”70 Ffoulke, like other dealers of his time, was keenly attuned to the manner in which the display of the art object would affect his clients. By 1891, Ffoulke was seeking to acquire antique furniture from Bardini in Florence, with some of it likely intended to appropriately decorate his showroom, though Ffoulke would inevitably deal not only tapestries, but all types of antique furnishings.71 That he understood the importance of display is evidenced by a letter written to one of his clients, in which Ffoulke explained: “I should like very much that you would see my tapestry gallery, as it will give you a far better

70  Ffoulke, 1909, n.p. 71  Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini, Copialettere, vol. 9, p. 61. Many thanks to Dr. Lynn Catterson for providing me with this document.

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idea of the wonderful decorativeness of tapestries than seeing them strung up one after another on a pole at Sypher’s.”72 The evocative installation of the gallery was clearly meant to entice clients, who were often culled from Ffoulke’s social circle in and around Washington. His potential market was greatly expanded through his association with Stanford White, who included Ffoulke’s tapestries in the antiques he proposed to his clients for their newly-built homes. This partnership of sorts produced a situation in which interested buyers who might have found it difficult to place even a single tapestry in a pre-existing home, due to the requirements of large areas of uninterrupted wall space, now had the custom-built palaces of the new American aristocracy which could accommodate one or even more tapestry series. In designing or redesigning these grand residences, part of the aim was to create room for art collections, as was noted in Construction magazine in 1914: “The pretentious and formal residence which plays such an important part in the lives of the present age, furnishes the incentive for enriching our country with the artistic treasures of former generations. No stone mansion or brick palace is complete without the large wall spaces upon the interior being covered with valuable tapestries.”73 Even a cursory examination of Ffoulke’s sales reveals this integral relationship between his business and architecture. When Phoebe Hearst began purchasing tapestries from Ffoulke, her home on New Hampshire Avenue, which she and her late husband purchased in 1889, had just been completely remodeled and enlarged.74 The Twomblys likewise were building a mansion on their New Jersey Florham estate, which McKim, Mead & White planned and constructed between 1893 and 1897. Diplomat Larz Anderson (1866–1937) and his wife Isabel Weld Perkins (1876–1948), who were neighbors of the Ffoulkes, likewise built a Renaissance villa-inspired mansion designed by the Boston firm of Arthur Little and Herbert Browne, which was completed in early 1905; it was around this time that they purchased the 8-panel Diana Series from Ffoulke (now in the Society of the Cincinnati, Washington, D.C., which is the former Anderson house).75 (Fig. 6.3). It is with Anderson that the extent of Ffoulke’s enterprise can be seen. He not only offered his client and friend many tapestry sets, both from the Barberini collection and from other Italian and French

72  Twombly/Burden Papers, box 2, series 5, folder 7. Letter dated 9 February 1892. 73  “Editorial,” 1914, 124. 74  The Hearst’s Washington, D.C. residence was the former home of John Field (d. 1887), designed by Robert Fleming in 1883. Hansen, 2014, 102–106. 75  “Andersen House – History.”

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Figure 6.3 Tapestries from the Diana Series in the dining room of the Anderson House. Reproduced by permission of The Society of the Cincinnati, Washington, D.C.

collections, but also paintings and furniture to complete the decoration of various spaces within their home. Even as he continued to manage his business enterprise, in the last years of Ffoulke’s life, his attention turned to the expansion of the arts in America both locally and nationally, a monumental task made more difficult by his declining health. Shortly before Ffoulke’s death, the National Academy of Art, originally founded in the early 1890s, was revived. With John Pierpont Morgan as President and Ffoulke as the First Vice President, they directed their attention towards the establishment of an Academy and Museum of Art in Washington.76 The ambitions of the organization were consonant with his own. Ffoulke always remained focused on the role of his adopted home-city, as he wrote to a friend: “There can be no doubt in my mind that Washington will eventually become not only the social metropolis of this country, but the art center of

76  “News and Notes of the Art World,” 1909, X6.

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the nation.”77 To address the development of the arts in America more broadly, the National Society of the Fine Arts was formed in 1905. Ffoulke would be named its second president, a post he held for several years until his death.78 He made one of its primary objectives the establishment of an art magazine, which he envisioned as a means of increasing membership in the organization. Ffoulke died before these goals could be met. Nonetheless, his legacy as the first great American tapestry collector and dealer is secured by the tapestries themselves, which have found their homes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, and a host of other American institutions.

Works Cited

Archives

Anderson Family Collection. Society of the Cincinnati, Washington, D.C. Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini. Florence. George and Phoebe Apperson Hearst papers, BANC MSS 72/204c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. Harrison S. Morris Papers, 1784–1970 (mostly 1895–1935). Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library. Pierpont Morgan Papers. The Pierpont Morgan Library Archives, New York. Stanford White correspondence and architectural drawings, 1887–1922, (bulk 1887– 1907): Stanford White Letterpress Books. Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York. Twombly/Burden Papers, Friends of Florham Archive, Fairleigh Dickinson University. “Andersen House – History.” www.societyofthecincinnati.org/anderson_house/history. Accessed 27 Sept. 2016. Archivio Storico delle Gallerie Fiorentine, Anno 1884, Galleria degli Arazzi. Florence. “Armida About to Kill the Sleeping Rinaldo; Provenance.” Flint Institute of Arts, http://192.96.217.76/art/collections/european/artists/vouet/armida_about_to_kill .html”. Accessed 13 April 2017. “Art.” The Nation, vol. 97, no. 2524, 13 Sept. 1913, p. 468. “Art Tips and Topics.” National Courier, vol. VII, no. 34, 25 Nov. 1916, p. 18. 77  Harrison S. Morris Papers, series 2: Correspondence 1879–1948, Subseries 2A: General 1885–1943. Letter from Charles M. Ffoulke to Harrison S. Morris, 22 October 1907. 78  Mechlin, 1922, 186.

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Ballou, Maturin Murray. The Story of Malta. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893. Barber, William J. “International Commerce in the Fine Arts and American Political Economy, 1789–1913.” History of Political Economy: Economic Engagements with Art, edited by Neil De Marchi and Craufurd D.W. Goodwin, Duke University Press, 1999, pp. 209–234. “Barberini Collection Sold.” New York Times (1857–1922), 13 Feb. 1908, p. 7.ProQuest Historical Newspapers (96828346). Accessed 5 Feb. 2016. Bishop, J. Leander. A History of American Manufacturers from 1608 to 1860, vol. III. 3rd ed., Edward Young & Co., 1868. Bowdoin, W.G. “Gobelin Tapestry and its Modern Decorative Use.” The Art Interchange, vol. XLVI, no. 3, March 1901, pp. 53–55. Bremer-David, Charissa. “French & Company and American Collections of Tapestries, 1907–1959.” Studies in the Decorative Arts, vol. 11, no. 1, Fall/Winter 2003–04, pp. 38–68. Candee, Helen Churchill. The Tapestry Book. Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1912. Cavallo, Adolph S. “The History of Coriolanus as represented in Tapestries.” Bulletin of the Brooklyn Museum, vol. XVI, no. 4, Summer 1955, pp. 5–22. “Charles M. Ffoulke.” The Successful American, vol. 7, no. 6, June 1903, pp. 382–383. “Current News of the Fine Arts.” New York Times (1857–1922), 25 Feb. 1894, p. 13, ProQuest Historical Newspapers (95247702). Accessed 5 Feb. 2016. Cushing, James S. The Genealogy of the Cushing Family, an Account of the Ancestors and Descendants of Matthew Cushing, Who Came to America in 1638. The Perrault Printing Co., 1905. DeVillo, Stephen Paul. The Bronx River in History & Folklore. The History Press, 2015. “Editorial.” Construction, vol. 7, no. 4, April 1914, 124. “Expert on Rugs and Tapestries.” Iowa City Press-Citizen, 12 Feb. 1912, 4. “FFOULKE, Charles Mather.” The National Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1918. Ffoulke, Charles Mather, et al. The Ffoulke Collection of Tapestries, Arranged by Charles M. Ffoulke. Priv. print, 1913. Ffoulke, Charles M. “Modern Tapestries.” Kate Field’s Washington, vol. 9, no. 8, 21 Feb. 1894, pp. 125–126. Ffoulke, Charles Mather. The Tapestry Collection of the Late Charles M. Ffoulke. P.W. French & Co., 1909. Field, Kate. “Art is Free!” Kate Field’s Washington, vol. 10, no. 10, 5 Sept. 1894, p. 145. Field, Kate. “Will the Press Please Copy?” Kate Field’s Washington, vol. 6, no. 13, 28 Sept. 1892, p. 195. Goldschmidt, Eva. “Pioneer Professional: Friedrich Adolf Ebert (1791–1834), Librarian to the King of Saxony.” The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, vol. 40, no. 2, April 1970, pp. 223–235. Hansen, Stephen A. A History of Dupont Circle: Center of High Society in the Capital. The History Press, 2014.

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Howland, L.M. “New York’s Great Building.” World’s Columbian Exposition Illustrated, March 1892 to March 1893, vol. II, 1893, 177. Kilvert, Emily M.C. “A Woman in Washington.” The International: An illustrated Monthly Magazine of Travel and Literature, July-Dec. 1898, pp. 422–427. Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620–1988 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA, www.ancestry.com. Accessed 13 Sept. 2016. McCabe, Lida Rose. “Miscellany.” Public Opinion, vol. 28, no. 23, 1900, p. 726. Mechlin, Leila. “Art Life in Washington.” Records of the Columbia History Society, Washington, D.C., vol. 24, 1922, pp. 164–191. The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, vol. 127–28. New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, 1996–97. “New York Items.” Cleveland Daily Leader, morning edition, 26 Jan. 1865, p. 1. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820–1957, New York, New York. Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820– 1897, roll 393, line, list no. 955, search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db= nypl&h=16312772. Accessed 21 Sept. 2016. New York, Wills and Probate Records, 1659–1999; Inventories, 1862–1865. Probate inventory of Horace Cushing, dated 9 Mar. 1865. Surrogate’s Court (New York County), New York, New York, search.ancestry.com//cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=USProba teNY&h=163411. Accessed 21 Sept. 2016. “News and Notes of the Art World.” New York Times (1857–1922), 31 Jan. 1909, p. X6, ProQuest Historical Newspapers (96921635). Accessed 5 Feb. 2016. “Notes: Mr. Charles M. Ffoulke on Tapestries.” Art and Progress, vol. 4, no. 12, Oct. 1913, pp. 1155–1156. Passport Applications, 1795–1905. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C., www.ancestry.com. Accessed 13 Sept. 2016. Pierpont Morgan Letterpress Books, vol. 3. Archives of The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Probate Docket Books, and Record Books (1793–1916). Probate records for Abel Cushing, vol. 114–15, 21 Sept. 1864. Probate Court (Norfolk County), Norfolk, Massachusetts, search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=USProbateMA&h=425102. Accessed 21 Sept. 2016. Providence (R.I.) Probate Files (1646–1894) and Indexes (1646–1899). Probate records of Thomas Fletcher, case number A9353. Court of Probate, Providence, Rhode Island, search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=try&db=USProbateRI&h=1201727. Accessed 21 Sept. 2016. “The Riviera Earthquake.” New York Times (1857–1922), 25 Feb. 1887, p.1, ProQuest Historical Newspapers (94478577). Accessed 5 Feb. 2016. Rorimer, James J. “The Museum’s Collection of Mediaeval Tapestries.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 6, no. 3, 1947, pp. 91–98.

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Siple, Ella S. “Some Recently Identified Tapestries in the Gardner Museum in Boston.” Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 57, no. 332, Nov. 1930, pp. 236–237; 240–242. “Social Matters.” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 28 March 1889, p. 2, www.newspapers .com/image/145335105/. Accessed 27 Sept. 2016. “Social Matters.” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 17 Feb. 1890, p. 2, www.newspapers .com/image/145492227. Accessed 27 Sept. 2016. Stockbridge, Mrs. Henry. “Tapestry.” World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Ill., 1893: Report on the Committee on Awards of the World’s Columbian Commission, vol. II, Government Printing Office, 1901. “Tapestry Art Treasures.” New York Times (1857–1922), 2 Dec. 1894, p. 19, ProQuest Historical Newspapers (95186777). Accessed 5 Feb. 2016. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795–1925, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington D.C., www.ancestry.com.

CHAPTER 7

The Art Dealer and the Devil: Remarks on the Relationship of Elia Volpi and Wilhelm von Bode Patrizia Cappellini

Elia Volpi on the International European Collecting Scene: New Research Starting from Textual and Photographic Documents

In 1904 the art dealer Elia Volpi (1858–1938) purchased the fourteenth-century Palazzo Davanzati in the heart of Florence, an area that was undergoing an ambitious redevelopment plan; after a complex restoration, the palace was reopened in magnificent style in 1910. Volpi is usually linked to Stefano Bardini, for whom he had worked as a restorer.1 In 1881 Bardini had bought the ancient convent complex of San Gregorio della Pace, and transformed it into an exhibition space where he received scholars and customers (now the Museo Stefano Bardini).2 Like Bardini, Volpi thought up a strategy to promote the image of the palace and to create a new “brand” of display that would appeal to European museum directors and, most of all, American tycoons and “proud possessors”.3 Less inclined than Bardini to photographic experimentation, Volpi commissioned, among other initiatives, photographic campaigns by Alinari and Brogi revealing the evocative interiors of Palazzo Davanzati, which were to become the prime backdrop for furniture, tapestries and works of art.4 He created a taste I would like to express my gratitude to Petra Winter, Head of the Zentralarchiv Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz, to Costanza Caraffa, Head of the Photo Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz-Max-Planck-Institut and to Francesca Moschi, Simona Pasquinucci and Angela Rensi of the Archivio Storico delle Gallerie Fiorentine. This research would not have been possible without support from the International Scholarship Programme at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz. 1  On Volpi as a restorer, see: Torresi, 1996, pp. 205–206. 2  Di Marco-Nardinocchi-Nesi, 2009, p. 5. 3  Saarinen, 1958. 4  All studies published to date on the antique dealer Stefano Bardini report images taken from photographs of both the evocative and unmistakable compositions of objects such as bronzes, faiences, furniture etc. and the interiors of the Bardini Gallery. Cristina Poggi attributes these photographs to Bardini and quotes Demetrio Tolosani, editor of the review “L’Antiquario”, who remembered Bardini a few days after his death and defined him as a “photographer”.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004342989_008

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for the style of the ancient Florentine house that was exported to the United States with the successful auction of 1916, held in New York at the American Art Galleries, followed by that of 1917 and by the less profitable one of 1927. In 1993, Roberta Ferrazza published Palazzo Davanzati e le collezioni di Elia Volpi, shedding light on the variety of business relationships that Elia Volpi maintained with American collectors such as John P. Morgan, Henry C. Frick, Joseph Widener and others. In particular, she focused on the auction of 1916, taking the opportunity to explicate aspects of the “Davanzati style.”5 Over the past five years I have had the opportunity to start new research on Elia Volpi, based on the amazing collection of as yet unpublished photographs and written documents. Elia Volpi’s photographic archive, retained by the family of Mario Vannini Parenti, Volpi’s son-in-law, was bequeathed to the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz in 1983; it is now preserved partly in the Photo Library of this Institute and partly in the Library of the Museo di Palazzo Davanzati.6 It is this photographic archive as a whole, that forms the basis of my research. Part of the framework includes what Elizabeth Edwards has called “the hermeneutics of materiality”:7 annotations and inscriptions on the photographs themselves or on the card mounts, as well as what can be gleaned from labels, formats and sizes, photographic techniques and authorial aspects. These details provide the possibility of writing up different narrative Although this hypothesis cannot be excluded, to date there has been no systematic study on the photographs of Stefano Bardini. Such research would have to start from the study and comparative analysis of the photographic collection kept in the Archivio Storico del Comune di Firenze and in the Ex-Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino. The use of photography and photographs produced for Elia Volpi is seemingly less creative and more directed towards selling works of art and promoting Palazzo Davanzati: in around 1910 Volpi commissioned Alinari to produce a campaign of 55 photographs depicting the interiors of the palace, and between 1910 and c. 1920 ordered Brogi to produce two campaigns on the palace, with photographs including works of art to be reproduced in his auction catalogues. Even the new owners of the building, the brothers Leopoldo and Vitale Benguiat, afterwards (c. 1924–26) ordered Brogi to produce a photographic campaign showing the interiors. On Bardini as a photographer, see: Poggi, 1993, p. XIII. 5  Ferrazza, [1993], 1994. For other texts by Ferrazza, see: Bibliography. 6  Research on the inventory books kept in the Photographic Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz revealed that originally Volpi’s photographic archive might have included around 4,660 photographs. From 1984 to 1989, 1,970 photographs were selected, mounted on card and given an inventory number. At the same time, about 1,450 photographs were put into boxes as discarded material without being inventoried. Moreover, in 1986, the Photographic Library decided to give some 1,240 photographs, depicting objects that Volpi sold at his different auctions, to the Museo di Palazzo Davanzati. 7  Edwards, 2009, p. 130.

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segments about Elia Volpi’s life, his business and his way of seeing and thinking. In addition to the photographs, there are written documents consisting of 238 papers, mostly letters, that Volpi wrote to Wilhelm von Bode between 1892 and 1927, which are preserved in the Zentralarchiv Library at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. A combined analysis of such important materials provided the opportunity to set out a new research perspective. Methodologically, it is a synergistic study based on visual and textual documents. I have identified essentially two broad themes. One concerns Elia Volpi as the creator of the ancient Florentine house style, from 1910 to 1920, and his relationship to the US antiques trade. The other looks at his role as an antiques dealer who since 1892 had been in touch with Wilhelm von Bode and from shortly thereafter with a network of museums and collectors who gravitated around the powerful “Bismarck of museums.” The aim of this paper is to identify and outline some of the main topics that stood out from a preliminary study8 of the collaboration between these two fundamental personalities of the European collecting scene in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among them: 1) the role of Elia Volpi as a supplier of art objects for Bode and for the rising Kaiser Friedrich Museum (KFM) in Berlin, explored through a case study related to the 1897 purchase of a wooden picture belonging to the Mansi family in Lucca; 2) the pivotal role of Wilhelm von Bode both in the antiques trade for the German and Mitteleuropa area and as a privileged contact for Volpi in his efforts to open new business relationships in Europe and the United States; 3) the ever-looming and insidious problem of forgeries, particularly in relation to the matter of the Dossena forgeries, observed through another case study related to some sculptures that Volpi proposed to Bode and to the ensuing exchange of opinions between them.

Elia Volpi and Wilhelm von Bode: Features and Instances of a Collaboration and the Creation of a Network

The letters that Elia Volpi wrote to Wilhelm von Bode are rich in data regarding the works sold or otherwise discussed, their provenances, former owners and buyers. Moreover, many passages and idioms in the correspondence reveal much about the relationship that developed between the dealer and the scholar. In a particularly vivid opening to a letter dated 28 April 1893, Volpi 8  It is the starting point of my PhD research project Collecting and Art Trading between Italy and Germany from 1890 to 1930: the Relationships between Wilhelm von Bode and the Florentine dealers Elia Volpi, Luigi Grassi and Emilio Costantini, at the Università degli Studi di Udine.

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used an Italian dictum that effectively compared Bode to the devil because of the importance of his role; Bode was in touch with the people who mattered and he was able to procure bargains and new customers for Volpi. Volpi wrote: In Italy there is a proverb that says “I miss the devil on my side”, in this case, forgive the expression, could your Lordship be such for me, helping me to sell the object you have seen.9 This snippet fits well with what Charles Fairfax Murray wrote to the collector George Fisher about the purchase of a Crucifixion by Giovanni Bellini. Indeed, Murray defines Volpi as a “crony”10 of Bode, a meaningful term that might suggest that Volpi was not simply a mere supplier of items to Bode. What, then, were the roles and positions of the two counterparts? Referring to the correspondence between Wilhelm von Bode and Stefano Bardini in the Zentralarchiv Library, Detlef Heikamp highlights, without indicating the precise source, the fact that Bode used to demand that Bardini pay him a commission of 12 per cent for each work that the latter managed to sell through the former’s mediation.11 It would be interesting to draw a comparison between the different ways in which Volpi and Bardini conducted negotiations with important customers such as Bode. This comparison should also consider the tone of the letters that Bardini wrote to Bode, which, as Heikamp notes, were “formal and detatched”.12 They were not merely informal agreements and provide scholars with a background for understanding business agreements, promotion strategies and relationships, which require greater contextualization. Even the often cited break-up13 between Bardini and Volpi, documented in a letter that Volpi wrote 9  “In Italia c’è un proverbio che dice ‘mi manca il diavolo che mi porti’; in questo caso, mi perdoni l’espressione, potrebbe la S. V. esserlo per me, cioè di favorirmi con le Sue aderenze a farmi esitare con reputazione gli oggetti da Lei veduti”. Volpi to Bode, 28 April 1893, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Zentralarchiv, IV/ Nachlass Bode 5672, (henceforth: SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672). 10  I would like to thank Professor Paul Tucker at the University of Florence for informing me of this letter on the website: http://www.richardfordmanuscripts.co.uk/catalogue, accessed 20 September 2016. 11  “Non è da meravigliarsi che Bode alla fine degli anni Ottanta venga accusato per l’‘ampio e fiorente mercato d’arte’ che si svolge nei musei di Berlino. Prendeva infatti, come sappiamo dalla corrispondenza con Bardini, il 12 % su ogni opera per cui gli procurava il cliente; se ne giustificava in un memoriale al Ministro illustrando i vantaggi che derivavano dalla sua attività per i collezionisti privati”. Heikamp, 1996, p. 66. 12   Ibid. 13  Ferrazza, 1994, pp. 85–86.

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to Bode on 6 June 1893, needs to be rethought because it was neither definitive nor lasting – on 16 September, in a letter14 to Bardini, Volpi apologized for his absence from work because of a stomach ache. As for the fees charged, we know, from a letter dated 18 November 1898,15 that at that point Volpi charged a 10 per cent commission, and the fact that he might have varied the rate from buyer to buyer cannot be excluded. The same 10 per cent was demanded from Bardini by Godefroy Brauer16 in 1891, and it could be assumed that this rate was almost a standard percentage applied at that time by thriving antique dealers. In contrast, half that figure, i.e. 5 per cent, was the rate that Bernard Berenson, acting as Gardner’s agent, demanded from her in 1894 on every purchase made on her behalf. The letters that Volpi sent to Bode do not contain even the slightest hint of any commission being requested by Bode, although there are many references to various incentives that Volpi gave Bode such as price reductions, objects for the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums – sometimes even for personal use – and money for trips, as well as various gastronomic gifts such as bottles of Tuscan wine and baskets of mushrooms. Volpi communicated with his important counterpart in a very interesting tone, which is sometimes even quite undiplomatic and irritated. Bode was not only a prestigious customer for Volpi, but also the director of the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin from 1890 and founder of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums Verein in 1897. Moreover, he was an important pivotal player in the German and European antiques market and art-collecting scene. He had links to rich businessmen, aristocrats and museum directors, first throughout Europe and then in the United States, where in 1908 he recommended his most important pupil, Wilhelm R. Valentiner, to John P. Morgan to be appointed to the post of curator of the Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.17 14   Volpi to Bardini, 16 September 1893. Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini (ASEB), Corrispondenza 1892–1894. 15  Volpi to Bode, 18 November 1898, SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672. 16  Catterson, 2017. 17  Names that appear in the letters that Volpi wrote to Bode include those of Eduard and James Simon, Adolf von Beckerath, Gustav Benda, Oscar Huldschinsky, Julius Lessing, Johan II von und zu Liechtenstein, Robert von Mendelssohn, Walter von Pannwitz, Rodolphe Kann, Arthur J. Sulley, Alfred Beit. On 20 April 1911, the newspaper “La Nazione” reported that Volpi, J.P. Morgan, Bode’s sister and Earl Camillo Alberti had lunch together in the hall on the first floor of Palazzo Davanzati. See: Ferrazza, 2010, p. 262, n. 17. It should be noted that in some of the letters written to Bode, Volpi mocked Morgan using a nickname referring to his prominent nose. Even this aspect reveals a lot about the relationship and intimacy between Volpi and Bode.

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Two more observations that merit in-depth study follow. The first concerns dating, while the second concerns the precise nature of the various working relationships that existed among the dealers. The opening letter of the correspondence between Volpi and Bode is dated March 1892; the tone in which it was written is still quite formal and Volpi refers to a pact that they made to act in secrecy,18 so it is clear that their business relationship had already started. If Bode had visited Italy almost annually since 1871,19 it is possible that he had met Elia Volpi while the latter was working as a restorer for Bardini (from 1885). Perhaps it was there, in Bardini’s restoration workshop, that the first conversations between Volpi and Bode about works of art took place and the first agreements were formed. It cannot be excluded, therefore, that the break with Bardini20 might not have occured at all, or that what might have been a spirited argument between Volpi and Bardini was caused perhaps by Volpi’s initiative in dealing with Bardini’s most important customer. As regards dating, the files of the Ufficio Esportazione (Exportation Office) of the Soprintendenza Belle Arti e Paesaggio di Firenze must be considered. The first export licence requested and signed by Volpi – for works to be sent to Edouard André – dates back to 7 November 1893, while the first for works to be sent to Bode is from 19 September 1895. This information fits well with material in the letters, but it should also be compared with other details as many antiquarians used the shipper’s or packer’s name on export licence rather than their own. Documents attest that Volpi used to order the transportation and delivery of art-works to the packers Giovanni Scampoli and Vincenzo Scampoli e Figlio; in 1890 there were twenty Scampoli-Bode licences and twelve Scampoli-Lessing ones; in 1891 there were four Scampoli-Bode examples and in 1892 there were seven. The second observation concerns the possible working arrangements among antiquarians. The letters contain references to small temporary companies that Volpi21 formed with others antique dealers. Was this common practice in the art trade? To answer this would require a cross-analysis of the available data from archival documents and correspondence between Bode and other significant Florentine antique dealers such as Emilio Costantini,

18  Volpi to Bode, 12 March 1892, SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672. 19  Götze-Künzel, 1995, p. 14. 20   Supra. 21  On this topic, we are also informed about an agreement between Volpi and Giuseppe Sangiorgi to sell the Praeneste antiquities from the Barberini Collection in Rome. See: Baglione, 2007, pp. 17–36.

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Luigi Grassi and even those who used to gravitate to the Florentine art market circle, for instance Achille Glisenti and Carlo Balboni.

The So-called Mansi Magdalene: Some Remarks on Archival Documents, Taste and Protection Policies

Initial and partial data emerging from the letters Volpi sent to Bode show that the two counterparts traded almost 100 art objects, including both those obtained by Bode on behalf of the KFM (purchased or received as donations) and those acquired by collectors and museum directors with whom Bode was in contact.22 According Ferrazza, the first deal concluded by Elia Volpi was bound for America. It was: a relief of a woman in profile attributed to Mino da Fiesole sold in 1899 to Isabella Stewart Gardner through the mediation of Bernard Berenson.23 This timeline can now be extended earlier, to 1893 at least, when Elia Volpi sold to Nélie Jacquemart a St Catherine of Siena,24 an arched panel painting, the one described as a “nun by Lippi the elder” when it was previously offered to Bode.25 Four years later Volpi managed to sell to the Kaiser-Friedrich-MuseumVerein, through Bode, a beautiful little panel painting from the collection of Marquis Giovan Battista Mansi, who had died in Lucca in 1892.26 As a result of both its quality and its noble provenance the purchase of the so-called 22  I plan to carry out a more analytical survey in order to quantify more precisely which works were concerned, indicating their collecting history – even though some batches of objects, most of all bronzes and ceramics, appear difficult to quantify as they are described as “crates full of …” or “groups of …” 23  Ferrazza, 1994, p. 90, n. 51, p. 136. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Accession Number S27w77. 24  See: Sainte Fare Garnot, 2013, p. 80, catalogue entry No. 7. Sainte Fare Garnot writes that the purchase was made in 1894, whereas the export licence I found in the Archivio Ufficio Esportazione of the Soprintendenza Belle Arti e Paesaggio Firenze (henceforth AUE SBEAP FI) is dated 7 November 1893. AUE SBEAP FI, 1893, Ordine 33, Registro 32, 7 November 1893, “un quadro su tavola con cornice dorata rappresentante una monaca”. The dimensions indicated on the licence, 1.60 m × 1, are those of the case, whereas the picture measures 1.32 m × 0.50 as reported in the catalogue entry where the painting carries an attribution to Fra Diamante. 25  Volpi to Bode, 28 April 1893, SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672. 26  He died on 1 December 1892, as reported in a notarial document in the Archivio Storico delle Gallerie Fiorentine (henceforth ASGF), 1896, Galleria degli Uffizi, Posizione 2, Inserto 6, not in 1884 as reported in the genealogical tree published in Archivio di Stato Lucca, Pl. V.

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Mansi Magdalene, now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, must have been considered a very important acquisition for the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum-Verein. The picture was formerly thought to be by Lucas van Leyden, then by Quentin Massys but it is now attributed to the Master of the Mansi Magdalene (active 1515–1525).27 The young saint is represented according to the iconographic tradition of the “Mirrofora” type (myrrh bearer),28 as she holds a vase containing the precious ointments with which she annointed Christ’s body. This is a genre that was particularly popular between 1450 and 1530, most of all as a holy-profane portrait.29 The Mansi Magdalene, lacking individual facial characteristics, is a modern sixteenth-century icon, most evident in its frontality, which recalls Byzantine prototypes. The acquisition of this work contributed to Bode being given a mandate to increase the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum-Verein’s holdings of Flemish paintings. The Gemäldegalerie catalogues report that the painting came from the collection of the Marquis Giovan Battista Mansi in Lucca and was bought in 1897, without mentioning any mediator or dealer involved in the transaction;30 this information was repeated in an article about the artist written by Max Friedländer, the art historian and collaborator of Bode.31 Although the Mansi name is often linked tout court with the palace in Lucca, today the seat of the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi,32 it should be noted that the ancient Mansi family had three branches33 and its history is still to be analysed, just as specific research on the sale and dispersion of its assets and collections is still to be accomplished.

27  For this work and the Master of the Mansi Magdalene, see: Friedländer, 1915, p. 6. 28  See: Mosco, 1986, pp. 69–73. 29  “Un’immagine di donna che nonostante l’aureola del sacro, assomma tutti i caratteri della seduzione, tanto da suggerire più l’archetipo della maga che non della Santa”. Ivi, p 69. 30  Bock, 1996, p. 252, Fig. 762, File No. 574 D. 31  “Aus dem Besitze des Marchese Giov. Batt. Mansi – nicht aus der bekannten Sammlung Mansi – in Lucca erwarb der Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum-Verein in 1897 die hl. Magdalena”. M.J. Friedländer, 1915, p. 6. 32  As in Bode, 1997, Vol. II, ad vocem Mansi, p. 70. 33  Giovan Battista Mansi belonged to the branch called Mansi di S. Maria Bianca or di Forisportam. This branch sprang from the union of Ascanio Mansi with Maddalena Lamberti at the end of the sixteenth century. The ancestress’s name might have inspired the acquisition of the picture now in Berlin. Another picture with a Magdalene, attributed in the 1881 Alinari photographic catalogue to Bernardino Luini and afterwards to the School of Leonardo, belongs to the same collection. For the genealogical tree of the different branches of the Mansi family, see: D’Addario-Tori-Romiti, Vol. VII, 1980, Plates I and V.

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The sale of the fascinating Magdalene prompts further study, raising questions about the relationship between Mansi’s heirs and a shrewd dealer who had probably visited Lucca for the Esposizione di Arte e Industria Antica, held in September 1893, in order to gather art objects to show to important customers such as Bode.34 The painting almost certainly enjoyed photographic fame. In fact, from 1881 the Alinari catalogues reserved a paragraph for the “Galleria del Nobile Signore Marchese Giovan Battista Mansi (Piazza Santa Maria Forisportam)” with a list of eight paintings, including the Magdalene, attributed to Lucas van Leyden.35 The Alinari catalogue published in 1908 still included the painting in the Mansi collection, despite the fact that it had been on display to a different kind of visitor for at least four years in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum. To date, the only known point of contact between Volpi and the painting was the discovery of an Alinari albumen print in Volpi’s photo archive in the Photographic Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz (Figs. 7.1–7.2), a circumstantial item turned into substantive evidence through the combination of images and written documents. The caption of Alinari photograph n. 8430, states “Galleria del M.e Mansi a S. Maria Forisportam. La Maddalena. (Luca d’Olanda)”;36 some pencil annotations on the verso indicate the measurements of the painting, “misura centimetri 80 × 58”, and the price “L. 35,000”, the total amount37 that Volpi needed to buy this painting and an34  It is not possible to date the entry of the Magdalene into the Mansi collection; according to the catalogue, it was in the “Sala prima”. See: Raccolta di quadri del fu Marchese Gio. Battista Mansi fu Ascanio di Lucca, 1894, p. 5, Inventory number 1636. The report on his travels in Tuscany written by Georg Christoph Martini, called “Pittor Sassone”, does not seem particulary useful either. Georg Christoph Martini, a German painter from Langelsalza, Saxony, died in Lucca in 1745, where he lived the last eighteen years of his life. Little information about his life exists. His report on Palazzo Sirti, by then acquired by the Mansi family, in Santa Maria Bianca or Forisportam, Lucca, contains few indications about the Mansi collections: “notevoli dipinti di Michelangiolo [sic] da Caravaggio e preziosi tappeti del Brabante e teli da parata che, per la festa del Corpus Domini, vengono esposti alle finestre”. Martini, 1969, p. 127. 35  This paragraph is separate from that concerning the “Galleria del fu nobile Signor Marchese Girolamo Mansi (Via San Pellegrino)” which lists fifty-two paintings. 36  Although it had been sold on in 1897, the painting is listed under the paragraph “Galleria del marchese Giovanni Battista Mansi (Piazza Santa Maria Forisportam)” in the Alinari catalogue Toscana: vedute, bassorilievi, statue, quadri, affreschi, 1898, p. 53. It is listed with the same negative number as in the catalogue published in 1908 La Toscana, 1908, p. 23. With Nos. 11242 and 12482, for Small and Extra sizes, it is listed in the 1881 catalogue, Seconda Appendice al Catalogo Generale, 1881, p. 185. 37  Volpi to Bode, 23 March 1897, SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672.

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Figures 7.1–7.2 Alinari, n. 8430. Lucca. Galleria del M.e Mansi a Santa Maria Forisportam. La Maddalena. (Luca d’Olanda.), recto and verso, ca 1898, albumen print, 300 × 250 mm. Firenze, Photo Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz-Max-Planck-Institut, Vannini Parenti bequest, uninventoried.

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other one. The Magdalene was offered for sale to Rodolphe Kann for 40,000 Italian Lire,38 and sold to Bode for 20,000. No documentary references found to date reveal Volpi’s role in the sale of this painting. Regarding its export out of Italy, Volpi informed Bode that the Mansi heirs had sold a Madonna with Child and S. John by Giuliano Bugiardini to the Uffizi,39 obtaining, in exchange, permission from the Ministry of Education to sell other works of art from the Mansi collection. Because of this deal, the Magdalene was sold abroad without having to be presented at the Ufficio Esportazione in Florence. No documents were found in its archive, which lends support to this idea. Moreover, files recently found in the Archivio Storico delle Gallerie Fiorentine reveal a common practice at this time: noble families would sell or bequeath to the government a significant work of art in exchange for permission to sell the rest of the collection abroad. The heirs of Marquis Giovan Battista Mansi did just that: they sold the Bugiardini to the Gallerie Fiorentine and in return were given the chance to export the other paintings, even the Mansi Magdalene. All aspects of this affair should be analysed and expanded upon, but some remarks can be preliminarily offered. Three years after the death of Marquis Mansi and according to an official communication from Carlo Fiorilli at the Ministry of Education, to Enrico Ridolfi, at that time Curator of the Uffizi, the Mansi collection was meant to be sold in a unique lot sale, on 25 September 1895 for 105,000 Italian Lire.40 Ridolfi, in answer to Fiorilli, referred to a letter that he had written in February 1893 about an inspection that he and Adolfo Venturi had undertaken in the Mansi mansion. Ridolfi stated that many paintings in the Mansi collection were really fine but in poor condition and that, therefore, they would not be so attractive purchases for the Florentine museums. Moreover he went on to reveal that the most significant work was undoubtly a small wooden picture featuring a Magdalene, attributed to Lucas van Leyden, but probably by Quentin Massys. At the end of the letter he mentioned the Bugiardini. Ridolfi also specified that not one of these works of art could be said to be of interest to the Gallerie or met the requirement, according to the official formula, “il decoro e l’interesse del patrimonio artistico nazionale”.41 In November 1895 Fiorilli wrote to Ridolfi about the opportunity to acquire the Bugiardini, estimated to be worth 2,800 Italian Lire, which was intended to add to the collection of the Uffizi. In April 1896 the painting had already been 38  Volpi to Bode, 3 March 1897, SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672. 39   Ibid. The painting by Bugiardini, dated 1520, is today kept in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence (Inv. 1890 n. 3121). 40  Fiorilli to Ridolfi, 13 September 1895. ASGF, 1895, Direzione, Posizione 1, Inserto 31. 41  Ridolfi to Fiorilli, 16 September 1895. ASGF 1895, Direzione, Posizione 1, Inserto 31.

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consigned to the institution, but at 3,250 Italian Lire, rather than the earlier estimate of 2,800 Italian Lire. If the Mansi heirs had decided to sell only the Bugiardini to the Uffizi in return for permission to sell the rest of the collection as a whole (for L. 105,000) in order to preserve its uniqueness,42 they soon understood that it would be very profitable for them to sell some works separately. We cannot exclude that this was on the advice of a skillful art dealer. Was the Uffizi’s choice dictated by matters of taste (preferring a Florentine painting to a Flemish one – and with the consideration that Bode might have been strongly motivated to acquire this beautiful painting), difficulties in the negotiations with Mansi’s heirs or by stronger clandestine agreements made with an emerging art dealer?

On Some “Sienese Sculptures” by Alceo Dossena

The pitfalls that might lie behind the recognition and purchase of works of art claimed by art dealers to be old have always interested art historians, collectors and connoisseurs. There are countless examples of scandal and deception,43 but in the context of this essay, one need only mention Volpi and his association with the Dossena forgeries.44 The integrated study of archival documents and photographs has shed light on some aspects of this affair, for which Volpi also turned to the authority and judgement of Bode. In the Volpi photographic archive at the Photographic Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz there are 74 photographs45 depicting sculptures that we now know were made by Alceo Dossena, such as the Madonna and Child in the manner of Vecchietta,46 the group with the Annunciation (Figs. 7.3–7.4) sold to Helen Clay Frick, today still in the Fine Arts Building at the University of Pittsburgh,47 42  As we can read in the letter that Ridolfi wrote to Fiorilli, 21 February 1896. ASGF 1896, Galleria degli Uffizi, Posizione 2, Inserto 6. 43  Regarding Bode, for example, it is customary to remember the “Flora Scandal”. In 1909 Bode purchased a wax bust representing a Flora attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. On this and the Wilhelm von Bode “system”, see: Wolff-Thomsen, 2006. 44  Ferrazza, 1994, pp. 223–243. 45  These photographs were the subject of a case study by Patrizia Cappellini in the postgraduate dissertation Sulle tracce del fondo fotografico di Elia Volpi nella donazione Vannini Parenti alla Fototeca del Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz. See Cappellini, 2012, pp. 70–79. Handwritten text. See also: Cappellini, 2014, pp. 43–63. 46  This sculpture was recently shown in the exhibition in Arte della Contraffazione/ Contraffazione dell’arte, Anghiari, Palazzo Taglieschi, 13 July 2012–9 June 2013. 47  Sox, 1987, pp. 52–53.

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Figure 7.3 Unidentified photographer, Alceo Dossena, The Annoucing Angel Gabriel in the manner of Simone Martini, detail, ca 1922, carbon print, 252 × 195 mm, mounting 340 × 240 mm. Firenze, Photo Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in FlorenzMax-Planck-Institut,Vannini Parenti bequest, Inv. n. 430767.

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Figure 7.4 Unidentified photographer, Alceo Dossena, The Announced Virgin in the manner of Simone Martini, ca 1922, carbon print, 250 × 180 mm. Firenze, Photo Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz-Max-Planck-Institut, Vannini Parenti bequest, uninventoried.

