Fenway Court: 1970

Fenway Court Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum 1970

Fenway Court

~ENWAY

COURT Isabella 0tewart Gardner JVluseum

Published by the Trustees of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated Boston, Massachusetts Copyright 1971 Designed by Larry Web s ter Type set and printed by Thomas Todd Co., Printers, Boston

Contents

2.

Sargent's El Jaleo

Richard Ormond

19. Sargent's Wa ter-Colours of Venice at Fenway Court 26 . A dventures of a Graeco-Rom an Marble H erm

33 . Rembrandt van Rijn -

Walter Cahn, Cornelius Vermeule

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee

39. N o tes on an Italian Choir Book

46 . Report of the Directo r

G. Peabody Gardner Rollin van N. Hadley

50. Notes on the Organization of the Museum 50. Publications 52. Trustees and Staff

James W. Howard, Jr.

Dennis Crowley, Rollin van N. Hadley

The Isabella Stewart Gardner M useum, Incorporated Forty-six th Annual Report fo r the year 1970 45 . Report of the President

David McKibbin

Sargent's El ]aleo

El Jaleo (fig. 1) is Sargent's most important and complex early subject painting . The first impression which it produces is one of overwhelming actuality. One can almost believe that the dancer is there in the flesh, her blurred skirt still moving, so vivid is the light which throws her figure into relief, so real the encompassing atmosphere. But underlying this seemingly facile subject (more original in 1882, before the theme had become debased), and its bravura treatment, is a sustained formal and technical achievement.

The subject of El ]aleo was inspired by Sargent's visit to Spain in the autumn and winter of 1879. He left France in September or October of that year with two minor French artists, Daux and Bae, whose connection with him is otherwise unrecorded. His chief aim in coming to Spain was to study the works of Velasquez, who had been a presiding deity at Carolus-Duran's atelier. Sargent's fellow-student, R. A. M. Stevenson, wrote of this influence in his book on Velasquez: " For those who had asked his aid, Carolus-Duran formulated the principles of his own art, and enforced them by an appeal to the practice of others and, before all, of Velasquez." Sargent was deeply impressed by the masterpieces of Velasquez in the Prado, and during his stay in 2

Figure

1.

John S. Sargent,

EL JALEO, 1882,

94 Y, x

137

inches. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

3

Fi gur e 2 . J. Moreno y Carbonero, EL JALEO , unlocated oil painting, reproduced in Folklore y Costumbres de Espana , edited by F. Carreras, Barcelona, 1934.

Madrid he executed over a dozen freely-interpreted copies, both of complete compositions and details . The combination in Velasquez of severe realism, superb style, and acute sensitivity to enveloping light and atmosphere, were qualities which Sargent sought to achieve in his own art. Confrontation with the Spanish master marked a decisive stage in his artistic development.

Spain fired his imagination in other ways. It was stimulating simply to live and travel there.

Since the early 19th century, Spain had cast its spell over a succession of writers and authors in search of the new, the strange and the picturesque. From the time of Wilkie onwards, romantic Spanish subject pictures had grown in number and popularity, although Spain itself remained relatively little-known and little-visited.

The most immediate influence on Sargent may well have been Manet, who had created a series of memorable Spanish paintings in the 186o's.

4

While the older artist had primarily been inspired by the b ull-ring, Sargent was fascinated by Spanish mu sic and da ncing. Its insistent rhythms and arres ting forms appealed to something elemental in his own deeply reserved nature. His childhood fr iend, Vernon Lee, analysed this quality in h im : "As a young man he was, and perhaps rem ain ed, especially attracted by the biza rre and ou tlandish : Spanish dancers (the Jaleo and the wonderful frontispiece to Miss Stretell's translation s) posed and lit up in enigmatic fa shion ; Spanish Madonnas like idols, and Javanese dancers scarcely more barbarically improbable; and th at Fumee d' Ambergris, a Moorish woman veiled in in cense fumes .. .. Such were his individual predilection s." Significantly, it was to Vernon Lee that Sargen t wrote on his return to Paris in 1880 : "You wish ed some Spanish songs.