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and the Savelli Tomb kept in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA).48 The variety of shots, framings and photographic techniques – carbon prints, gelatin silver prints even ones with different tonalities – and the presence of retouches performed on the negative plate raise interest in investigating the reasons for their production and the judgements and expectations of whoever commissioned them. No doubt they respond to the need to make these works look as good as they could, to make them appealing and easy to sell. More subtly, though, they convey the taste, appreciation and value judgements of the person who commissioned them, which in the world of antiques dealers conveyed statements of authenticity and artistic importance. If these photographs were used to determine a verdict on the innocence or complicity of Elia Volpi in the Dossena affair, who was accused of being an accomplice to the scam carried out by Alfredo Fasoli and Alfredo Pallesi, in my opinion the photographs would tend to discharge Volpi. However, to counterbalance this hypothesis of Volpi’s innocence and truthfulness, there is the rather suspicious fact that Volpi sold a presumed wax model of Michelangelo’s David either in exchange for two works by Dossena or as a donation in compensation to the MFA in Boston.49 It has not been possible to read the letters, which are probably lost forever, that Bode wrote to Volpi in the exchange for opinions on the “Sienese sculptures.” We can, however, examine significant information from those that Volpi did write to Bode. In letters written from 1921 Volpi spoke in an enthusiastic tone about 48  http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/renaissance-style-tomb-of-maria-catherinesabello-241390.Accessed 20 September 2016. 49  In a paper presented in 2006 at the Renaissance Society of America, Marietta Cambareri, Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture, and Jetskalina H. Phillips, Curator of Judaica art of Europe at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, spoke about the offer of a sketch bozzetto for a wax David attributed to Michelangelo, made in 1929 by Elia Volpi to the MFA, a sculpture that had already been presented at the 1927 New York auction. Cambareri states that the sculpture was offered to the MFA “in exchange for the tomb and another Dossena fake, a wooden Madonna and Child that the Museum thought was by Vecchietta”, an exchange that was “a sign that Volpi acknowledged having defrauded the Museum, not just once but twice”. This significant information provides new angles and questions on the Dossena forgeries affair: – does the wax sculpture offered by Volpi have to be considered as an admission of his guilt or an attempt to indemnify the museum, and to clean his image of disrepute in the final phase of his commercial activity? – if it was an “exchange”, why did both the tomb and the wooden sculpture in the manner of Vecchietta remain in Boston together with the sketch bozzetto for a wax “David”? See: Cambareri, 2006. Unedited. I would wholeheartly like to thank Marietta Cambareri for having sent me the paper and for having shared her important study with me.

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sculptures such as a “Sienese wooden Madonna of the Mille 300”50 attributed to Simone Martini and for which he had already received a good offer,51 and a group of two sculptures portraying the Annunciation. Volpi required a super partes authority, like Bode, to provide advice and expertise, for both the Savelli Tomb52 attributed to Mino da Fiesole and the so-called Frick Annunciation attributed to Simone Martini. It could be assumed that the photographs preserved today in the Photographic Library of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz might also include those that Bode studied to form his opinion. These would then have been returned to Volpi according to a widespread practice in the art trade. Unfortunately, no copies of these photographs or others featuring the same objects have been found in the photographic collection of the Bode bequest kept in the Zentralarchiv Library. Volpi relied on the quality of the prints and the framing, since this gave additional value to the works depicted, as noted before, and he knew Bode would have used them as a starting point to write about the sculptures. Before the Dossena forgeries scandal erupted in the newspapers in the United States and in Italy, different rumours and gossip circulated in the art trade and among the dealers. Nevertheless, Volpi strenuously continued to defend the authenticity of the “Sienese” sculptures, while also being persuaded of a plot against him by the antiquarian Joseph Duveen, as he wrote to Bode while waiting for the latter’s expert opinion: Now that Duveen can no longer attack the poor Demot [Demotte], he lashes out violently against me, even knowing that the works are unquestionably Antique [underlined five times]!!!! Even the more modest art amateur would realize that these are beautiful works impossible to fake.53

50  Volpi to Bode, 24 November 1921, SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672. 51  Most probably the one kept in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, already attributed to Vecchietta, MFA Accession Number 27.212, www.mfa.org/collections/object/madonnaand-child-59623 (accessed 20 September 2016). 52  “Eccellenza, Le spedisco raccomandate un gruppo di fotografie che Le serviranno allo scopo di quanto Le scrissi nell’ultima lettera. I giudizii per iscritto che desidero avere separati dall’E.V. riguardano gli oggetti seguenti: Annunciazione del Martini, Tomba di Mino, cera di Michelangelo [original text underlined]”. Volpi to Bode, 6 December 1924, SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672. 53  “Ora che il Duveen non può più attaccare il povero Demot [sic!], si scaglia violentemente contro di me conoscendo poi che quella merce è indiscutibilmente Antica. Il più modesto amatore d’arte si accorgerebbe vedendoli di trovarsi di fronte a belle cose impossibili a contraffarsi”. Volpi to Bode, 10 December 1924, SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672.

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Volpi was frightened that all the insinuations and rumours about the inauthenticity of his sculptures could bring further disrepute upon him and damage the successful outcome of the auction he was going to organize in New York in 1927. For this purpose he decided to invite Wilhelm von Bode to Italy as he wished to organize a meeting with three other scholars and experts: With Gentner, De Nicola and Loeser we decided to wait for you to come to Italy to have a meeting and agree on declaring the authenticity of the objects I sold and also of those I am still in possession of; a strictly private declaration which I will only use in cases of absolute necessity.54 What can be known about the judgment presumably issued by Bode is highly significant, as acknowledged in a letter that Volpi wrote to him in January 1925; the scholar’s response was in favour of the sculptures being authentic. This information is telling and adds new elements to the figure of Bode as a connoisseur, as well as to the consequences of the practice of examining works of art through photographs alone. Due to a particular need, in fact, Volpi required the scholar to provide another “simplified” version of Bode’s opinion for Helen Frick. This is known from the first draft written by Bode, contained in a transcription by Volpi: I thank you sincerely for the authoritative opinion written for me on the Donatello emblem and the wooden statue by Vecchietta, as well as the two marble bas-reliefs by the same artist. Thank you also for the opinion of the two marble statues of the Annunciation. Moreover, the letter – opinion – on this subject is perhaps too scientific for the lady who will examine it and therefore I have taken the liberty to transcribe that letter eliminating those parts that I do not think appropriate. ‘Berlin…… Mr. Professor, I am very grateful for the excellent photographs of the Annunziata signed SM 1316 especially because unfortunately I was unable to see the statues when they were with you. They are truly extraordinary, not only due to size and quality of the marble, but especially for the grandeur of the invention and the fineness of execution. 54  “Coi signori dottori Gentner, De Nicola e Loeser abbiamo deciso di attendere la Sua venuta in Italia per fare una adunanza e per trovarsi concordi nel dichiarare l’autenticità degli oggetti da me venduti ed anche di quelli che attualmente tengo presso di me; dichiarazione strettamente privata e della quale io me ne servirò solamente nei casi di necessità assoluta”. Volpi to Bode, 3 June 1926, SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672.

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The statues are undoubtedly Sienese, but are far superior to all the statues of the fourteenth century in Siena. They are worthy of Simone Martini and really resemble his Annunciation in the Uffizi. Although we have no information that Simone also worked as a sculptor, nevertheless the anatomy, the folds and the expression is all the art of Simone. With deference’ Please excuse me if I disturb you by rewriting the letter that I have transcribed above which contains your full opinion in the letter dated 9 January last and which, limited to what I have transcribed above, is sufficient for the purpose.55 Even in the last letters, Volpi remained consistent in his beliefs about the authenticity of the sculptures and the machinations against him, even threatening retaliation. Once in New York, where he had gone to organize his last auction, he decided to visit Helen Frick’s home to admire the Annunciation, praising the beauty of the sculpture he had sold to her. There are no letters written by Volpi to Bode after April 1927, perhaps significantly. Perhaps these last letters contain the final word on the “Dossena deception”, or perhaps other stories will come to light. The relationship between Volpi and Bode remains yet to be analysed, most of all with respect to the dynamics of taste and choices, historiography and business aspects through55  “[…] La ringrazio sentitamente del di Lei autorevole parere scrittomi relativamente allo stemma Donatello, che per la statua in legno del Vecchietta, come per i due bassirilievi in marmo del medesimo artista. La ringrazio altresì per il parere delle due statue in marmo l’Annunciazione. Peraltro la lettera – parere – su tale oggetto è forse troppo scentifica [sic!] per la Signora che dovrà prenderne visione e perciò mi permetto di trascriverle la detta lettera eliminando quelle parti che non credo opportune.  “Berlino…. Sig. Professore.  Per le fotografie eccellenti della Annunziata firmata S.M. 1316 Le sono molto grato soprattutto perché disgraziatamente non ho potuto vedere le statue quando erano da Lei. Sono veramente straordinarie, non solamente nella grandezza e nella qualità del marmo, ma soprattutto nella grandiosità dell’invenzione e nella finezza dell’esecuzione.  Le statue sono senza dubbio senesi, ma sono molto superiori a tutte le statue del trecento a Siena. Sono degne del Simone Martini e rassomigliano veramente alla Sua Annunciazione agli Uffizi. Sebbene non abbiamo notizia che Simone abbia lavorato pure come scultore, tuttavia l’anatomia, le pieghe l’espressione tutto è arte di Simone.  Con ossequio”.  La prego scusarmi se le arreco il disturbo di riscrivere la lettere che sopra ho trascritto che contiene tutto il Suo parere nella lettera del 9 Gennaio decorso e che limitata come sopra ho trascritto è sufficiente allo scopo. […]” Volpi to Bode, 5 February 1925, SMB-ZA, IV/ NL Bode 5672.

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out Europe and new scenarios across the Atlantic Ocean. This paper aims to be a first attempt in a long and complex path.

Works Cited



Archival Sources

ASEB ASGF AUE SBEAP FI SMB-ZA



Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini. Archivio Storico delle Gallerie fiorentine Archivio Ufficio Esportazione Soprintendenza Belle Arti e Paesaggio Firenze Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Zentralarchiv.

Printed Sources

Baensch, Tanja. “Wilhelm von Bode et l’origine des collections du Musée des Beaux Arts”. Ed. Rapetti, Rodolphe, Strasbourg 1900. Naissance d’une capitale, Somogy, 2000, pp. 38–43. Baglione, M. Paola. “La Collezione Barberini di ‘antichità prenestine’ a Villa Giulia”. Corpus Speculum Etruscorum, Italia, 6, Roma, Museo Nazionale di Villa Giulia, L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2007, pp. 17–36. Bock, Henning. Gemäldegalerie Berlin Gesamtverzeichnis. Ars Nicolai, 1996. Bode von, Wilhelm. 1930. Mein Leben, ed Gaethgens, Thomas W. and Paul, Barbara, Nicolai, 1997. Braun, Günther and Braun, Waldtraut. Mäzenatentum in Berlin. Bürgersinn und kulturelle Kompetenz unter sich verändernden Bedingungen. Walter de Gruyter, 1993. Cambareri, Marietta. Some Famous Forgeries at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (… or are they?), paper discussed at the Renaissance Society of America. 2006, Unedited. Cappellini, Patrizia. Sulle tracce del fondo fotografico di Elia Volpi nella donazione Vannini Parenti alla Fototeca del Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz. Tesi di Specializzazione in Beni Storico-artistici, Università degli studi di Firenze, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia (Post-graduate dissertation), referee Prof. Tiziana Serena, coreferee Dr. Costanza Caraffa, 2012, Handwritten text. Cappellini, Patrizia. Il ruolo di Elia Volpi nella vendita delle sculture di Alceo Dossena. Fotografie e lettere inedite. Arte della Contraffazione. Contraffazione dell’arte, ed. Refice, Paola, Edifir, 2014, pp. 43–63. Capuis, Julien. “Bode und Amerika. Eine komplexe Beziehung”. Jahrbuch Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 43, 2007, p. 145–176. Catterson, Lynn. Stefano Bardini and the Taxonomic Branding of Marketplace Style: From the Gallery of a Dealer to the Institutional Canon. Images of the Art Museum:

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Connecting Gaze and Discourse in the History of Museology, ed. Savinio, Melania and Troelenberg, Eva-Maria, Walter de Gruyter. 2017 (Forthcoming). Di Marco, Simona, Nardinocchi, Elisabetta and Nesi, Antonella. Con gli occhi di … Bardini, Horne, Stibbert. Mandragora, 2009. Edwards, Elizabeth. “Photography and the material performance of the past.” History and Theory, 2009, 48, 4, pp. 130–150. Ferrazza, Roberta. “Elia Volpi e Leopoldo Bengujat.” Antichità viva, 1985, 24, 5–6, pp. 62–68. Ferrazza, Roberta. Palazzo Davanzati e le collezioni di Elia Volpi. 1993, Centro Di, 1994. Ferrazza, Roberta. “Elia Volpi e Palazzo Davanzati: la rievocazione ideale della casa fiorentina e la sua divulgazione”. Federigo e la bottega degli Angeli. Palazzo Davanzati tra realtà e sogno, exhibition catalogue, ed. Caterina Proto Pisani, Rosanna and Baldry, Francesca, Sillabe, 2009, pp. 32–45. Ferrazza, Roberta. “Elia Volpi e la commercializzazione della maiolica italiana, cifra di gusto ed elemento di arredo indispensabile nelle case dei collezionisti americani: J.P. Morgan, W. Hincle Smith, W. Boyce Thomson.” 1909 tra collezionismo e tutela; connoisseur, antiquari e la ceramica medievale, ed. Riccetti, Lucio, Giunti, 2010, pp. 257–266. Ferrazza, Roberta. “Elia Volpi e ‘l’esportazione’ di Palazzo Davanzati.” In Le stanze dei tesori. Collezionisti e antiquari a Firenze tra Ottocento e Novecento, exhibition catalogue, ed. Mannini, Lucia. Polistampa, 2011, pp. 90–99. Friedländer, Max J. “Der Meister der Mansi-Magdalena.” Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, 1915, 36, pp. 6–12. Gothic and Renaissance Italian Works of Art. The Collection of Professor Comm. Elia Volpi. The American Art Galleries, 31st March–2nd April 1927. Gaethgens, Thomas W. “Wilhelm von Bode und seine Sammler”. Ed. Mai, Ekkehard and Paret, Peter, Sammler, Stifter und Museen. Kunstförderung in Deutschland im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Böhlau Verlag, 1993. Götze, Barbara and Künzel, Friedrich. Verzeichnis des schriftlichen Nachlasses von Wilhelm von Bode. Zentralarchiv der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 1995. Heikamp, Detlef. “Stefano Bardini, l’uomo che non sapeva di marketing.” Il Giornale dell’arte, 1996, 14, 144, pp. 66–67. Illustrated Catalogue of the Exceedingly Rare and Valuable Art Treasures and Antiquities Formerly Contained in the Famous Davanzati Palace Florence, Italy. The American Art Association, 23rd–28th November, 1916. Illustrated Catalogue of the Extraordinary Collection of Art Treasures and Antiquities Acquired During the Past Year by Professor Commendator Elia Volpi. The American Art Association, 17th–19th December, 1917.

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Inventario dell’Archivio di Stato Lucca. Archivi gentilizi. Ed. D’Addario, Arnaldo, Tori, Giorgio and Romiti, Antonio. Nuova Grafica Lucchese, Vol. VII, 1980. Inventario dell’Archivio di Stato Lucca. Archivi gentilizi. Ed. Busti, Laurina and Nelli, Sergio. Nuova Grafica Lucchese, Vol. VIII, 2000. Jandolo, Augusto. Memorie di un antiquario. Ceschina, 1938. Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Jahresbericht 1983. Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Jahresbericht 1986. La Toscana. Riproduzioni pubblicate per cura di Vittorio Alinari proprietario dello stabilimento fotografico Fratelli Alinari. Tipografia Barbera, 1908. Martini, Christoph G. Viaggio in Toscana (1725–1745). Artioli, 1969. Mosco, Marilena. ed., La Maddalena tra sacro e profano. exhibition catalogue. Casa Usher, 1986. Niemeyer Chini, Valerie. Stefano Bardini e Wilhelm Bode. Mercanti e connoisseur fra Ottocento e Novecento. Edizioni Polistampa, 2009. Poggi, Cristina. “Le fotografie di Stefano Bardini.” L’archivio storico fotografico di Stefano Bardini: Arte greca, etrusca, romana, ed. Scalia, Fiorenza and Capecchi, Gabriella. Bruschi, 1993, XIII-XXIV, afterwards published in Fahy, Everett and Scalia, Fiorenza. L’archivio storico fotografico di Stefano Bardini. Dipinti, disegni, miniature, stampe. Bruschi, 2000, pp. 417–424. Raccolta di quadri del fu Marchese Gio. Battista Mansi fu Ascanio di Lucca. Tipografia Mansi, 1894. Seidel, Max. “Il Renaissance-Museum di Berlino. Wilhelm von Bode “allievo” di Jakob Burckhardt”. Architettura e scultura. Collana del Kunsthistorisches Institut in FlorenzMax-Planck-Institut, Marsilio, 2003, pp. 821–862. Saarinen, Aline B. The Proud Possessors. The Lives, Times and Tastes of Some Adventurous American Collectors. Random House, 1958. Seconda Appendice al Catalogo Generale delle riproduzioni fotografiche pubblicate per cura dei Fratelli Alinari fotografi-editori. Tipografia Barbera, 1881. Sox, David. Unmasking the Forger. The Dossena Deception. Universe Books, 1987. Tamassia, Marilena, ed., Il Rinascimento da Firenze a Parigi. Andata e ritorno. I tesori del Museo Jacquemart-André tornano a casa, Botticelli, Donatello, Mantegna, Paolo Uccello. exhibition catalogue, Polistampa, 2013. Torresi, A. Paolo. Neo-medicei: pittori, restauratori e copisti dell’Ottocento in Toscana; dizionario biografico. Liberty House, 1996. Toscana: vedute, bassorilievi, statue, quadri, affreschi. Riproduzioni fotografiche pubblicate per cura dei fratelli Alinari. Tipografia Barbera, 1898. Wolff-Thomsen, Ulrike. Die Wachsbüste einer Flora in der Berliner Skulptursammlung und das System Wilhelm Bode. Ludwig, 2006.

Demand Created by Dealers

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CHAPTER 8

An Imaginary Italy on the Shores of Florida: Paul Chalfin, Vizcaya and the International Market for Italian Decorative Arts in 1910s Flaminia Gennari-Santori Vizcaya, a neo-baroque Italianate villa immersed in Miami’s tropical landscape, was built in in the 1910s as James Deering’s winter residence; “Imagine Palazzo Pitti on a Lagoon in Africa,” wrote Paul Chalfin, Vizcaya’s creative “mastermind,” to the Anglo-Florentine collector Arthur Acton, his friend and mentor.1 Today the estate is a public museum and a National Historic Landmark that preserves a unique formal garden as well as an important and hardly known collection of Italian furniture and garden sculptures still displayed in its 1910’s arrangement.2 With its gardens populated by Venetian statues and surrounded by mangroves and waterways, Vizcaya is a place of unique and uncanny beauty, an island floating between the aesthetics of 1900s Florence and 1920s Hollywood. The estate is the invention of an imaginary Italy adapted to an American audience. Paul Chalfin devised a narrative for its design and decoration: the story of an ideal villa that had accommodated changes in taste from the early eighteenth century to contemporary neo-Renaissance décor.3 To achieve his vision Chalfin combined artifacts from different periods and provenances in environments that evoked specific Italian regional styles. It was a great success: upon completion, Vizcaya was published in the most stylish magazines and



This article is part of a larger project on Paul Chalfin and Vizcaya’s collection. I wish to thank Lynn Catterson, Charlotte Vignon and Joel Hoffman, Executive Director of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. 1  P. Chalfin to A. Acton, February 23, year unspecified (probably 1917 or 1916), VMGA. 2  On Vizcaya see, Maher, 1975, 145–214 and Rybczynski, Olin, 2007; the latter is focused on the architecture and the garden. Research on some of the garden statues was published in Gennari-Santori, 2010 (2); De Vincenti Guerriero, 2010. 3  “A Venetian Palace at Miami,” 1917; the text of the article was based on Chalfin’s text published in The Architectural Review, see note 15.

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Figure 8.1 R.B. Hoyt, Aerial View, 1929, VMGA.

unanimously praised as an extraordinary place as well as an authentic illusion of Italy.4 Even by the standards of Gilded Age America the residence’s lavishness and extravagance were extraordinary: in 1918, when the gardens were still incomplete, The World Magazine claimed that Vizcaya had cost “ten million dollars.”5 Chalfin purchased a massive amount of artifacts to decorate it; the majority were inexpensive fragments but the costs to adapt them to his decorative schemes were enormous. Production costs rather than the purchases per se, constituted the major expenses of the enterprise. Vizcaya is thus a product of the international culture of collecting and of the aesthetics based on the appropriation of the past as the ideal setting for the modern experience. It is also one of the best-documented Gilded Age estates: correspondence, purchase ledgers, photographs and architectural drawings minutely document every aspect of its creation; its archives preserve letters between Paul Chalfin and a wide network of Italian art and antiques dealers that include information on Roman and Venetian suppliers who are 4  Mackay, 1916; “The Gardens of Vizcaya”, 1917; “A Venetian Palace in Miami,” 1917; Patterson, 1917; Kitchen, 1918. 5  Kitchen, 1918.

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much lesser known than Florentine ones. Still largely unpublished, Vizcaya is an ideal context to explore the luxury economy of the period, the market for antiques, and finally the aesthetics of pastiches – objects that combine elements of the past in new compositions – that pervaded the cultural landscape until World War I.6 In this article I analyze for the first time how Paul Chalfin acquired the innumerable objects that he recomposed to create James Deering’s Italianate fantasy. James Deering (1859–1925) was a handsome gentleman, unmarried and with the well-groomed and pallid appearance of a minor Henry James character. He belonged to a prominent Chicago family whose wealth came from the manufacture of agricultural equipment.7 Paul Chalfin (1874–1959), a New Yorker, was trained as a painter; he briefly studied at the Art Students League in New York before leaving for Paris in 1898 to attend the École des Beaux Arts.8 Upon his return to the United States, Chalfin worked for two years at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, as curator of Chinese and Japanese Art.9 When he was living in Boston between 1903 and 1905, he was a frequent guest at Fenway Court, the residence Isabella Stewart Gardner had designed to display her art collection and that years later would be an important source of inspiration for Vizcaya.10 At the end of 1905, Chalfin won the Lazarus Scholarship for Mural Painting issued by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Academy in Rome, and at the beginning of 1906 he sailed for Italy.11 He spent the next two years between Rome, Florence and Venice where he became acquainted with the network of art dealers, scouts and Anglo-American expatriates who were thriving on the Italian art market; he also acquired a wide knowledge of Italian decorative arts and historic styles. When he returned from Europe, he settled in New York and in 1910 the interior decorator Elsie de Wolfe (1865–1950) involved him in one of her signature projects: a show-house that she remodeled with the architect Ogden Codman. When, in 1910, James Deering hired Elsie de Wolfe to do some work for his residence in Chicago, she sent Chalfin to install a fountain.12 6  An essay focused on Vizcaya as a paradigmatic pastiche is forthcoming. 7  Rybczynski, Olin, 2007, 9–14. 8  Weinberg, 1981, 66–68. 9  Chalfin is mentioned several times in, Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin 1, (1903) and 2, (1904). 10  “It is not the hostess of a lovely luncheon whom I thank, but the great curator.” Paul Chalfin to Isabella Stewart Gardner, n. d. 1905, AIsGM. 11   American Art News, 1905; “The Jacob H. Lazarus Scholarship for the Study of Mural Painting,” 1906; Gleanings from American Art Centers,” 1906; Maher, 1975, 172. 12  Sparke, 2005, 79–84, 341.

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Shortly after he met Deering, Chalfin was in charge of redecorating the businessman’s Chicago mansion and by the following year the two men were traveling to Europe to purchase furnishings for the house. It was the beginning of a relationship that lasted until Deering’s death in 1925 and it was as personal as professional, slightly abusive and very co-dependent. The millionaire relied on the decorator to occupy his time and to build a residence that was at once a technological triumph and a great architectural and artistic accomplishment; the struggling artist relied on the millionaire to create the iconic mansion that would launch his career and fulfill his creative frustrations and social ambitions. By 1912 Deering and Chalfin were planning a “completely Italian house” in Miami.13 They selected Francis Burrall Hoffman Jr. (1882–1980) as the architect, but his role was always subordinate to that of Chalfin. At the end of 1914 they hired Diego Suarez (1888–1974), a landscape architect they had met in Florence to design the gardens.14 The planning and construction of the main house lasted from 1912 to 1916 and the gardens were completed by 1921. Vizcaya is strikingly set against Biscayne Bay on one side and a native forest on the other. The Barge, a monumental breakwater shaped as a boat and decorated with mermaids and grotesques, is the distinct feature on the bay front façade. The architecture of the main house is rather simple and, compared to other contemporary American country residences, its dimensions are moderate. The distinctive feature of the villa is its intimate connection with the landscape: the façades are dominated by four corner towers of varying heights and between these, on three of the façades, loggias open onto the native forest, the formal gardens, and the bay. The house’s heart and main living area is the courtyard, originally open to the sky and connected by the loggias to the exterior grounds. The reception rooms are located on the ground floor whereas Deering’s apartment, a breakfast room, the kitchen and several guest bedrooms are located on the second floor. The formal gardens are among the most elaborate in the United States. Inspired by Italian and French seventeenth- and eighteenth-century examples, they were conceived as a series of outdoor rooms conceptually reflecting the rooms inside the house. The aesthetic vision for the estate was an elaborate combination of Mediterranean and subtropical landscapes paired with a romantic evocation of eighteenth-century Venice. In Chalfin’s own words the residence was to be “a partial evocation of the city of Tiepolo, careless pompous, and gay.”15 In a 13  P. Chalfin to J. Deering, September 10, 1915, VMGA. 14  Rybczynski, Olin, 2007, 30–61, 136–157. 15  “Vizcaya: the Villa and the Grounds,” 1917, 121. The article is unsigned but it was written by Chalfin.

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context dominated by the cult for eighteenth-century France or a variety of eccentric interpretations of the Renaissance, Chalfin embraced a playful and yet highly documented adaptation of Italian Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical styles, proclaiming theatricality, “prodigality, pomp and ostentation … and even fun” as his guiding principles.16 The evocation of an imaginary Italy was complemented by monumental follies for the garden that Chalfin commissioned from prominent artists, many of whom had participated in the Armory Show in 1913: Alexander Stirling Calder (1870–1945) designed the figures for the Barge; Robert Winthrop Chanler (1872–1930) created a relief representing underwater life for the swimming pool; Gaston Lachaise (1882–1935) designed spiral columns surmounted by peacocks flanking a garden pool; Paul Thévenaz (1891–1921) painted a ceiling for the large loggia in the Casino building on the Garden Mound.17 The modern follies blended seamlessly with the relics of an imaginary past reinvented by a modern sensibility. Chalfin’s role and responsibilities as an art advisor were unprecedented in the American context. He signed with Deering a three-year contract on February 1, 1913, which was renewed until 1921. He received a salary of $13,000 a year plus all expenses, which included a car and a chauffeur.18 In today’s dollars his annual salary amounted to $285,000.19 By the end of 1914 he also began receiving $2,000 a month to cover the office expenses, the draftsmen’s salaries and small purchases. This sum did not cover the enormous shipping bills.20 By July 1915, the monthly allowance rose to $7,000 a month. One year later, by July 1916, Chalfin’s office had eighty-five people on payroll and his allowance rose to the staggering sum of $16,000 a month.21 Building Vizcaya cost Deering a fortune. An estimate dated March 1914 for the construction of the Main House, the terraces, the Barge and the swimming pool, excluding the purchase of the land, the gardens, and any expenses for the decoration, cited a figure of about $500,000, a sum equivalent to roughly $12 million today and a minimal fraction of what would be eventually spent on the entire estate.22 16   The Architectural Review, 121. 17  On Sterling Calder see Sculptures by A. Sterling Calder 1937; Calder, 1977; On Chanler, see Narodny, 1922; On Lachaise, see Nordland, 1974; Hunter, 1993; on Paul Thévenaz see Paul Thévenaz: a record of his life and art, 1922; The works of Witter Binner, 1979, 19–25. 18  J. Deering to P. Chalfin, April 28 1916. VMGA. 19  Source: www.measuringworth.com. 20  P. Chalfin to J. Deering, November 30, 1914; P. Chalfin to J. Deering, February 13, 1915, VMGA. 21  J. Deering to P. Chalfin, July 6, 1915; P. Chalfin to J. Deering, June 8, 1916. VMGA. 22  March 26, 1914, Revised estimate of probable costs of House, Terraces, Arms of Bay and Island, complete: $498,583.00, VMGA.

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In 1912, before the land where the house would stand was even purchased Chalfin began acquiring monumental elements that constituted the starting point of the design process. These imposing marble pieces (chosen for their grandeur rather than their period), Renaissance tapestries (either intact or fragmentary), and architectural elements were the most expensive purchases, acquired largely in Italy between 1912 and 1914. Starting in 1911 if not before, Chalfin established a widespread network of suppliers in Florence, Venice, Rome, Paris and New York: the archives preserve correspondence or list as sources dozens of Italian dealers, many of them small and obscure. By the outbreak of WWI Chalfin had bought the vast majority of furnishings for the house and the gardens.23 The decorator had very little interest in the individual objects and everything he purchased was meant to be an element of a larger tableau. Following the dominant aesthetic vision of the period, he believed that authenticity was a ‘feeling’ that could be projected and experienced rather than a quality that pertained to the objects themselves. Pastiches or assemblages of old fragments that resulted into so-called modern-antiques or dealers’ pieces were very popular in the international luxury trade and fetched extravagant prices. Chalfin’s found an endless supply of them in Italy, Paris and New York. Ironically, the numerous original and remarkable objects in Vizcaya’s collection were purchased by accident rather than choice. Chalfin’s first suppliers were the top dealers of Italian artifacts like Eugene Glaenzer in New York, Stefano Bardini in Florence and Dino Barozzi in Venice. At the end of 1912 he purchased in New York a few large architectural elements from Eugene Glaenzer, whose brother Georges was a prominent decorator.24 From the 1890’s Eugene had been the importing agent for the architect Stanford White a partner of the firm McKim Mead and White, which was responsible for some of the most prominent public buildings and private residences on the East Coast between the 1880s and the 1910s.25 In 1903 Glaenzer opened a famous jardin, which displayed a plethora of architectural elements coming primarily from Italy.26 At the end of 1912, he liquidated his business to establish

23  P. Chalfin to B. Hoffman, Venice, June 21, 1914, VMGA. 24  Grey and Herrick, 2002–2003, 123. 25  On Stanford White see, Broderick 2010; White and White, 2008; Craven, 2005; Wilson, 2008. For the architect’s relationship with Glaenzer see, Craven, 2005, 11, 132, 155; Wilson, 2008, 91. 26  “The Jardin Glaenzer” 1903; Glaenzer, n. d.; American Art News 1910 (1); American Art News 1910 (2); “Artistic Taste in Landscape Architecture,” 1913.

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a partnership with Jacques Seligmann, a prominent French dealer.27 On that occasion Chalfin bought some of Vizcaya’s most iconic pieces: the Pisani Gate, an early eighteenth-century monumental gate with a marble frame, originally from one of the Pisani palaces in Venice, whose size established the height of Vizcaya’s main floor; a set of four doors with marble frames from the recently demolished Palazzo Bolognetti-Torlonia in Rome; and two garden statues, Leda and Ganymede, which provided the starting point for Vizcaya’s vast garden collection.28 Dating to the 1830s, the neo-Renaissance doors from the piano nobile of the Bolognetti-Torlonia palace provided the starting feature for the design of the East Loggia as well its inspiration from Roman Neoclassical architecture. The Palazzo Bolognetti-Torlonia was demolished in 1903 to make room for the new monument to Vittorio Emanuele II in Piazza Venezia. The extraordinary sculpture collection of the Principe Torlonia was donated to the Italian state, whereas the murals, architectural details and decorations, and portions of the furnishings were dispersed in various public sales organized by the dealers Francesco Tancredi and Giuseppe Sangiorgi beginning in 1901.29 Vizcaya displays other pieces, notably marble columns, from Palazzo Bolognetti-Torlonia. Glaenzer had owned the doors and the Pisani Gate at least since 1903 when they were photographed in his garden and mentioned in the press.30 Most likely Chalfin met Arthur Acton (1873–1953) when he was living in Italy between 1906 and 1909. An Anglo-Italian connoisseur and dealer, Acton purchased in 1907 Villa La Pietra, just outside of Florence and began a long restoration and decoration project.31 La Pietra was Vizcaya’s prototype: Chalfin later employed all its different styles, further exaggerating their theatricality. It was likely Acton, who introduced Chalfin to Stefano Bardini and Dino Barozzi. Bardini was, at the time, the most influential art dealer in Italy and the evocative displays in his showroom in Palazzo Mozzi had inspired private collectors

27   American Art News 1910, (1). 28  See Purchase Ledger Card (PLC hereafter) Architectural Part AP002, ($5,200); PLC AP006; PLC Garden Sculpture GS005. VMGA. For the doors, the two statues, a fireplace not at Vizcaya and two small basins the total price was $10,000. For the statues of Leda and Ganymede see, De Vincenti, Guerriero, 2010, 277–279. 29  See Iozzi, 1902; for the dispersion of the Torlonia collection see, Cervigni-Troncone, 2000, 277–324. 30  “The Jardin Glaenzer,” 1903. 31  On Acton see Baldry, 2010, with previous bibliography. On Villa La Pietra see, Acton, 1948; Acton, 1970; Acton, 1965; Turner, 2002; Baldry, 2005.

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and museum curators for decades.32 In the spring of 1912 Chalfin and Deering purchased from Bardini a very expensive classical Roman table, a sixteenthcentury Florentine marble outdoor table, a pair of rococo consoles and a set of important neoclassical chairs.33 In Venice Dino Barozzi provided Chalfin with some of Vizcaya’s most interesting eighteenth-century Venetian objects. An expensive rococo painted commode purchased in 1912 was the first of a long series of acquisitions.34 Remarkably Barozzi was one of the first Superintendents to the Artistic Patrimony of the Italian state while also working as an art dealer with an international clientele. At least for a while in the 1890s his role as a public servant in charge of the protection of national heritage and his activities as and art dealer overlapped; at that time, in partnership with Bardini he procured some extraordinary frescoes by Giovan Battista Tiepolo for the Parisian collectors Edouard André and Nélie Jacquemart.35 Among his clients was Isabella Stewart Gardner, who purchased from him many architectural elements for Fenway Court.36 Deering considered making Barozzi his agent in Venice and regarded him as their most trustworthy supplier.37 Chalfin shared with Dino and his son Sebastiano his vision for Vizcaya. The dealers were constantly proposing to him decorative elements that could give shape to his vision and Sebastiano referred in his letters to the “casa veneziana” that Chalfin was building, and the potential collection of Venetian paintings that it would eventually house.38 In 1914 Chalfin purchased from Barozzi many of the elements that would give Vizcaya its character: single pieces and sets of eighteenth-century Venetian painted furniture, wall treatments, fragments of frescoes and garden statues, modern pastiches, in good and in poor condition, expensive and not. Before World War I Chalfin’s ambition was to become an independent decorator who partnered directly with Italian dealers to sell their goods in New York and use them in his projects. Chalfin’s role as Deering’s advisor paved his way 32  On Bardini see Scalia and de Benedictis, 1984; Fahy, 2000; I bronzetti e gli oggetti d’uso in bronzo, 2009; Niemeyer Chini, 2009; Ritratti d’imperatori e profile all’antica, 2012; Tamassia, 2013. For the influence of Bardini’s displays see, Gennari-Santori, 2005; Catterson, 2016 (1); Catterson, 2016 (2). 33   P LC Marble Object MO018 (Lit. 80,000); PLC MO019, (Lit. 20,000); PLC Furniture F017/018, (Lit. 18,000); PLC F088/089, 18,000 Fcs. VMGA. See also Nota di Pagamento, 13 Maggio 1912; Corrispondenza 1912, Folder D: Deering; ABCF. 34   P LC F003 (Lire 5,000), VMGA. 35   Due collezionisti alla scoperta dell’Italia. 2002; Tamassia, 2013. 36  De Appolonia, 2004. 37  J. Deering to P. Chalfin, November 20, 1915, VMGA. 38  S. Barozzi to P. Chalfin, n.d. (early 1915), VMGA.

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with potential suppliers, and his intentions emerge from correspondence with Bardini and Barozzi. In 1913 Chalfin informed Bardini that he had secured an appropriate location where he was ready to receive and display any item “of importance.”39 Chalfin professed himself Bardini’s disciple, but it is impossible to ascertain if he actually had rented a showroom or if he was simply trying to entice the dealer to start a joint venture with him. The partnership never took off: it soon became evident that working for Deering was a full-time occupation and after a few important purchases, in 1914 Deering and Chalfin ceased to buy from Bardini. By then Chalfin was a cherished client of dozens of Italian dealers active in Florence, Venice and Rome. He purchased important pieces from Ercole Canessa, Elia Volpi and Attilio Simonetti, who along with Bardini and Barozzi operated at the top end of the trade on an international scale. Canessa was a dealer specialized in Classical antiquities with galleries in Naples and Paris and a frequent supplier of John Pierpont Morgan. In 1914 Chalfin purchased from him the so-called Unicorn Table, a recent pastiche for the staggering sum of 50,000 Francs.40 In the same year Deering agreed to buy the only piece he ever purchased from Elia Volpi, Bardini’s former associate and most aggressive competitor: a monumental credenza that played a prominent role in the design of the Dining Room. It cost Deering 90,000 Lire or, as it was noted in the purchase ledger, $17,300 (corresponding to $410,000 today) and it was Vizcaya’s most expensive piece of furniture.41 An elaborate pastiche of elements dating to the fifteenth, sixteenth and early twentieth centuries, the credenza is a manifesto of the producing patterns of the Volpi workshop.42 Among Roman dealers, Attilio Simonetti was the one from whom Chalfin bought the most important pieces. Like Bardini and Volpi, he was trained as a painter and he had enjoyed international success as the author of exotic and generic historical scenes in the wave of the Spanish painter Mariano Fortuny with whom he was very close.43 Like Fortuny, Simonetti amassed an extraordinarily eclectic collection of objects that served as props for his paintings. From the 1880s he progressively abandoned painting to pursue art dealing and by the 39  P. Chalfin to S. Bardini, 30 Agosto 1913, Corrispondenza 1913, Folder D: Deering; ABCF. 40   P LC F 143, VMGA. 41   P LC F 430, Lit. 90,000, $17,390.” J. Deering to P. Chalfin, June 22, 1914; J. Deering to Munroe & Co., July 1, 1914, VMGA. On Elia Volpi, see Ferrazza, 1994, and Palazzo Davanzati: Dream and Reality 2009, with previous bibliography. 42  These objects are analyzed in detail in a forthcoming article focused on Vizcaya’s pastiches. 43  On Mariano Fortunay see Font, 2003.

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turn of the century he was, along with Giuseppe Sangiorgi, the Roman dealer with the widest international clientele.44 Chalfin bought from Simonetti Classical, Baroque and Neoclassical sculpture and architectural elements. In the summer of 1914, before the gardens were even outlined, Chalfin purchased from the Roman dealer the most monumental piece shipped from Italy, a late Baroque fountain originally from the main square of Sutri, a village north of Rome.45 Filippo Barigioni, the architect of the fountain in Piazza del Pantheon, designed the Sutri fountain in 1721.46 It was in rather poor condition and Chalfin’s original intention was to restore it – Simonetti even provided some travertine slabs for this purpose.47 Diego Suarez convinced Chalfin to leave the fountain in its original state and “to set it up in its somewhat ruinous condition and to have the broken places planted with flowers or vines which grow in crevices.”48 Chalfin and Suarez wanted for Vizcaya’s garden a mossy, decayed look and for this purpose they chose to carve the fountains and grotto disseminated throughout the garden in the local coral stone, a soft material that would facilitate erosion by the wind: in just a few years the estate would have appeared old and weathered.49 Still, Chalfin transformed an urban and functional structure into a decorative garden element by adding a large basin and a finial at the top. On June 21, 1914 Chalfin wrote to Burrall Hoffman from Venice: “I have bought a population of gigantic garden statues and a good many vases, a really Palladian niche for the end of an allie [sic] and a niche and seat of a delicious baroque taste.”50 In just a couple of weeks he purchased twenty of the forty pieces of garden statuary today at Vizcaya and eight monumental vases dating from the end of the seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century that had originally decorated villas on the Venetian mainland. Arthur Acton, who decorated the garden of La Pietra with a similar collection inspired these acquisitions. As such, they constitute the core of Vizcaya’s collection of Venetian

44  Spinazzé, 2010. 45   P LC AP 085, (Lit. 15,000) VMGA. The fountain was dismantled in 28 cases and shipped in April 1915, see Roesler Franz to P. Chalfin, Rome, April 3 1915, VMGA. 46  For Barigioni see Santese, 1983; Nardocci, 2001. On the history of the fountain, see Nispi Landi, 1887, 430. 47  A. Simonetti to P. Chalfin, March 26, 1915, VMGA. 48  P. Chalfin to J. Deering, December 3, 1914, VMGA. 49  At the turn of twentieth century the revival of formal garden was an important phenomenon in Europe, particularly in Florence. The charm of a slow and yet mastered decay was a crucial component of this aesthetics, see Sitwell, 1909. 50  P. Chalfin to B. Hoffman, Venice, June 21, 1914, VMGA.

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garden statuary, the most interesting one outside of Italy because of its size, variety and provenance.51 WWI had a great impact on the delivery of the items. Italy entered the conflict only in May 1915, but still many objects purchased the previous summer had not yet been shipped. A group of statues went down with the ocean liner Ancona, attacked by German U-boats offshore the Tunisian coast in November 1915.52 In 1915 and 1916 Chalfin acquired an astounding variety of objects from New York dealers, but in most cases these acquisitions filled gaps in a decorative scheme that was by then almost entirely developed. His suppliers were Italian dealers specialized in architectural fragments, such as Lavezzo Brothers or Di Salvo &Co, established antique dealers like Charles of London (a brother of Joseph Duveen), or Karl Freund, as well as the most renown firms in luxury manufacture, such as Caldwell & Co. for the lighting fixtures and the Edgeware Tapestry Looms for the restoration and integration of old tapestries and textiles.53 The firm of French & Co. played a special role in the making of Vizcaya. At exactly the time of Vizcaya’s construction, French & Co. was growing into the most distinguished American decorative arts dealer. By 1916, when they purchased the tapestries of the Morgan collection for $1,450,000, the firm had reached the top of the trade.54 Mitchell Samuels and Percy French had founded the firm in 1907 with the financial backing of Charles Mather Ffoulke, a tapestry collector who, in 1889, had purchased one hundred thirty-five tapestries from the Barberini collection through the Florentine dealer Giuseppe Salvadori. This exceptional group of textiles constituted the initial stock of French & Co. and tapestries and textiles continued to be their specialty.55 Chalfin had a close relationship with Samuels and French & Co. provided also the infrastructure necessary for a monumental project like Vizcaya. 51  For a detailed discussion of the purchases of garden statuary, see Gennari-Santori, 2010 (2). 52  For the sinking of the statues with the Ancona, see G. Sangiorgi to P. Chalfin, November 11, 1915; P. Chalfin to J. Deering, March 7, 1916, VMGA. 53  The objects purchased from some of these dealers are summarily described in P. Chalfin to J. Deering, November 12, 1915 and P. Chalfin to J. Deering, March 16, 1916, VMGA. The main source of information for New York art dealers is The American Art Journal. For the Edgewater Tapestries Looms see Bremen-David, 2004, 47. 54  Bremen-David, “French and Company”, 2005; for the sale of the Morgan collection see Flaminia Gennari-Santori, 2010 (1). 55  Bremen-David, “French and Company,” 2005, 40; Giuseppe Salvadori was an important Florentine dealer primarily specialized in tapestries, see Bargellini, 1981, 75–87; Baldry, 2010, 44–45.

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Deering rented a section of the company’s warehouse where Chalfin assembled the layout of Vizcaya’s decorated rooms and French and Co also supplied Chalfin with draftsmen, craftsmen and upholsterers.56 In 1915 French & Co. sold Deering the most important textiles in Vizcaya’s collection: a fifteenth-century Hispano-Moresque monumental rug referred to as the Admiral Carpet and a sixteenth-century tapestry that was part of a series devoted to the Labors of Hercules.57 The following year Deering purchased two other Renaissance tapestries from French & Co. Depicting the Stories of Mercury, these had previously hung in the collection of Robert Browning and were acquired for Vizcaya’s Dining Room.58 Likely as a consequence of its involvement with Vizcaya, French & Co. began dealing also in Italian furniture and garden statuary. In 1918 Chalfin exchanged with Samuels some pieces of furniture for five eighteenth-century Venetian statues.59 In the same year Samuels purchased several Veneto garden statues from an estate in New Jersey that he resold to Henry Huntington for his villa in San Marino, California.60 Chalfin’s Italian and American suppliers catered primarily to a clientele of affluent travelers, decorators and owners of important houses who fueled the market for luxury goods. Italian dealers based in different cities often collaborated and shared clients, while international partnerships with firms based in Paris, Munich and New York, were frequent even among relatively small dealers. Partnerships intensified during the war to bring and sell goods in New York. The most established firms were part of an international network:

56  P. Chalfin, Memo, December 17, 1914: this is a long list of furniture, objects and architectural elements sent to the French & Co. warehouse where Vizcaya’s rooms were going to be assembled. On the work that the firm was doing for Vizcaya, see P. Chalfin to J. Deering, July 12, 1915; M. Samuels to P. Chalfin, August 19, 1915; M. Samuels to P. Chalfin, January 23, 1917, VMGA. 57   P LC Rug 049, ($13,200) VMGA; The carpet had been commissioned by Don Fadrique Enríquez de Mendoza (ca. 1390–1473), grandfather of King Ferdinand of Spain; see Thompson, 1910; van de Put, 1911; Beattie, 1986; Ellis, 1988, 243–247; Taylor, 1990; Hecker, 2004, 161–162. PLC Tapestry Tap 009, ($8,500) VMGA. The tapestry represents Hercules slaying the Nemean Lion and three other tapestries of the same set are in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The set was probably an Italian commission produced in Brussels after Italian cartoons. See Asselberghs, 1974, 50. Forti Grazzini, 1999; de Meuter, 1999, 70, 125–126. 58  M. Samuels to P. Chalfin, July 15, 1916, VMGA. TAP 12, A, B ($32,000). 59  For the exchange of statues see M. Samuels to P. Chalfin, June 1, 1918; P. Chalfin to J. Deering, June 24, 1918, VMGA. 60  Hess, 2010.

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French&Co.’s Italian suppliers were the same as Chalfin’s and the decorator probably acted in some cases as intermediary.61 In cases like Bardini and French&Co. the same dealers had among their clients both art collectors and decorators as well as affluent buyers who like James Deering did not identify themselves as art collectors.62 Conversely, often the same clients were at once art collectors and buyers of luxury items like extraordinarily expensive pseudo-renaissance furniture. Yet, even if the networks that sustained the markets of art and luxury objects overlapped the two trades obeyed to different rules and rituals. Just to make an example, art collectors usually relied on one single or a handful of select dealers. The relationship between the collector and the dealer was built on trust and partial if not total exclusivity as the correspondence between Joseph Duveen and his clients vividly illustrates. Decorators like Chalfin needed to amass large stocks of objects to re-use for their projects and therefore continuously expanded their network of suppliers. Furthermore, as already noted, Vizcaya’s construction shows that the costs of modifying the objects acquired were much higher than the purchases per se and it was precisely this process of adaptation to the clients’ desires or the decorators’ projections that constituted the added value and thus justified the enormous expenditures within the context of a luxury economy. Needless to say beautification processes were also crucial in the art trade but they were usually concealed and did not necessarily add value to the acquisition. Chalfin’s modus operandi for assembling the disparate materials he acquired was akin to collage. He combined his personal experience with the study of recent publications. Edith Wharton’s Italian Villas and their Gardens (1903) illustrated by Maxfield Parrish and Corrado Ricci’s Baroque Architecture and Sculpture (1912), for example, provided him with specific ideas and motifs that he applied at Vizcaya, especially in the gardens. Unlike architectures or gardens, Italian historic interiors were hardly documented at the time – the first photographic repertoires appeared only by the second half of the 1910s and they were invariably focused on the Renaissance.63 This lack of available documentation gave Chalfin great freedom to invent interiors that evoked an imaginary Italy, fanciful interpretations of the various regional versions of Italian Rococo, Neoclassic and Empire styles.

61  The names of suppliers and clients listed in the stock sheets of French&Company provide a glimpse of this multilayered international network. French & Company stock sheets and ledgers, 1909–1968, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles. 62  In 1916 Deering wrote to Chalfin, “I am not of course a collector and I never shall be.” J. Deering to P. Chalfin, July 26, 1916 VMGA. 63  See, for example, Heberlein, 1916; Hunter, 1918; Schottmutter, 1921.

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The Reception and Music rooms are respectively inspired by the Rococo styles of Palermo and Milan. The East Loggia, opening toward the water, is meant to evoke an indoor-outdoor space of a Roman Baroque or Neoclassical villa. The Enclosed Loggia, the bright room facing the gardens, was inspired by an imaginary Neapolitan salon of the early nineteenth century. James Deering’s Sitting Room, bedroom and bathroom display a mixture of French, Italian and modern elements in the Empire style. The guest bedrooms are liberal interpretations of Venetian Rococo, and regional versions of Neoclassical and

Figure 8.2 Mattie Edwards Hewitt, Enclosed Loggia, Construction Album 7, photo 96 VMGA.

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Figure 8.3 Mattie Edwards Hewitt, Living Room, 1917, Construction Album 8 photo 26 VMGA.

Empire styles. Only the imposing Living and Dining Rooms were decorated in the neo-Renaissance style popular at the time. Vizcaya displays an encyclopedic range of pastiches either produced in Italy or designed by Chalfin, alongside many unquestionable and untouched antiques. Scattered throughout the estate we find furnishings, architectural elements, mural paintings and tapestries that are assemblages of old and new. Chalfin exhibited these pastiches with pride: the Bacchus Fountain that greets visitors in the Entrance Loggia is an assemblage of disparate pieces that evoke the Classical and Renaissance compositions found in prominent Roman villas. In 1913, when the plan of the house was still being sketched out, Chalfin had purchased from Simonetti a marble basin that he combined with a marble statue of Bacchus purchased from Giuseppe Salvadori in Florence to create the elaborate fountain.64 In other cases he invented fictional provenances to

64   P LC MO 7 Lit. 25,000; PLC Sculpture S18 Lit. 8,000, VMGA. On Salvadori see note 54; “Vizcaya: the Villa and the Grounds.” 1917, 144.

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Figure 8.4 Bacchus Fountain, Entrance Loggia, 1916, Construction Album 7 photo 5 VMGA.

bestow prestige and distinction on his creations, but in general he made sure that his touch was easily recognizable in every room of the house.65

65  The photographs on the purchase cards show that often Chalfin acquired wooden and painted wall decorations in poor condition and the architectural drawings document the transformations these fragments underwent. These sources will be analyzed in detail in a forthcoming article focused on Vizcaya’s pastiches.

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Chalfin was by no means a connoisseur or a scholar nevertheless he was at the forefront of the discovery of post-Renaissance Italian furniture and interior decoration. Vizcaya was the first American luxury residence inspired by post-Renaissance Italian architecture and interior decoration. William Odom’s History of Italian Furniture from the Fourteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century, the first and still the only comprehensive survey on the subject published in the English language, is a precious document to understand the interest in and reception of post-Renaissance Italian furniture during the 1910s. Odom, an instructor at the recently established Parson’s School of Design, began working on his ambitious survey in 1910 and published it in two volumes between 1918 and 1919.66 His copious illustrations provide a repertoire of what was available and desirable at the time. Besides pieces in private collections and public museums, the vast majority of what he published was in the possession of the same art dealers who supplied Chalfin and he also published several pieces belonging to either Chalfin or Deering. Chalfin never mentioned Odom in his correspondence, but the evidence suggests that Vizcaya’s decoration and Odom’s map of Italian furniture developed along parallel lines. During Word War I New York was inundated with Italian furniture, and the extraordinary success of the public sale organized by Elia Volpi in 1916 shows that Renaissance furnishings, original or spurious, were very much in vogue.67 However, Odom’s selection of furniture and Chalfin purchases show that during the same period New York dealers also had an increasingly large stock of Italian Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical objects of every kind imaginable. Italian eighteenth-century pieces were less expensive than their French counterparts, and because of their diversity and originality they were the ideal ingredients for a more eclectic, playful and even irreverent approach to interior decoration that was making its debut during WWI and would flourish in the 1920s and 1930s. Some of the spaces that Chalfin created for Vizcaya can be considered among the earliest examples of this new style.68 James Deering supported Chalfin in every possible way and Vizcaya was also a means to launch his career. The decorator conceived the residence as a stage to enact his talent for interlacing diverse historical and visual references into a cohesive narrative. Throughout the estate, he combined the most varied references to Italian villas with the American interiors that had shaped his sensibility: Fenway Court and the interiors of Stanford White and Elsie de Wolfe. However, his most significant inspiration came from Florence where in the 66  Odom, 1967. 67  See Ferrazza, 1994, 114–120. 68  For Chalfin’s influence on Elsie De Wolfe’s bolder and more eclectic projects of the 1920s see Sparke, 2005, 20, 200, 203–213.

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1900s a vibrant international community was inventing a modern way to live all’antica, among Renaissance and eighteenth-century art and furnishings in residences surrounded by gardens restored to their Renaissance and Baroque appearance.69 Arthur Acton and his wife, Hortense Mitchell, were the central players of this milieu. At Villa La Pietra they shaped a lifestyle in which profound interest and rigorous knowledge of the art of the past went hand in hand with a taste for pastiche and theatricality. Florence was also the main source of supply for Stanford White, the uncontested master for adapting historic styles to Americans’ taste for opulence. For Chalfin, White was the model to adapt to a more modern sensibility.70 After an immediate fame both Vizcaya and Paul Chalfin soon fell into obscurity. Notwithstanding his undeniable talent, Chalfin was unable to secure other important clients. He had envisioned Vizcaya as the home of an ideal type: the ultimate cosmopolitan aesthete, a connoisseur familiar with the objects of desire of the Anglo-American collectors living on the Florentine hills, as well as the works of the Greenwich Village avant-garde; it was a sort of ideal self-portrait, with which he completely identified. Vizcaya was amply publicized and thus identified as Chalfin’s place, rather than Deering’s and potential clients were not inclined to hire such an expensive dictator. World War I dramatically changed the cultural landscape and as a consequence the luxury market; after the war Chalfin never had the chance to collaborate again with the widespread network of dealers and suppliers that he had established while working for Deering. Like Vizcaya Chalfin was at once old and modern: he was at the forefront of twentieth century eclecticism yet his vision was still immersed in the aesthetics of pastiches and historicism that had suddenly became obsolete, swept away by the Great War.

Works Cited

Archives

Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Archives (VMGA) Archive of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (AISGM) Archivio Bardini, Comune di Firenze (ABCF)

69  Baldry, 2009. 70  The context of Vizcaya’s decoration is further analyzed in the forthcoming article.

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Cervigni-Troncone, Rita, “Principi e quadri: Pasquale Villari e le gallerie romane,” Archivio della Societa’ Romana di Storia Patria vol. 123, 2000, pp. 277–324. Craven, Wayne, Stanford White: Decorator in Opulence and Dealer in Antiques, Columbia University Press, 2005. De Appolonia, Giovanna, “A Venetian Courtyard in Boston.” Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle edited by Elizabeth A. McCauley, Alan Chong, Rosella Mamoli Zorzi, Richard Ligner, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2004, pp. 177–189. de Meuter, Ingrid Oudenaardse Wandtapijten Tielt, 1999. Monica de Vincenti and Simone Guerriero, “Vizcaya, le Opere.” In “Per Un Atlante della Statuaria Veneta.” Arte Veneta vol. 67, 2010, pp. 277–281. Due collezionisti alla scoperta dell’Italia. Dipinti e sculture del museo Jacquemart-André di Parigi, edited by Andrea Di Lorenzo, Silvana, 2002. Font, Mercé Doñate, Fortuny, 1838–1874, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, 2003. Ellis, Charles Grant, Oriental Carpets in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1988. Fahy, Everett L’archivio fotografico di Stefano Bardini. Dipinti, disegni, miniature e stampe, Bruschi, 2000. Ferrazza, Roberta, Palazzo Davanzati e le collezioni di Elia Volpi, Centro Di, 1994. Forti Grazzini, Nello “Les ouvres retrouvées de la Collection Farnèse.” in La Tapisserie au XVII siècle et les collections europeennes: Actes du colloque international de Chambord, Octobre 1996, edited by Catherine Arminjon, Cahiers du Patrimoine 1999, vol. 57, pp. 143–172. “The Gardens of Vizcaya.” Vogue, 5 July 1917, pp. 36–38. Gennari-Santori, Flaminia “I musei e il mercato dell’arte.” in Storia, storiografia e geografia del Rinascimento, edited by Marcello Fantoni, vol. I of Il Rinascimento e l’Europa, Fondazione Cassamarca, 2005, pp. 489–510. Gennari-Santori, Flaminia “ ‘I was to have all the finest’: Renaissance Bronzes from John Pierpont Morgan to Henry C. Frick.” Journal of the History of Collections vol. 22, 2010, pp. 307–324. (1) Gennari-Santori, Flaminia, “Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, Miami,” in “Per Un Atlante della Statuaria Veneta.” edited by Monica De Vincenti e Simone Guerriero Arte Veneta vol. 67, 2010, pp. 272–277. (2) Glaenzer, E., Renaissance Art in America, New York, De Vinne Press n. d. “Gleanings from American Art Centers.” Brush and Pencil 17, 1906, p. 69. Grey, Nina and Pamela Herrick, “Decoration in the Gilded Age: The Frederick W. Vanderbilt Mansion, Hyde Park, New York.” Studies in the Decorative Arts vol. 10, no. 1, 2002–2003, pp. 98–141.

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“The Jacob H. Lazarus Scholarship for the Study of Mural Painting.” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 1, no. 2, 1906, p. 19. “The Jardin Glaenzer: Winter Garden Full of Old Statues, Fountains and Stained Glass.” The New York Times, 13 December 1903. Heberlein, H.D., Interior Fireplaces and Furniture of the Renaissance, Architectural Book Pub. Co. 1916. Hecker, Heather, Caliphs and Kings, The art and influence of Islamic Spain: selection from the Hispanic Society of America, New York, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Hispanic Society of America, 2004, pp. 161–162. Hess, Catherine, “San Marino: The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens,” in “Per Un Atlante della Statuaria Veneta,” edited by Monica De Vincenti e Simone Guerriero Arte Veneta vol. 67, 2010, pp. 262–267. Hunter, Sam Lachaise, Cross River Press, 1993. Hunter, George Leland, Italian Furniture and Interiors, W. Helburn 1918. Kitchen, Karl K., “The Grandest House in America is Located in Florida.” The World Magazine, 31 March 31 1918. Iozzi, Oliviero, Il palazzo Torlonia in piazza Venezia, ora demolito, illustrato con sessanta incisioni e dodici tavole, Forzani & C. Tipografia del Senato, 1902. Mackay, G. “The Story of the House that J. Deering Built.” Philadelphia Public Ledger, 21 Dec. 1916. Maher, James T., The Twilight of Splendor: Chronicles of the Age of American Palaces, Little, Brown, 1975. Nardocci, Monica, “Nuovi apporti sull’attività di Filippo Barigioni e Francesco Pincellotti.” Lazio ieri e oggi, n. 37, 2001, pp. 309–315. Narodny, Ivan The Art of Robert Winthorp Chanler, Roerich Museum Press, 1922. Niemeyer Chini, Valerie, Stefano Bardini e Wilhelm Bode: mercanti e connoisseurs fra Ottocento e Novecento, Polistampa 2009. Nispi Landi, Ciro, Storia dell’antichissima città di Sutri, Desiderj-Ferretti, 1887. Nordland, Gerald Gaston Lachaise: The Man and his Work, G. Braziller, 1974. Odom, William MacDougall, A History of Italian Furniture from the Fourteenth to the Early Nineteenth Century (1918), edited by Olga Raggio and Hugh Honour, Archive Press, 1967. Patterson, William, “A Florida Echo of Glory of Old Venice.” Town and Country, 20 July 1917, pp. 23–28. Paul Thévenaz: a record of his life and art, together with an essay on style by the artist, and including 107 reproductions of his drawings, paintings & decorative work, Privately printed, 1922. Palazzo Davanzati: Dream and Reality, edited by Rosanna Caterina Proto Pisani and Francesca Baldry, Sillabe 2009.

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Rybczynski, Witold and Laurie Olin, Vizcaya: An American Villa and its Makers, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Ritratti d’imperatori e profile all’antica: scultura del Quattrocento nel Museo Stefano Bardini edited by Antonella Nesi, Centro Di, 2012. Santese, Bianca Maria, Palazzo Testa Piccolomini alla Dataria: Filippo Barigioni architetto romano, Grafica Editrice Romana 1983. Fiorenza Scalia and Cristina de Benedictis, Il Museo Bardini a Firenze, Electa, 1984. Schottmutter, Frida, Furniture and Interior Decoration of the Italian Renaissance, Brentano’s, 1921. Spinazzé, Sabrina, “Artisti-antiquari a Roma tra la fine dell’Ottocento e l’inizio del Novecento: lo studio e la galleria di Attilio Simonetti.” Studiolo vol. 8, 2010, pp. 96–115. Sculptures by A. Sterling Calder, Brookgreen Gardens, 1937. Sitwell, George, An Essay on the Making of Gardens; being a study of old Italian gardens, of the nature of beauty and of the principles involved in garden design, J. Murray 1909. Sparke, Penny, Elsie de Wolfe: the Birth of Modern Interior Decoration, Acanthus Press 2005. Tamassia, Marilena, “Stefano Bardini Antiquario in Firenze.” Il Rinascimento da Firenze a Parigi, edited by Marilena Tamassia, Polistampa 2013, pp. 47–61. Taylor, Roderick, “Spanish Rugs at Vizcaya.” Hali, vol. 52, 1990, pp. 100–107. Thompson, W.G. “Hispano-Moresque Carpets.” Burlington Magazine vol. 18, 1910, pp. 100–109. Turner, Richard, La Pietra: Florence, a Family and a Villa, Edizioni Olivares, 2002. van de Put, Albert “Some Fifteenth-Century Spanish Carpets,” Burlington Magazine vol. 19, 1911, pp. 344–350. “A Venetian Palace at Miami.” Vogue, 1 August 1917, pp. 43–47. “Vizcaya: the Villa and the Grounds.” The Architectural Review 5, no. 7, 1917, pp. 121–167. Weinberg, Barbara, “Nineteenth-Century American Painters at the École des BeauxArts.” American Art Journal vol. 13, 1981, pp. 66–68. White, Samuel G. and Elizabeth White, Stanford White Architect, Rizzoli 2008. Wilson, Richard G., Harbor Hill: Portrait of a House, W.W. Norton & Co., 2008. The works of Witter Bynner: Prose Pieces, edited by J. Kraft, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1979.

CHAPTER 9

Selling French Modern Art on the American Market: César de Hauke as Agent of Jacques Seligmann & Co., 1925–1940 Sébastien Chauffour Immediately after WWI, some of the main European art dealers sought to follow the successful example of Durand-Ruel and to expand into the United States. They established local branches or subsidiary companies for which their recruitment of a local agent as representative was crucial. The agent has a position of real responsibility, choosing to promote certain artists and certain works of art, planning exhibitions, managing relations with various clients, establishing a network of intermediaries. Yet most studies on the FrenchAmerican art market remain silent on the role of the agent. They deal chiefly with the broad development of the trade, concentrating on the main global firms, such as Duveen, Goupil, Knoedler or Wildenstein, or with the pioneering dealers of the avant-garde, such as Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Paul Guillaume, Marius de Zayas, or with particular individual transactions.1



The idea to focus this study on César de Hauke comes from the presence of the Archives César de Hauke given in 1964–1967 by de Hauke himself to the Bibliothèque de l’INHA, Paris. These records directed us to other papers, the Jacques Seligmann Records, Archives of American Art, which permitted us to study the beginnings of de Hauke as an agent of Seligmann. I would like to thank dealers, curators and scholars who have been particularly helpful during this research: Sylvie Brame (Galerie Brame & Lorenceau), Guy-Patrice Dauberville (Galerie Bernheim‑Jeune), Albert Loeb, Christel Hollevoet Force, Anne-Marie Peylhard, Vérane Tasseau, William Trelawny-Vernon and Thomas Jarek (Dobiaschofsky Auktionen AG). I thank deeply the dealers and scholars who met César de Hauke in the 1950–60s and gave me fascinating accounts of their meetings: Mrs. Joan U. Halperin, Mr. Robert L. Herbert, Sir John Richardson, Mr. Michel Strauss. At last, I thank Caroline Ancell, de Hauke’s great-niece, for her enthusiastic interest, and Joseph Graham, Jason Nguyen and Étienne Tornier for their help with the translation of this paper. 1  Gee, 1981; Watson, 1992; FitzGerald, 1995; Zayas, 1996; Prochera et al., 2012. Recently, several exhibitions, books or thesis focused on some European art dealers such as Vollard and Kahnweiler: see Rabinow, 2006; Lacourt, 2013.

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With the recent availability of art dealer records, we can now study more precisely the role of the agents:2 their relationships with the gallery owners, their freedom of initiative, the part they played in the success or failure of the galleries, and the commercial practices of the time. The recent exhibition on Paul Durand-Ruel demonstrated how important to his success in the United States was the involvement of his own sons, Joseph, Charles and Georges, as agents.3 Other important agents active in the 1920s-30s deserve to be resurrected from oblivion: César Mange de Hauke, James St. Lawrence O’Toole and Theresa Parker, hired by Seligmann; George Keller by Étienne Bignou; Fitzroy Carrington, George H. Davey, Carmen H. Messmore, all hired by Knoedler. De Hauke (1900–1965) is almost totally forgotten, except by Seurat scholars or provenance specialists.4 The exhibition on DurandRuel did not mention the fact that the very image used for its advertising campaign, Renoir’s Danse à Bougival, was sold by de Hauke to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts for $150 000, in April 1937.5 In the United States, he is slightly better known, probably because he sold the Demoiselles d’Avignon to the Museum of Modern Art, in December 1937.6 Some articles do remember his fine taste as an art collector.7 Based on the extensive Seligmann records, this paper presents the background and the role of César de Hauke as an agent of Jacques Seligmann & Co., from 1925 to 1940. Using the example of the partnership that he negotiated between Seligmann & Co., as an antiques firm, and Bernheim-Jeune, as a modern art firm, it focuses on the commercial practices that the dealers largely developed after WWI to generate business on the both sides of the Atlantic.

César Mange de Hauke, 1900–1925

César de Hauke was born March 8, 1900, in Paris, as César Charles François Mange.8 He was the eldest son of François Mange, a prominent engineer, in charge of negotiations between Colombian and American authorities when 2  Notably the Jacques Seligmann & Co. Records, the Paul Rosenberg Archives, the Knoedler & Co. Records. 3  Thompson, 2015. 4  See de Hauke, 1961. In the museums curatorial files, de Hauke is sometimes hidden behind the company of his last business partner, Paul Brame of Galerie Brame. 5  Seligmann Records, box 105, folder 13 and box 215, folder 16. 6  Cousin and Seckel, 1988. For this transaction, de Hauke received 15% of the profit, $1,890 of $12,600. See Seligmann Records, box 328, folder 1. 7  Connaissance des Arts, 1967; Rowlands, 1968; Hulton, 1968; Russell, 1988 and 1990. 8  État-civil de Paris, 8th District, Register of Births, 8 March 1900, Archives de Paris.

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the French Panama Canal Company was liquidated in the 1890s.9 César’s mother, Marie de Hauké, was a polish countess, the daughter of a General, and a relative of the Battenberg family. Born and raised in Italy, she lived the life of a socialite in Paris.10 César’s background was rather cosmopolitan. His parents were Swiss citizens, they got married in Cannes in 1899, and lived in Paris until the 1930s, meanwhile César was sent to England and enrolled in a prep school, St Ronan’s, in Hawkhurst, Kent.11 After WWI, still a young man, he developed many links with fashion and artistic circles. It seems he became close to Paul Poiret – possibly via the Poiret’s Art Déco furniture company, Atelier Martine – and especially close to Nicole Groult, Poiret’s sister, herself a fashion designer who opened her artistic network to him.12 De Hauke was also a close friend of the movie director Marcel L’Herbier and the museum curator Georges-Henri Rivière, leading figures of Parisian society of the 1920s.13 In 1919, a César de Hauke portrait, painted by Georges Lepape, was published with an article by Jean-Louis Vaudoyer in the review Feuillets d’Art [Fig. 9.1]. On a panel of lacquer and silver leaves, de Hauke appears as a dandy, perfectly dressed in a yellow suit, with cane and gloves, set in what seems to be the Jardin du Luxembourg. Georges Lepape was an illustrator for fashion reviews, for the Ballets russes, and also a stage designer for L’oiseau bleu by Maeterlinck. For Poiret, he illustrated Les choses de Paul Poiret.14 About his portrait of César de Hauke, Vaudoyer wrote: “[It] represents a young man whose elegance does not hesitate to be aggressive. His suit is fawn-colored; his black tie contrasts with a pink-striped shirt; in canary yellow gloves, he holds a cane with a lapis-lazuli knob. And this blue, close to that yellow within the general tonality of the panel, throws a particular warmth on this coolness, which must have amused the painter. The low horizon, made of indigo and vermilion-colored woods, is dominated by a huge sky obtained with silver leaves, applied as in Asian paintings. Here and there on the panel, the delicate use of a gouge sketches the forms of a fabulous cloud”.15

9  François Mange (1856–1931) often appears in newspapers articles related to the Panama Canal, in years 1890s-1920s. 10  De Hauké, 1907. 11  Dumbreck, 1983. 12  Seligmann Records, box 394, folder 23. 13  Seligmann Records, box 394, folder 23; Lepape, 1983, p. 127; Georges-Henri Rivière Archives, 1933. 14  Lepape, 1911. 15  Vaudoyer, 1919, pp. 49–52.

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Figure 9.1 Georges Lepape, Portrait of César M. de Hauke, 1918. Oil, lacquer, and silver leaves on panel, 29.3 × 11.6 in. (74.5 × 29.5 cm). Private collection, Switzerland. © courtesy Dobiaschofsky Auktionen AG, Bern.

Feuillets d’Art was managed by the designer Michel Dufet and financed by Edmond Moussié, later by Lucien Vogel, founder of the Gazette du Bon Ton.16 Feuillets d’Art was published from 1919 to 1922, as a limited-circulation and exclusive periodical, deeply involved with literary and artistic avant-gardes, promoting works by Léon Bakst, Eileen Gray, Georges Lepape, and Louis Süe. Dufet combined Feuillets d’Art with an art gallery, Galerie des Feuillets d’art, later Galerie Lucien Vogel, located at 11 rue Saint-Florentin, Paris 8th. It housed works by post-impressionist and Art Deco artists, such as Joseph Bernard, Georges d’Espagnat, Henri Lebasque, and Ivan da Silva-Bruhns. De Hauke may have been introduced to art trading in this gallery. In any event, 16  On Feuillets d’Art, see Kurkdjian, 2014, pp. 351–355.

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during the years 1919–1922, he developed a very fine taste for French modern art and acquired a comprehensive knowledge of contemporary artistic circles.17 In 1925, de Hauke was recruited as an agent by the antiques dealer Germain Seligmann through Germain’s cousin, René Seligmann.18 Germain was the head of the Paris and New York branches of the firm founded by his father, Jacques Seligmann. Jacques Seligmann had created his company in Paris, in 1879–1880. Later, his two brothers, Arnold and Simon, joined him as partners and the company became Jacques Seligmann & Cie. In 1904, the New York branch was opened under the name Jacques Seligmann & Co. and managed by the art dealer Eugene Glaenzer. In 1912, Arnold opened his own business in Paris, 23 place Vendôme, and employed his two sons, Armand and Jean. Jacques Seligmann & Cie later became Jacques Seligmann & Fils, when Jacques’s sons, Germain, André-Jean and François-Gérard entered into the company. Simon had two sons: Georges, who worked for the Paris branch of Jacques Seligmann, then became an art dealer in New York after WWII, and René who worked for the both branches of Jacques Seligmann, and died in New York in 1940. The Seligmanns ranked among the leaders of the transatlantic art trade, opening a New York branch as early as 1904, located at 705 Fifth Avenue. Selling antiques and old masters, the firm specialized in eighteenth-century French art. Its best coup was the purchase of the remainder of the Hertford-Wallace collection, which was then sold to the most prominent European and American collectors.19 They sometimes dealt in modern art, for specific transactions, as in 1918 when the firm entered in partnership with Bernheim-Jeune, Durand-Ruel and Vollard for the Degas studio sale.20 During WWI, when links with Paris became difficult, the New York branch exhibited American artists such as Robert Reid, Andrew O’Connor, Albert Sterner, and Ben Ali Haggin.21 These incursions in the field of modern art were isolated cases as the Seligmanns were anxious to maintain their primary position in the antiques business. However, Germain Seligmann had different views. In his memoirs, he explains his decision to “enter the fray on

17  About these circles, see the Art Deco exhibition imagined by Lepape, Paris 09–29, 1957. 18  Seligman, 1961, p. 156. 19  Seligman, 1961, pp. 98–99. 20  Durand-Ruel Godfroy, 1988, pp. 263–275. 21   The Sun, 16 December 1917, p. 12; 10 March 1918, p. 20; The New York Tribune, 28 February 1915; 9 April 1922, p. 2.

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the side of the modern” lured by a market in growth.22 Impressed by de Hauke’s intuition and taste, he sought him as his main agent in the new company he was creating in America.

De Hauke & Co., Inc., 1926–1930

The 23 April 1926, Germain Seligmann founded the New York gallery Modern Paintings, immediately renamed International Contemporary Art Company, then finally De Hauke & Co. Inc.23 The name De Hauke & Co. was used from 25 October 1926 to 7 July 1930, then reverted to Modern Paintings. The company was liquidated between June 1930 and September 1934, and its assets were merged into Jacques Seligmann & Co. and Tessa Corp. Originally, Seligmann was the only shareholder and César was employed as “artistic and technical director.” The firm was put under de Hauke’s name, probably because Seligmann did not want to expose his own name.24 The contract of employment stipulated a salary of $80 per week and one-third of the profits.25 It offered César the possibility of acquiring shares, though Seligmann remained the majority holder. The company was divided in 200 shares, 160 for Seligmann, 40 for de Hauke. Thirty years later, in a letter to Germain, César recalled the partnership: “De Hauke & Co. was at the time a corporation financed by you, in which I was only a minority stockholder and an employee.”26 The gallery was located at 3 East 51st street, close to the other international art dealers.27 The staff included just three people: César de Hauke as head, the agent James St. Lawrence O’Toole, and a clerk.28 De Hauke & Co. originally specialized in French modern works, that is to say, paintings, pastels, watercolors and drawings by artists belonging to impressionism, post-impressionism, fauvism, cubism and the Ecole de Paris, 22  Seligman, 1961, p. 156. 23  Seligmann Records, box 407, folder 7; box 417, folder 1; box 419, folder 2. 24  Seligmann Records, box 407, folder 6. 25  Seligmann Records, box 407, folders 6–7. 26  Seligmann Records, box 29, folder 22: 12 March 1958. 27  Durand-Ruel and Knoedler were located at 12 and 14 East 57th street, Reinhardt at 730 Fifth Avenue, Wildenstein at 19 East 64th street. 28  The clerk was paid $1,560 a year and O’Toole, $2,600. He acted as an assistant for César. Born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1895, educated in contiental Europe, O’Toole worked for De Hauke & Co. and Seligmann & Co. before joining the dealer Paul Reinhardt, and later opening his own gallery. See Seligmann Records, box 407, folder 4.

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such as Degas, Renoir, Sisley, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, Cross, Bonnard, Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck, Braque, Picasso, Gris, La Fresnaye, Modigliani, and Pascin. The gallery also specialized in decorative arts. Art Deco furniture, metalwork, ceramic, glassware, earthenware, and bookbinding played an important part during its first years. The tendency to combine modern fine art and decorative art can also be found in many European galleries such as the Mayor Gallery, in London, a Seligmann’s partner.29 This tendency appears to have come from Vienna, Munich, and Paris, prompted by the success of the decorative arts on the international scene. In Paris, the dealer Jeanne Bucher and the designer Pierre Chareau managed a gallery, 3 rue du Cherche-Midi, where paintings and furniture coexisted with a shared desire to promote the modern art. In the case of De Hauke & Co., the Seligmann’s expertise and network in decorative arts played a decisive role. At the end of 1926, $100,000 were spent by Germain Seligmann in the “affaire Art nouveau.”30 Exclusive contracts of distribution in the United States were offered to the glass artist Maurice Marinot, the ceramists Émile Decoeur and Claudius Linossier, the designers Pierre Legrain and JacquesÉmile Ruhlmann.31 Their works, added to those by Dunand, Mayodon, Metthey, and Puiforcat – artists who had such great success at the 1925 Paris Art Deco Exhibition – were presented during the spring 1926 at the first show organized by de Hauke in New York. It took place in the Jacques Seligmann gallery, De Hauke & Co. being not yet open. It was a “festival of decorative arts,” bringing to de Hauke and Seligmann a “succès d’estime.”32 To build on this success, de Hauke wanted as many exhibitions as possible, especially in paintings and drawings: “It is absolutely necessary that De Hauke & Co. organizes the greatest number of gallery events as possible, on the one hand for the purpose of identifying ourselves with a trend and with an esprit, and on the other hand for the simple reason that this is the only way for us to do more business.”33 From October 1926 to May 1930, the gallery organized sixteen exhibitions of paintings and drawings and published twelve catalogues.

29  Stephenson, 2011, pp. 98–125. The Mayor Gallery is mentioned in a letter from César de Hauke to Maurice Wertheim, 11 Nov. 1936, see Seligmann Records, box 101, folder 5. 30  Seligmann Records, box 407, folder 4. 31  Seligmann Records, box 404, folder 1; box 405, folders 5, 9; box 407, folder 2. 32  Seligman, 1961, pp. 181–182. 33  Seligmann Records, box 407, folder 4: 22 March 1928.

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These exhibitions presented renowned artists, new faces, and chronological or thematic shows: Drawings by Ingres (Jan. 1927), The Classics of Modern Paintings (Apr. 1927), Watercolours and Drawings (March 1928), Bonnard (Apr. 1928), Benjamin T. Kurtz (May 1928), Odilon Redon (Nov. 1928), Watercolors and Drawings (Dec. 1928), Paul Burlin (Jan.–Febr. 1929), Works by Nineteenth-Century and Contemporary French Artists (March 1929), 30 Years of French Paintings (Oct. 1929), Amedeo Modigliani (Oct.–Nov. 1929), Watercolours and drawings by Nineteenth-Century and Contemporary French artists (Dec. 1929), Jacques Mauny (Jan. 1930), Andrée Joubert (March 1930), Exhibition of Cubism, 1910–1913 (Apr. 1930), Asselin, Coubine, Marquet, Thomsen (May 1930). These exhibitions and those dedicated to decorative arts were conceived in the New York gallery, then, in association with artistic directors and curators such as Virginia Hamill, William M. Milliken, Helen Plumb, and Alice Roullier, they were exported in various venues: at Macy’s, The McClees Gallery of Philadelphia, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts, The Arts Club of Chicago, etc.34 [Fig. 9.2] De Hauke sought respect from dealers and art critics for his stock of works and high-quality exhibitions. He held in his gallery two or three major exhibitions each year. He carefully selected artists and works.35 He quickly received the support of Walter Pach and Albert E. Gallatin.36 He presented never-before seen works from the likes of Pierre Bonnard and from artists’ families and circles such as the Redon or the Modigliani’s heirs.37 He knew how to charm collectors and got prestigious loans from Ralph M. Coe, Chester Dale, or Duncan Phillips. For his 1930 Cubist Exhibition, he obtained from the Arensbergs their Duchamp’s Nude descending a staircase.38 These events were covered by a promotional strategy which emphasized the French side of the gallery. The exhibition catalogues were carefully printed in France using an Art Deco typography by Draeger or Arts & Métiers graphiques, the firm of Charles Peignot, a friend of Lucien Vogel. The essays were signed by renowned French critics such as Claude Anet, Maurice Raynal, Claude Roger-Marx, and Christian Zervos. The shows were reviewed 34  Seligmann Records, box 399, folders 12 and 15; box 400, folders 2 and 4; box 401, folder 17; box 405, folders 6 and 7. 35  Seligmann Records, box 382, folder 3. 36  Seligmann Records, box 385, folder 18; box 388, folder 15; Perlman, 2002, pp. 340–341; McCarthy, 2011, pp. 77–78; Levy, 2003, pp. 98–99. 37  Seligmann Records, box 382, fold 3; box 396, fold 29; box 397, fold 9. 38  Seligmann Records, box 392, folder 26; box 403, folder 3.