I could not find any good on es. The best are what one hears in Andalucia, th e half African Malaguenas & Soleas, dismal, restless chants that it is impossible to n ote. They are something between a Hungarian Czardas and th e chant of the Italian peasant in the fie lds, and are generally composed of fi ve strophes and end stormily Figu r e 3路 John s. Sargent, Art Muse um, Cambridge.

on th e dominant, the theme quite lost in strange fiorituras and gu ttural roulades. The gitano voices are marvellously supple. If yo u have heard something of the kind you will not con sider this mere jargon."

The title of Sargent's finished picture, El Jaleo, is the n ame of a popular Andalusian dance; although the word can also mean a noise like " whoopee," or a particular dance movement, it seems fairly clear that Sargent intended his title to refer to the dance itself. The dance originated in Jerez, and is one of the most popular and classic Andalusian dances. According to Pedrell, it is a purely Spanish song and dance, with stirring and animated music, despite the fact that it is written in a minor key, with a melancholy tinge. It was first danced in the theatres around 1870. A painting by J. Moreno y Carbonero (fig.

2) , showing a female dancer performing the Jaleo, provides a useful point of reference. It illustrates the very precise source from which Sargent took his subject. He obviously knew about Spanish dancing in some detail.

Sargent not only attended performances of Spanish dancing, but sketched what he saw. There

SPANIARD DANCING BEFORE SEVEN SEATED FIGURES, 1879, 5Y,6

x

83{6

inches . Fogg

.5

Fi g ure 4. John S. Sargent, THE Society of A merica, 1 ew York.

6

SPANISH

DANCE,

c.

1879-80,

33 !/, x 35 )1'.! inches. Courtesy of th e Hi span ic

are several extant sketches of dancing scenes, evidently executed on the spot. Two drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, one of which is reproduced here (fig. 3), prefigure the composition of El Jaleo; both are on the back of two fragments of the same torn-up Madrid hotel bill (Sombrero de Camarade, Alcala, 38), and both show a male dancer performing before a row of musicians.

Another series of oil and pencil sketches are related to Sargent's picture of the Spanish Dance (fig. 4), itself a variation on the El Jaleo theme .

The exact status of the Spanish Dance is uncertain (was it a trial run for El Jaleo, or entirely independent? was it painted in Spain or Paris ?), but it has the naturalism of a directly observed scene.

There are at least two other independent drawings of male dancers (Sargent may originally have envisaged a male rather than a female dancer for El Jaleo; see also the two drawings discussed above), and two oil sketches of Spanish gypsies in dance poses (see fig. 9). These various sketches reveal Sargent's absorption in the dance theme. He had clearly decided to undertake a large work for the Salon before he left Spain.

Sargent's previously exhibited subject pictures had also been painted in response to a particular experience and locale. Thus, OysterGatherers of Cancale (Salon, 1878) was inspired

by Sargent's summer holiday in Brittany in 1877, and Dans les Oliviers, Capri (Salon, 1879) by that in Capri in 1878. In both these pictures, as in El Jaleo , elements of formal construction were imposed upon the vivid realism of Sargent's initial response, as demonstrated in his sketches.

Sargent returned to Paris early in February 1880. From Madrid he had travelled on horseback to Southern Spain through the Ronda mountains, reaching Gibraltar via Seville, where Henry Adams recorded meeting him, and Granada, where he painted several architectural studies in the Alhambra. Around the New Year, he crossed over to Tangier with a friend (pre-

a

sumably Daux or Bae). The imaginative ideas released by this experience found expression in a large subject painting of a mysterious Moorish figure inhaling incense, Fumee d' Ambre Gris; this was finished shortly after Sargent's return to Paris, and exhibited at the Salon of 1880. The subject is more fanciful than that of El Jaleo, and more self-conscious.

El Jaleo was the most ambitious subject painting that Sargent had ever undertaken. This, together with his growing portrait practice, explains the picture's slow maturation . It was not finished until 1882, two years after Sargent's return from Spain and North Africa. His only recorded comment on the picture, while it was in progress, occurs in a letter to Vernon Lee of 20 November 1881 : " I have done several portraits and the Spanish Dancers are getting along very well."

This is not revealing, and one has to rely on the internal evidence of the picture itself, and of the preliminary studies, to understand its development and purpose. In the first place, El Jaleo is an extremely stylized conception, at one remove from the scenes of Spanish dancing which inspired it. It is not really a scene at all, but a performance . The female dancer struts and postures solely for our benefit ; we are her audience. One has only to compare the painting with other representations of Spanish dancing, Manet's Le Ballet Espagnol (fig. 5), or John Phillip's Dancing Scene (fig. 6), to see how very theatrical it is.