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Figure 9.2 Exhibition of Decorative Arts by De Hauke & Co., Cleveland Museum of Art, c. 1929. Glasswares by Maurice Marinot. © private collection.

in art periodicals such as ArtNews, The Burlington Magazine, International Studio, and Parnassus. In order to organize his exhibitions, and be considered a serious competitor among the top New York galleries – which for him were Wildenstein, DurandRuel, Knoedler and Reinhardt39 – de Hauke was always anxious to increase his stock. That explains his partnership with Bernheim-Jeune.

Partnerships and Business Practices, 1926–1940

When De Hauke & Co. opened, the first difficulty for César and Germain was to acquire as many works as possible. They benefited from a large network of 39  Seligmann Records, box 407, folder 4: 24 December 1926.

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clients built over time by Jacques Seligmann & Co., but they had few connections with contemporary painters. Their initial strategy was to have recourse to their runners and middlemen in the decorative arts circles, but it failed. César soon understood that the business would only thrive if the company could establish a partnership with a dealer specialized in modern paintings who would act as a supplier. He wrote to Germain: “We must talk to Mr. Rose about his visit to Mr. Rouard,40 and you will see how difficult it is once again to obtain works from good contemporary artists and how useful it would be to form a strong partnership with Parisian dealers who already have their own pool of such artists.”41 Such an opportunity presented itself during the summer of 1926, with one of the leading dealers in French modern art, Bernheim-Jeune. “Éditeurs, experts près la Cour d’appel et les Douanes françaises,” the Bernheim brothers, Gaston and Josse, were the sons of Alexandre Bernheim, who had created the gallery in Paris in 1863. Assisted by the art critic Félix Fénéon, the Bernheims had organized some of the most important exhibitions of the past decades such as Van Gogh (1901), Bonnard and Vuillard (1906), Cézanne (1907), Seurat (1908), Matisse (1910), Henri Rousseau (1916), Modigliani (1922). Their gallery was located rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The company had two shortlived subsidiaries, in Zürich, and in Lucerne, L’Art Moderne, open in summer and managed by the dealer Paul Ebstein, a Bernheim cousin.42 Occasionally, the Bernheims established partnerships to expand abroad, as with Alex Reid & Lefevre, and Percy Moore Turner, in London. But these were less extensive than the contract negotiated with de Hauke. For his part, César had to persuade Germain Seligmann, who was somewhat reluctant: “We must develop a stock of well selected modern paintings, and that will be possible if you accept the offer of Bernheim-Jeune to buy on account together.”43 César succeeded and the partnership was finally signed the 15th November 1926. The terms were clear: “Bernheim Brothers wish to expand their business to the United States and Canada. De Hauke & Co. having the 40  Hugo Rose was an accountant of Jacques Seligmann & Co. Georges Rouard (1874–1929), managed Maison Rouard, located at 34 Avenue de l’Opéra, specialized in French modern decorative arts. He acted as an intermediary for de Hauke. 41  Seligmann Records, box 405, folder 6: 29 April 1926. 42  Seligmann Records, box 382, folders 3–4. Later, Paul Ebstein managed the Galerie de L’Élysée and partnered with Jacques Dubourg. On Bernheim, see Joyeux-Prunel, 2015, pp. 471–475. 43  Seligmann Records, box 405, folder 7.

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intention of adding to their modern art business the sale of paintings and modern pastels, they have reached an agreement on the terms of their relationship […].”44 For the Bernheims, it represented an opportunity to sell directly in the United States and to get more clients. For De Hauke & Co., it meant a guaranteed supply of works coming from the Paris or Lucerne stocks, especially from artists under contract with Bernheim.45 The partnership stated that paintings would be sent to New York for the saison new-yorkaise, from October to April. In September, César went to Paris and Lucerne, and selected the paintings he wanted to have sent to New York. At the end of the season, the unsold works were returned. The paintings were sent on consignment, that is to say, De Hauke & Co. was in in charge of selling them but their prices were fixed by Bernheim. De Hauke & Co. received a commission of 25% on sales. The partnership was not limited to works sent to New York, De Hauke & Co. also had the possibility of selling to its American clients the paintings presented in the Bernheim Paris gallery. César was anxious about the number of paintings he would receive each year. He wanted as many as possible, and paintings of high quality: “I absolutely insist on dealing with paintings in which I have faith. I am convinced that a business like ours will have no future if we do not sell the best paintings, by the best artists, and paintings in which we have faith.”46 That is the reason why the contract stipulated that the consignments in New York could be worth no less than $150,000 a year. During the first season, approximately 80 works were sent by Bernheim.47 The major modern artists were represented with at least one or two paintings: Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Bonnard, Vuillard, Vlaminck, etc. It was a promising premise. However, very few sales were made. That first season was a commercial failure. Clients were present, shows received very good critical reviews, but business did not take off. According to César, there were three main reasons: 1° The Bernheims were reluctant to send their finest works of art, notably those presented at Lucerne. In his letters to Seligmann, César complained about the number of works sent to New York and about their poor quality: “Our 44  Seligmann Records, box 382, folder 1. 45  Seligmann Records, box 382, fold 1: “Liste des peintres qui sont contrôlés par BernheimJeune: Bonnard, Vuillard, Matisse, Marquet, Roussel, Dufy, Vlaminck, Utrillo, Van Dongen, Rouault, Derain, Gromaire, Georg, Vallotton”. Other artists were added in a second list: Joveneau, Souverbie, Signac, Lucien Simon, Quizet. 46  Seligmann Records, box 407, folder 4: 9 June 1927. 47  Seligmann Records, box 382, folder 2: 19 April 1927.

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partnership with the Bernheims fails not only over the content, but also over the form, and if I must quote an example, I would talk about the term that we have used together to define our joint activity. In effect, we are considered as mere correspondents for each other […]. If we become their representatives for the following season, and later, even better, their associates, we should certainly hope that they would share a state of mind that is called here team work. I have the distinct impression that those people, intentionally or not, considered us from the very beginning as a new outlet. That could maybe work, if they did not have a distorted idea of prices due to the fact that we are doing business in America. […] I am convinced that the Bernheims are wanting in good artistic judgement. There are lots of very young artists who should be theirs, whereas they belong now to Marseille, to Zborowski, to Vollard, or to Bignou.”48 2° Their prices were too high for the American Market, yet De Hauke & Co. was not allowed to give discounts. César was convinced that the Bernheims increased their prices by 20% before sending the paintings to New York. He missed many sales, because collectors such as Chester Dale and Albert Gallatin preferred to buy directly in Paris. He was unable to channel the deals to New York. 3° The contract between the two firms was not well suited to the common practices of the international art market. The partnership restricted the possibilities for De Hauke & Co. to buy on joint account with other dealers, whereas shared-purchases and shared-sales between Bignou, Dudensing, Knoedler, Loeb, and the other dealers were especially growing in the interwar years. Financially, it meant a sharing of the investments, the profits, and the risks. Commercially, it meant an increase of possible clients, purchases and sales. As a result, the partnership with Bernheim failed and ended in July 1927. De Hauke & Co. and Bernheim-Jeune maintained commercial relations after that, even privileged relations, but without any legal partnership. In many respects, this was more liberal and more suited to their needs. As soon as de Hauke was free to cooperate on ventures with other dealers, he widened his hunting-ground, raised the number of works, and selected exactly the ones he wanted to present in his gallery. From 1927, de Hauke bought on joint account with many dealers and notably with Étienne Bignou. Bignou owned a gallery located 8 rue La Boétie, Paris. He also owned the Galerie Georges Petit jointly with the Bernheims. At the end of the 1920s, he replaced Paul Guillaume as one of the most prominent dealers, and became the advisor to collectors such as Albert C. Barnes and Chester Dale. Later, he opened a subsidiary in New York, managed by his 48  Seligmann Records, box 407, folder 4: 9 June 1927.

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partner George Keller. In June 1928, Bignou offered de Hauke and Seligmann a fabulous proposition. He had arranged to buy dozens of works by Modigliani from the Parisian collector Jonas Netter. The total amount of the operation was 1,6 million Francs. That represented 160% of the entire investment made the previous year by De Hauke & Co.49 Bignou, de Hauke, and Reid & Lefevre cooperated on venture to share investment and sales.50 Several important paintings were sold, such as Portrait de Soutine to Chester Dale in May 1929, and Portrait de Kisling in September 1929.51 A Modigliani show was organized in London, at the Reid & Lefevre gallery during the spring 1929, then in New York, at the De Hauke & Co. gallery, from 21st October to 9th November 1929. The New York show, at De Hauke & Co., was the first entirely dedicated to the artist in America. Previously, only some works had been exhibited, notably at the New Gallery and the Grand Central Art Galleries.52 The foremost work presented by de Hauke was a Grand nu couché, bought jointly with Reid & Lefevre. [Fig. 9.3].53 The exhibition was particularly praised by art critics but the stock market crash prevented commercial success. Very few works were sold: La Robe rouge, to the painter Erik G. Haupt for $7,500; Les Yeux bleus, to Frank Crowninshield, the editor of Vanity Fair, for $5,000; and a drawing to the museum curator William R. Valentiner for $70.54 As in the case of Grand nu couché, many works were owned on joint-account by several dealers, most of the time between two dealers, sometimes among three or four dealers. These co-ownerships created very complicated combinations. The example of the sale of a work by Cézanne, L’Estaque, [Fig. 9.4], shows very well the interweaving of ownerships as a current commercial practice during these years. In September 1960, Germain Seligmann wrote to César to clarify the ownership of this painting included in the bequest by William S. Paley, the radio magnate and art collector, to the MoMA. César answered: “We 49  In June 1928, the total amount of the investments of De Hauke & Co. was FF 1,003,000: FF 366,000 for watercolors and drawings and FF 637,000 for paintings. Seurat works represented an investment of FF 314,000. Redon works represented FF 395,000, see Seligmann Records, box 405, folder 9. 50  Seligmann Records, box 405, folder 9: 26 June 1928. 51  Seligmann Records, box 408, folder 4: 11 September 1929. 52  Dauberville, 2015, p. 15. 53   The Grand nu, n. 3280 of the stock, was bought jointly with Reid & Lefevre, from Jonas Netter for FF 300,000 ($12,000), 2 August 1928. It was sold eighteen years later to Josef von Sternberg for $40,000. The work belongs now to the MoMA. See Seligmann Records, box 283, folder 7; box 292, folder 3; box 408, folder 4. 54  Seligmann Records, box 408, folder 5: Sales book, 19 October 1929 and 13 December 1929.

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Figure 9.3 Amedeo Modigliani, Grand nu couché, in Catalogue of Paintings by Amedeo Modigliani. New York: De Hauke & Co., 1929. © private collection.

did buy jointly, you and I, the painting by Cézanne, L’Estaque. Was it in 1934 or 35? I do not remember. Yes, it is Mr. Paley who owns this painting today. We were, you, René and I, on excellent terms with Mr. Paley, and I believe even that I hung the painting myself in his reseda-green living room, at Beckman Place, where there was already the beautiful Redon that I had sold to him.55 Curiously, according to the records of that time that I kept at home, I realize that the painting had been invoiced by Knoedler. What happened? I can’t remember. That’s probably the result of one of the silly things we did so often at that time, as with the finest Redon of my exhibition that I had sold to Mr. Spaulding, before I received the next day a visit from Carmen Messmore who

55  Odilon Redon, Vase de fleurs, c. 1912–1914, William S. Paley Collection, MoMA, New York. This work, n. 6414 of the stock, was bought in April 1937, then sold to Mrs William Paley for $10,200, 5 May 1937. De Hauke received a commission of $656. See Seligmann Records, box 75, folder 2, and box 328, folder 1.

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Figure 9.4 Paul Cézanne, L’Estaque, 1879–1883. Oil on canvas, 31.5 × 39 in. (80.3 × 99.4 cm). The William S. Paley Collection. © The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Licensed by Art Resource, NY.

told me that he had already sold the painting and invoiced it to Spaulding.56 You remember all the nonsense of our practices at that time. Do not worry, my dear Germain, you can consider yourself as the seller of this painting to Paley, since we were the owners.”57 But this ownership was much more muddled than César believed. Germain Seligmann replied eventually to César: “We took

56  Odilon Redon, Grand vase vert, 1910–1912, Bequest of John T. Spaulding, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Carmen H. Messmore was an agent of Knoedler. The painting, n. 328 of the stock, was bought jointly with Reid & Lefevre for $3,888, 2 August 1928, then sold to Spaulding for $10,000, 12 November 1928. See Seligmann Records, box 284, folder 7; box 408, folders 4–5. 57  Seligmann Records, box 29, folder 22: 29 September 1960.

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Knoedler as co-owner, and Knoedler sold the painting to Dudensing.58 And finally, Dudensing sold the painting to Paley! You are right, my dear César, why did we act like that? We do not remember, neither you nor I.”59 These exchanges between de Hauke and Seligmann are interesting since they emphasize the layers of different actors in the course of a deal. The dealer who physically owned and exhibited a work was not necessary the one who sold it. A competitor could play the role of a go-between or share a part of ownership. In a time where the market of French modern art was booming, especially in the United States, various dealers, agents, and middlemen could take part to transactions and create unexpected combinations. The example of L’Estaque illustrates the interdependence between the dealers, their degree of confidence, and the lack of formal framework which existed at that time. The word was the rule of the deal. As an agent of Jacques Seligmann & Co., placed at the head of the gallery, César de Hauke showed an intuition and a comprehension of the business that led him to play an outstanding role in the history of the art trading of the interwar years. After the war years, which, in his case as in others, were especially fraught,60 de Hauke became marchand en chambre, a dealer without a gallery, sharing his time between his Paris home, at 14 rue du Cherche-Midi, and his New York office, at 18 East 77th Street. He entered into a partnership with Paul Brame of Galerie Brame. Together, they made important deals with works coming from or going to the collections of Jacques Doucet, Maurice Joyant, Rolf de Maré, Somerset Maugham, Joan Payson Whitney, John Hay Whitney, and other 58   Valentine Dudensing (1892–1967) managed the Valentine Gallery, located 45 West 44th Street, then 69 East 57th Street, New York. 59   L’Estaque, n. 6017 of the stock, was bought jointly with Knoedler from Michel Monet through Bernheim-Jeune, for $13,262, in September 1935. It was sold through Dudensing to William Paley for $30,000, in October 1935. See Seligmann Records, box 14, folder 2; box 29, folder 22; box 61, folder 5. 60  Recently, de Hauke has been described as a pro-Nazi dealer, see notably Goggin and Robinson, 1997. This assertion is unfounded. Concerning his role during WWII, see Enquête du Comité interprofessionnel d’épuration, 1945–1949, F12/9631, Archives Nationales, Paris. According to Germain Seligmann’s brother, François-Gérard, de Hauke was upright during the war, see Seligmann Records, box 404, folder 8: 15 April 1946. However, de Hauke made important transactions in 1943–1944. For instance he purchased from Gertrude Stein the most important painting of her collection, Portrait de Madame Cézanne à l’éventail, see Rogers, 1948, p. 189.

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collectors of French modern art. They created the collection Les artistes et leurs oeuvres, editing the catalogues of Degas, Seurat, and Toulouse-Lautrec.61 Fittingly, on the 15th June 1965, de Hauke died at work, during an auction at which he was purchasing for Paul Mellon, Monet’s Femme à l’ombrelle.62

Works Cited



Archival Sources



Published Sources

État-civil de Paris, 8th District. Archives de Paris. Enquête du Comité interprofessionnel d’épuration, 1945–1949. Archives Nationales, Paris. Acc. Number: F12/9631. Archives César de Hauke. Bibliothèque de l’INHA, Paris. Jacques Seligmann & Co. Records, 1904–1978, bulk 1913–1974. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. M. Knoedler & Co. Records, 1848–1971. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California. Archives Georges-Henri Rivière. Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, Paris. Acc. Number: 2AM1K47e. The Paul Rosenberg Archives. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Cousin, Judith and Hélène Seckel. “Éléments pour une chronologie de l’histoire des Demoiselles d’Avignon.” Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, catalogue de l’exposition, Musée Picasso, 26 janvier-18 avril 1988, vol. 2, edited by Hélène Seckel, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1988, pp. 547–623. Dauberville, Guy-Patrice. Amedeo Modigliani chez Bernheim-Jeune. Bernheim-Jeune, 2015. “De Hauke Opens With Modern French Show.” The Art News, 12 October 1929, pp. 1–4. Dortu, Mireille G. Toulouse-Lautrec et son Œuvre. P. Brame et C.M. de Hauke/Collectors Editions, 1971. Dumbreck, Richard. “Ties That Bind.” St Ronan’s Centenary, 1883–1983. St Ronan’s School, 1983. Durand-Ruel Godfroy, Caroline. “Les ventes de l’atelier Degas à travers les archives Durand-Ruel. Degas inédit: actes du colloque Degas, Musée d’Orsay, 18–21 avril 1988. La Documentation française, 1988, pp. 263–275. 61  Lemoisne, 1946–1949; de Hauke, 1961; Dortu, 1971. 62  Rheims, 1975, pp. 208–222.

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FitzGerald, Michael C. Making Modernism: Picasso and the Creation of the Market for Twentieth Century Art. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995. Gee, Malcolm. Dealers, Critics, and Collectors of Modern Painting: Aspects of the Parisian Art Market between 1910 and 1930. Garland, 1981. Goggin, Maureen and Walter Robinson, “Murky histories cloud some local art,” Boston Globe, 9 November 1997, pp. A 1. Hauke, César M. de. Seurat et son Œuvre. P. Brame et C.M. de Hauke/Gründ, 1961. Hauké, Louise de. Le général Maurice comte de Hauké : souvenir posthume à l’occasion du 100e anniversaire de l’établissement de la famille de Hauké en Pologne, 1782–1882. Varsovie, 1907. “Huit musées se partagent cinquante objets précieux légués par un antiquaire français. Don de M. César de Haucke (sic).” Connaissance des Arts, vol. 187, Sept. 1967, pp. 62–67. Hulton, Paul H. The César Mange de Hauke Bequest. The British Museum, 1968. Joyeux-Prunel, Béatrice. Les Avant-gardes artistiques, 1848–1914: une histoire transnationale. Gallimard-Folio, 2015. Kurkdjian, Sophie. Lucien Vogel et Michel de Brunhoff : Parcours croisés de deux éditeurs de presse illustrée au XXe siècle. Institut universitaire Varenne, 2014. Lacourt, Jeanne-Bathilde, et al. Picasso, Léger, Masson: Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler et ses Peintres. LaM, 2013. Lemoisne, Paul-André. Degas et son Œuvre. P. Brame et C.M. de Hauke/Arts et Métiers graphiques, 1947. Lepape, Claude, and Thierry Defert. Georges Lepape ou l’élégance illustrée. Herscher, 1983. Lepape, Georges. Les Choses de Paul Poiret vues par Georges Lepape. Maquet, 1911. Levy, Sophie. A Transatlantic Avant-Garde: American Artists in Paris, 1918–1939. University of California Press-Musée d’Art Américain, 2003. McCarthy, Laurette E. Walter Pach (1883–1958): The Armory Show and The Untold Story of Modern Art in America. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011. “Modigliani Exhibition at De Hauke’s.” The Art News, 26 October 1929, pp. 1–8. Paris 09–29: Fastes et décors de la vie parisienne de 1909 à 1929. Musée Galliéra, 1957. Patry, Sylvie, et al. Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market. The National Gallery in association with Yale University Press, 2015. Perlman, Bennard B. American Artists, Authors, and Collectors: The Walter Pach Letters, 1906–1958. State University of New York Press, 2002. Prochera, David, et al. Paul Rosenberg and Company: from France to America: exhibition of documents selected from the Paul Rosenberg Archives, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, January 27th–April 5th 2010. Paul Rosenberg & Co., 2012. Rabinow, Rebecca A., et al. Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the AvantGarde. Metropolitan Museum of Art with Yale University Press, 2006. Rheims, Maurice. Haute Curiosité. R. Laffont, 1975.

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Rogers, William G. When This You See Remember Me: Gertrude Stein In Person. Rinehart, 1948. Rowlands, John. “Treasures of a Connoisseur: the César de Hauke bequest.” Apollo, vol. 88, July 1968, p. 4. Russel, John. “The Gift of a Great Dealer and Collector.” The New York Times, 21 Aug. 1988. Russel, John. “Picture This: Frames Without Paintings at the MET.” New York Times, 24 June 1990. Seligman, Germain. Merchants of Art: 1880–1960: Eighty Years of Professional Collecting. Appleton Century Crofts, 1962. Stephenson, Andrew. “Strategies of Display and Modes of Consumption in London Art Galleries in the Inter-War Years.” The Rise of the Modern Art Market in London, 1850– 1939, edited by Pamela Fletcher, et al., Manchester University Press, 2011, pp. 98–125. Thompson, Jennifer A. “Durand-Ruel and America, Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market, edited by Sylvie Patry et al., National Gallery Company, 2015, pp. 134–151. Watson, Peter. From Manet to Manhattan: The Rise of the Modern Art Market. Random House, 1992. Zayas, Marius de. How, When, and Why Modern Art came to New York, edited by Francis M. Naumann, MIT Press, 1996.

The Role of Photographs in the Selling of Art

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CHAPTER 10

Stefano Bardini and C.F. Walker, His London Agent Annalea Tunesi Stefano Bardini (1836–1922) reached the peak of his success in the 1880s and in 1883 opened his galleria in a majestic palazzo. The project of the palazzo façade was the result of cooperation between Bardini and the eclectic Florentine architect, Corinto Corinti (1841–1930);1 together with the palazzo interiors, it had a powerful theatrical effect. The palazzo, created to house Bardini’s important art collection, was also an emulation of a museum, simultaneously evoking two important aspects. First, the building itself was steeped in history and could be seen as a “casket,” a treasure box whose exterior decoration hinted at the nature of its contents. Here the past, the present and the future were condensed. As Gaston Bachelard observes, “the casket is a memory of what is immemorial”.2 The palazzo façade was a pastiche, created with architectural fragments suggesting a Renaissance palazzo, integrated with the original neighbouring buildings. In the Nineteenth Century, novel architectural styles, inspired by mediaeval and Renaissance models, emerged in Florence, leading a new, eclectic architectural school. The ideals of the Risorgimento were reflected in its architecture, where the combination of styles, especially those of the medieval and Renaissance periods, came to represent the evolution of a new country, visually symbolised by its most significant historical periods. Fragments of the past assumed political connotations in the present day. This language was not Roman, Gothic or Renaissance in character, but was rather the result of their amalgamation, a combination of forms from the past reinterpreted and displayed with a newly decorative function.3 The re-appropriation of historical models intellectually represented the new Italian flag, and visually epitomised patriotic Risorgimento ideals. Paradoxically, Florence’s search for modernity reproduced models and patterns of its past, a heritage from which it was impossible to escape. The city lost forever its medieval pattern and presented a fragmented new geography; this was seen as a symbol of progress. 1  Muzzi, Gentilini, et al., 1985, pp. 176–177. 2  Bachelard, 1964, p. 84. 3  Bossi, Morolli, 1988, p. 214.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004342989_011

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Two major aspects contributed to the evolution of this style from 1862 onwards: first, the major changes which occurred in Florence when it became the Italian capital. The intention of emulating the grandeur of European capitals led to the destruction of the medieval city walls and the enlargement of roads around the old town with the creation of new bridges and new buildings. After 1871, the capital moved to Rome; however, a project of reclamation of Florence Old Town continued until the mid-1890s. The old town was in part destroyed, generating a wealth of fragments, both architectural and artistic. Collecting the fragments was, for museums, a way of preserving the memory, and for private collectors, a form of identification with the past. Additionally, the impoverishment of noble families due to the drastic economic changes following the unification of Italy forced them to sell their art collections, generating an intense international art market. The interior of the palazzo Mozzi Bardini presented a dreamy atmosphere: the walls were in different shades of blue and this had an incredible effect on the displays and dialogue between works of art, as described in one guidebook: The Mozzi Bardini Palazzo contains the collections of the art dealer Bardini: the architectural decoration of the façade is remarkable for the use of antique pieces: the window frames originally came from the church of San Lorenzo in Pistoia. We are not admitted inside without the permission of the owner. It is worth the visit because, apart from the high standard of the works of art, the museum display in the rooms on the ground and first floors presents an impressive artistic touch, conferring a fairytale effect.4 Although unique, Bardini’s palazzo and its collections was also the result of a variety of historical, cultural and artistic influences. From the middle of the Nineteenth Century, Italy – and especially Florence – became the favoured destination of travellers and intellectuals from all over the world. In Italy, Germany and France in particular, scholars and intellectuals sought to identify their countries’ cultural identities with those of the medieval and Renaissance periods, in order to promote new ideals for their nations and foster a sense of belonging to a historical period generally considered the beginning of a new civilisation. In the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries, a strong interest in Italian art was generated by several historical publications about 4  Marcotti, 1892, p. 233.

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Italian civilisation during the Renaissance.5 A mixture of nationalities populated Florence: a third of the city’s inhabitants were Italian, a third English, and the rest French, German, Russian and Polish.6 Florentine culture thus reflected diverse influences. The Russians, for example, participated fully in Italian social life – its feasts and traditions. One of the most important examples of the Russian presence in Florence was the Demidoff family, who actively contributed to and influenced the political and cultural life of the city.7 The German community tended not to mix with Italians; instead, they led separate lives devoted to the study of the arts. The spread of Burckhardt’s theories and the creation of the Kunsthistorisches Institut revolutionised approaches to the study of the arts in Italy and in Europe.8 The English community was probably the oldest and largest in Florence. English collectors and travellers had been accustomed to taking the Grand Tour on the Continent and Florence was one of their main destinations.9 The English rediscovered Italy in the years between 1820 and 1848, after the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire.10 Once balance in Europe had been re-established by the Congress of Vienna, English travellers started to return to Italy.11 The presence of the English in the city was so large that those native to Florence assumed every new visitor to be English. “Some English have arrived,” as Giuliana Artom Treves reports in her book.12 Writers, political supporters, art collectors, and art dealers entered Florentine society, leaving fascinating aesthetic and intellectual signs of their presence. These, along with events in the city’s history, generated new criteria for interpreting both history and art. Bardini’s relationship with the English art market began at a very early stage in his career, as he was in contact with English art collectors and dealers in Florence. Three key English figures were core to the inspiration of Bardini’s display and the forging of his taste. John Temple Leader (1810–1903) and William Blundell Spence (1814–1900), both his seniors, preceded his style and proved influential in his acquisitions and displays. With Frederick Stibbert (1836– 1906), his contemporary, Bardini shared not only the Risorgimento ideals of his 5  Fraser, 1992, Sheehan, 1999, p. 48. Buck, Vasoli, 1987, pp. 10–15, Haskell, 1986, pp. 9–11, De Lorenzi, 1986, pp. 143–146, Fantoni, 1997, pp. 13–21, 23–33. 6  Vannucci, 1981, p. 14. 7  Glusakova, 1996, pp. 17–32, Trosina, 1996, pp. 145–164, Neverov, 157–164. 8  Vannucci, op. cit., p. 143. 9  Webster, 1971, p. 1. 10  Fantoni, 2000, p. 37. 11  Artom Treves, 1982, p. 3. 12  Artom Treves, 1982, p. 9.

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youth – they both fought together as garibaldini – but also, despite different cultural backgrounds, an interest in collecting art.13 Given this background that forged Bardini’s taste, what was the taste that Bardini intended to bring to England? Which art collectors did he think would be interested in his art collection? The aim of this study is to look at Bardini’s efforts to break into the circle of English art collectors. It will focus on the 1892 taccuino Appunti di Londra, written by a certain C.F. Walker, one of Bardini’s agents, and on correspondence between Walker and Bardini between 29 October 1890 and 21 March 1891 when Bardini instructed him, “Torni” (“Come back!”).14 More letters followed from Walker, again in London; for a few months these were on friendly terms, showing that he was not working for Bardini, but was willing to offer his services. Both the notebook and the correspondence include information about Walker’s trips to Paris and Brussels. In this essay, only the London correspondence will be analysed. The notebook from 1892 is slightly deceptive, as it was probably used by Walker to take notes over the two previous years; he later used the information in letters to Bardini. Appunti di Londra reveals the clarity with which every client was portrayed in just a few short notes: Lord Clifden (?), 7 Carlton Gardens Unpredictable buyer; understands nothing but is very rich. Old master paintings, bronzes, antique furniture. To conduct business you have to be … [unclear] on the terms of payment. You will surely be paid in the end, but he will make you sweat for it.15 The agent visited the potential clients in their homes or offices, and showed them photographs of the works of art available from Bardini’s collection. The use of language and the subtlety of Walker’s psychological analysis of every single collector demonstrates how Bardini developed his “tailor-made” marketing technique, which allowed Bardini to send his agent back to his clients once he had the pieces they desired, or alternatively to suggest new forms of collecting. The correspondence, a recent discovery in the Bardini archive, highlights new facets of the relationship between the men.16 The correspondence 13  Baldry, 1997, p. 68; Probst, 2000, pp. 125–142, Levi, 1985, pp. 85–149, Callman, 1999, p. 339. 14   A SEB copialettere Bardini to Walker, 1892, p. 370. 15  Walker, Taccuino,1892. the translation is mine. 16  I would like to thank Lynn Catterson who enabled me to complete my research by sharing this correspondence with me.

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was intense: Walker wrote daily letters to Bardini, sometimes even twice daily and, in urgent cases, they exchanged telegrams. Stefano Bardini wished to be in constant control of every single meeting and wanted to know the impression Walker had of new potential clients. From the accompanying notes, one can see how the photographs assumed the role of the primary “language” of collecting. As photographs were of vital importance to Bardini, he asked Walker to conduct meticulous research on the most sophisticated photographic equipment available in London. Walker diligently reported the best suppliers and the most advanced machines available on the market.17 Bardini constantly sent photographs to Walker, suggesting that he leave them with clients as a reminder, and when one aroused interest in a piece, Bardini promptly despatched the original to be shown. The correspondence is complex, as Walker, in his detailed records, continues to mention people whom he wished to meet, people he had met, and a variety of places and works of art to sell or purchase. The persons referred to are mainly bankers, wealthy professionals and captains of industry. Who was C.F. Walker? Unfortunately, I have been unable to gain any detailed information, but some idea of his personality transpires from his notes and correspondence with Bardini. Walker was presumably an Englishman based in Florence and with a good knowledge of the Italian language. The only detail I have gathered from one of the letters is that Walker, at some point in his life, lived at Via delle Terme 19 in Florence; however, there is no record of Walker in the Florence Historical Archive. Frequently Walker was asked to visit museum directors and other clients to try to understand their intentions on the acquisition of pieces, without appearing too keen to persuade them actually to make the purchase. On occasion, he would pose as a humble art dealer, asking the opinion of the museum director on certain pieces in his possession (which were in fact Bardini’s). This aspect seems very interesting; was Bardini using validation by important figures in the world of art to establish the quality of his pieces, without actually acknowledging ownership? This was also a persuasive selling technique, as Bardini asked Walker to communicate the positive opinion of a museum director to art collectors who might buy the piece. Reading through Walker’s notes, it appears he fulfilled several roles on behalf of Bardini. He could be his agent, or his scout, preparing the ground for him or for another agent. He was charged with an extremely delicate and important task: the expansion of Bardini’s business with the acquisition of new art collectors. From Bardini’s letters we can gather how Walker was available, resilient and adaptable. Bardini changed his plans constantly, asking him to 17  Walker letters 5th and 6th November 1890.

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move swiftly from London to Paris or Brussels to resolve problems during difficult negotiations, then return immediately to London, his most important market. It seems that Bardini also trusted Walker in the acquisition of pieces, but in one of his notes, he writes in his succinct style, “trascuri comprare, procuri vendere” (“Neglect purchases, obtain sales”).18 While in London, Walker stayed at Matcham’s Hotel in New Castle Street near the Strand. An article in The Portfolio in 1890 provides a vivid description of the area, its vibrancy and its severe architectural changes with the demolition of Queen Anne houses followed by the construction of new buildings in the same style, a similar phenomenon to events in Florence.19 London art collectors had luxurious houses in central London; however, around the area of the South Kensington Museum, a number of new housing developments were built from the 1850s onwards. Some of the wealthiest personalities of the time bought mansions in this area to accommodate their lavish art collections. The tastes of these collectors presented a variety of historical references, from antiquity to English contemporary art. Furthermore, at this time the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements, fundamental developments in the English panorama, were flourishing. Although different, their influence intertwined constantly in interiors and art displays. Bardini therefore found himself spanning two periods: the Italian medieval and Renaissance revival and the new English eclectic style, definitely a complex and challenging territory. In the second letter written to Bardini on 30 October 1890, Walker said that he was not acquainted with any art amateurs, but explained how he wanted to proceed in the acquisition of new clients. He first went to visit one of the directors of Maple & Co, then the most prestigious and fashionable furniture shop in London.20 Walker described this person as a friend, and he hoped that during a weekend in his country house he would gather some names and information about wealthy art collectors. And yet, Walker kept reminding Bardini to send him introductions to the British Museum, the National Gallery and South Kensington Museum, as he often mentioned how difficult it was to create a network without an introduction from someone influential. Bardini introduced him to a few of his English acquaintances. In a letter dated 1890 in the copialettere in the Bardini archive, he clearly explains to Walker how he wants him to behave when approaching new clients. He blocks Walker’s suggestion to present himself openly as Bardini’s agent. Instead, Walker should pretend to act as an independent art dealer while showing Bardini’s photographs. Only at

18  Bardini, copialettere, 1891, p. 226. 19  Mc. Carthy, 1890, pp. 169–176. 20   The House of Maple, 1948.

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the end of the negotiations should Walker declare that the piece was from the famous Bardini collection. Dear Mr. Walker, Your idea of introducing yourself to collectors as my agent is not good. By visiting them on your own behalf you could then show my pieces in a way that I cannot do. It would prejudice the praises which you might make of my collection. Arrange therefore to introduce yourself as best you can by sending a note together with, for example a photograph of a piece while saying at the same time that you have many similar pieces and asking to be received. Do not go to the British Museum for now. Do not be concerned if I do not write for a while; it means I have nothing urgent to say. Greetings and believe me your devoted Stefano Bardini.21 In a few months, Walker gathered the names and addresses of a large number of private collectors: Mr. Thomas Armstrong (1831–1901) and George Salting (1835–1909), and Meyers (1858–99), Frederic William Burton (1816–1900) were introduced to Walker by Bardini, Mr. A.S. Murray (1841–1904) at the British Museum was Bardini’s suggestion but under the condition that Walker pretended not to work for him. Later Armstrong introduced Mr. Godman, as he is mentioned in the notes almost certain Mr. Frederick Du Cane Godman (1834– 1919) to Walker, and Salting introduced him to Mr. Louis Hutt. All the other collectors were the result of a very skilful web that Walker created, starting with collectors and museum directors.22 From Florence, Bardini orchestrated Walker’s movements and, when these meetings did not produce any positive results, he made him abandon the mission. In this period Walker, while visiting minor amateurs, focused more substantially on important clients such as the National Gallery with its director Frederick William Burton (1816–1900), Frederick Leyland (1832–1892), George Salting, Mr. Frederick Du Cane Godman, Sir Francis Cook (1817–1901), Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839–1898), and Alfred Rothschild (1842–1918). 21  Bardini, copialettere, 1890, p. 340. the translation is mine. 22  The list is very long and in the correspondence one can read that every one of these people received one or more visits from Walker: Mr. Horniman, Colonel Davis, Colonel North, Mr. Burnett, Mr. Orrock, Mr. Hutt, Mr. Cricket, Mr. Coleman, and Lord Cliveden, Sir Frances Cook, Mr. Tate, the banker W. Cleverly Alexander, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Donald Curry in London, and Daniel Gordon, Sassoon and Brown in Brighton. Walker considered the last three as not merely amateurs but as extremely rich people who could perhaps be useful. Several times, he reported in the letters that when he went to visit them, they were not available, had gone out, were in a hurry, or simply not in the mood to receive him.

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Bardini’s commercial relationship with the English market began at a very early stage: there is an invoice for £51 from Bardini to Frederic Leighton in the Leighton House archive dated 1866.23 Furthermore, Bardini had a long and discontinuous relationship with the South Kensington Museum, beginning in 1884 with the first visit to Bardini’s by Thomas Armstrong and lasting until 1911.24 Bardini often asked Walker to go the South Kensington Museum for different reasons. Bardini was in the middle of selling a terracotta Madonna to the museum and in a letter dated 14 November 1890, Walker writes to Bardini, “I have received this morning your telegram in which you say: go to the Kensington, talk to Armstrong and try to understand if they are interested in buying the Madonna …”25 Walker explained to Bardini that he went, met Armstrong and found out about his intention regarding the Madonna, but he could not say that he was representing Bardini, as he did not have any card to prove it. However, he would have been very pleased to help in the negotiation. This letter clarifies how Bardini “used” Walker in his different roles.26 On another scrap of paper, Walker said to Bardini, “I hope you have been able to conclude the deal.” Walker was in this case only asked to supervise the negotiations, but he was not in charge of dealing on Bardini’s behalf. In another letter, dated 20 January 1891, Walker apologised to Bardini for not acknowledging the arrival of 22 boxes for the South Kensington Museum.27 In this period, Walker visited both the South Kensington Museum and the British Museum, specifically to check their Italian and Persian ceramics, which were similar to Bardini’s. He sent Bardini pages about the Maestro Giorgio ceramics from the catalogue of the South Kensington Museum, giving him measurements and sizes. The wide variety of photographs of works of art, sent by Bardini to Walker, are no longer attached to the letters, therefore the descriptions of objects, which relied entirely on images, is mostly too generic to be reliable. Examples of photographs sent Figs. 10.1–10.2. However, thanks to a detail that Walker added in one of his letters, I have been able to retrace one of the paintings that Bardini wanted to sell, and this will be the main strand of this study. Walker contacted Frederick Leyland a few times, without success. The first notes from his notebook begin:

23  Leighton House Archive, London. 24  V & A Archive, Bardini correspondence, 1884–1911. Wainwright, pp. 63–78. 25  Walker 14th November 1890. The translation is mine. 26  Walker correspondence, 14th November 1890. 27  Walker correspondence, 20th January 1891.

Stefano Bardini and C.F. Walker, his London agent

Figure 10.1

Galleria Bardini, Still Life Italian majoliche (neg. 1889). Published in Valerie Niemeyer Chini, Stefano Bardini e Wilhelm Bode Mercanti e connoisseur fra Ottocento e Novecento (Firenze, Polistampa, 2009), p. 209.

Figure 10.2

Still life with Bronzetti, plate n. 815 (BR) Published in I Bronzetti e gli oggetti di bronzo ed. Antonella Nesi, catalogo Tommaso Rago (Firenze, Centro Di, 2009), p. 12.

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Leyland, 49 Princes Gate SW This person is a wealthy collector of Italian paintings of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as well as ancient bronzes. He is extremely wealthy – the owner of a large number of busts from Liverpool.

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Of a bizarre disposition, he needs to be managed carefully – to one who shows him a painting that is to his liking, he will say that the price is exorbitant and that there is no point in discussing it, but this is only in order to obtain the painting at a greatly discounted price. If on the other hand he does not like the picture, he will say so at once and there will be no point in trying to persuade him otherwise. One of the great advantages you have with this collector is that is that he entirely trusts his own judgment and never asks the opinion of others when buying an objet d’art …28 On 2 December 1890, Walker was admitted to Leyland’s house, where the collector himself showed him his collection.29 Walker was impressed by the bright electric light in the four rooms where Leyland’s paintings were displayed, as at the time electric light was a privilege of only a few wealthy people: [Leyland] immediately switched on electric light in the four rooms of his art gallery. There are some very beautiful paintings. Among them, four Botticelli allegorical paintings, a tondo of the same master, which I think is very beautiful. A sort of Giorgione and other things not very certain … Obviously, I said that everything was superb. I showed him photographs of your paintings. He asked the prices and found them too expensive. I said that I could give him some discount for the pleasure to sell to such an intelligent and sophisticated amateur. Furthermore, Leyland asked to see the Sodoma (tondo) and the Baldovinetti (Madonna con bambino).30 After the visit, Walker enthusiastically reported to Bardini that Leyland, one of the most important amateurs in London, wanted to see more paintings. Following Walker’s reference to a Sodoma painting, I have been able to check Everett Fahy’s study of Bardini’s photographs of painting and drawings, where there is a photograph of the Sodoma tondo, Le due Veneri (Terrestre e Celeste) con Eros and Anteros, now at the Louvre Museum. It is probably the same painting that Bardini tried to sell in London.31 Bardini was certainly aware of the rising interest in Sodoma among English collectors. In the Contessa 28  Walker, taccuino, 1892. the translation is mine. 29  Prinsep, 1892, pp. 129–137. 30  Fahy, 2000. the only photograph of a painting by Baldovinetti retraced by Fahy is the Madonna with Child, bought in 1891 by Jacquemart-André (no. 302, p. 40 and p. 194). 31  Fahy, 2000, no. 410, p. 48 and p. 244. The Sodoma painting Walker refers to is supposedly the tondo, now at the Louvre Museum, Le due Veneri (Terrestre e Celeste) con Eros and Anteros.

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Figure 10.3 Sodoma (Giovan Antonio Bazzi, Vercelli 1477– 1549 Siena), Le due Veneri (terrestre e Celeste) with Eros and Anteros. Size diameter 44.7 cm with grotesques 58.3 cm. Wood carved frame. Paris Louvre, RF. 2106. Maybe from Chigi Palace Siena, Villa Malta, Borbinsky collection Rome (1906), Baron Basil Schlitching, Paris (before 1911) bequeathed to the Louvre in 1914. Published in L’Archivio Storico Fotografico di Stefano Bardini, DIPINTI MINIATURE, STAMPE. (Firenze, Alberto Bruschi, 2000), pp. 48 and 244.

Priuli-Bon’s book, published in 1900, there is a list of Sodoma’s paintings in English collections, starting with the National Gallery – a Madonna and Child with Saints, purchased in Florence in 1883 from C. Fairfax Murray – followed by Saint George and the Dragon in Sir Francis Cook’s collection, purchased from the Earl of Shrewsbury’s Collection before 1890, and other eight paintings found in private collections purchased in the 1890s.32 This painting was for many years called the Charity. Gustavo Frizzoni, in 1891, mentions the existence of it but not the location, the Contessa PriuliBon mentioned that the painting was probably in the collection of Count 32  Priuli-Bon, 1900, pp. 104–106.

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Bobrinsky, while in 1902 Cesare Faccio said that it had disappeared. In 1906, R.H. Hobart Cust reported that the tondo was in Bobrinsky’s collection at the villa Malta on the Pincian Hill in Rome and L. Gielly mentioned in 1911 that the tondo was in Paris in the collection of Baron Schlichting, with provenance from Count Bobrinsky. The same provenance is confirmed in an article of 1920 in the Burlington Magazine, but nobody mentions where the painting was before that.33 Further research is needed to trace how Bardini concluded the sale in Rome and the various locations where the painting was before it entered the Louvre. On 5 November 1890, Walker thanked Bardini for an introduction to Mr. Burton.34 Three days later Walker acknowledged receipt of new notes for the photographs that Bardini had given him when he left Florence. Walker mentions a Mantegna painting representing the Madonna with child and two saints, a Mantegna miniature, the Sodoma painting, an anonymous San Francesco with four Saints, two rugs, a piece of Carlo V furniture, a Paolo Uccello portrait of Alfonso d’Aragona, a mirror in papier mâché, and a rug of gold and fabric.35 On 7 November 1890, Walker went to see Burton: I went to visit Mr. Burton who welcomed me in friendly fashion; as soon as I explained to him the reason for my visit, he said that at the moment the gallery did not have much money for new acquisitions. Nevertheless, I showed him the Sodoma photograph. After having seen it, he changed behaviour, and he asked me to leave the photograph with him, in order to think about it, furthermore he asked me if I had something else to show him. I showed him the Mantegna, which he really liked and asked me for the photograph. He wanted my address in case he needed to contact me. I of course said that in case he wanted to see the paintings I would contact you, and you would send them immediately.36

33  Frizzoni, 1891, p. 109.  Priuli-Bon, 1900, p. 14; Faccio, 1902, p. 57; Hobart Cust, 1906, p. 102, Gielly, 1911, p. 172, Jamot, 1920, pp. 63–70. 34  Walker correspondence 5th November 1892, Boyes, 1891, pp. 83–86. 35  Unfortunately, except for the Sodoma (see footnote 29), photographs of this painting are not catalogued in Fahy’s book, while in the same book the only photograph of a Mantegna painting mentioned is no. 201 at the Jacquemart-André Collection since 1887. Unfortunately, there is no information about the other items mentioned by Walker in the letter. 36  Walker, correspondence 1890–91 the translation is mine.

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However, Burton said to Walker that it would be difficult to sell these paintings and it would be better to sell them to a private collector.37 The Sodoma painting arrived in London from Florence at the beginning of December 1890.38 Leyland went to see it, despite the cold weather, and according to Walker he liked it. On 24 December 1890, Leyland again went to see the painting and expressed serious interest in it, mentioning that he would go to the National Gallery to check the Sodoma they had and compare the two; according to Walker, this was a good indication of a future successful sale.39 A few days after Christmas, Walker went again to see Leyland but this time he was in a bad mood and did not intend to talk about the painting. Furthermore, this delicate negotiation was spoiled by a misunderstanding between Walker and Leyland, who thought that Walker wanted to make a big profit on the sale. Meanwhile, Walker at this point thought that Bardini had contacted Leyland directly, perhaps with the idea of bypassing him.40 Bardini denied this and suggested Walker should not talk about the painting any more with Leyland, but only show him photographs of bronzes. Walker took the decision to offer the Sodoma to Sir Francis Cook knowing the fame of his painting collection.41 Walker considered him a suitable client for the Sodoma and other paintings. On 1 January 1891, Walker showed Cook photographs, but Cook said he already had two Sodomas in his collection and although he liked the other paintings, he did not go any further. He did say that once in Florence he would certainly visit Bardini’s collection. Cook gave Walker the address of Mr. John Robinson (1824–1913) who had previously worked as a keeper of the art department of the South Kensington Museum and subsequently become Cook’s advisor. Cook did not buy anything without asking his opinion first. When Walker reported that to Bardini, he immediately replied by telegram saying, “Fugga Robinson!” (Run away from Robinson!).42 Moreover, Bardini instructed Walker not to show the Sodoma painting to anybody else. Walker went to see Robinson anyway: from his descriptions, he found himself 37  In the National Gallery archive there is no record of any encounter between Burton and Walker. 38  Walker correspondence – according to the correspondence between 6th and 9th December the painting arrived from Florence around 8th December and was kept in Walker’s hotel bedroom; he reassured Bardini by saying that the painting was safe sotto chiave, under lock and key. 39  It is possible that Walker referred to the Sodoma painting of the Madonna and Child with Saints and Donors purchased by the National Gallery in 1883. 40  Walker, correspondence 7th January 1891. 41  Danziger, 2014, pp. 444–458. 42  Walker, correspondence 5th January 1891.

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in a sort of antique shop crowded with all sorts of objects and paintings, apparently of poor value. He did ask Bardini if he knew him and Walker concluded that Robinson was just another art dealer among many.43 During this period, Walker went to see Burton a few more times and on 20 January 1891,44 Burton asked Walker to bring him the Sodoma for a more thorough study. Burton brought the painting to the watercolours rooms and compared the Raffaello tondi decorations in the Vatican, saying that Sodoma did the decoration and the one on this painting was almost certainly by the same hand, therefore the painting was by Sodoma. At the end of the visit, Burton asked Walker how long he would stay in London. There is no record in the National Gallery archive of Burton’s thoughts about this painting, not even in the pages of declined pieces. In the meantime, Walker met George Salting, an old client of Bardini.45 They met several times and Walker showed him a variety of photographs of bronzes and ceramics: a bronze horse, a Riccio and some coppe from Faenza and Maestro Giorgio. In the meantime, at the beginning of January Salting asked if he could show two of Bardini’s vases to an amateur friend. Walker asked permission from Bardini saying, “I know you do not want me to show your works of art to many people, but it might worth doing it.” A few days later, Walker met Mr. Hutt. Despite Bardini prohibiting him from showing the Sodoma painting to anybody else, Walker asked for permission to show it to Salting on 13 January 1891. When Salting saw it, he said that it was not a Sodoma but a Furini, as he had a similar one in his collection. Bardini immediately suggested Walker should tell Salting that Burton had expressed a positive opinion about the Sodoma. Immediately Salting admitted his mistake and agreed that Burton was right. At this point, Salting found the Sodoma very interesting and wanted to know the price. In a letter of 20 January 1891, Walker told Bardini he was pleased that he was coming to London with some very interesting pieces.46 Bardini was coming into action. However, with no explanation, despite the interest from Salting, Bardini asked Walker to send the Sodoma painting and two coppe back to Florence on 22 January, only a few days before his arrival in London.47

43  Walker, correspondence 7th January 1891. 44  Walker, correspondence 20th January 1891. 45   Victoria & Albert Museum Guides: The Salting Collection, 1911, pp. 4–5. 46  Walker, correspondence 20th January 1891. 47  Walker, correspondence 22nd January 1891.

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As the deals with other collectors were inconclusive, on 7 January 1891 Walker went to visit Mr. Horniman (1835–1906) at his museum.48 As he was probably expecting to see an art collection, he was terribly disappointed when he saw the museum, which was mainly composed of anthropological specimens and naturalia. Examples included musical instruments and a vast library. His comment revealed extreme disappointment: I have never seen a collection of such things. I wonder how it is possible to gather so much rubbish. I am sure that if some twenty junk dealers had created a collection of this sort they would have been more successful! Can you imagine that under a bell jar there is a church tower of Pisa in alabaster!49 Walker reported to Bardini that he could have offered to this client anything without value. Walker had been contacted by Mr. Godman for an appointment on 20 November 1890, explaining to Bardini, “Il raccomandato del direttore del South Kensington Museum” (the person was recommended by the director of the South Kensington Museum).50 Walker was informed that Godman was a serious collector of majoliche and therefore hoped for a deal. Godman showed an interest in Persian and Sicilian ceramics from Bardini’s collection, particularly for a vase presented by Walker as Persian, with a shining decoration on a dark blue, almost black background. Godman corrected him, saying that it was a Hispano-Moresque vase dating around 1555, and he asked the provenance of it. Walker in a letter mentioned to Bardini to bring the “album” where the provenance was written. Godman was described as a difficult client who kept asking to see more and more photographs and never found the prices suitable. Then Bardini began to send some original pieces from Florence. As the negotiations for the vase were taking too long, Walker returned to the British Museum where he showed the vase to Meyers, with the idea of offering the same items to them, just in case the Godman deal fell through. In fact, after several unproductive meetings, on 15 December Walker thanked Bardini for his advice not to push Godman, saying “faccio il morto fino a Giovedi” (“I’ll play dead until Thursday”), in order to see if Godman would contact him. He did this, but only to ask for a final price from Bardini on the Hispano-Moresque vase, which originally was 10000 lire 48  In the Horniman Museum archive there is no record of Walker’s visit. 49  Walker correspondence 7th January 1891. 50  Wallis, 1891, Hoare, 1983, pp. 390–394; Rogers, 1984, pp. 24–31.

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but Bardini agreed a reduced price of 9000 lire. Meanwhile, Bardini told Walker not to show anything to Salting, as the two were friends and it would be better to conclude with Godman first. Even if Bardini did agree to a reduction in price on the Hispano-Moresque vase, there is no indication as to whether Godman bought the vase. In September 1891, the Athenaeum magazine reported that Mr. Franks of the British Museum had exhibited the lavish Persian pottery collection belonging to Mr. F. Du Cane-Godman, FRS, saying that Persian pottery was completely unknown to collectors until recently.51 In fact, when Walker went to the Museum during the winter he reported to Bardini the scarcity of Persian pottery exhibited. Between 24 January and 16 February there is no correspondence as Bardini was probably in London. When Walker first arrived in London, he asked Bardini about his clients, the Rothschilds in Paris, in order to be introduced by them to the English Rothschilds. After several visits without any positive results, on 18 February 1891 Walker met Baron Ferdinand with an introduction from Mr. Mohl, the secretary of Gustave Rothschild in Paris. He was extremely busy, and looked at the photographs but did not find anything interesting, saying that his interest was mainly in French art from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: furniture, porcelain, watches, and paintings like Watteau, Greuze of the Flemish school. If Bardini had anything like this he would be happy to see it. A similar thing happened when Walker visited Alfred Rothschild; he was more welcoming, but he did not find anything of interest in Bardini’s photographs.52 The long wait to meet the Rothschilds unfortunately did not produce any interesting sales. From the beginning of March 1891, the correspondence between Walker and Bardini becomes more and more obscure. Walker found himself involved in the pursuit of a mysterious painting that Bardini wanted to buy. After this mission, on 21 March Walker was called back to Florence by Bardini, and he promptly replied, “I will come tomorrow”, but adds, “on my way back I will go to the Louvre Museum and show the Piero della Francesca painting to the director and then I will be in Florence.” Until the very end of his mission, Walker was determined to sell and have some satisfactory results. To conclude, with this essay I wish to show how Stefano Bardini from the outset, created his palazzo as an assertion of power; both personal and historical. By his re-appropriation of Renaissance architectural elements, he intended to impose his own taste as well as to promote his fame as a Florentine 51  ‘Fine-Art Gossip’, The Athenaeum, no. 3332, 5 September 1891, p. 328. 52  Walker, taccuino, 1892.

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international art dealer. The increasing presence in the city of foreign art collectors and scholars provided Bardini a wealth of new clients. And his desire to expand his activity among the community of art collectors in London, shows how he was constantly challenging the new market. The parallelism between London and Florence, two cities in economic expansion, creates a fascinating study of how art collectors based in both these cities reflecting their economic changes. This correspondence offers a fascinating insight into the taste of English collectors for Italian art. There was a notable difference in the taste of the English collectors based in England and that of their compatriots based in Italy. Their collections were dominated by Renaissance art, with paintings, bronzes, and majolica. However, often the English based in England included in their art collections contemporary English artists, an important aspect to investigate further. Bardini, with the collaboration of his faithful agent, Walker intended to challenge this difference. From the intense correspondence between Stefano Bardini, writing from Florence, and C.F. Walker, writing from London, one can gather that through the obstinate, precise and zealous work conducted by Walker, successful expansion began. It culminated with two major auctions of Bardini’s art works conducted by Christie’s Auctioneers in London in 1899 and 1902.53 By using photography as his main selling tool, Bardini can be considered a precursor, among art dealers, of the use of this medium. It not only offered him at that time, a faster process for his art dealing business and enabled him to show his goods to potential buyers without the cost and the risk of shipping goods before they were sold. It also left to us a valuable visual record which, together with his verbal descriptions, provides us with an extremely poignant subject of study which spans from the photographic to the documentary.

Works Cited

Archivio Storico Eredità Stefano Bardini, Florence, ASEB. C.F. Walker – Stefano Bardini correspondence 1890–1891 C.F. Walker Taccuino Appunti di Londra, 1892. Stefano Bardini copialettere The translations are mine. V&A Museum Archive Bardini correspondence 53  Bardini, 1899, Bardini, 1902.

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Artom Treves, Giuliana. Anglo-Fiorentini di Cento Anni Fa’. Sansoni, 1982, first pub 1953, Florence. Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Orion Press, 1964. first pub in French in 1958. Paris, New York. Baldry, Francesca. John Temple Leader e il Castello di Vincigliata: un episodio di restauro e collezionismo nella Firenze dell’Ottocento. Olschki, 1997, Florence. Boyes, J.F. “The Chiefs of our National Museums, No. I: The National Gallery. Sir Frederick Burton”, Art Journal, 1891, pp. 83–86. Buck, August. Cesare Vasoli. Il Rinascimento nell’ Ottocento in Italia e Germania, Annali dell’ Istituto Storico Italo-Germanico di Trento, 1987, Mulino, Duncker & Humblot, Bologna, Berlin1987. Callman, Ellen. “William Blundell Spence and the Transformation of Renaissance Cassoni”, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 141, no. 1155, June 1999, pp. 338–348. Christie’s Catalogue of a Choice Collection of Pictures, Antiquities, Works of Art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance from the Collection of Signor Stephano [sic!] Bardini of Firenze. Christie, Manson & Woods 5–7 June 1899, London. Christie’s Catalogue of a Choice of Collection of Pictures and Other works of Art, Chiefly Italian, of Mediaeval and Renaissance Times, the Property of Signor Stephano [sic!] Bardini of Firenze. Christie, Manson & Woods 26–30 May 1902, London. Danziger, Elon. “The Cook Collection: Its Founders and its Inheritors”, The Burlington Magazine vol. 146, N. 1216, July 2014, pp. 444–458. De Lorenzi, Giovanna. ‘Testimonianze Bibliografiche di Collezionismo a Firenze’, in L’Idea di Firenze, ed. by Maurizio Bossi and Lucia Centro Di, 1986, Florence. Faccio, Cesare. Giovan Antonio Bazzi (il Sodoma): Pittore Vercellese del Secolo XVI Gallardi & Ugo Editori, 1902, Vercelli. Fahy, Everett. L’Archivio Storico Fotografico di Stefano Bardini: Dipinti, Disegni, Miniature, Stampe. Alberto Bruschi, 2000, Florence. Fantoni, Marcello. ‘Introduzione’, in Gli Anglo-Americani a Firenze, ed. Marcello Fantoni, Bulzoni, 1997, Washington DC: Georgetown University, Fiesole. Fantoni, Marcello. “Renaissance Republics and Principalities in Anglo-American Historiography”, in Gli anglo-americani a Firenze: Idea e costruzione del Rinascimento, ed. by Marcello Fantoni, 2000, Bulzoni, Rome. Fraser, Hilary. The Victorians and Renaissance Italy, Blackwell, 1992, Oxford. Frizzoni, Gustavo. Arte Italiana del Rinascimento, Fratelli Durmorlard, 1891, Milano. Gielly, L. Les Maîtres de l’Art Giovan-Antonio Bazzi dit Sodoma, Plon, 1911, Paris. Glusakova, Julia. “Il ruolo dei Demidoff nello sviluppo dei rapporti culturali tra l’Italia e la Russia” in I Demidoff a Firenze e in Toscana, ed. by Lucia Tonini Olschki, 1996, Florence. Haskell, Francis. ‘Prefazione’ in L’Idea di Firenze, ed. by Maurizio Bossi and Lucia Centro Di, 1986, Florence. Hoare, O. ‘The Godman Collection’, Christie’s Review of the Year, 1983, pp. 390–394; Hobart Cust, R.H. Giovan Antonio Bazzi, John Murray, 1906, London.

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Jamot, Paul. ‘The Acquisitions of the Louvre during the War, II’, in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 37, no. 209, pp. 63–70, 1920. Levi, Donata. “William Blundell Spence a Firenze”, in Studi e ricerche di collezionismo e museografia, 1820–1920, Quaderni del seminario di Storia della critica d’arte, 1985, Pisa: Scuola Normale. Marcotti, Giuseppe. Guide – Souvenir de Florence, G. Barbera, 1892, Florence. Mascilli Migliorini, Luigi. “Rinascimento Fiorentino e crisi della coscienza europea”, in Gli Anglo-Americani a Firenze, ed. Marcello Fantoni Bulzoni, 1997, Washington DC: Georgetown University, Fiesole. Mc Carthy, Justin, “Charing Cross to St. Paul’s, III – The Strand”, The Portfolio Seely, Jackson & Halliday, 1890, London. Morolli, Gabriele. ‘Gli armonici innesti della modernità’, in Viaggio in Toscana, ed. by Maurizio Bossi and Max Seidel, Marsilio, 1988, Venice. Muzzi, Andrea, Giancarlo Gentilini, et al., Eclettismo a Firenze: L’Attività di Corinto Corinti i Progetti del Palazzo delle Poste e Telegrafi Quaderni del centro di documentazione e informazione, 1985, Comune di Firenze Assessorato alla Cultura. Neverov, Oleg. “Le sculture antiche nella collezione Demidoff”, in I Demidoff a Firenze e in Toscana, ed. by Lucia Tonini Olschki, 1996, Florence. Prinsep, Val. “The Private Art Collections of London: The Late Mr. Frederick Leyland’s in Prince’s Gate”, The Art Journal, n.s., no. 647, May 1892, pp. 129–137. Probst, Susanne. E.L. “La fortuna del museo “inglese” a Firenze: Il Museo Stibbert”, in Gli Anglo-Americani a Firenze, ed. by Marcello Fantoni, Bulzoni, 2000, Rome. Priuli-Bon, Great Masters in Painting and Sculpture: Sodoma, G. Bell, 1900, London. Rogers, J.M. “The Godman Bequest of Islamic Pottery”, Apollo, July 1984, pp. 24–31. Sheehan, James. J. “Introduction”, in The German Renaissance in America: The Italian Renaissance in the Twentieth Century (acts of international conference, Villa I Tatti, 9–11 June 1999, Florence. The Athenaeum, “Fine-Art Gossip”, no. 3332, 5 September 1891. London. The House of Maple. Maple & Co., 1948, London. Trosina, Tatiana. “I Demidoff: collezionisti e mecenati nella prima metà del XIX secolo – dalle carte dell’archivio di Ekaterinburg” in I Demidoff a Firenze e in Toscana, ed. by Lucia Tonini, Olschki, 1996, Florence. Vannucci, Marcello. L’Avventura degli stranieri in Toscana Musemeci, 1981, Aosta. Wainwright Clive, The Making of South Kensington Museum, relationships with the trade : Webb and Bardini in Journal of History of Collections Vol 14, Issue I, May 2002 pp. 63–78. Wallis, Henry. The Godman Collection: Persian Ceramic Art in the Collection of Mr. F. DuCane Godman, F.R.S.: The Thirteenth-Century Lustred Vases, 1891, London: printed for private circulation. Webster, Mary. “Introduzione” in Firenze e L’Inghilterra: rapporti artistici e culturali dal XVI al XX secolo, Centro Di, 1971, Florence, Palazzo Pitti.

CHAPTER 11

Surrogates and Intermediaries: The Informational Role of Photographs in the Art Market Alexandra Provo Introduction While the visual image presented on the front of a photograph is useful to scholars and conservators seeking to study elements like iconography, style, condition, and even features of reprographic media themselves, a photograph’s reverse can contain a wealth of information about the channels of art exchange. How did participants in the art market communicate, and with what goals? What traces remain of their relationships? How does the character of a relationship change depending on the participant’s role? In the essay that follows, these questions are pondered through an examination of some of the varying roles photographs have played in art market communications. Sources include photographs (largely materials digitized and cataloged as part of I Tatti’s Homeless Paintings of the Italian Renaissance Project),1 and mentions of photographs in letters from the Berenson Archive at I Tatti and the Duveen Brothers Records. At I Tatti, photographs are covered with notes, many written by Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), Mary Berenson (1864–1945), and various collaborators.2 This essay argues that along with letters, photographic objects can 1  Villa I Tatti: The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, “Homeless Paintings of the Italian Renaissance: How do we know about, and how do we study, works of art that have disappeared from view?”. The author worked as a photograph cataloger for this project from 2012–2013. Today, the photographs assembled by Bernard and Mary – purchased, gifted, collected, and commissioned by them – form the core of the collection of around 250,000 photographs held by Harvard University’s Villa I Tatti. Roughly 25,000 of these have been catalogued as part of the Homeless Paintings project. 2  In general, notes record attributions, provenance, bibliography, exhibition history, or details about subject, medium and size of the work of art figured on the photograph’s front. These inscriptions are discussed by Giovanni Pagliarulo with particular attention as to how they reveal Bernard’s thought process in Pagliarulo, 2011, 181–191. Figure 11.1 Drawing in a letter from Riccardo Nobili to Stefano Bardini which describes the Italian Pavillion at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Corrispondenza Miscellanea, 1900. Reproduced with the kind permission of the Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini (ASEB) della Soprintendente Polo Museale Toscano, Florence. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004342989_012

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provide a new perspective on how and why photographs were exchanged. Case studies from the careers of Bernard and Mary Berenson are presented, with the aim of revealing the place of photographs in exchanges between collectors, firms, advisors, and dealers.3

Bernard and Mary Berenson

Born in 1865 in Lithuania, Bernard moved to Boston at the age of ten. After a stint at Boston University, he enrolled at Harvard, where he specialized in linguistics and literature and moved in the social circle of Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924). She helped to finance a year abroad after Bernard graduated, since he had not been selected for a Harvard-sponsored fellowship. When he sailed to Europe in 1887, he initially meant to round out his cultural knowledge and develop into a literary critic. However, as his stay lengthened beyond its initial confine of one year, his interests shifted decisively toward art criticism and he began his transformation into an expert.4 With the intention of establishing herself as an art critic in her own right, Mary Smith Costelloe (later Mary Berenson) joined Bernard in Florence in December of 1891 as his student and lover. Though the fate of Mary’s career is another story,5 in their early years together she and Bernard devoted considerable time to building up their skills in the connoisseurship of Italian Renaissance painting. Indeed, Bernard and Mary’s legacy as connoisseurs is rich, and especially lasting in their numerous English language publications. It is difficult, however, to fit Bernard Berenson into one category: he is not reducible to the single label of “connoisseur.” As Rachel Cohen has noted, he presented himself differently to different people, with “a view of life as a succession of performances for changing audiences.”6 Throughout his career, he toed the line between scholarship and commerce, and he constantly felt uneasy about doing so.7 Besides their publications, Bernard and Mary’s photograph collection is another embodiment of their legacy. It can also be seen as a place where the tension between scholarly and commercial connoisseurship manifests itself. 3  The history of the photograph archive at I Tatti and an assessment of Bernard Berenson’s use of photographs in his scholarship has been outlined in Superbi, 2010, 289–303. 4  For extensive background on the Berensons, see Cohen, 2013; Samuels, 1979; and Samuels, 1987. 5  Mary’s life and work is laid out in Johnston, 2001. 6  Cohen, 2013, 7. 7  Jeremy Howard elaborates on Bernard’s “equivocal relationship with the art trade” in an exploration of Bernard’s friendship with Otto Gutekunst. See Howard, 2014, 33–68.

The Informational Role of Photographs in the Art Market



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Photographs as Visual Surrogates

It would not be an exaggeration to state that photographs were absolutely integral to Bernard and Mary Berenson in all aspects of their work as connoisseurs. Photographs were the tools that facilitated both Berensons’ prolific written output, though it would be a mischaracterization to call the Berensons the first to systematically use photographs in their scholarship.8 In their published writing about methods of connoisseurship, both Berensons emphasized that photography and rapid transportation were the technological advances of the late nineteenth century that made ‘scientific’ connoisseurship possible.9 The Berensons began their efforts at a time when photographic technology made significant advances that impacted the representation of works of art. Though firms like Alinari and Braun had been documenting art and architecture from the mid-1850s,10 more tone-sensitive rendering of the color values did not begin to be possible until the 1890s, as Bernard detailed in an 1893 article, “Isochromatic Photography and Venetian Pictures.”11 Although for the rest of his life Bernard maintained a more critical attitude12 toward photography than is conveyed in “Isochromatic Photography,” he conceived of photographs as essential to his process of connoisseurship. Photographs allowed connoisseurs like the Berensons to compare geographically distant works. Sometimes, they were compared directly side-by-side with actual paintings.13 But photographs also enabled Bernard to extend his study outside of the gallery or church in which a painting was located. Though face-to-face confrontation with the art object itself remained important, a 8  Patrizio Aiello has pointed out that Gustavo Frizzoni (1840–1919), who was Morelli’s close friend and Bernard Berenson’s early mentor of sorts in Morellian connoisseurship, was publishing articles about photography’s application to the study of art long before Bernard and Mary began their forays into serious scholarship. See Aiello, 2011, 7–21. 9  For example, Berenson, 1893; Costelloe [Mary Berenson], 1894; Logan [Mary Berenson], 1895. 10  Hamber, 1995, 91; Kempf, 2000, 15. 11  Anthony Hamber places the date of practical application of isochromatic emulsions at 1903. Hamber, 1996, 85. 12  See Berenson, 1948. 13  In November of 1889, by which time he had rented an apartment on the Arno near the Ponte Vecchio, Bernard’s routine was to carefully study photographs, checking them against volumes by Vasari, Burckhardt, and Crowe and Cavalcaselle, at times even popping down to the Uffizi or the Pitti Palace to look at a relevant work. On an 1891 trip to Venice with Enrico Costa (1867–1911) and Mary, the afternoon routine for Bernard and Costa was to roam the galleries, checking original paintings with their respective photographs. Samuels, 1979, 98 and 148.

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good portion of analysis was relocated to the library as his collection of photographs grew.14 The role of memory aid was certainly one photographs filled.15 However, the rapport between photograph and art object was often more complicated than that of a simple aide-mémoire: though the importance of studying works of art in person is repeatedly emphasized in the Berensons’ early publications, on more than one occasion Bernard’s initial opinion about a painting formed from his encounter with a photograph. For example, Bernard’s 1898 essay “Alessio Baldovinetti and the New ‘Madonna’ of the Louvre” (originally published in French) opens with the following anecdote: A number of years ago, turning over one day the photograph albums in the hospitable shop of MM. Braun, Clément et Cie, my eye fell by chance upon the reproduction of a “Madonna” attributed to Piero dei Franceschi [Piero della Francesca]. I recognized at once the style of a master much rarer, quite as interesting, and sometimes almost as great as Piero, – the Florentine Alessio Baldovinetti.16 After tracking the painting down, he was able to view it in person. In this case a photograph did not act as an aide-mémoire, but provided entirely new visual information. Photographs were consulted for information about objects never before seen, and were capable of illuminating features of a work not noticed in a physical encounter. From photographs, Bernard could essentially make an attribution, confirming or revising it later in front of the painting.17 In the introduction to Lorenzo Lotto, with a very contemporary-sounding emphasis on data, Bernard invites the reader “to examine the data upon which rests my theory of Lotto’s origin and development,” by having “before him the photographs of the various pictures discussed.”18 Throughout the book, Bernard indicates trade catalog numbers of photographs of works he mentions in the text. In the chapter on Lotto’s early works, he hypothesizes,

14  Samuels, 1979, 103. 15  In “Isochromatic Photography and Venetian Pictures” Bernard describes photographs and engravings as memory aids. Berenson, 1893, 128. 16  Bernard Berenson, 1902, 23. 17  Nicky Mariano notes in her autobiography an instance in which a collector sent up an actual painting to be attributed by Bernard: Nicky showed the original painting to Berenson, “who confirmed his attribution already made on the basis of a photo.” Mariano, 1966, 133. 18  Bernard Berenson, 1901, xxi.

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If we could see arranged in a row all these early pictures, and in rows above them the pictures Giorgione, Titian, and Palma painted at the same time, the first glance would reveal a striking likeness in general tone, types, and artistic aspiration between the three artists last mentioned (none of them younger than Lotto, it will be remembered), and a striking difference between them and Lotto.19 In this section, Bernard advocates for a method of analysis predicated on the juxtaposition of photographic images. In his much later book, Three Essays in Method (1926), the primary object of study shifts completely from the painting to the photograph. In the preface to this book, he writes: As these three essays are concerned more with Method than with the works of art and the artists discussed, I have tried to speak only of matters that can be followed in the illustrations. No argument has been based on evidence that does not appear in the reproductions.20 The above examples give something of an idea of how photographs were used in Bernard’s scholarship. Images of objects were systematically incorporated into texts, the reader directed to acquire photographs by way of the inclusion of their trade catalog numbers and even instructed to assemble a specific set of photographs that would be used as part of the reading process.

Photographs as Object Surrogates

In general, the literature on photography in art history stops at addressing the ways photographs have been employed in the context of scholarly pursuits. There is a prevailing interest in understanding how people “learn about works of art,”21 with a focus on how the visual information on a photograph is or is not able to be ‘used’ by art historians in the process of making an argument about an artwork’s visual features. Emphasis is placed on exposing the sometimes 19  Berenson, 1901, 17. 20  Berenson, 1927, viii. He then defines what kind of information can be gleaned from photographs: “for the plainer archaeological purpose of determining when and where and by whom a given design was invented,” he writes, “a good reproduction is enough.” Ibid. For determining the difference between an autograph work and a studio or contemporary version, it was essential to view the work in person. 21  Roberts, 1994, 335.

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‘devious’ implications of photography’s visual syntax when the photograph plays the role of facsimile reproduction.22 Articles by Helene E. Roberts and Julie Codell and scholarship by Anthony Hamber address these issues, but they also argue for the study of surrogate images as cultural objects in their own right. As Roberts notes, This role of surrogate images has so far been little recognized. The emphasis has been put on the success or failure of a surrogate image to replicate the qualities of the original, rather than studying the role of the surrogate images themselves in cultural exchange.23 Codell calls reproductions of art objects “modes of communication and cultural transmission,”24 and though she refers to the communication of visual information, the ideas she and Roberts present can be expanded to address other kinds of information encoded by photographic objects. As shown above, photographs were valuable primarily as visual surrogates in the Berensons’ scholarship.25 In the context of the art market, however, the photographs the Berensons collected functioned not only as visual surrogates, but also as object surrogates. Before addressing the question of how object surrogates play into art market exchange, it is first necessary to detail what is meant by the term ‘object surrogate.’ Rather than being a replacement for an object, an object surrogate is a placeholder for the object in a different format. A helpful perspective is that of information science. Whereas now we refer to digitized photographs of their analog counterparts as ‘digital surrogates,’ in Berenson’s time the analog photograph served much the same purpose in relation to the painting it represented. Practically speaking, to understand which physical object a digital surrogate represents, we need to associate it with metadata. As Tony Gill writes, “metadata can be defined as a structured description of the essential attributes of an information object.”26 A painting can be understood as an information object, and its photographic documentation can be understood as a carrier of important metadata. 22  Codell, 2010, 216. See also Hamber, 1995; Freitag, 1979–1980; Fawcett, 1986. 23  Roberts, 1994, 344. 24  Codell, 2010, 215. 25  The terms ‘second hand image’ and ‘surrogate’ were used in Roberts, 1994. The term surrogate is also commonly used in image cataloging standards such as CDWA (Categories for the Description of Works of Art), CCO (Cataloging Cultural Objects), and VRA Core. 26  Gill, 2008, 3.

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Object-focused metadata includes visual information, and also (typically written) details of the art object’s provenance and material condition – important elements upon which the art market depends. In addition to being figured on the front of the photograph, this metadata about a painted information object might be written on the photograph itself, on a piece of paper attached to it, or in a letter sent with the photograph.27 This combination of visual and textual metadata relates the documentation carrier (the photograph) directly and closely to the unique object being represented. The photograph disambiguates, one of the core aims of bibliographic catalog records. In a library catalog record, this involves information like call number and location, volume number or publication date – pieces of information essential for determining which is the right version of the book for a given purpose.

Collectors and the Object Surrogate

For private collectors, the photograph as object surrogate was an essential tool when exchanged along with letters. Photographs assisted collectors in deciding what to buy.28 A well-known instance of this is found in Bernard’s commercial relationship with Isabella Stewart Gardner.29 As mentioned, Gardner was one of the Boston elite who financed Bernard’s first year abroad. Bernard’s correspondence with her was cut off in 1889, presumably when she realized that he no longer intended to become the literary critic she had supported.30 In the space between that date and 1894, when their correspondence resumed, much had changed. When Bernard wrote to her in March of that year, it was to present her with his first book, The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance.31 Thereafter his letters start to contain news and opinions of paintings available for sale by dealers or (mostly aristocratic) private collectors based in European cities. Bernard would send photographs of paintings with descriptions of color and physical quality, how the work compared to other works 27  As Tiziana Serena notes, it is inscription (broadly defined as a registration of information with legibility, commonly manifested in the form of writing) that enables a photograph to become a social object and a valid document. Serena, 2011, 65–67. 28  This function is briefly mentioned by Anthony Hamber in reference to the nineteenth century British art market. Hamber, 1996, 186. 29  Nuanced accounts of this relationship, including the involvement of Colnaghi dealer Otto Gutekunst, are found in Saltzman, 2008 and Howard, 2014. 30  Saltzman, 2008, 61. 31  Berenson, 1894.

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by the same artist, and sometimes a line or two about provenance and price. Isabella in turn would request Bernard’s opinions of photographs of potential purchases she had been alerted to by others, and also ask for further information about works. In a letter of January 28, 1897, for example, Isabella asks for “all the details” about a Van Dyck painting: “of whom it is a portrait; of whom you bought the picture; where it has been and all the history of it.”32 Similarly, Henry Walters (1848–1931), who was advised by Bernard from 1909 to 1917, received advice from Bernard in the form of descriptive letters accompanied by photographs, and he purchased paintings based solely on black and white photographs.33

Dealers and Expertises

As recent literature on art collecting34 and the other essays in this volume reveal, there were often many more intermediary links in the chain between art object and collector than one might expect. Besides being important to his advising of wealthy buyers, photographs also played an important role in how Bernard and Mary interacted with other intermediaries, such as international art dealing firms. This role of the photograph differed slightly from that outlined in the collector context outlined above. The most well-known of Bernard’s dealer relationships was with the Duveen Brothers (active 1867–1964). Begun informally in 1907, the secretive nature of their work together has been written about extensively.35 Phrased in code, the arrangement between the Duveen firm and Bernard was made formal in 1912.36 As we find in the Duveen Brothers Records, part of the relationship involved the provision of explicit written opinions. Often in the form of letters, opinions also sometimes took the form of notes written on the backs of photographs.37 32  Berenson, 1987, 74. 33  Mazaroff, 2010, 108 and 125. 34  See Howard, 2014; Saltzman, 2008; Mazaroff, 2010; and Ripp, 2014. 35  The most noted are Colin Simpson’s highly opinionated books. See Simpson, 1986. The relationship is also given attention in Cohen, 2012; Cohen, 2014; Saltzman, 2008; Mazaroff, 2010. 36  Samuels, 1987, 146. 37   Duveen Brothers Records, 1876–1981, bulk 1909–1964. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 960015. See in particular Series II.G, the Edward Fowles papers, Series II.J. Bernard Berenson correspondence, Series III.A Photographs, indices, negatives, and X rays, n.d.

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Called attestations, these inscriptions have a much different character than the majority of those found in the photograph archive at I Tatti (Figure 11.2). Rather than a palimpsest of attributions, on these photographs the inscriptions consist of an artist’s name and Bernard’s signature (B. Berenson); they sometimes also include a brief note about the date of a work or its relation to the artist’s other works. Not all attestations indicate definite authorship: for

Figure 11.2 Verso of a photograph of a Portrait of a Lady exhibiting multiple inscriptions. Photograph by Foto Reali. 102266_2, Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence.

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Figure 11.3 Verso of a photograph exhibiting Bernard Berenson’s attribution and signature, from the Duveen Brothers Records. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (960015).

example, on one photograph Bernard wrote “Florentine between Fra Filippo & Domenico Veneziano, possibly early Fr[ancesco] Pesellino.”38 (Figure 11.3). While attribution inscriptions in the Berensons’ photograph archive often have a scholarly purpose, the photograph-attestation serves as both an object 38  Photograph X166. Duveen Brothers records, 1876–1981 (bulk 1909–1964).