Manet's figures may be posed, but they retain a sense of complete naturalism, while in Phillip's painting we are eavesdropping on what is intended to be a real, if picturesque, Spanish scene.

The location of El Jaleo , on the other hand, is a stage-set. This is emphasized by the tricks of lighting; the knobs on the origin al frame (the frame has now temporarily been removed) were moulded to suggest footlights. David McKibbin is right to connect Sargent's treatment of the subject with the vogue in Europe for sophisticated 7

-5 l 1

Figure 6. John Phi ll ip, 8

DANCING SCENE,

inches. The Phillips Collection, Was hington, 0. C.

35 )4 x 51)4 inches. Formerl y W a lke r's Gall erie s, London.

Figure 7. John S. Sargent, Institute, Williamstown.

VENETIAN INTERIOR,

c.

1880-82, 19

x

24

inche s. Sterling and Francine Clark Art

9

Figure 8. Jo hn 5 . Sa rgen t, ROS INA , CAPR I, 1. 8 7 8 , 1.9 路1 4 x 25 14 inch es. Formerl y Knoedler, New York.

Spanish dancers like La Belle Otero and La Tortajada . The result, in both cases, was a kind of Spanish pastiche.

This may sound deprecating, but only if one imagines that Sargent was aiming at the real thing . This was only partly his intention. In his early subject paintings, as in his commissioned portra its, Sargent sought to combine an intensely realistic approach to representation with ideas of formal synthesis, or, to put it another way, with the traditional mechanics of picture-making. This was the basis of his early style, and it explains the ten sion apparent in many of his early pictures.

El ]aleo was entirely a studio production. All the sketchy and accidental features of the Spanish Dan ce (fig. 4), which impart to it the quality of a real scene, have in the larger picture been either suppressed or clarified . The composition is the result of precise formal calculation. It relies on a fri eze-like format, in which the dominant vertical stress of the dancer is held in balance 10

I

Figure 9. John 5. Sargent, SPA ISH GYPSY, c. 1879, 18 x 11 inches. Collection of Edward McKagg, Connecticut. Reproduced by permission of Edward 1cKagg.

11

John S. Sargent, study for EL JALEO, c. 1880x 9 ' 2 inches. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Figure

10.

52, 13

John S. Sargent, study for EL JALEO, c. 1880x 8 1• 4 inches. Hirschi and Adler Galleries, New York.

Figure

11 .

52, 12 ~8

by the row of musicians and singers behind. The flattened space is defined by these two very simple lines and planes, each carefully distinguished from, and adjusted to, one another. The scheme of brilliantly contrasting lights and darks not only pitches the scene into a more dramatic key, but accentuates and defines forms and formal relationships. Without the play of this restless and arbitrary chiaroscuro, the picture would at once lose its mood of mysterious tension, and much of its exuberant vitality. The debt to purely pictorial phenomena is very considerable.

Sargent's concern with light in El Jaleo linked him with the forward-looking tendencies in French art. In 1881 he described himself to Vernon Lee as "an 'intransigeant,' entirely given up to the faithful reproduction of '!es valeurs.' " His Venetian studies of 1880 and 1882, like the characteristic Venetian Interior reproduced here (fig. 7), possess the same dark and encompassing atmospheric space, and the same tonal resonance, as El Jaleo , but in an altogether simpler and more natural idiom. Worked out on a large scale, with devastating aplomb, the brilliance and clarity of El Jaleo's tonal scheme, the accurate notation of every nuance and contrast, is enhanced by the free and vivid handling of the paint; the colour, controlled by the exigencies of the light, is fairly subdued and astringent. The picture has all the appearance of rapid and spontaneous execution, and it is hard to believe that every part of it was painstakingly evolved.

The evidence of the surviving studies, however, is incontrovertible. Take the figure of the dancer, for example. Her pose and costume may bear some relationship to a particular Andalusian dance, but their development from Sargent's first studies to the finished picture reveals a process of continuous refinement and stylization. As early as 1878 he had executed two similar oil sketches of Rosina, his favourite Capri model, dancing on the roof of a house; one of these is 12

Figure 12. John S. Sargent, study for EL JALEO, c.