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surrogate – relatively unambiguously associating essential information with an object – and a kind of expertise. As Ivan Gaskell defines it, an expertise is “a document signed by the scholar stating unequivocally his opinion of the work in question which thenceforth accompanies it as a testimonial.”39 The written expertise – expertise as a thing, not a quality possessed by a person – is the tangible manifestation of a scholar’s knowledge that functions as a certificate of authenticity. Commonly, expertises would take the form of handwritten or typewritten paragraphs that would then be copied and sometimes attached to a photograph. They were used to promote sales, and had the potential to figure into court cases should those arise.40 Bernard’s writing of expertises for the Duveen Brothers may have been somewhat of an exceptional thing, reflecting the closeness of their business relationship. However, although his ties with Duveen are significant, they were not the only firm the Berensons advised. As hammered out in various letters to Duveen Brothers throughout the years, though Bernard would funnel the best works and proactively suggest works of art only to Duveen and a few private clients, he would give advice to anyone if solicited. In a 1930 letter to Jules Bache (1861–1944), an American banker and art collector, Mary Berenson categorizes the group of dealers with whom Bernard worked closely into three tiers. In the first tier are Duveen and Arthur J. Sulley (1854–1930), in the second tier Knoedler (firm active 1848–2011),41 and in the third tier the Wildenstein family (firm active 1875-present) and Böhler & Steinmeyer (active 1920–1934, also known as the Lucerne Fine Art Co.).42 It is not yet clear whether Bernard wrote photograph attestations for all of the dealers in this tiered list. Among the Böhler and Steinmeyer letters to Bernard, however, there is at least one instance in 1923 in which the firm explicitly asks for Bernard to write his opinion on the back of the photographs.43 Gaskell characterizes the expertise as an invention of scholars in Germanspeaking countries, “viewed askance” in the English-speaking world.”44 Bernard 39  Gaskell, 2002, 147. 40  According to Ronald D. Spencer, certificates are “losing ground, at least in the courts” to the consensus of a group of experts. Spencer, 2004, 210. 41  Mary relates in the letter that Knoedler was in the first tier because of Bernard’s friendship with the dealer Otto Gutekunst, whom she names as an associate of the firm. He was a partner in the Colnaghi firm, which had a close business relationship with Knoedler. 42  Berenson, Mary. Letter to Jules Bache. 23 June 1930. Duveen Brothers records, 1876–1981 (bulk 1909–1964). 43  Steinmeyer, Fritz. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 3 October 1923. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 44  Gaskell, 2002, 147. See also Eugene Victor Thaw’s comments in Spencer and Thaw, 2004, 75.

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presented such an English-speaking skepticism publicly: Nicky Mariano (1887– 1968), the Berensons’ secretary from 1919 until Bernard’s death in 1959, relates in her autobiography that Bernard was “very careful in expressing his opinion” when visiting private collections or dealers with whom he did not regularly collaborate.45 Although he gave the impression that he disdained writing expertises, Bernard did write them – just, as Mariano pointed out, not for everyone. With the exception of those written for upper-tier dealers, I would argue that when Bernard wrote expertises he did so in a way that sought to undermine their viability as certificates. It seems that often, rather than writing formal opinions on photographs or on sheets attached to photographs, Bernard’s preferred way to give an opinion was in the form of a letter. This preference is borne out in Mary’s 1930 letter to Bache, where she writes that Bernard gave his opinion to the art firms he worked with in confidence and with the understanding that they would not make his name known to the owner. Only then, once a work was sold to a private collector, would Bernard be willing to write a letter directly to that collector. This policy of locating Bernard’s expertise in letters may have been an attempt to exercise control over his reputation. As letters are addressed to specific people, they might be more tied to a specific situation and less relevant in the broader art market, unlike generic paragraph-form expertises. In addition, by not associating the opinion with a photograph, which as I have said closely associates information to an object, a letter introduces an element of ambiguity. An example of this ambiguity and its importance is found in a letter from Fritz Steinmeyer (life dates unknown) written in 1928. Writing about a portrait of a woman sold to John Levy (1906–1981), a New York dealer, Steinmeyer was worried that without a letter Bernard had written to the firm praising the painting, Levy would cancel the sale. Following the Berensons’ unofficial policy, Steinmeyer writes that “Mr. Levy promised not to use the letter as a certificate, but write you as soon as he had sold the picture to a private collector, so that you could write the buyer a letter.” Explaining further, Steinmeyer adds that “As the letter in no way describes the picture and is addressed to me personally, it cannot be used as an authentication and I don’t think you can object, but I wanted to asked [sic] you first.”46

45  Mariano, 1966, 134. 46  Steinmeyer, Fritz. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 2 June 1928. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002).

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Chains of Intermediaries

In these selected examples of interactions with upper-tier dealers, the motivation for sending and receiving photographs was the work of authentication. But asking for opinions and seeking certificates was not the only reason a dealer might send Bernard a photograph. In addition to letters from Duveen Brothers and Böhler and Steinmeyer, letters to Bernard from the Roman art dealer Paolo Paolini (life dates unknown) provide another motivation we can add to the list of knowing what to buy and authenticating: knowing what is available. Here the role of the photograph is similar to that played in the context of Bernard’s interactions with wealthy collectors, but with roles reversed: Bernard becomes the stand-in buyer for the collector. The photograph again performs as an object surrogate, but in a more complex chain. Paolo Paolini was one of the Italian art dealers Bernard described to his private clients like Walters as a “runner.”47 In other words, Paolini was one of Berenson’s sources for the works he proposed to both private collectors and larger firms like Duveen Brothers. Not much has been written specifically about Paolini, and his presence is fuzzy.48 Active in the art world from the mid-1890s,49 the earliest correspondence from Paolini that survives in the archives at I Tatti dates from June 1910. In publications and newspaper articles he is referred to as Professor Paolo Paolini.50 His name appears in the online catalogs of various museums in the United States such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Walters Art Gallery, but the details of his involvement in the provenance of a painting are ambiguous. It is often noted in collection records that exactly when Paolini had a work in his possession is not precisely known.51 He had a shop in Rome and a house in Montepulciano from which he often wrote Bernard letters, and later in life he wrote to Bernard from Milan. He sold paintings, sculpture, and frames,52 which he also 47  Berenson, Bernard. Letter to Henry Walters, 12 October 1912, Walters Art Museum Archives, quoted in Mazaroff, 2010, 110. 48  The network of Italian dealers Paolini belonged to is an increasing area of interest, as seen in contributions in this volume by Lynn Catterson (Bardini), Annalea Tunesi (Bardini), and Patrizia Cappellini (Elia Volpi). See also Landi, 2014. 49  In August of 1924 Paolini wrote that he had almost 30 years of work behind him. Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 25 August 1924. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 50  Cortissoz, 1924; “PAOLINI COLLECTION OF ART TO BE SOLD,” 1924. 51  See for example Montagna, Madonna and Child, Walters Art Gallery; Master of Saint Francis, Saint John the Evangelist, National Gallery of Art. 52  See for example Cassetta frame, Metropolitan Museum of Art (1975.1.2311).

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sometimes restored or cleaned. Not all of these were Italian: in the early 1910s, Paolini was working to place several Van Dyck paintings. He dealt with family inheritance situations and he also seems to have taken care of some of the sticky issues involved in exporting objects.53 Paolini himself sometimes deputized tasks to others: for example, he worked closely with Leopoldo Aretini (life dates unknown), a dealer-antiquarian who was based in Florence.54 As with letters from Böhler and Steinmeyer, Paolini’s letters often reference photographs. Paolini both acquired photographs from owners of paintings and commissioned photographic documentation by professional photographers. He worked with a photographer in Rome, and in the 1920s he worked with Vittorio Jacquier (1865–1935), a Florentine photographer who also documented the Berensons’ art collection.55 Among the photographs of homeless paintings in the photo archive at I Tatti,56 I have identified 131 photographs that almost certainly came from Paolini (based on the presence of his handwriting) and another 30 that likely came from him. The information on the backs of these photographs chiefly consists of Paolini’s attribution, subject of the work, medium, measurements, and provenance. Occasionally, as on one Paolini photograph (Figure 11.4), a price would also be included, but in most situations prices were probably included on a separate sheet, perhaps to give Bernard maximum flexibility in negotiating the value of a work when he suggested it to a client or another dealer. Though Paolini sent photographs seeking Bernard’s opinion of works he was thinking of purchasing for his stock, or with pleas for Bernard to change his judgment of a work,57 more often than not he sent photos to let Bernard know what he had 53  Discussing a Sienese painting in May 1911, Paolini writes that Bernard won’t have to trouble himself with the export procedures, and just to tell Paolini where to send it. Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 30 May 1911. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 54  As with Paolini, there is little written about Aretini. He did hold a sale of his stock in 1930. See Auctio, 1930. 55  See Cunsolo, 2010. In May of 1922 Paolini wrote that he was obliged to send paintings to Jacquier since Anderson, a Rome-based photographer, stopped working, it was impossible to get good photographs done in Rome. Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 30 May 1922. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 56  See note 1. 57  Paolini also sent photos with pleas for Bernard to change his initial judgments on works: regarding a Van Dyck portrait he’d been negotiating for, Paolini sent photographs in December 1910 and wrote that they would serve to dissipate Bernard’s doubts that the painting was a copy. Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 6 December 1910. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002).

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Figure 11.4 Verso of a photograph sent to the Berensons by Paolo Paolini. 110170_2, Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence.

available,58 with the hope that Bernard would then recommend those works to others. Somewhat like they did in scholarship, photographs provided new, preliminary information about an object, and later sometimes served as aidemémoire for works seen in the past.59 Parallel to Bernard’s sending Isabella Stewart Gardner photographs to tell her what was on the market, the Paolini photograph as object surrogate functioned to let Bernard know what things were available. From Paolini’s letters, it emerges that photographs were essential in the early machinations of a deal and were part of a system of information-sharing that also involved the transport of the original work of art. Paolini would often write to Bernard asking if he could stop by I Tatti to show him a painting. 58  Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. Undated 1912. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 59  Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 5 July 1920. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002).

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Sometimes he would ask the owner to consign the painting to him so he could physically bring it to Bernard.60 He also sometimes sent paintings to Florence care of another intermediary, such as Aretini.61 Paolini would assure Bernard in these letters that he would have the work photographed and copies sent over, regardless of whether or not Bernard had time to see the work in person.62 In 1922 and 1923, Paolini would leave paintings at Jacquier’s studio in Florence and ask the photographer to arrange to show them to Bernard. However, even within the geographical confines of Italy, the transport of a painting required some effort. Paolini crystallizes this issue when writing to Bernard about a Fra Angelico painting belonging to a member of the Branciforte family in Sicily. The painter Count Lemmo Rossi-Scotti (1848–1926) was charged with selling the work. In January 1923, Paolini requested that Bernard write immediately if any doubts should arise after he examined the photograph, since he understood that it would irritate Rossi-Scotti greatly to travel to Florence “only to see the deal pop like a soap bubble.”63 Paolini wanted to avoid annoying a man who might ultimately end up a precious connection. Thus, at least in the case of Paolini, photographs served as an initial enticement, after which he was often willing to send the original painting for inspection. The delicacy of the order of this process and the complications entailed by the involvement of numerous parties is further evidenced in the details of the chain linking Paolini, Berenson, and Arthur J. Sulley. From the Paolini letters, it emerges that Paolini supplied many paintings to Sulley through Bernard as intermediary. As outlined in Mary’s letter to Bache, Sulley was the principle dealer besides Duveen with whom Bernard collaborated. As laid out in several letters from May 1912, it was understood that before showing photographs and offering a painting to Sulley, Paolini would first check with Bernard.64 Following approval, either Bernard or Paolini would send photographs off to 60  Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 4 February 1911. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 61  Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 2 June 1910. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 62  Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 8 June 1910. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 63  “Una preghiera: Io ho potuto capire che al Conte Rossi-Scotti secherebbe moltissimo di venire a Firenze per vedere l’affare risolversi in una bolla di sapone. Se Ella (ciò che non credo) in seguito all’esame delle fotografie, avesse qualche dubbio o poche speranze in proposito, è meglio che me lo scriva subito. Eviterei così di guastarmi quest’uomo che mi può essere prezioso.” Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 24 January 1913. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 64  Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 28 May 1912. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002).

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Sulley. In this way, the photographic object surrogate served as a tool for negotiation as a painting traveled through a multi-part chain of intermediaries.

Scholarship and Commerce Entwined

A final motivation that dealers had for sending photographs brings this essay full circle. At times, they gave other reasons besides making a deal for the exchange of photographs. After Bernard seems to have refused to see Paolini on one occasion in May 1922, Paolini adds a postscript to a heartfelt letter committing that he would always be happy to give Bernard photographs of interesting objects that might fall into his hands – not with a commercial purpose but for the “enhancement of culture.”65 Steinmeyer also indicated his willingness to send Bernard photographs of Italian paintings so he would know what was going on;66 in September 1923 Bernard expressly asked for some photographs from the firm for his collection.67 Photographs played varied roles in the Berensons’ careers, facilitating both visual analysis and commercial activity. Depending on context, they functioned as visual and object surrogates. Dealers were important suppliers for the Berensons’ vast visual resources collection, the analog database which was an essential tool in their scholarly connoisseurship. Viewed with an interest in the art market, their photograph collection can also be seen as a document in the history of collecting. Because of the involvement of dealers, the Berensons’ photograph archive becomes a site where, as distilled by Ivan Gaskell, scholarship and commerce bolster each other and manifest their interdependency.68

65  “Per solo interesse superiore dell’arte, assolutamente estraneo alle miserie della vita e alle beghe degli affari, sarò sempre lieto di mettere a sua dispozione, quante fotografie d’oggetti specialmente interessanti possano capitarmi fra le mani non per scopo di commercio, ma per l’ampliamento e corredo di quella cultura dalla quale lei è veramente il più grando rappresentante.” Paolini, Paolo. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 22 May 1922. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 66  On June 20, 1921, Steinmeyer wrote “I will send you all photos of Italien [sic] pictures as I receive them, so that you may know what goes through our hands.” Steinmeyer, Fritz. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 20 June 1921. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). On October 10, 1924 he wrote “I will not forget to send you photos of any interesting early things we may buy.” Steinmeyer, Fritz. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 10 October 1924. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 67  Steinmeyer, Fritz. Letter to Bernard Berenson. 28 September, 1923. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880–2002). 68  Gaskell, 2002, 159.

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Works Cited



Archival Sources

Berenson, Bernard and Mary Berenson. Bernard and Mary Berenson, Papers (1880– 2002). Biblioteca Berenson, Villa I Tatti – The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence. Duveen Brothers Records, 1876–1981, bulk 1909–1964. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 960015.

Publications

Aiello, Patrizio. “Gustavo Frizzoni e Bernard Berenson.” Concorso – arti e lettere 5 (2011): 7–21. Auctio. Catalogo dei mobili antichi ed alcuni quadri di proprietà dell’antiquario Leopoldo Aretini in vendita, 1930. Berenson, Bernard. Aesthetics and History in the Visual Arts. Pantheon, 1948. Berenson, Bernard. “Alessio Baldovinetti and the New Madonna of the Louvre.” The Study and Criticism of Italian Art. Second Series, G. Bell and Sons, 1902, pp. 23–38. Berenson, Bernard. “Isochromatic Photography and Venetian Pictures.” The Nation, vol 57, no. 1480, 1893, pp. 346–347. HathiTrust. hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.3901501412 5937?urlappend=%3Bseq=486 Accessed 29 September 2016. Berenson, Bernard. Lorenzo Lotto; an Essay in Constructive Art Criticism. G. Bell & Sons, 1901. Berenson, Bernard. The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance, with an Index to Their Works. G.P. Putnam’s sons, 1894. Berenson, Bernard. Three Essays in Method. The Clarendon Press, 1927. Berenson, Bernard, et al. The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1887–1924, with Correspondence by Mary Berenson. Edited by Rollin van N. Hadley, Northeastern University Press, 1987. Codell, Julie F. “ ‘Second Hand Images’: On Art’s Surrogate Means and Media – Introduction.” Visual Resources, vol. 26, no. 3, 2010, pp. 214–225. Taylor and Francis+NEJM. doi: 10.1080/01973762.2010.499644. Accessed 3 September 2016. Cohen, Rachel. Bernard Berenson: a Life in the Picture Trade. Yale University Press, 2013. Jewish Lives. Cohen, Rachel. “Priceless: How Art Became Commerce.” The New Yorker, 8 October 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20160310072137/http://www.newyorker.com/maga zine/2012/10/08/priceless-2. Accessed 10 March 2016. Cortissoz, Royal. “Prof. Paolini’s Art Collection Put on Display.” New York Tribune, 8 December 1924. Proquest. Costelloe, Mary Whitall [Mary Berenson]. “The New and the Old Art Criticism.” The Nineteenth Century, vol. 35, no. 207, 1894, pp. 828–837.

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Cunsolo, Elisabetta. “Catalogazione e Digitalizzazione Nella Fototeca Di Villa I Tatti: Le Fasi Di Un Progetto.” Predella: rivista semestrale di arti visive, vol. 10, no. 28, 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20170403151906/http://www.predella.it/archivio/index2cab.html?option=com_content&view=article&. Accessed 3 April 2017. Fawcett, Trevor. “The Graphic Versus the Photographic in the Ninteenth-Century Reproduction.” Art History, vol. 9, no. 2, 1986, pp. 185–212. Freitag, Wolfgang M. “Early Uses of Photography in the History of Art.” Art Journal, vol. 39, no. 2, 1979, pp. 117–123. Gill, Tony. “Metadata and the Web.” Introduction to Metadata. Edited by Murtha Baca. Getty Publications, 2008. Hamber, Anthony. “A Higher Branch of the Art”: Photographing the Fine Arts in England, 1839–1880. Gordon and Breach, 1996. Documenting the Image, 4. Hamber, Anthony. “The Use of Photography by Nineteenth-Century Art Historians.” Art History through the Camera’s Lens. Edited by Helene E. Roberts, Gordon and Breach, 1995, pp. 89–121. Documenting the Image, 2. Howard, Jeremy. “Art, Commerce, and Scholarship: The Friendship Between Otto Gutekunst of Colnaghi and Bernard Berenson.” Bernard Berenson: Formation and Heritage. Edited by Joseph Connors and Louis A. Waldman, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 2014, pp. 33–68. Villa I Tatti Series 31. Johnston, Tiffany Latham. Mary Berenson and the Conception of Connoisseurship. Dissertation, Indiana University, 2001. ProQuest. Accessed 2 September 2016. Kempf, Christian. “Adolphe Braun’s Photographic Enterprise.” Image and Enterprise: The Photographs of Adolphe Braun. Edited by Maureen C. O’Brien and Mary Bergstein. Thames and Hudson, 2000. Landi, Elisabetta. “The Antiquarian Carlo Alberto Foresti of Carpi, a Correspondent of Bernard Berenson: Unknown Documents for the History of a Dispersed Collection.” Bernard Berenson: Formation and Heritage. Edited by Joseph Connors and Louis A. Waldman, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, 2014, pp. 33–68. Villa I Tatti Series, 31. Logan, Mary [Mary Berenson]. “The New Art Criticism.” Atlantic Monthly, vol. 76, no. 454, 1895, pp. 263–270. Gaskell, Ivan. “Tradesmen as Scholars.” Art History and Its Institutions: Foundations of a Discipline. Edited by Elizabeth Mansfield, Routledge, 2002, pp. 146–162. Mariano, Nicky. Forty Years with Berenson. Knopf, 1966. Mazaroff, Stanley. Henry Walters and Bernard Berenson: Collector and Connoisseur. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Pagliarulo, Giovanni. “Photographs to Read: Berensonian Annotations.” Photo Archives and the Photographic Memory of Art History. Edited by Costanza Caraffa, Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011, pp. 181–191.

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“PAOLINI COLLECTION OF ART TO BE SOLD.” New York Times, 7 December 1924. Proquest. Ripp, M.J. “The London Picture Trade and Knoedler: Supplying Dutch Old Masters to America, 1900–1914.” British Models of Art Collecting and the American Response: Reflections Across the Pond. Edited by Inge Jackson Reist, Ashgate, 2014, pp. 163–180. Roberts, Helene E. “Second Hand Images: The Role of Surrogates in Artistic and Cultural Exchange.” Visual Resources, vol. 9, no. 4, 1994, pp. 335–346. Taylor and Francis+NEJM. doi: 10.1080/01973762.1994.9658988. Accessed 3 September 2016. Saltzman, Cynthia. Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures, 1880-World War I. Viking, 2008. Samuels, Ernest. Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Connoisseur. Belknap Press, 1979. Samuels, Ernest, and Jayne Samuels. Bernard Berenson, the Making of a Legend. Belknap Press, 1987. Serena, Tiziana. “The Words of the Photo Archive.” Photo Archives and the Photographic Memory of Art History. Edited by Costanza Caraffa, Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2011, pp. 65–67. Simpson, Colin. Artful Partners: Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen. Macmillan Publishing Company, 1986. Spencer, Ronald D. “Authentication in Court: Factors Considered and Standards Proposed.” The Expert Versus the Object: Judging Fakes and False Attributions in the Visual Arts. Edited by Ronald D. Spencer, Oxford University Press, 2004. Spencer, Ronald D., and Eugene Victor Thaw. “The Authentic Will Win Out: Eugene Victor Thaw Interviewed by Ronald D. Spencer.” The Expert Versus the Object: Judging Fakes and False Attributions in the Visual Arts. Edited by Ronald D. Spencer, Oxford University Press, 2004. Superbi, Fiorella Gioffredi. “The Photograph and Bernard Berenson: The Story of a Collection.” Visual Resources, vol. 26, no. 3, 2010, pp. 289–303. Taylor and Francis+NEJM. doi: 10.1080/01973762.2010.499653. Accessed 2 September 2016. Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. “Homeless Paintings of the Italian Renaissance: How do we know about, and how do we study, works of art that have disappeared from view?” https://web.archive.org/web/2016 1205224902/http://itatti.harvard.edu/berenson-library/collections/fototeca-photo graph-archive/homeless-paintings-italian-rena/. Accessed 5 December 2016.

The Bureaucratic Network

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CHAPTER 12

A Lesson in Loopholes: Stefano Bardini, and the Export of the Botticelli Frescoes from Villa Lemmi1 Joanna Smalcerz So I am exposed to the rage of the Minister sooner than I thought.2 Stefano Bardini

∵ On 12 April 1880 a certain A. Mariani in a letter to the Florentine daily newspaper La Nazione lamented the recent sale to the Louvre of the Crucifixion by Fra Angelico3 from the Villa Capponi, and he added: Unfortunately, if one is to give credence to current rumours, two other extremely important pieces are in grave danger of export abroad, that is, Botticelli’s frescoes in the villa of Mr. X – Anyone aware of the importance of these two frescoes, both intrinsic and relative, must resent that foreign museums come to boast such spoils, to our disgrace and detriment.4 1  This article stems from the author’s doctoral project ‘Smuggling the Renaissance: The Illicit Export Of Artworks Out of Italy, 1861–1909’. I would like to thank Lynn Catterson, Anna Melograni and Julia C. Triolo for their invaluable help and supportive advice. 2  ‘Sono dunque esposto alle ire del Ministro prima che credevo.’, AMN, Département des Peintures du Musée du Louvre, Seriés P, PD: Documentation des commandes et acquisitions acceptées, Partie 2: 1867–1956, 1867–1894 (20144790/65–20144790/68), Stephano Bardini demande le paiement des fresques à M. De Tauzia, 12 March 1882. 3  The sale in question was that of the detached mural painting of the Crucifixion (ca. 1440) by Fra Angelico to the Louvre in 1880 by Stefano Bardini. 4  ‘Pur troppo, se si può dar fede alle voci che corrono, anche due altri pezzi importantissimi minacciano di andarsene all’estero, cioè gli affreschi del Botticelli che si trovano nella villa del signore X – Chi conosce l’importanza di codesti due affreschi, sì intrinseca come relativa, deve mal sopportare che esteri Musei vadano superbi di siffatte spoglie a nostro scorno e detrimento.’, La Nazione 1880, 3. The published letter is quoted in full by Barbara Bertelli., see Bertelli 2012, 145–155.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004342989_013

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The pieces to which Mariani was referring were two large allegorical frescoes painted by Sandro Botticelli around 14865 in the Villa Tornabuoni, outside Florence. ‘Mr. X’ was Dr Petronio Lemmi, then owner of the said villa that had been acquired by the Lemmi family in 1824, and was thus known as the Villa Lemmi. The two frescoes – A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts (fig. 12.1) and Venus and the Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman (fig. 12.2) together with a third depicting an older man dressed in scarlet as a gonfalonier and clasping a little girl with his right arm were accidentally discovered under whitewash in an upper room of the villa in September 1873, and were immediately attributed to Sandro Botticelli.6 At the time of the discovery only the first two of the frescoes were in fairly complete condition, while the third had suffered major losses to its surface. Since their reappearance it has generally been believed that the frescoes were commissioned on the occasion of the marriage of Lorenzo di Giovanni Tornabuoni (1468–1497) and Giovanna di Maso degli Albizzi (1468–1488), who are depicted respectively as the youth and young woman, although there has since been a competing opinion suggesting that the youthful couple portrayed are Matteo degli Albizzi and Nanna di Nicolò Tornabuoni.7 The allegorical programme of the frescoes is complex and sophisticated. Lorenzo and Giovanna are woven into elaborate allegorical scenes in which they encounter personifications and mythological figures. The young man dressed in a pale blue robe and red biretta is presented by Grammar to the personifications of the six other Liberal Arts seated on the ground in a semicircle and holding their traditional attributes. The programme presents education and study as an adornment of personal virtue, and emphasises the intellectual aspirations of the Tornabuoni family, and of the groom himself, who is believed to have been exceptionally learned. In the second fresco the young woman in a dark red dress, white veil and pearl necklace, approaches Venus and the three Graces, holding out a white handkerchief into which the goddess drops roses as a symbol of love. The bride is gifted with grace and beauty, and the scene is set in what has been interpreted as the garden of Love.8

5  Lightbown 1989, 174, figs. 58 and 59. 6  Conti 1881, 86–87; Ephrussi 1882, 475–483; see Lightbown 1978, 60–63. 7  In 1978 Ronald W. Lightbown, (pp. 60–61) favoured the first identification, that is that the couple represented are Lorenzo Tornabuoni and Giovanna degli Albizzi; this was supported also in the 2007 study by Gert Jan van der Sman in Sman 2007, 159–186. The second theory was advanced by Helen Ettlinger in Ettlinger 1973, 404–407. 8  Sman 2007, 173.

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Figure 12.1

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Sandro Botticelli, A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts, c. 1486, Fresco detached and mounted on canvas, 238 × 284 cm, Acquired in 1882, Paris, Musée du Louvre, RF 322.

Being of exquisite formal refinement, and among the few known Florentine frescoes by Sandro Botticelli, the paintings from the Villa Lemmi constituted works of extreme rarity, and following their rediscovery, attracted the attention of all major European museums with important collections of Italian Renaissance art. Mariani’s warning letter to La Nazione9 most probably followed upon rumours circulating in Florence that Petronio Lemmi was planning to sell the important murals. Would such a sale be threatened by the Italian authorities, who at the time were greatly preoccupied with the protection of 9  In which he characterises himself as a ‘Florentine at heart and a lover of fine arts, who with sorrow sees this hapless city being spoliated every day of its glorious traditions.’ (‘Fiorentino per cuore e amante dell’arti belle, veggo con rammarcio ogni giorno più spogliarsi questa povera città delle sue gloriose tradizioni.’), La Nazione 1880, 3.

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Figure 12.2

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Sandro Botticelli, Venus and Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman, c. 1486, Fresco detached and mounted on canvas, 211 cm × 283 cm, Acquired in 1882, Paris, Musée du Louvre, RF 321.

the national artistic heritage? Would a dealer involved in the sale face administrative interference blocking the transaction? To address these questions, this article presents and analyses the precarious interplay between an art dealer in Italy and the Italian Ministry of Public Education, the national department in charge of art export policy during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The newly discovered mural paintings indeed came to the attention of local art dealers. By the time Mariani was expressing his concern, the Florentine art dealer Stefano Bardini (1836–1922)10 was already in communication both with Petronio Lemmi and potential clients in Berlin and Paris. When Julius Meyer of the Royal Museums in Berlin rejected Bardini’s offer of the two frescoes for 50 000 francs, the dealer turned to the Louvre.11 In 1879, albeit not 10  Stefano Bardini was one of the most successful Italian art dealers of his generation, dubbed ‘principe degli antiquari’. For a biographical introduction with bibliography on Bardini, see the introduction to this volume by Lynn Catterson. 11  Wilhelm Bode described the event as follows: ‘Außer dem schönen Doppelbildnis von Ghirlandajo habe ich dem Louvre dann auch noch bedeutende, umfangreiche Fresken, die

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yet in possession of the frescoes, Bardini contacted Léonce Both de Tauzia (1823–1888), then curator of the department of paintings and drawings at the Louvre, inviting him to see the paintings at the Villa Lemmi.12 Tauzia’s interest in the frescoes was immediate, yet it would be two years before Bardini was able to detach them from the walls and conclude their sale to the Louvre. In the meanwhile photographs of the murals circulated amongst European art historians and collectors.13 In the winter of 1880/81 the English critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) dispatched a painter and collector-agent Charles Fairfax Murray (1849–1919)14 to Florence to make watercolour copies of the masterpieces for the Guild of St George before the possibly damaging detachment of the frescoes.15 In 1883 Ruskin would show the copies during his lectures at Oxford, lamenting the transfer of the Botticellis to Paris and the altered condition of the paintings.16 After having purchased the frescoes from Petronio Lemmi in Tauzia’s presence, on 22 September 1881 for 35,000 Lire, Stefano Bardini proceeded to the detachment of the murals from the wall.17 Though fresco detachment is a drastic operation that can result in irreversible alterations, Bardini – a former

zum Schönsten gehören, was die italienische Kunst des Quattrocento hervorgebracht hat, in der gleichen Weise ins Netz treiben müssen. (…) Und Meyer benutzte diese in seiner Abwesenheit erfolgte Ablehnung, um in Zukunft prinzipiell den Ankauf von Fresken abzulehnen, als Bardini ein paar Jahre später die beiden herrlichen Fresken Botticellis aus der Villa Lemmi um 50 000 francs anbot.’, Bode 1930, 140. 12  Fahy 2000, 11. 13  Melius 2010, 2. 14  Westgarth 2009, 12, 140. 15  Melius 2010, 2. 16  ‘(…) for central art of Florence, in painting, I show you the copies made for the St. George’s Guild, of the two frescoes by Sandro Botticelli, lately bought by the French Government for the Louvre. These copies, made under the direction of Mr. C. F. Murray, while the frescoes were still untouched, are of singular value now. For in their transference to canvas for carriage much violent damage was sustained by the originals; and as, even before, they were not presentable to the satisfaction of the French public, the backgrounds were filled in with black, the broken edges cut away; and, thus repainted and maimed, they are now, disgraced and glassless, let into the wall of a stair-landing on the outside of the Louvre galleries. (…) This portion of the fresco, on which the most important significance of the whole depended, was cut away in the French restoration.’, Ruskin 1908, 313–315. 17   A SEB, Amministrazione, Attività Commerciale, 1874–1882, Ricevuta vendita affreschi Botticelli 1881. The contract included a statement that the detachment would be executed at Bardini’s risk. I would like to thank Stefano Tasselli for his help during my archival research at the Archivio Bardini.

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painter and an accomplished restorer18 – successfully completed the detachment of Botticelli’s two murals using the technique ‘a massello’ by sawing the wall from behind.19 In the process, the broken outer edges were cut away, parts of the background, such as the trees behind Giovanna degli Albizzi20 and the shields held by the putti in the lower corners were lost, but the material condition of the murals and the underlying intonaco was such that their transfer onto panels constructed in gesso reinforced with metal netting, was possible.21 Bardini could thus begin the restoration of the frescoes, and plan their transportation to Paris. In 1881, to export an artwork from Florence with the importance of a Botticelli fresco, an export permit was required. To get such a permit, applications had to be made to the local Superintendency (Soprintendenza), a regional organ of the Ministry of Public Education (Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione) mandated to protect the national cultural heritage. In early October 1881 Bardini notified the Superintendent of Florence about his acquisition of the murals from Petronio Lemmi and requested the visit of a Royal Inspector (Regio Ispettore), a requirement that had to be fulfilled to be granted the export licence.22 When the Royal 18  Through his entire career as an art dealer Bardini remained interested in conservation techniques. He was an early supporter of the detachment technique ‘a massello’, about which he wrote as follows: ‘Non posso dimenticare gli affreschi, per i quali si seguita a levarli dal muro a strappo, altra maggior rovina prodotta in abbondanza in tutta l’Italia; della quale sebbene tutti ne siano persuasi – nessuno cambia sistema. – Non vi è bisogno che lo suggerisca perché si sa che la demolizione del muro dalla parte posteriore, è una operazione sicurissima che trasporta l’affresco, conservando anche la polvere che aveva precedentemente.’, (ASEB, Amministrazione, Attività Commerciale, 1874–1882, untitled). 19  In 1887 Vernon Lee (1856–1935) described the process of detachment ‘a massello’ of frescoes: ‘A wooden frame thick overlaid with paste of sulphur applied to the face of the frescoes; the bricks deftly cut into, sawed, picked away from behind; the sulphur paste frame with adhering painted plaster pulled away from the broken, picked, jagged old wall; a second framework covered with wet gypsum applied to the back of each thin sheet of frescoed plaster; sulphur paste delicately peeled off the painted surface of the plaster, the back of which remains adhering to, encased in, the gypsum; that is the operation. A new back has been substituted for the old wall; and the frescoes are intact, unspotted, safe, framed, portable, ready for the wooden cased of the packers, the seals of the officials, the van of the railway, the criticism of the experts, the gape of the public.’, Lee 1887, 79–129. 20  Sman 2007, 165. 21   A SEB, Amministrazione, Attività Commerciale, 1874–1882, 1882: Attività antiquaria, Ricevuta vendita affreschi Botticelli 1882. 22  On 8 October 1881 the Superintendent of Florence wrote to the Ministry of Public Education as follows: ‘Il Sig.re Stefano Bardini si presentava spontaneamente a questa Soprintendenza notificando la compera fatta dal Dott. Lemmi e domandando la visita del

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Inspector Giacomo Conti ruled that the frescoes in question could not be exported without the Government’s authorisation,23 Bardini filed a permission request directly to the Superintendency of the Royal Galleries (Soprintendenza delle Regie Gallerie) in Florence, and waited for a reply. Any delay constituted a setback for the dealer who had already formalised the agreement with the Louvre, which was therefore awaiting reception of the purchased artworks. Since the Soprintendenza kept delaying the decision, Stefano Bardini first verbally pressured the Superintendent and Director of the Royal Galleries, Cesare Donati,24 and finally on 16 December 1881, issued a telegram directly to the Ministry in Rome, in which he explicitly stated that the delay was jeopardising his deal.25 The same day, the Ministry responded with a ban on the export of the frescoes: Roma, addì 16 D.bre 1881 Prot.° Gen.° N.° 18674 Sez.° 10675 N.° di Part.a 12443 Soprintendente RR. Gallerie Firenze Ai termini articolo otto Decreto Ricasoli 12 marzo 1860, e comma secondo e terzo Editto 1754 Ministero vieta esportazione all’estero di pittura Botticelli. Ne informi Bardini in risposta telegramma direttomi. Per Ministro Fiorelli.26 R. Ispettore, acciò si potesse deliberare circa l’istanza ch’egli avrebbe presentata poi per ottenere licenza di spedire all’estero i detti affreschi.’, See ACS, Ministero Pubblica Istruzione – Direzione Generale Antichità e Belle Arti, I Versamento, Monumenti, esportazioni, oggetti d’arte 1860–1890, Busta 394, fascicolo 33, 1: Esportazione all’estero degli affreschi attribuiti al Botticelli della villa Lammi [sic] (Bernardini [sic] Stefano), 1881–1883. 23   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Sentenza 2 marzo 1883. 24  As may be inferred from the Superintendent’s letter to the Ministry of 15 December 1881: ‘(…) il Sig. Bardini mi fece verbalmente vivissime premure affinché fosse sollecitata da codesto Ministero una risoluzione che ponga lui una condizione o di perfezionare il contratto già conchiuso col Museo del Louvre.’, ACS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 15 December 1881. 25   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Telegram dated 16 December 1881. 26   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 17 December 1881.

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As a dealer used to facing this kind of difficulty with export permit requests27 Stefano Bardini replied with a telegram of protest citing one of his previous exportations as a precedent – that of the very fresco (Fra Angelico’s Crucifixion) that Mariani had been lamenting – for which Bardini had been given export permission in 1880.28 On 19 December 1881, however, the Ministry reiterated its ban on the exportation of the two Botticelli murals.29 On the 23rd, Bardini filed a request with Superintendent Donati to overturn the decision, but it remained unanswered. Nor was there any response to Bardini’s next appeal, which he addressed directly to the Ministry in Rome on the 28th of the same month. At this point the case was seemingly closed, making it impossible to legally export the frescoes. By 1881 the Italians’ concern about the ongoing loss of major works of art to export had significantly increased. In 1871 Raphael’s Madonna with the Book was exported to Russia to form part of the imperial collection, causing outrage in Italian public opinion and leading to a parliamentary interpellation of the Minister of Public Education.30 Nine years later, amidst outcry in the media, Fra Angelico’s Crucifixion had been sold to the Louvre, and had left the country.31 Every year Italy was raided by foreign art historians and aspiring dilettanti searching for quality artworks to buy and take home.32 The art of the Italian Renaissance was at the peak of its popularity among private collectors and high-profile museums in Europe and the United States, with the Louvre, South Kensington Museum and the Royal Museums in Berlin all competing to build the richest collections of what was seen as the most refined art of all time. Italian dealers, Stefano Bardini amongst them, were happy to help,

27  See for instance Stefano Bardini’s letter to Julius Meyer about the difficulties involved in exporting the ciborium by Fra Angelico, ZA SMB-PK, NL Meyer, Letter dated 2 April 1876: ‘(…) Ecco come vanno le cose – Il Consiglio Superiore di Belle Arti a Roma ha dichiarato necessario il Ciborio per completare la collezione dei Beati Angelici, per la sua forma originale, e per la citazione fatta dal Vasari, ed è per ciò che il Governo mi ha negato il permesso d’esportazione (…) Non tema agisco con prudenza, e se non avrò il risultato che si spera, certamente non pregiudicherò l’affare.’ 28   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Telegram dated 17 December 1881. 29   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 19 December 1881. 30  See Pantò 1999, 189–253. 31   La Nazione 1880, 3. 32  To name only the most prominent curators: Léonce Both de Tauzia of the Louvre travelled across Italy three times between 1867 and 1879; Wilhelm Bode embarked on his mission of systematic acquisitions for the Berlin museums in 1872; finally, Thomas Armstrong raided Italy in search for objects for the South Kensington Museum.

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organising a steady supply of objects from churches, convents and impoverished aristocratic houses. In September 1881, when Superintendent Donati verified that Stefano Bardini had purchased two frescoes by Botticelli from Petronio Lemmi and was proceeding to their detachment,33 it became all too clear that Mariani had been correct in warning of the possible departure of the frescoes from the country. Unsure of how to handle the situation, Donati informed the General Directorate for the Antiquities and Fine Arts (Direzione Generale per Antichità e Belle Arti) at the Ministry that the frescoes were avidly sought after by major foreign museums, and asked for further instructions.34 The Director, Giuseppe Fiorelli (1823–1896),35 was no less disoriented. The legal situation concerning the protection of the artistic heritage had not yet been defined in the young Italian State, which twenty years after Unification still featured much pre-Unification legislation for individual regions; nor were there satisfying measures, such as state funds available to pre-empt the objects and impede the private sale and exportation of important artworks. Decisive action had already proven difficult for the Ministry in previous years, and the increasing pressure of Italian public opinion to save national artistic treasures did not make the Government’s position any easier. Though uncertain what room for action the law left him, in his response to the situation of the rediscovered Botticelli frescoes, Giuseppe Fiorelli acted fast and firmly. To prevent, or at least delay the export of the frescoes, he fell back on a local Tuscan edict dating to 26 December 175436 that prohibited ‘every person of whatever state, grade and condition (…) henceforth to remove and take abroad, or have removed and taken abroad either from this City of Florence, or from other cities and places in the State of the Grand Duchy, any sort of old Manuscripts, Inscriptions, Medals, Statues (…) Pictures and antique 33   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 27 September 1881. 34  Ibidem: ‘Delle pitture murali del Botticelli oltre lì indicati sopra non esiste in Firenze se non la sola figura che trovasi nella Chiesa di Ognissanti, e non occorre dire quanto le opere di artista cotanto insigne siano al presente avidamente ricercate dai principali musei stranieri.’ 35  Giuseppe Fiorelli (1823–1896) was an archaeologist whose excavations of Pompeii helped to preserve the site. His method of pouring plaster of Paris into cavities created after human bodies had rotted, thereby producing their casts, helped to understand, how people died during the eruption and was named after him (the Fiorelli process). In 1875 he was appointed the first Director of the General Directorate for the Antiquities and Fine Arts of the Ministry of Public Education. The moment initiated his administrative and political involvement in the preservation of the Italian cultural heritage. 36  The Edict confirmed the earlier laws of 6 November 1602 and 31 December 1603. It was again confirmed on 12 March 1860 by the Ricasoli Decree.

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Paintings and other works and rarities without the (…) Council’s permission.’37 When Bardini’s appeal was received on 23 December it was no longer obvious if the edict was still in force. Due to the lack of legal uniformity in the country, the level of uncertainty of the decision makers responsible for the protection of the national artistic heritage was overwhelming. Fiorelli sent note after note, all marked ‘urgent’ or ‘most urgent’, to the State Council and the Attorney General, in order to clarify if the export ban for the frescoes was in compliance with the law in force in Tuscany. On 19 December he reiterated the prohibition,38 after which Stefano Bardini responded with a further appeal. To safeguard his own ministerial order, on 28 December Giuseppe Fiorelli sent a ‘most urgent’ letter to the Attorney General in Rome requesting that the State legal representative in Florence be given specific instructions, in order to prevent the lower instance from issuing a verdict in contradiction to that already issued by the Ministry.39 On the same day Fiorelli sent a ‘most confidential’ letter to Superintendent Donati, in which he forwarded the opinion of the Attorney General that no response should be given to Bardini’s appeal.40 Unaware of the extraordinary attention his latest request had triggered in the Ministry, Stefano Bardini had also by no means remained inactive. Having been refused an official export licence, he embarked on a mission to export the frescoes to France clandestinely. For his project, he was, however, in need of an intermediary, a foreigner to whom he could officially sell the paintings in Florence and onto whom he could thereby shift the responsibility for their export. It was unlikely that such a person, as a non-Italian, would be prosecuted by the Italian State. Bardini’s idea was to perform a pro forma transaction – he would sell to the intermediary who would then resell the objects to the Louvre. In 1885 the Florentine dealer referred to this system in a letter to Wilhelm Bode of the Berlin Royal Museums as follows: ‘(…) however it is indispensable that I sell to Mr. Beckerath.41 He will then write a receipt to the Museum as I did 37  Emiliani 1996, 40, ‘Perciò in aumento ed ampliazione delle Leggi del dì 6 Novembre 1602 e del dì 31 Dicembre 1603 proibisce ad ogni persona di qualsivoglia stato, grado e condizione, ancorché occorresse il farsene specialissima menzione, di potere in avvenire estrarre, o fare estrarre tanto da questa Città di Firenze, quanto dalle altre Città e Luoghi del Granducato per fuori di Stato alcuna sorte di antichi Manoscritti, Iscrizioni, Medaglie, Statue, Urne, Bassorilievi, Dorsi, Teste, Frammenti, Pili, Piedistalli, Quadri e Pitture antiche ed altre opere e cose rare senza la permissione espressa del Consiglio medesimo.’ 38   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 19 December 1881. 39   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letters dated 19 December 1881 and 28 December 1881. 40   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 28 December 1881. 41  Adolf von Beckerath (1834–1915) was a Berlin based art collector.

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to the Louvre, and Mr. Schmitz will have a receipt from me for Mr. Beckerath; when I sold the Botticelli frescoes, I sold [them] to Mr. Efrussi (sic) and [then] he [sold them] to the Louvre; it is necessary that we follow the same [procedure] in this case.’42 It was indeed Charles Ephrussi who would act as the on-paper intermediary in the Botticelli affaire. Ephrussi (1849–1905), a descendant of a wealthy Jewish banking family with origins in Odessa, became involved in the Parisian art scene in the early 1870s, writing for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and publishing scholarly texts on art history. He was a close associate of Léonce Both de Tauzia, and it is plausible that Tauzia suggested him to Bardini. Several years later in another letter to Wilhelm Bode, Stefano Bardini wrote that Ephrussi had ‘volunteered’.43 In January 1882 Bardini sold the two Botticelli frescoes to Charles Ephrussi for 45,000 Lire.44 At this point Ephrussi sent Bardini 5,000 Lire in advance, together with a signed statement in which, crucially, he attests to have purchased them in Florence.45 In the same document Ephrussi accepts that the responsibility for the banned export be transferred from Bardini to himself.46 As is known from a much later letter from Bardini to Bode, however, Ephrussi in reality had not purchased the murals in Florence, and it was the dealer who organised the transport.47 Bardini obviously feared an investigation and wanted to protect himself from being charged with illegal export 42   ‘(…) però è indispensabile che io venda al Sig. Beckerath. Egli poi farà la ricevuta al Museo come praticai al Louvre e Sig. Schmitz avrà da me una ricevuta per il Sig. Beckerath; quando vendei gli affreschi del Botticelli io vendei al Sig. Efrussi ed egli al Louvre, così è necessario fare in questo caso.’ ZA, SMB-PK, IV-NL Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated 21 November 1885. 43   ‘Si ricorderà come Efrussi si prestò in questo modo per il Louvre.’ ZA, SMB-PK, IV-NL Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated 9 August 1887. 44   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Sentenza 2 marzo 1883. 45   A SEB, Amministrazione, Attività Commerciale, 1874–1882, 1882: Attività antiquaria, Ricevuta vendita affreschi Botticelli 1882. 46  Ibidem: ‘(…) Il medesimo Sig. Bardini dichiara altresì che sebbene non riconosca nell’autorità Governativa il diritto d’impedire il trasporto di detti oggetti d’arte, ciò non dimeno non intende né vuole assumere a tal fine nessuna responsabilità, per la qual cosa protesta che la consegna di detti oggetti è stata già fatta in Firenze, e che dovrà rimanere a tutta cura, rischio e pericolo del Signor Carlo Ephrussi il domandare permessi ove occorre, ed espletare le liti che fossero necessarie, dovendo egli essere rilevato da ogni e qualsiasi molestia, senza che possa in nessun caso domandarsi diminuzione di prezzo, essendo che nello stabilirlo fu tutto ciò calcolato.’ It is clear that although signed by Ephrussi, the text of this letter was composed by Bardini himself. 47   Z A, SMB-PK, IV-NL Bode 629, Stefano Bardini’s letter to Wilhelm Bode dated 18 August 1887: ‘(…) e questo dovrà rispondere è vero comprai dal Bardini il busto in Roma (sic)

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and consequently fined. Having discovered a loophole in the Italian legislation which did not forbid commerce in art within the Kingdom of Italy, he required that Charles Ephrussi sign the aforementioned document in which he falsely stated that ‘the consignment of the objects took place in Florence’.48 The next substantial problem the dealer faced was arranging for the transport of the paintings out of Italy. The two large detached frescoes, measuring respectively 211 × 284 cm and 238 × 284 cm49 and each placed on a heavy support, were difficult and unwieldy objects and yet needed to remain undetectable. Part of an extensive professional network of Italian and international collectors and dealers, Stefano Bardini shrewdly began to organise the smuggling of the Botticellis out of Italy and into France with the aid of that social network. As is demonstrated by later governmental investigative correspondence, Bardini asked his ‘carissimo amico’ in Milan, Giuseppe Baslini, to collaborate in getting the frescoes out of Tuscany.50 Giuseppe Baslini (1817–1887) was a Milan based art dealer whose career spanned more than three decades and was marked by successful cooperation with many international collectors.51 Though he had a record of practicing – in the words of Annalisa Zanni – il perfido commercio, and was undoubtedly more interested in business opportunities than in avoiding the dispersion of the national patrimony52 (an apt characterisation for Stefano Bardini as well), remarkably only weeks after the paintings’ departure Baslini reported to the Florentine Royal Inspector that he had collaborated with Stefano Bardini in bringing the frescoes to Milan against the ministerial export ban.53 As was referred by Royal Inspector Giacomo Conti in a letter to Superintendent Cesare Donati dated 20 March 1882, it was thus possible that Giuseppe Bertini (1825–1898), the President of the Academy

diversamente sarei condannato a pagare una multa di L 100,000. Il Sig. Efrussi (sic) non venne in Firenze e mi rilasciò una obbligazione che mi garantiva risposta.’ 48   ‘(…) per la qual cosa protesta che la consegna di detti oggetti è stata già fatta in Firenze’, ASEB, Amministrazione, Attività Commerciale, 1874–1882, 1882: Attività antiquaria, Ricevuta vendita affreschi Botticelli 1882. 49  Lightbown 1989, 172, 174. 50   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 20 March 1882. In the letters to Stefano Bardini Giuseppe Baslini refers to him as ‘Dearest friend’ (Carissimo Amico), see ASEB, Corr. II. O.: 1885, Giuseppe Baslini. 51  Zanni 2000, 270, 271. 52  ‘(…) dove Baslini era ritenuto praticare il perfido commercio, poco interessato ad evitare la dispersione del patrimonio nazionale ma attento ai buoni affari.’, Zanni 2000, 271. 53   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 20 March 1882.

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of Fine Arts in Milan, the institution responsible for releasing export permits for artworks from Lombardy had also been involved in the affair.54 In March 1882 the Italian authorities had still not discovered the detailed circumstances of the frescoes’ removal from Florence. Between December 1881 and January 188255 the Botticelli frescoes had in fact been smuggled out of Florence from Palazzo Bardi in the via Benci, to where they had been taken by Bardini for restoration after their detachment.56 In a letter of 30 October 1922, Petronio Lemmi’s son, Angiolo Lemmi, noted in hindsight that no one had ever understood exactly how the two wall paintings, each of which must have weighed several quintals, could have been taken out through the windows and lowered from the top floor of the Palazzo Bardi into the public street without being observed by any municipal authorities, or how they had crossed the Italian border.57 Angiolo was responding to an article of 19 August 1922 by the critic Ugo Ujetti in the Corriere della Sera, who had speculated that the murals had been wrapped in mattresses and smuggled out in a cart.58 The route to Paris via Milan is the version of the facts presented by Giuseppe Baslini to Giacomo Conti in 1882.59 In the above-mentioned letter of October 1922, however, Angiolo Lemmi recalls that at the time of the events, rumours were circulating in Florence that the Botticelli frescoes had been dispatched from a nearby seaport to another port in Italy so as to elude customs control, whence they were loaded onto another vessel, and transferred to a French ship on the open sea.60 In any case, in early February 1882 the crated frescoes,

54  Ibidem. 55   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Sentenza 2 marzo 1883. 56   S GNAMC, Fondi Storici, Fondo Ugo Ojetti, serie 1: Corrispondenti: artisti, Corrispondenti: B 106. Bardini Ugo (antiquario), 2 lettere del figlio Ugo [Bardini] e Angiolo Lemmi, figlio di Petronio Lemmi a proposito dell’acquisto fatto [da Stefano Bardini] degli affreschi del Botticelli, venduti poi al Louvre [proprietà Petronio]. I am very grateful to Paul Tucker for drawing my attention to these documents, transcriptions of which will be found in my doctoral dissertation. 57  Ibidem. 58  Ojetti 1922, 3. 59   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 20 March 1882. 60   S GNAMC, Fondi Storici, Fondo Ugo Ojetti, serie 1: Corrispondenti: artisti, Corrispondenti: B 106. Bardini Ugo (antiquario), 2 lettere del figlio Ugo [Bardini] e Angiolo Lemmi, figlio di Petronio Lemmi a proposito dell’acquisto fatto [da Stefano Bardini] degli affreschi del Botticelli, venduti poi al Louvre [proprietà Petronio].

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addressed to Charles Ephrussi, arrived at the Bercy customhouse on the outskirts of Paris.61 Whatever route the paintings took, accounts of the acquisition appeared in the French press immediately upon their arrival in Paris. L’Art Populaire published the news of the purchase on 10 February 1882, interestingly enough reporting that the frescoes had been brought by Tauzia from Rome.62 On 9 March the two allegorical scenes from the Villa Lemmi were exhibited to the public by the Louvre for the first time.63 In early March 1882, the Italian press reprinted the news from Paris, and only at that point did it become evident to both Stefano Bardini and the Italian Government that the Botticelli affaire was not yet a closed case. On 12 March Bardini wrote to Léonce Both de Tauzia that he had been ‘exposed to the rage of the Minister sooner than [he] expected’ and demanded a prompt payment, which would at least ‘sweeten having to digest so much that was bitter’.64 Four days later, on 16 March, Superintendent Donati in a letter marked ‘urgent’, informed Giuseppe Fiorelli at the Ministry that the frescoes had been exported despite the ministerial ban, and were on display in the Louvre.65 Fiorelli responded with a ‘most urgent’ enquiry to the Attorney General about the laws that applied to the case at that point.66 The Attorney General replied that once they had left the country, the frescoes were irreclaimable and the only thing that could be done was to report the offense to the Royal Prosecutor in Florence,67 which the Ministry proceeded to do on 24 March 1882.68 Once the investigation was underway, new facts surrounding the export of the frescoes came to light. As soon as Giuseppe Fiorelli had been informed by Giacomo Conti about the 61  A MN, Dép. des Peint. du Musée du Louvre, Seriés P, PD: Documentation des commandes et acquisitions acceptées, Partie 2: 1867–1956, 1867–1894 (20144790/65–20144790/68), M. Charles Ephrussi informe de l’arrivée des oeuvres à la Douane Bercy. 62   L’Art Populaire 1881, 258. 63   Le Figaro 1882, 3. 64   ‘Sei giorni fa i giornali italiani hanno riportato da quelli francesi la notizia che gli affreschi sono esposti al Louvre. Sono dunque esposto alle ire del Ministro prima di quanto credevo. In compenso di ciò la prego di farmi riscuotere più presto che potrà affinché abbia almeno un poco di dolce per digerire tanto amaro.’, AMN, Dép. des Peint. du Musée du Louvre, Seriés P, PD: Documentation des commandes et acquisitions acceptées, Partie 2: 1867–1956, 1867– 1894 (20144790/65–20144790/68), Stephano Bardini demande le paiement des fresques à M. de Tauzia. 65   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 16 March 1882. 66   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 18 March 1882. 67   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 22 March 1882. 68   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 24 March 1882.

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involvement of Giuseppe Baslini and possibly also of Giuseppe Bertini, President of the Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, who was apparently the only authority in a position to release an independent permit for the export of art from Milan, he (Fiorelli) issued an enquiry to the Milanese Academy to learn if indeed the said licence had been released against the ministerial ban.69 On the same day a telegram from Milan informed the Ministry that no permission for the export of the frescoes resulted, either from memory, or from the registers.70 The telegram was incorporated into the files of the case against Stefano Bardini that had been opened a few weeks earlier by the Royal Prosecutor in Florence.71 The Botticelli affaire was proving to be an ongoing problem for the Florentine dealer: in compliance with the edict of 26 December 1754 he was facing the possibility of condemnation with a penalty worth double the frescoes.72 Investigations had also begun in France. On 20 July 1882 the Louvre received a letter in which ‘M. Clément, commissaire de police’ requested an appointment with the museum conservator to obtain information about the purchase of the frescoes.73 A month later, Le Figaro became aware of the case and published a brief note specifying that, according to article 853 of the Italian Penal Code, the exportation of paintings or statues could not be exercised without government authorisation, and enquiring how, despite such an ‘embargo’, the given frescoes had found their way to the Louvre.74 Although a follow-up journalistic investigation was projected,75 it appears that no further articles were ever published. The Italians, too, were helpless. The trial against Stefano Bardini concluded on 2 March 1883 with an acquittal. Unaware that the sale of the frescoes had not in fact taken place in Florence,76 the Tribunale Civile e 69   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 31 March 1882. 70   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Telegram dated 31 March 1882. 71   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 5 April 1882. 72  See Emiliani 1996, 40: ‘E chiunque sotto qualsivoglia pretesto o quesito colore ardisse di contravvenire o far contravvenire alle proibizioni espresse nel presente Editto, incorra nella pena della perdita della cosa estratta o tentata di estrarsi, e di più sia condannato nel doppio giusto valore della medesima.’ 73  AMN, Dép. des Peint. du Musée du Louvre, Seriés P, PD: Documentation des commandes et acquisitions acceptées, Partie 2: 1867–1956, 1867–1894 (20144790/65–20144790/68), M. Clément, commissaire de police souhaite un rendez-vous avec le conservateur des peintures du Louvre afin d’avoir des renseignements sur la vente des fresques de la Villa Lemmi. 74   Le Figaro 1882, 3. 75  Ibidem, ‘Nous tiendrons nos lecteurs au courant de cette intéressante affaire.’ 76  It is plausible that Stefano Bardini falsely testified as it was the case in at least one of his later trials.

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Correzionale di Firenze ruled that ‘with the fact of the sale of the two frescoes to Ephrussi in Florence, purchased by Ephrussi and by the Director of the Louvre, Bardini has committed no penal offense since there is no law that prohibits the commerce of works of art within the Kingdom’.77 A year later, in response to continuous enquiries by Giuseppe Fiorelli about the outcome of the trial, the Attorney General noted with evident regret that, ‘given that Bardini found amiable magistrates who acquitted him (…), the best that can be done is to forget this sentence and be more cautious next time’.78 It was, however, difficult to forget such a loss. Shortly after the removal of the Botticelli frescoes, Vernon Lee (1856–1935), a British writer and aesthetician then living in Florence, penned an essay entitled ‘Botticelli at the Villa Lemmi’ opening with a graphic description of the process of detachment a massello of frescoes. Musing on the removal and departure of the Botticelli murals, she wrote: ‘Yet this particular modern action of removing the frescoes from the Villa Lemmi leaves in me a strong, though at first somewhat inarticulate, sense of dissatisfaction. It may be right, this instinctive and vague feeling of displeasure, or it may be wrong, but any way there it is (…)’.79 Lee went on to conclude that ‘a painting is better in a farmhouse where it can be enjoyed, than in the most superb gallery where it will be overlooked’.80 Twelve years later, Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (1819–1897), who had seen the frescoes shortly after their rediscovery at the Villa Lemmi, expressed regret that it was no longer possible to see them in situ: ‘It is, however, to be regretted that they were removed from the place for which they were executed and that they have been retouched here and there with colour. They were sold to the Louvre Museum, where we were able to see them; but there [in the Louvre] they naturally do not give the fine show they did when they were in the place where the painter executed them. It also seems to us that the paintings have deteriorated since the first time we saw them, before they were detached from the walls’.81 77   A CS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Sentenza 2 marzo 1883. ‘(…) che il Bardini col fatto della vendita dei due affreschi all’Ephrussi in Firenze fatto comprato dallo stesso Ephrussi e dal Direttore del Louvre non ha commesso alcuna azione punibile perché non vi ha legge che vieti la commerciabilità delle opere d’arte nell’intero del Regno.’ 78   ‘Oramai che gli affreschi sono usciti d’Italia che il Bardini ha trovato dei Magistrati dolci di sale che l’hanno assoluto (…) è evidente che il meglio che possa farsi è di mettere questa sentenza a dormire ed essere più attenti altra volta (…).’, ACS, Min. P. I. DG AABBAA, I Ver., Busta 394, 33, 1, Letter dated 6 March 1884. 79  Lee 1887, 81. 80  Ibidem, 129. 81   ‘È però da deplorare che siano stati tolti dal luogo pel quale furono eseguiti e che siano stati qua e là ritoccati con colore. Furono venduti al Museo del Louvre, ove potemmo rivederli; ma

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For the Italian Government, the case highlighted once again the urgent problem of the incoherent legislation for the protection of the cultural heritage, extant loopholes, and the impotency of the State to implement measures to prevent the ongoing spoliation of the country’s artistic patrimony. Not only had the frescoes illicitly left the country, not only had their removal damaged them (albeit not seriously), but no individual involved in their illegal export faced even the most minimal penal consequences for his actions. Though many, from ministers to common citizens, were painfully aware of the problem, a new law proposal to resolve it would only be presented in 1886,82 and the actual legislation would have to wait until 1902 to be passed.83 As for Stefano Bardini, the affair gave him even more room for his ‘art of the deal’; indeed, the sentence confirmed his knowledge of how to proceed with illegal exportations without risking condemnation and penalties by the Italian authorities. The experience of the sale and export of the Botticelli frescoes facilitated his development of a system of pro forma sale and clandestine transport, which he implemented on numerous occasions after 1881. After the successful instance of collaboration with Charles Ephrussi and Giuseppe Baslini, Stefano Bardini continued smuggling priceless works of art out of Italy by skilfully profiting from his vast social network, a modus operandi he mastered to perfection in the years to come.

Works Cited

Archives ACS

AMN

I Versamento, Monumenti, esportazioni, oggetti d’arte 1860–1890, Ministero Pubblica Istruzione – Direzione Generale Antichità e Belle Arti, Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome Seriés P, PD: Documentation des commandes et acquisitions acceptées, Partie 2: 1867–1956, 1867–1894 (20144790/65–20144790/68),

non fanno ivi naturalmente la bella mostra che facevano quando trovanansi al posto ove il pittore li aveva condotti.’, Crowe, Cavalcaselle 1894, 262. 82  The project of Minister Michele Coppino was presented in the Chamber of Deputies first on 3 February 1886, then modified and presented on 22 June 1886 and subsequently discussed in the Chamber of Deputies from 23 June 1886 to 26 November 1887. It was passed in the lower chamber and rejected by the Senate on 8 February 1888 with 53 votes against 41. 83  The law of 12 June 1902, no. 185.

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ASEB SGNAMC

ZA SMB-PK



Département des Peintures du Musée du Louvre, Archives des musées nationaux, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine Amministrazione, Attività Commerciale, 1874–1882, Archivio Storico Eredità Bardini, Florence Fondi Storici, Fondo Ugo Ojetti, serie 1: Corrispondenti: artisti, Corrispondenti: B 106, Bardini Ugo (antiquario), Soprintendenza alla Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome NL Meyer, Zentralarchiv Staatliche Museen Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin IV-NL Bode 629, Zentralarchiv Staatliche Museen Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin

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Anderson, Jaynie. Collecting, connoisseurship and the art market in Risorgimento Italy. Giovanni Morelli’s Letters to Giovani Melli and Pietro Zavaritt (1866–1872). Venezia: Ist. Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1999. Bertelli, Barbara. Commercio antiquario a Firenze nel primo trentennio dopo l’Unità d’Italia: protagonisti, transazioni e circolazione delle opere d’arte. Dissertation, Università degli Studi di Udine, 2012, OpenUniud 2012. Bode, Wilhelm von. Mein Leben, vol. I. Berlin: Hermann Reckendorf, 1930. Conti, Cosimo. “Découverte de deux fresques de Sandro Botticelli”. L’Art XXVII (1881): 86–87. “Cose d’Arte”. La Nazione, 12 April 1880. “Chronique artistique et littéraire”. L’Art Populaire, 10 February 1881. Crowe, Joseph Archer, and Cavalcaselle, Giovanni Battista. Storia della pittura in Italia dal secolo II al secolo XVI, vol. 6: Pittori fiorentini fin poco dopo la prima metà del secolo XV. Firenze: Successori Le Monnier 1894. Emiliani, Andrea. Leggi, bandi e provvedimenti per la tutela dei Beni Artistici e Culturali negli antichi stati italiani 1571–1860. Bologna: Nuova Alfa Ed., 1996. Ephrussi, Charles. “Les deux fresques du Musée du Louvre attribuées à Sandro Botticelli.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts XXV (1882): 475–483. Ettlinger, Helen S. “The portraits in Botticelli’s Villa Lemmi frescoes.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz XX (1973): 404–407. Fahy, Everett. L’archivio storico fotografico di Stefano Bardini: dipinti, disegni, miniature, stampe. Firenze: Alberto Bruschi, 2000. Lee, Vernon. “Botticelli at the Villa Lemmi.” Juvenilia: Being a Second Series of Essays on Sundry Aesthetical Questions, vol. 1. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1887: 79–129. Lightbown, Ronald W. Sandro Botticelli, vol. II: Complete Catalogue. London: Paul Elek, 1978. Lightbown, Ronald W. Sandro Botticelli. Milano: Trappi, 1989.

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Melius, Jeremy Norman. “Art History and the Invention of Botticelli.” Dissertation, 2010, University of California, Berkeley. “Nouvelles Diverses.” Le Figaro, 12 August 1882. Ojetti, Ugo. “Cose di libri.” Corriere della Sera, 19 August 1922. Pantò, Alessandra. “Un episodio perugino di dispersione del patrimonio artistico italiano: la vendita della Madonna del libro di Raffaello alla luce di documenti inediti.” Bollettino della Deputazione di Storia Patria per l’Umbria 96 (1999): 189–253. Ruskin, John. The Works of John Ruskin. Ed. E. T. Cook, and Alexander Wedderburn, vol. 33: The Bible of Amiens. Valle Crucis. The Art of England. The Pleasures of England. London: George Allen, 1908. Sman, Gert Jan van der. “Sandro Botticelli at Villa Tornabuoni and a nuptial poem by Naldo Naldi.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz LI (2007): 159–186. Westgarth, Mark. A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique and Curiosity Dealers. Regional Furniture, XXIII. Regional Furniture Society 2009. Zanni, Annalisa. “Dedicato a Giuseppe Baslini (1817–1887).” Arte Lombarda del secondo milennio. Saggi in onore di Gian Alberto dell’Acqua. Ed. Francesca Flores D’Arcais. Milano: Motta, 2000: 270–275.

List of Illustrations 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

Plate depicting medals and plaquettes from Stefano Bardini’s auction (Christie’s, London, May 27th, 1902), annotated with names of buyers; inserted post-sale into photo album. viii Stefano Bardini at Torre del Gallo, 1911 7 Printed invitation, Paris Exposition, 1900 9 Bardini display, Paris Exposition, 1900 10 Print illustration of the portrait by Domenico Cunego and Tiziano, 1770 15 Photograph (albumin) of terracotta bust of Filippo Strozzi, annotated in pencil with projection measurements indicated 23 Mary Cassatt, Portrait of the Artist, 1878. Watercolor, gouache on wove paper laid down to buff-colored wood-pulp paper, 23 5/8 × 16 3/16 in. (60 × 41.1 cm) 40 Edgar Degas, The Ballet Class, ca. 1880. Oil on canvas, 32 3/8 × 30 1/4 in. (82.2 × 76.8 cm) 46 Attribued to Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes), Narcisa Barañana de Goicoechea. Oil on canvas, 44 1/4 × 30 3/4 in. (112.4 × 78.1 cm) 48 Claude Monet, Springtime, 1872. Oil on canvas, 19 11/16 × 25 13/16 in. (50 × 65.5 cm) 55 Anonymous (Italian), Artist in Her Studio, late nineteenth century. Photograph inserted in an extra-illustrated edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Marble Faun (Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1860) 66 Mary Elizabeth Williams, Sacro Speco at San Benedetto, Subiaco, circa 1882–1885. Oil on canvas 73 Studio of the Misses Williams (northern end), between 1886–1902. Photograph 77 Studio of the Misses Williams (southern end), between 1886–1902. Photograph 82 Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta, Samuel P. Avery (1822–1904), 1876, oil on wood, 24 × 19 1/4 in. (61 × 48.9 cm) 92 Anton Scharff, Samuel P. Avery (1822–1904): Commemorating His SeventyFifth Birthday, 1897, Silver, Diam. 2 1/2 in. (64 mm.) 95 Léon Bonnat, Roman Girl at a Fountain, 1875, Oil on canvas, 67 × 39 1/2 in. (170.2 × 100.3 cm) 106 Ernest Meissonier, 1807, Friedland, ca. 1861–75, Oil on canvas, 53 1/2 × 95 1/2 in. (135.9 × 242.6 cm) 109

312 5.1

list of illustrations

Pablo Picasso, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler in Pablo Picasso’s studio, 11 boulevard de Clichy, Paris, as photographed by Picasso, Autumn 1910 116 5.2 Pablo Picasso, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Autumn 1910, oil on canvas 117 5.3 Ricardo Floret, “La Contrefaçon Allemande (Made in Germany)”; L’Assiette au Beurre, No. 559, 30 December 1911, cover design 124 5.4 Ricardo Floret, “La Contrefaçon Allemande (Made in Germany)”; L’Assiette au Beurre, No. 559, 30 December 1911, unpaginated 125 5.5 “La Salle des Cubistes au Salon d’Automne”, 10th Salon d’Automne, 1 October–8 November 1912, Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, Paris, Salle XI showing left to right František Kupka, no. 925, Amorpha, fugue à 2 coleurs (painting, left wall); Amedeo Modigliani, nos. 1211– 1217, Têtes (four shown of seven sculptures); Alexander Archipenko, no. 1357, Madonna (sculpture group); Francis Picabia, no. 1350, La Source (centre); Jean Metzinger, no. 1195, Danseuse (painting); Henri Le Fauconnier, no. 1002, Montagnards attaqués par des ours (painting, right wall) 126 5.6 Adolphe Willette, “Ce n’est pas nouveau!”, Le Journal, No. 3254, 3 May 1915, p. 1 145 5.7 Juan Gris, Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, 1921, pen and ink on paper, 26×32.5 cm 149 5.8 Georges Braque, Bouteille de Rhum, Spring 1914, oil on canvas, 148×99 cm 153 6.1 Charles Mather Ffoulke. 162 6.2 The gallery of Ffoulke’s home in Washington, D.C. 174 6.3 Tapestries from the Diana Series in the dining room of the Anderson House 176 7.1–2 Alinari, n. 8430. Lucca. Galleria del M.e Mansi a Santa Maria Forisportam. La Maddalena. (Luca d’Olanda.), recto and verso, ca 1898, albumen print, 300 × 250 mm 190–191 7.3 Unidentified photographer, Alceo Dossena, The Annoucing Angel Gabriel in the manner of Simone Martini, detail, ca 1922, carbon print, 252 × 195 mm, mounting 340 × 240 mm 194 7.4 Unidentified photographer, Alceo Dossena, The Announced Virgin in the manner of Simone Martini, ca 1922, carbon print, 250 × 180 mm 195 8.1 R.B. Hoyt, Aerial View, 1929, VMGA 206 8.2 CA 07096 Mattie Edwards Hewitt, Enclosed Loggia 218 8.3 CA 08026 Mattie Edwards Hewitt, Living Room, 1917 219

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8.4 9.1

313

CA 07005 Bacchus Fountain, Entrance Loggia, 1916 220 Georges Lepape, Portrait of César M. de Hauke, 1918. Oil on panel, 29.3 × 11.6 in. (74.5 × 29.5 cm) 230 9.2 Exhibition of Decorative Arts by De Hauke & Co., Cleveland Museum of Art, c. 1929. Glasswares by Maurice Marinot 235 9.3 Amedeo Modigliani, Grand nu couché, in Catalogue of Paintings by Amedeo Modigliani, 1884–1920, from October 21 to November 9, 1929, to be exhibited at De Hauke & Co 240 9.4 Paul Cézanne, L’Estaque, 1879–1883. Oil on canvas, 31.5 × 39 in. (80.3 × 99.4 cm) 241 10.1 Galleria Bardini, Still Life Italian majoliche (neg. 1889) 257 10.2 Still life with Bronzetti, plate n. 815 (BR) 257 10.3 Sodoma (Giovan Antonio Bazzi, Vercelli 1477–1549 Siena), Le due Veneri (terrestre e Celeste) with Eros and Anteros. Size diameter 44.7 cm with grotesques 58.3 cm. Wood carved frame. 259 11.1 Drawing in a letter from Riccardo Nobili to Stefano Bardini which describes the Italian Pavillion at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Corrispondenza Miscellanea, 1900 268 11.2 Verso of a photograph of a Portrait of a Lady exhibiting multiple inscriptions 277 11.3 Verso of a photograph found in the Duveen Brothers Records exhibiting Bernard Berenson’s attribution and signature 278 11.4 Verso of a photograph sent to the Berensons by Paolo Paolini 283 12.1 Sandro Botticelli, A Young Man Being Introduced to the Seven Liberal Arts, c. 1486, Fresco detached and mounted on canvas, 238 × 284 cm 293 12.2 Sandro Botticelli, Venus and Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman, c. 1486, Fresco detached and mounted on canvas, 211 cm × 283 cm 294

List of Contributors Fae (Fay) B. Brauer is Professor of Art and Visual Culture at the University of East London Centre for Cultural Studies Research (CCSR) and Associate Professor in Art History and Cultural Theory at The University of New South Wales National Institute for Experimental Art (NIEA). Her research focuses upon the cultural politics redolent in art and cultural institutions as well as the interdisciplinary intersections between modern art, visual culture, occulture, science and medicine, as demonstrated by her books, Picturing Evolution and Extinction: Degeneration and Regeneration in Modern Visual Cultures (2015), Radical Space: Exploring Politics and Practice (2015), Rivals and Conspirators: The Paris Salons and the Modern Art Centre (2013) nominated Best Book of the Year by The American Library in Paris; The Art of Evolution: Darwin, Darwinisms and Visual Culture (2009) nominated Best Book of the Year in Art and Science by The Royal Society, and Art, Sex and Eugenics, Corpus Delecti (2008) winner of Best Book of the Year Prize by the Art Association of Australian and New Zealand. Her forthcoming books are Regenerating the Body: Modernist Biocultures, NeoLamarckian Eugenics and the Fitness Imperative; Symbiotic Species: The Art of Transformism in Solidarist France and Canvasing Perversion: Picasso, Science and Medicine. Denise Budd is an Associate Professor of Art History at Bergen Community College in New Jersey. She received her PhD. from Columbia University in 2002, with her dissertation focused on the documentary evidence relating to the early career of Leonardo da Vinci. From this research, she has published several articles, including “Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, Before Milan” in the SECAC Review (2014), “Leonardo da Vinci and Workshop Practice: The Role of the Dated Notation,” in Aurora (2009) and “Leonardo da Vinci and Problems of Paternity” in Source: Notes on the History of Art (2005). Building upon her interest in archival investigation, her current research seeks to reconstruct the career of the international tapestry dealer Charles Mather Ffoulke. Patrizia Cappellini graduated in Art History at the Università degli Studi di Firenze with a thesis on Harold Rosenberg’s criticism. Since 2010 she has been studying the photo archive of the art dealer Elia Volpi which was the topic of her post graduate thesis defended in 2012. This research was the starting point for an exhibition,

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for a cataloguing and digitalizing project concerning historical photographs held in Museo di Palazzo Davanzati in Florence and for an online exhibition for the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz in 2013. Following what Rosalind Krauss called the “discursive spaces of photography”, she tried to focus on narrative potential of photographs to pursue a method grounded on the synergy between iconic and textual documents aimed to explore manifold utilizations of photography in the art trade and better define the role of important Florentine art dealers. In 2015 she benefited from a research fellowship at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Currently she has a PhD scholarship at the Università degli Studi di Udine, studying the collecting and art trading between Italy and Germany from 1890 to 1930. Her recent publications include Il ruolo di Elia Volpi nella vendita delle sculture di Alceo Dossena. Fotografie e lettere inedite (2014). Lynn Catterson originally trained in the sciences, received her Ph.D. in Art History at Columbia University in 2002. Her research stems from an interest in Italian Renaissance sculpture with a focus on the marketplace and how quattrocento sculptors satisfied consumer demand for antiquities. “Michelangelo’s Laocoön?” was published in 2005; Finding, Fixing, Faking, Making: Supplying Sculpture in ‘400 Florence (Todi: Casa Editrice Ediart) was published in 2014. Lately, she is working on the art market in Nineteenth-century Florence from the point of view of production and social network via its preeminent dealer, Stefano Bardini. She continued this project in 2014 in Berlin at the Bode Museum and the Central Archive with a research fellowship from the International Scholarship Programme at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Since then she was a Senior Visiting Fellow at CASVA in Washington, DC, after which, she happily returned to the archive in Florence with a research grant from the American Philosophical Society. Much material on various aspects of the phenomenon of Bardini is forthcoming; her main goal is to bring the Bardini material to a digital research platform. Sébastien Chauffour is curator at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA), collections Jacques Doucet, especially in charge of archives, drawings and manuscripts. He graduated in history and art history from the École nationale des Chartes and Université Paris-Sorbonne (2005). He received fellowships from the Newberry Library (2003), École française de Rome (2004) and Yale University (Focillon fellowhsip, 2014). In relation with the first topic of his thesis, he edited primary sources and published articles on 18th-Century French art and architecture.

316

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His researches focuse also on the intellectual and artistic relations between France and the US during the first part of the 20th-Century. Through transatlantic figures such as Henri Focillon, Fiske Kimball or César de Hauke, he studies the reception of the French art, the making of the taste and the circulation of works in the US. For the INHA, he supervised the processing of Galerie Haro (1867–1926), Galerie Fabius (1882–2008) and Galerie Pierre (1924–1964) records. He curated exhibitions on the Orientalist artist Jules Bourgoin (2012) and on the art historian André Chastel (2013). He is editing the correspondence between Félix Fénéon and John Rewald. Laura D. Corey is a PhD candidate and Lila Acheson Wallace Fellow at the Institute of Fine Arts, where she also earned her MA. She graduated from Duke University summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and with distinction in Art History. Her dissertation, under the supervision of Jonathan Brown and Linda Nochlin, seeks to re-evaluate Mary Cassatt’s role as an art advisor to American collectors during the Gilded Age. Her research has been supported by fellowships and grants from New York University, the Center for the History of Collecting at the Frick Collection, and the Francis Haskell Memorial Fund. A specialist in nineteenth-century art, her recent publications include “Picturing the Tuileries in the Nineteenth Century: The Park, Its Public, and Its Politics” in The Art of the Louvre’s Tuileries Garden (High Museum of Art, Atlanta; The Toledo Museum of Art; Portland Art Museum, 2013–14), and “NeoImpressionism and Symbolism: A Reference Guide to Issues and Figures” in NeoImpressionism & the Dream of Realities (The Phillips Collection, Washington, 2014). She is a Research Assistant in European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Flaminia Gennari-Santori is the director of the Gallerie Nazionali diArte Antica in Rome. Between 2013 and 2015 she was Consulting Curator of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami and Professor of History of Collecting and Display at the Graduate Program in Renaissance Art, Syracuse University Florence. From 2008 to 2013 she was Deputy Director for Collections and Curatorial Affairs at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens. Previously she was a Research Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Program Officer at the Fondazione Adriano Olivetti, Rome. An expert on museums’ history and American collecting of European art, she is a past Fulbright Scholar and holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Art History from Università La Sapienza (Rome) and a Ph.D. in History from the

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European University Institute (Florence). She is the author of The Melancholy of Masterpieces: Old Master Paintings in America, 1900–1914 (5continents, Milan, 2004), and she has published extensively on collecting, museum studies and public art in European and American journals and books, most recently on the collection of John Pierpont Morgan (Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 22, 2010, n. 1, pp. 81–98, n. 2, pp. 307–324). She is currently working on the first scholarly analysis of the collection of Italian and American art at Vizcaya Museum. Jacqueline Marie Musacchio is Professor of Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art at Wellesley College. Many of her publications have focused on the material culture of domestic life, including The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy (1999), Art, Marriage, and Family in the Florentine Renaissance Palace (2009), and an essay and entries for the exhibition catalogue Art and Love in Renaissance Italy (2008). This article, however, stems from her current book project, At Home Abroad: Anne Whitney and American Women Artists in Late Nineteenth-Century Italy; her research has been funded in part through grants from the American Philosophical Society and the Friends of the Princeton University Library. Her first article on this topic, “Infesting the Galleries of Europe: The Copyist Emma Conant Church in Paris and Rome,” published in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, won the 2012 Online Publishing Prize from the Association of Research Institutes in Art History; her second, “ ‘Mapping the White, Marmorean Flock:’ Anne Whitney Abroad, 1867–1868,” incorporated interactive timelines and maps to track Whitney and her sister artists through time and space; it too was published in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, as part of the Mellon-funded Digital Humanities and Art History initiative. Alexandra Alisa Provo holds an MS in Library & Information Science from Pratt Institute and a BA in art history from Wesleyan University. Her BA honors thesis, supervised by Dr. Nadja Aksamija, focused on methods of connoisseurship as espoused in the writings of Giovanni Morelli and Bernard and Mary Berenson. As a photograph cataloger from 2012–2013 on the “Homeless Paintings of the Italian Renaissance” Project at the Villa I Tatti, she had the opportunity to continue working with materials related to the Berensons at their former home. Alexandra is the 2015–2016 Kress Fellow in Art Librarianship at Yale University and Project Manager for the Villa I Tatti project, Florentine Drawings: A Linked Catalogue for the Semantic Web.

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Joanna Smalcerz is a PhD candidate at the University of Bern and Scherbarth Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome. She earned her BA in art history from the University of Warsaw, and her MA from the University of Warsaw and the Free University Berlin. She is working under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Peter Schneemann and Prof. Dr. Christine Göttler on her dissertation, in which she examines the illicit export of art out of Italy and the intersection of the collecting boom for the art of Italian Renaissance in the second half of the 19th century and the lack of the nationwide legislation protecting the artistic patrimony in Italy after the Unification of the country. She has worked on late medieval sculpture for the exhibition ‘Treasures from Chopin’s Homeland’ curated by the National Museum in Warsaw at the National Museum of China in Beijing and published on the 14th century sculpture in Cieszyn Silesia. Annalea Tunesi After attending the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan Annalea has been working for sixteenth years as Art director and set designer. In 2007 she started the MA course at University of Warwick, IESA. With her thesis, Why did Bardini use blue? In July 2014 she was awarded a PhD in museology at Leeds University entitled Stefano Bardini’s Photographic Archive: A visual historical document. Her research interest begun with the Florentine Art Dealer Stefano Bardini (1836–1922) and focuses on medieaval and Renaissance revival in Florence and in England, and the iconological analysis of nineteenth century photographs and displays of interiors. She is preparing a project for a Post doc on the relationship between Stefano Bardini and his English clients on the matter of taste in Italy and in England. She has delivered papers at the Wallace Collection Conference The art dealer and his circle, in July 2014 ‘Stefano Bardini and Riccardo Nobili;’ at the Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg Conference New research on photography in November 2014 ‘Stefano Bardini’s museological project, his photographic record,” and at the Senate house Seminar on Collecting and Display January 2015, an extended version of the Bardini paper. Leanne M. Zalewski is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Central Connecticut State University. She earned her B.A. in art history from Barnard College, Columbia University, and her Ph.D. in art history from The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her research focuses on American collections of European, primarily French, academic art. She recently published articles on the art collec-

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tions of Thomas Jefferson in Journal of the History of Collections and William Henry Vanderbilt in Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide. She is writing a book about early Gilded Age art collecting entitled French Art, American Patriotism: Collecting Culture in New York, 1867–1893. She has participated in numerous conferences on the subject of early Gilded Age art collecting, including the College Art Association conference in New York, Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London, and Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. She has received grants her research from the Getty Research Institute, Huntington Library, and Center for the History of Collecting in America at the Frick Art Collection, among others. In the past, she has held positions at Doyle New York, a mid-size auction house, and Shepherd Gallery in New York, which provided her with first-hand experience in the art market.

Index Abruzzi 76 Academy of Fine Arts, see Milan, Academy of Fine Arts Acton, Arthur 205, 211, 214, 222, 223 Adams, Elizabeth 61, 67 Aghion, Max 128, 154 Albano 64 Alberti, Earl Camillo 186 Albizzi, Giovanna di Maso degli 294, 298 Albizzi, Matteo degli 294 Alcott, Louisa May 60, 75, 84 Alex Reid & Lefèvre 236, 239 Alexandre Bernheim 236 Alfred Stieglitz 135 Alinari (Fratelli Alinari) 181, 182, 188, 189, 201, 202, 271 Ancona 68, 215, 217 Andover, Abbot Academy 71, 87 Andover, Theological Seminary 69 André, Edouard 186, 212 Anet, Claude 234 Angelico, Fra 284, 293, 300, 311 Apollinaire, Guillaume (Wilhelm de Kostrowitzky) 119, 123, 127, 128, 130, 140, 142, 147, 154 Archipenko, Alexander 125–126 Aragona, Alfonso d’ 260 Arensberg, Walter C. and Louise 234 Aretini, Leopoldo 282, 284, 288 Armory Show, The (New York, Boston and Chicago) 136, 158, 209 Armstrong, Thomas 255, 256, 300 Art Institute of Chicago, see Chicago, Art Institute Artom, Treves Giuliana 251, 266 Aspinwall, William H. 117 Assisi 73 Assouline, Pierre 115, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 142, 143, 152, 154 Atelier Martine 229 Auriol, Vincent 131 Avery, Henry Ogden 97 Avery, Samuel Putnam 54, 93–112 Bache, Jules 279, 280, 284, 286 Bachelard, Gaston 249, 265, 266

Bakst, Léon 230 Balboni, Carlo 187 Baldinucci, Filippo 19 Baldovinetti, Alessandro 258, 272, 288 Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery 54, 57, 281, 286 Barbet de Jouy, Henri 21 Bardi, Luigi 14 Bardini, Emma 12, 13 Bardini, Margherita 11, 22 Bardini, Stefano 1–36, 63, 64, 83, 101, 167, 174, 177, 181, 182, 184, 185, 186, 200–202, 210, 211–213, 217, 222–226, 249–281, 293, 296–311 Bardini, Ugo 5, 12 Bargello, see Florence, Bargello Barigioni, Filippo 214, 225, 226 Barnard, George Grey 5 Barnes, Albert C. 239 Barozzi, Dino 210–213 Barozzi, Sebastiano 212 Basel, Kunsthalle 136 Basler, Adolphe 122, 135, 142 Baslini, Giuseppe 33, 304, 305, 307, 309, 311 Bastianini, Giovanni 27, 36, 88 Bayard, Émile 145 Bazzi, Giovan Antonio called Sodoma  258–262, 266, 267 Beckerath, Adolf von 185, 302, 303 Beecher, Catharine 79, 85 Beit, Alfred 185 Bell, Clive 119 Bellano, Bartolommeo 1, 2, 35 Bellini, Giovanni 184 Bellio, Georges de 44 Ben Ali Haggin III, James 231 Benda, Gustav 185 Benedetto da Maiano 20–22 Benguiat, Leopold 182 Benguiat, Vitall 182 Bérard, Léon 129, 140, 156 Berenson, Bernard and/or Mary 4, 11, 28, 32, 52, 56, 78, 88, 185, 187, 269–286 Berlin, Berlin Royal Museums 296, 300, 302 Berlin, Gemäldegalerie 14, 24, 34, 35, 185, 188, 200

Index Berlin, Kaiser-Friedrich-Museums Verein (Bode Museum) 20, 185, 187, 188 Bernard, Joseph 230 Bernheim de Villers, Gaston 138, 238 Bernheim Family 234–239 Bernheim, Josse 138 Bernheim-Jeune (Galerie) 32, 51, 53, 115, 122, 138, 139, 227, 228, 231, 234–236 Bertini, Giuseppe 304, 307 Bierstadt, Albert 86, 98 Bignou, Étienne 228, 238, 239 Bing, Siegfried 102 Bishop, David Wolfe 105 Bissière, Roger 148 Blanchard, María 148 Blundell Spence, William 63, 85, 88, 251, 266, 267 Bobrinsky, Leon 260 Bode, Wilhelm von 2–4, 6, 11, 20–25, 27, 28, 31, 34, 36, 181, 183–189, 191–193, 195–202, 225, 257, 296, 297, 300, 302, 303, 310 Boggs, Jean Sutherland 45, 56 Böhler & Steinmeyer see also Steinmeyer, Fritz 32, 279–281 Bonaparte, Napoleon I 63, 87, 251 Bonheur, Rosa 108, 112 Bonhomme, Jacques 130, 158 Bonnard, Pierre 233–237 Bonnat, Léon 105 Borghese Gallery, see Rome, Borghese Gallery Boston, Athenaeum 60, 69, 84–86, 88, 264 Boston, Beacon Hill 75 Boston, Boston Art Club 70, 79, 85 Boston, Fenway Court (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) 86, 207, 212, 221 Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 177, 179, 187, 222, 224 Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 2, 34, 52, 70, 72, 78–80, 83, 87, 88, 177, 196, 200, 207, 228, 241 Boston, St. Botolph’s Club 75 Boston, Studio Building 70, 75 Both de Tauzia, Vicomte Pierre-Paul (Léonce) 33, 97, 297, 300, 303, 306 Botticelli, Sandro 274, 293–298, 299–301, 303–311 Bourdieu, Pierre 93, 112 Boydell, John 60 Brame, Paul 228, 243, 244

321 Braque, Georges 30, 115, 118–120, 131–138, 142, 146, 148, 150–152, 233 Brauer, Godefroy 28, 34 Brenner, Michael 118, 138 Breton, Jean-Louis 96, 131 Bridges, Fidelia 59, 67 Brimmer, Martin 80 Briosco, Andrea, called Riccio 262 British Museum, see London, British Museum Brogi, Giacomo 181, 182 Browne, Herbert 191 Browning, Robert 216 Bryant, William Cullen 101 Bugiardini, Giuliano 192, 193 Buonarroti, Michelangelo 196, 197 Burckhardt, Jacob 202, 251, 271 Burger, Fritz 113, 155 Burnett 255 Burton, Frederic William 255, 260–262, 266 Cabanel, Alexandre 96, 100, 105 Cabot Jr., Samuel 60 Caillebotte, Gustave 49 Calder, Alexander Stirling 209, 223 Caldwell & Co. 215 Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum 81, 82, 86 Canessa, Ercole 213 Cannes, France 299 Carco, Fernand 140 Carlo V 260 Carrington, Fitzroy 228 Carson, Caroline 72, 87 Cassatt, Alexander 41, 44–46, 49 Cassatt, Mary 39–57, 104 Cassatt, Robert 45, 49 Cassirer, Paul 51, 57 Castellani, family 28 Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Gallery 104–108, 113 Catton Rich, Daniel (Papers) 136 Cavalcaselle, Giovanni Battista 14, 35, 271, 308–310 Cesnola, Louis Palma di 102, 104, 105, 107, 109, 110 Cézanne, Paul 47, 53, 57, 142, 155, 233, 236, 237, 240, 243, 245 Chalfin, Paul 205–223 Chanler, Robert Winthrop 209, 225 Chaplain, Jules Clément 103

322 Chesterton, G.K. 119, 155 Chicago, Art Institute 41, 57, 173, 177 Chicago, The Arts Club of Chicago 234 Chicago, World’s Columbian Exposition 80, 173, 178, 179 Choiseul, Duc de 16–18 Church, Emma Conant 66, 67, 87 Church, Frederic Edwin 98 Ciampolini, Vincenzo 27 Cignani, Carlo 78 Claude, Jean 128 Clément, commissaire de police 307 Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art 171, 235 Cleverly, W, A. 255 Clifden 252 Cliveden 252 Cocteau, Jean 147 Codman, Ogden 207 Coe, Ralph M. 234 Cole, Thomas 97 Coleman, Charles 65, 74 Cologne, Rheinischer Kunstsalon 135, 136 Conner, Robert 60 Conti, Cosimo 19 Conti, Giacomo 299 Cook, Francis 304–306 Corcoran Gallery, see Washington DC, Corcoran Gallery Corinti, Corinto 249, 267 Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille 52, 149 Costantini, Emilio 183, 187 Courbet, Gustave 42, 43, 53 Courtauld Gallery of Art, see London, The Courtauld Gallery of Art Craven, Arthur 123 Crawford, Thomas 59 Crémieux, Francis 132, 151, 156 Cricket, Mr. 255 Cross, Henri-Edmond 233 Crowninshield, Frank W. 239 Curry, Donald 255 Cust, Robert Henry Hobart 260, 267 Czartoryski, Prince Wladyslaw 17, 18 Daix, Pierre 135, 155 Dale, Chester 234, 238, 239 Dante 69, 72, 74, 76, 79, 89 Daudet, Léon 121–123, 153, 154

Index Daumier, Honoré 145 Davey, George H. 228 David d’Angers, Pierre-Jean 103 Dayot, Armand 140 De Hauke & Co. 228 De la Fresnaye, Roger 238–240, 242 De Nicola, Giacomo 198 de Wolfe, Elsie 207, 221, 226 Decoeur, Émile 233 Deering, James 207–209, 212–217, 221, 222, 225 Degas, Edgar 41, 42, 44–46, 49, 50, 54, 56, 57, 231, 233, 237, 243, 244 Delacroix, Eugène 145 Delcour, M. 140, 141, 155 Delcourt, Maurice 141 Demidoff, Nicolas 251, 266, 267 Demm, Eberhard 144, 156 Demotte, George Joseph 197 Deniker, Georges 131 Derain, André 115, 119, 133, 152, 154, 237 Deri, Max 130, 140, 155 Derouet, Christian 150–152, 155 Detroit, The Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts 234 Di Salvo Brothers 215 Diaghilev, Serge 147 Dimier, Louis 122, 155 Donati, Cesare 299, 302, 304, 306 Doriac, André 134 Dossena, Alceo 183, 193–197, 199, 200, 202 Doucet, Jacques 150, 243 Dreyfus, Captain Alfred 115, 122 Dreyfus, Gustave 20, 35, 36 Drialt, J.-Edouard 144, 156 Druet, Eugène 115, 138, 139 Du Cane Godman, Frederick 255, 263, 264, 267 Dubourg, Jacques 236 Duchamp, Marcel 131 Dudensing, Valentine 238, 242 Dufet, Michel 230 Dufy, Raoul 237 Dunand, Jean 233 Duplessis, Joseph 103 Durand-Ruel, Paul 45, 47, 49–53, 56, 57, 95, 112, 151, 227, 228, 231, 232, 235, 244, 245 Dutilleul, Roger 118

Index Duveen Brothers 3, 269, 276, 278, 279, 281, 286 Duveen, Joseph 20, 30, 197, 215, 217, 290 Ebstein, Paul 236 Edgar, Lydia 62 Edinburgh, Society of Scotch Artists 136 Edwards, Amelia 81 Edwards, Elizabeth 182 Einstein, Carl 118, 127 El Greco 47 Ephrussi, Charles 33, 294, 303, 304, 306, 308–310 Escosura, Ignacio León y 96 Faccio, Cesare 260, 266 Fairfax Murray, Charles 24, 184, 259, 297 Fasoli, Alfredo 196 Faure, Jean-Baptiste 51 Feldmann, Otto 135 Fenway Court see Boston, Fenway Court (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) Ferroni, Gaetano 22 Ferroni, Giovacchino 11–12, 22, 35 Ffoulke, Charles Mather 30, 31, 161–163, 164–179, 215 Fidell-Beaufort, Madeleine 94, 96–98, 112, 115 Fields, Annie Adams 61 Fiorelli, Giuseppe 299, 301, 302, 306–308 Fiorilli, Carlo 192, 193 Fisher, George 184 Fitzhenry, Joseph Henry 11 Flechtheim, Alfred 134, 135, 139, 142, 152, 158 Florence, Accademia di Belle Arti 12 Florence, Bargello 6, 69, 85 Florence, Casa Pazzi 19 Florence, Casa Torrigiani 6, 19, 23–25 Florence, Gabinetto Vieusseux 62, 84 Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi 26, 62, 85, 187, 192, 193, 199, 271 Florence, Galleria dell’Accademia 192 Florence, Gallerie Fiorentine 181, 187, 189, 192 Florence, Kunsthistorisches Institut 181, 182, 189, 190, 193–195, 197, 200, 202, 251 Florence, Museo di Palazzo Davanzati 31, 181, 182, 185, 201, 213, 223–225 Florence, Palazzo Mozzi 6, 211, 250 Florence, Palazzo Pitti 26, 61, 205, 267

323 Florence, San Gregorio della Pace (today Museo Bardini) 181 Florence, Torre del Gallo 6, 7 Florence, Villa Capponi 293 Florence, Villa la Gallina 6 Florence, Villa La Pietra 211, 222, 223 Florence, Villa Lemmi 33, 294, 295, 297, 306–308, 310 Florence, Villa Tornabuoni 294, 311 Floret, Ricardo 123–125, 156 Fogg Art Museum, see Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum Foley, Margaret 69 Foresi, Alessandro 63 Formigli, Eugenia 26 Fortuny, Mariano 213, 224 Fra Diamante 187 Franklin, Benjamin 103 Franks, Mr. 264 Fratelli Alinari, see Alinari (Fratelli Alinari) Freeman, Augusta 69 Freeman, Florence 67 French & Co. 215, 216 French, Percy 215 Freppa, Giovanni 26, 27 Freund, Karl 215 Frick, Helen 198 Frick, Henry Clay 182, 196, 224 Friedländer, Max J. 188, 201 Frischauer, Berthold 121 Frizzoni, Gustavo 259, 260, 266, 271, 288 Frothingham, Jessie Peabody 60, 74, 76 Fry, Roger 135 Gachons, Jacques de 118, 156 Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, see Bernheim-Jeune (Galerie) Galerie Mirthke, see Vienna, Galerie Mirthke Gallatin, Albert E. 238 Galleria dell’Accademia see Florence, Galleria dell’Accademia Galleria degli Uffizi, see Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi Gardner, Isabella Stewart (Mrs. Jack) 11, 52, 59, 78, 88, 177, 179, 187, 207, 212, 222, 224, 270, 275, 283, 288 Gaspari, Pietro 139 Gauguin, Paul 223 Gavet, Émile 26, 34

324 Gee, Malcolm 121, 152, 155, 156, 227, 244 Gemäldegalerie (Berlin), see Berlin, Gemäldegalerie Gentner, Philip J 198 Georg, Edouard 237 Giacomini, Giuseppe 27 Gielly, Louis 260, 266 Gimpel, René 43, 53, 56 Ginori, Richard 26 Giorgione 258, 273 Giotto 69, 72 Glaenzer, Eugene 210, 211, 231 Glaenzer, Georges 210, 211 Gleizes, Albert 120, 131 Glisenti, Achille 187 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 144 Gordon, Daniel 255, 289 Goupil & Cie 93, 100, 227, 244 Goupil, Adolphe 93 Goya, Francisco 47, 48 Grafton Galleries, see London, Grafton Galleries Grassat (Syndicat) 000 Grassi, Luigi 183, 187 Gray, Eileen 230 Green, Christopher 137, 147, 148, 152, 156, 163 Greuze, Jean Baptiste 264 Gris, Juan 115, 118, 119, 128, 131, 132, 134, 135, 138, 146–150, 152, 156, 233 Grolier Club, see New York, Grolier Club Gromaire, Marcel 237 Groult, André 229 Groult, Nicole 229 Gruetzner Robins, Anna 119, 156 Guercino 26, 71 Guillaume, Paul 119, 123, 127, 128, 154, 227, 239 Gutekunst, Otto 270, 275, 279, 289 Hainauer, Oscar 28 Hallowell, Sara Tyson 52 Hare, Augustus 83 Harnisch, A.E. 47, 53 Hart, Joel Tanner 68, 79 Hauke, César M. de 32, 227–245 Haupt, Erik G. 239 Havemeyer, Henry Osborne (Harry) 41, 47, 48, 51, 52–53 Havemeyer, Louisine Elder 41, 43, 47, 49, 51–54

Index Hawthorne, Nathaniel 59, 60, 66 Hawthorne, Sophia Peabody 59 Hilton, Judge Henry 108, 109 Hoe, Robert 101 Hoffman, Francis Burrall Jr. 208, 210, 214 Hofman, Jean-Marc 132, 146, 156 Homer, Augusta 50, 68 Horniman, Frederick John 255, 263 Hosmer, Harriet 65, 67 Howells, W.D. 80 Huldschinsky, Oscar 185 Hunt, Richard Morris 101 Huntington, Arabella 100 Huntington, Archer 100 Huntington, Collis 100, 111 Huntington, Daniel 105, 107, 169 Huntington, Henry 216 Hutt, Louis 255, 262 Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique 42, 148, 149, 234 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, see Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Jackson, John Adams 61, 68, 69, 89 Jacob, Max 119 Jacquemaire, M.-C. 127, 144, 156 Jacquemart, Nélie 187, 212 Jacquemart-André, Edouard and Nélie 202, 224, 258, 260 Jacquier, Vittorio 282 James, Henry 67, 207 Jameson, Anna Brownell 83 Jandolo, Alessandro 11, 28, 35, 202 Jardot, Maurice 137 Johnson, Eastman 101 Johnston, John Taylor 96, 99–101, 103–105, 108, 111, 112, 270 Joubert, Andrée 234 Jourdain, Frantz 129 Joveneau, Jean 237 Joyant, Maurice 243 Jozefacka, Anna 152 Kahnweiler, Daniel-Henry 30, 115–121, 123, 125, 127, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139, 141, 142, 145, 147, 149, 151, 153, 155–158 Kahnweiler, Gustav (brother of Daniel-Henry) 152

Index Kann, Maurice 28 Kann, Rodolphe 185, 192 Kelekian, Dikran 42, 53 Keller, George 228 Kensett, John F. 101 Knoedler & Co. 93, 99, 100, 105, 227, 228, 232, 235, 238, 241–243, 279, 290 Kramář, Vincenc 118, 119 Krupp AG 121 Kubin, Otakar 148 Kupka, František 123, 125, 126 Kurtz, Benjamin T. 234 Lachaise, Gaston 209, 225 Lafayette, General 103 Lampué, Pierre 129, 156 Lander, Louisa 59 Laurens, Henri 147–148, 150 Lavezzo & Co. 215 Le Fauconnier, Henri 120, 126, 131 Leader, John Temple 251 Lebasque, Henri 230 Lecomte, Georges 128 Lee, Vernon 298, 308, 310 Léger, Fernand 118–120, 129, 131–132, 134, 135, 138, 146, 148, 151, 152, 244 Legrain, Pierre 233 Leighton, Frederic 256 Leiris, Louise 137, 138, 140, 141 Leland, Henry P. 63, 86 Lemmi, Angiolo 305 Lemmi, Petronio 33, 294–298, 301, 305 Léon, Paul 122, 155 Leonardo da Vinci 188, 193 Lepape, Georges 229–231, 244, 245 Lessing, Julius 185, 186 Level, André 139 Levy, John 280 Lewis, Edmonia 67 Leyland, Frederick Richards 255–258, 261 L’Herbier, Marcel 229 Lhote, André 131 Liechtenstein von, Prince Johann II 201 Lindsay, Lord Alexander 83 Linossier, Claudius 233 Lipchitz, Jacques 147–148 Lippi, Filippo 187, 278 Lippo di Benivieni 82

325 Loeser, Charles 198 London, British Museum 15, 18 , 110, 244, 254–256, 263, 264 London, Christie’s 265–267 London, Grafton Galleries 119, 135 London, Leighton House 256 London, Mayor Gallery 233 London, Maple & Co. 254, 267 London, National Gallery 68, 254, 255, 259, 261, 262, 266 London, Post-Impressionist Exhibitions 119, 136 London, Society of Female Artists 69, 70, 88 London, Stafford Gallery 135 London, South Kensington Museum 254, 256, 261, 263, 300 London, Tate Britain 110 London, The Courtauld Gallery of Art 119 London, The Wallace Collection 88 Louisville, Southern Exposition 79, 86 Lucas, George A. 54, 57, 93, 96, 99 Lucca, Mansi Collection 183, 187–190, 192, 193, 201 Lucca, Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi 188 Lucca, Esposizione di Arte e Industria Antica 189 Lucca, Piazza Santa Maria Forisportam 188–190 Lucerne Fine Art Co. see Böhler & Steinmeyer Lyon, Académie des sciences et belles lettres et arts 143 MacLeod, William 68–76, 79 Macomber, Frank Gair 41, 52 Maestro Giorgio 256, 262 Maeterlinck, Maurice 229 Maggi 144 Mahler, Luise 152, 157 Manet, Edouard 42, 46, 49, 51, 56, 119, 156, 245 Mange, François 228, 229 Manning, Addy 67, 68, 75, 80 Manolo, Manuel Martinez Hugué 119 Mansi Collection, see Lucca, Mansi Collection Mansi Magdalene, Master of 188 Mansi, Marquis Giovan Battista 187, 188, 192

326 Mantegna, Andrea 260 Marcoussis, Louis 157 Maré, Rolf de 243 Mariani, A. 293, 294, 296, 300, 301 Mariano, Nicky 272, 280, 289 Marinot, Maurice 233, 235 Marquet, Albert 237 Marseille, Léon 238 Martini, Simone 194, 195, 197, 199, 202 Mary, Queen of Scots 68 Massys, Quentin 188, 192 Mather, Frank Jewett Jr. 83, 87 Matisse, Henri 42, 142, 233, 236, 237 Mauclair, Camille 145, 149, 150, 154, 157 Maugham, W. Somerset 243 Mauny, Jacques 234 Maurras, Charles 121, 122, 157 Mayodon, Jean 233 Mayor Gallery, see London, Mayor Gallery Mayor, Hyatt A. 94 Meissonier, Ernest 96, 99, 108, 109, 112 Mellon, Paul 243 Melzer, Moriz 125 Mendelssohn von, Robert 185 Messmore, Carmen H. 228, 241 Métivet, Lucien 144, 145, 147, 157 Metropolitan Museum of Art, see New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art Metthey, André 233 Metzinger, Jean 120, 126, 131, 147–148, 151 Meyer, Julius 14, 24, 296, 297, 300, 310 Meyers 255, 263 Miami, Biscayne Bay 208 Miami, Vizcaya 205–209, 211–217, 219, 221–226 Michelangelo, see Buonarroti, Michelangelo Milan, Academy of Fine Arts 307 Milanesi, Gaetano 28, 36 Millhouse, John 63, 87 Milliken, William M. 234 Mills, Darius O. 105 Mino da Fiesole 187, 197 Mitchell, Hortense 222 Moderne Galerie Heinrich Tannhauser (Modern Munich Gallery) 118 Modigliani, Amedeo 126, 233–236, 239, 240, 243 Mohl 264

Index Monet, Claude 44–47, 49, 50, 54–56, 142, 157 Monod-Fontaine, Isabelle 119, 133, 134, 136, 138, 157 Moore, Morris 68, 69, 86, 87 Moretti, Antonio 71 Morgan, J. Pierpont 11, 28, 110, 169, 171, 176, 178, 179, 182, 185, 201, 213, 215, 224 Moroni, Giovanni Battista 43 Morozov, Ivan 135, 138 Moussié, Edmond 230 Munich, Internationale Kunstavsstellvng, Glaspalaste (International Art Exhibition, Munich Glass Palace), 1913 140 Munich, Neue Kunst Hans Goltz Galerie, München 135 Munich, Neue Künstlervereinigung München 119 Munkácsy, Mihály 102, 103 Murillo, Bartolommeo 71 Murray, A.S. 255 Murray, Charles Fairfax 24, 35, 86, 184, 259, 297 Musée des Antiquités Nationales at Saint-Germaine-en-Laye, see Paris, Musée des Antiquités Nationales at Saint-Germaine-en-Laye Musée du Louvre, see Paris, Musée du Louvre Musée Jacquemart-André, see Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André Musées Nationaux, see Paris, Musées Nationaux Museo Bardini, see Florence, San Gregorio della Pace (today Museo Bardini) Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi, see Lucca, Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi Museo di Palazzo Davanzati, see Florence, Museo di Palazzo Davanzati Museum of Fine Arts, see Boston, Museum of Fine Arts Museum of Modern Art, The, see New York, The Museum of Modern Art National Gallery, see London, National Gallery National Gallery of Art, see Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art Netter, Jonas 239

Index New York, American Art Association 49, 201 New York, American Art Galleries 182, 201 New York, Art Dealers Association of America 93 New York, Columbia College 93 New York, Columbia University 30, 111 New York, Columbia University, Avery Architectural Library 97 New York, Grand Central Art Galleries 239 New York, Grolier Club 95, 111 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 30, 40, 41, 47, 48, 56, 79, 94–98, 100–111, 113, 153, 185, 207, 281 New York, National Academy of Design 69, 95, 102 New York, New York Public Library 30, 95, 97, 103, 111 New York, Parson’s School of Design 221 New York, The Museum of Modern Art 228, 240, 241, 243, 245 New York, Union League Club 95, 101, 113 New York, Watson & Company 71 Newman, Henry Roderick 74 Niccolò di Ser Sozzo 81 Nietzsche, Friedrich 144 Norton, Charles Eliot 80, 81 O’Connor, Andrew 231 Odom, William 221, 225 Ojetti, Ugo 305, 310, 311 Olmsted, Frederick Law 101 Orrock, Mr. 255 Osgood, Charles 60 O’Toole, James St. Lawrence 228, 232 Ozenfant, Amédée 147 Palazzo Pitti, see Florence, Palazzo Pitti Paley, William S. 240–242 Pallesi, Alfredo 196 Palmer, Bertha Honoré 41 Palmer, Potter 41 Pannwitz von, Walter 185 Paolini, Paolo 32, 181, 281 Paris Universal Exposition 99, 110 Paris, Café du Dome 136 Paris, Custom Point Bercy 306 Paris, Galerie Kahnweiler 115, 119 Paris, Galerie la Boétie 127, 151, 154, 239 Paris, Hôtel Drouot 138, 139, 151, 155 Paris, La Maison de l’Art Nouveau 102

327 Paris, Musée des Antiquités Nationales at Saint-Germaine-en-Laye 121 Paris, Musée du Louvre 21, 121, 142, 154, 293, 295, 296, 306, 307, 310 Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André 202, 260 Paris, Musées Nationaux 21 Paris, Palais de la Femme 8 Paris, Petit Palais 146 Paris, Salon d’Automne 30, 120, 122, 125, 126, 128–132, 134, 137, 154 Paris, Salon des Artistes Français 120, 128, 130, 145 Paris, Salon des Artistes Indépendants 120, 128, 130 Park, Edwin A. 70 Parker, Theresa 228 Parrish, Maxfield 217 Payne, Col. Oliver Hazard 51 Payson Whitney, Joan 243 Peale, Charles Willson 103 Pechstein, Max 140 Peignot, Charles Perkins, Colonel Thomas Handasyd 60 Perugino 68, 72 Petrarch, Francesco 69 Petit Palais, see Paris, Petit Palais Philadelphia, Centennial Exhibition 70 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 41 Phillips, Duncan 234 Phillips, Holmead 234 Picasso, Pablo 30, 42, 115–120, 128, 132, 134–142, 147–149, 151, 154–157, 233, 243–245 Pickering, Edward 80 Piero della Francesca 264, 272 Piot, Eugène 26 Pissarro, Camille 45, 47, 50, 56, 57, 63 Pissarro, Lucien 47, 49, 50 Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute 41, 50 Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburg, Fine Arts Building 196 Poincaré, Henri 127 Poingdestre, Charles H. 72 Poiret, Paul 229, 244 Pope, Alfred Atmore 41 Portier, Alphonse 45, 46, 52 Potter, Paulus 67 Powers, Hiram 61 Prang, Louis 59

328 Priuli-Bon, Lilian 259, 260, 267 Puiforcat, Jean 233 Pujo, Maurice 122, 157 Quinn, John 135 Quizet, Alphonse 237 Raphael 42, 64, 68, 69, 74, 76, 81 Raynal, Maurice 142, 234 Reber, Gottfried Friedrich 118 Redon, Odilon 234, 235, 239, 241 Reid, Robert 231 Reinach, Salomon 121, 122, 155 Reinhardt, Paul 235 Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn 42, 43 Renaissance Society of America 232 Reni, Guido 71 Renoir, Auguste 50, 233, 237 Renoir, Jean 50, 57 Renoir, Pierre Auguste 50 Ricci, Corrado 217 Ricci, Seymour de 20, 139, 157 Ricci, Simone 138 Richter, Emile 136 Ridolfi, Enrico 192, 193 Rivera, Diego 147 Rivière, Georges-Henri 229, 243 Robin, Maurice 130 Robinson, Edward 80, 110 Robinson, John Charles 261, 262 Roger-Marx, Claude 234 Rome, Barberini collection 19, 31, 161, 166, 167, 169–173, 175, 177, 186, 200, 215 Rome, American Academy 207 Rome, Banco di Napoli 81 Rome, Borghese Gallery 19, 27, 34, 64, 67 Rome, Caesar’s Palace 70 Rome, Corsini Palace 64 Rome, Esposizione di belle arti 73 Rome, Fiera di Cenci 74 Rome, General Directorate for the Antiquities and Fine Arts 301 Rome, Gigi’s 67 Rome, Ministry of Public Education 33, 296, 298, 301 Rome, Palazzo Barberini, Barberini collection Rome, Palazzo Bolognetti-Torlonia 211 Rome, Palazzo Odescalchi 28 Rome, Piazza del Pantheon 214 Rome, Piazza Venezia 211

Index Rome, Spanish Steps 62, 64, 68, 74 Rome, St. Paul’s Within-the-Walls 69 Rome, Vatican, Sala dei Pontefici, Borgia apartments 80, 87 Rome, Villa Borghese, see Rome, Borghese Gallery Ropes, Joseph 66, 68 Ropes, Miss 79 Rose, Hugo 236 Rosenberg, Léonce 148, 151, 152 Rossi-Scotti, Count Lemmo 284 Rothschild, Baron Adolphe de 14 Rothschild, Ferdinand 255, 264 Rothschild, Gustave 264 Rothschild, Julie 18 Roty, Louis Oscar 103 Rouault, Georges 237 Rousseau, Henri 236 Roussel, Ker-Xavier 237 Ruhlmann, Jacques-Émile 233 Rupf, Hermann 118, 152 Rupf, Margit 135 Ruskin, John 75, 297, 311 Ryder, P.P. 103 Sage, Sarah Manning 75, 79 Saint-Gaudens, Augustus 50, 68 Saint-Gaudens, Homer 50 Salem, Essex Institute 70–71, 81 Salem, Hospital 81 Salem, Thought and Work Club 81 Salmon, André 130, 140–142 Salting, George 255, 262, 264 Saltzman, Cynthia 42–43, 47, 52, 275–276 Salvadori, Giuseppe 8, 27, 31, 167, 169, 170, 172, 215, 219 Samuels, Mitchell 215, 216 San Marino, California 216 Sangiorgi, Giuseppe 186, 211, 214, 215 Sanzio, Raffaello, see Raphael Satie, Eric 147 Savoia, Vittorio Emanuele II 211 Sawicki, Nicholas 149n137 Scampoli, Giovanni 186 Scampoli, Vincenzo 186 Scharff, Anton 94–95 Schaus, William 93 Shchukin, Sergei 135 Schlichting, Basil 260 Schlönlank, M.R. 140

Index Sears, Sarah Choate (Mrs. J. Montgomery)  41, 52 Seligmann & Co. 32, 228, 231–233, 236, 239, 242 Seligmann, André-Jean 231 Seligmann, Arnold 231 Seligmann, François-Gérard 231, 242 Seligmann, Georges 231 Seligmann, Germain 231–237, 240, 242 Seligmann, Jacques 211, 231 Seligmann, René 231 Seligmann, Simon 231 Sembat, Marcel 131–133 Sentenac, Paul 127 Serapho de Santo Casso, Fra 82 Settignano, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies 269 Seurat, Georges 228, 233, 236, 239, 243 Severini, Gino 148 Shaw, Quincy Adams 1, 2, 8, 25–26 Sherman, Sam 136 Shrewsbury, Earl of 259 Sicily, Mount Etna 69 Siena, Italy 76, 199, 259 Signorelli, Luca 23–24 Silva Brunhs, Yvan da 230 Silver, Kenneth E. 130, 147 Simon, André 150 Simon, Eduard 185 Simon, James 28, 185 Simon, Lucien 237 Simonetti, Attilio 5, 28, 213, 214, 219 Simpson, Mr. 255 Sisley, Alfred 47, 54, 233 Sodoma, see Bazzi, Giovan Antonio called Sodoma South Kensington Museum, see London, South Kensington Museum Southward, George 60 Souverbie, Jean 237 Souza-Cardoza, Amadeo de 125, 126 Spaniel, Otaker 149 Spaulding, John T. 241 Spence, William Blundell 63, 251 Spies, Werner 136 Spoleto, Italy 73 St Paul, Minnesota 234

329 Stafford Gallery, see London, Stafford Gallery Stebbins, Emma 67 Stein, Gertrude 242 Stein, Leo 42 Steinmeyer, Fritz see also Böhler & Steinmeyer 279–282, 285 Sterner, Albert 231 Stewart, Alexander T. 108 Stibbert, Frederick 251 Stillman, James 41, 43, 52 Stillman, Mildred Whitney 43 Story, William Wetmore 63 Stowe, Harriet Beecher 79 Strozzi, Piero 14, 20–21 Strozzi, Prince Ferdinando 14, 16, 18–20 Strozzi, Roberto 14, 18 Suarez, Diego 208, 214 Subiaco, Sacro Speco at San Benedetto 73 Süe, Louis 230 Sulley, Arthur J. 185, 279, 284–285 Sutri, Italy 214 Sutton, James F. 49 Suydam, James 98 Tancredi, Francesco 211 Tanner, Gottfried 136 Tate Britain, see London, Tate Britain Tate, H. 255 Terracina, Arnoldo 27 Terry, Luther 66 Thannhauser, Heinrich 118, 135–136, 138–139, 141, 142 Thannhauser, Justin 135–136 Thévenaz, Paul 209 Thiébault-Sisson, François 130–131 Thomson, Frank 41, 44–45, 52 Tiepolo, Gianbattista 212 Tilton, John Rollin 66 Tinterow, Gary 45 Titian 15, 16–19, 78, 273 Tobeen (Saint-Valery-sur-Somme), Félix 131 Tollet, Tony 142–144 Tolosani, Demetrio 181 Tornabuoni, Lorenzo di Giovanni di 294 Tornabuoni, Nanna di Nicolò 294 Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de 243 Trasimeno, Lake (Italy) 76 Tricca, Angiolo 27

330 Trotti, René Avogli 53 Tuscany 189, 302 Tyson, Carroll 39 Uccello, Paolo 260 Uhde, Wilhelm 118, 120, 136, 142, 150, 152, 154 Utrillo, Maurice 237 Valentiner, William (Wilhelm) R. 28, 185, 240 Vallotton, Félix 237 Van Dongen, Kees 115, 119, 142, 237 Van Gogh, Vincent 233, 236–237 Van Leyden, Lucas 188–189, 192 Vanderbilt, Cornelius 108 Vanderbilt, George W. 109 Vanderbilt, William Henry 100, 108–110 Vannini Parenti, Mario 182 Vasari, Giorgio 119, 271 Vaudoyer, Jean-Louis 229 Vauxcelles, Louis (Meyer, Louis) 115, 128, 141, 148, 152 Vecchietta, Lorenzo di Pietro called 193, 196–197, 198 Vedder, Elihu 98 Velázquez, Diego 43 Venice, San Marco 75, 79 Venturi, Adolfo 19, 28, 192 Veronese 23–25 Very, Jones 71 Vienna, Galerie Mirthke 136 Villa I Tatti, see Settignano, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Villon, Jacques 131 Vinci, Leonardo da 193 Vlaminck, Maurice de 115, 119, 135–136, 154, 233, 237 Vogel, Lucien 230, 235 Vollard, Ambroise 47, 52–53, 118, 120, 227, 231, 238 Volpi, Elia 31, 167, 181–187, 189, 192–193, 196–199 Vuillard, Edouard 236, 237 Walden, Herwarth 135 Walker, C.F. 32, 252–256, 258, 260–265

Index Wallraf-Richartz Museum 119 Walters Art Gallery, see Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery Walters, Henry 54–55, 276, 281 Walters, William 30, 54, 98–99 Ward, Humphrey 5 Ward, J.Q. A. 101 Warren, Samuel Dennis Sr. 78 Warren, Susan Cornelia Clarke 78–79 Washington DC, Corcoran Gallery 68, 71–72, 75, 83, 172 Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art 50, 281 Watteau, Jean-Antoine 145, 264 Weeks, James Hubbard and Maria 66–67, 69 Weil, Jules 123 Weill, Berthe 122 Wertheim, Maurice 233 Wharton, Edith 62, 217 Whistler, James Abbott McNeill 49 White, Stanford 5, 31, 163, 170, 173, 175, 210, 221–222 Whitman, Sarah Wyman 80 Whitney, Anne 63, 65, 67, 68, 75 Whitney, John Hay 243 Whitney, Sarah 63, 67 Whittemore, Harris 41, 44, 49, 52 Whittredge, Worthington 98 Wicht, Joseph 53 Widener, Joseph 182 Wildenstein & Co. 227, 232, 235, 279 Wildenstein, Nathan 122 Willette, Adolphe 144–145 Williams, Abigail Osgood 29, 59–83 Williams, Henry Willard 59 Williams, Mary Elizabeth 29, 59–83 Wolfe, Catharine Lorillard 100, 103–109 Woods, Kate Tannatt 81 Zayas, Marius de 227 Zborowski, Léopold 238 Zervos, Christian 134, 234 Zislin, Henri 130 Zola, Émile 121 Zoppo, Marco 82