1880-82, 13 x 9 Y, inches. Isabella Stewart Gardner

Museum, Boston.

- ,_-:--i

reproduced here (fig. 8). Her exultant and dramatic pose foreshadows that of the dancer in El Jaleo, and illustrates Sargent's early interest in dancing themes. The date of the so-ca lled Spanish Gypsy (fig. 9), of which there is another version, is uncertain, but it is plausible to suggest that it was painted in Spain from a Spanish model. The painting has the engaging simplicity of a straightforward study from life. The extended arm and twisted torso of the Spanish Gypsy were, of course, the prototype for the pose of the dancer in El ]aleo. But the robust realism of the former is transformed into the taut and styli zed attitude of the figure in the finished picture.

Before settling on this pose, Sargent explored a number of variant possibilities. A series of sketchy drawings in the Fogg Art Museum and in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum album, one of which is reproduced here (fig. 10), show various comic exaggerations in the posture of the dancer. These may have been doodles rather than serious experiments. The water-colour sketch of the dancer (fig. 11), on the other hand, represents a definite stage in the development of her pose.

The basic pattern is there, the strained neck, contorted arms, floating shawl and cascading skirt, but it is altogether more schematically and si mply rendered, and it lacks the dramatic lighting from below; in fact, the comparison illustrates just how crucial the lighting is. In the interval between the water-colour and the oil, every detail and inflection of the pose was strengthened and intensified {see fig. 12): the dancer's intent expression emerged from the shadows; the gesture of the extended arm, which obviously caused Sargent difficulty (he studied it in a whole series of drawings) , became more acute and sinuous; the angle of the elbow on the other arm was similarly exaggerated, and the clutching fingers of both hands rendered tense and expressive; the elegant structure of the skirt, forming a series of inter-related cones, was

Figure 13. John 5. Sargent, detail from

14

EL JALEO.

defi ned with geometrical precis ion . One ca n envisage a further process by which the dancer migh t become Marcel Duchamp's NHde Descending n Staircase. This is a far-fetched analogy, but one wh ich underlines the arbitrary interior logic of El Jaleo.

A whole series of studies for the musician s and singers also survive. These include two oil sketches in th e Fogg Art Museum (see fig. 14), and detailed drawi ngs in an album in the Isabella Stewa rt Gardner Museum, which Sargent gave to Mrs. G ardner in 1919. This album is composed of separate in serted sheets, and contains a great many studies for El Jnleo, a Seville cafe scene, and a study for th e Spanish Dance; Sargent evidently had gathered up what drawings he could find lying about h is studio, and had pasted them in. There are also a numb er of other studies for El Jaleo in public and private collections, and one or two drawings aft er th e picture which were done for purposes of reproduction in the Salon catalogue, and in illustrated m agazines. It is interesting to see how Sargen t developed the poses of the subsidiary fi gures, so as to extract the maximum drama fr om them. Th e pose of the singer with his head th row n back, fo r instance, becomes increa singly tortured and expressive. One can follo w the p rocess fro m the original oil study (fig . 4) , through the detailed charcoal study (fig.

15) , to the fini sh ed picture. T here are similar parallels with the strained gestures and expres sions of the oth er figures. El Jaleo achieves its dynamic quality by mean s of th is intensification, rather than by a n unnecessary display of extras and accessories.

Sargent evidently m ad e use of a va riety of models for the pain ting. The American artist, Walter Ga y, wh o h ad k nown Sargent in Pa ris, told Morri s Carter tha t M arie Renard h ad posed for the fi gure of the dan cer. Sh e was a well-known Parisian model, wh o had sa t to D egas, M onet, Mary Cassatt, and a host of o th er a rtists (see h er

reminiscences in Verve, I, no. 4, 1938). Allyn Cox, the son of Kenyon ox, another American artist and friend of Sargent, asserted that his father had posed for the hands of the guitar player. A second possible candidate is Albert de Belleroche, whom Sargent painted dressed in a Spanish hat and cloak at this time (fig. 17). The hat, which Sargent had obviously brought back with him, occurs in other cha ra cte ri stic studio sketches, most notably in an oil study of an entwined couple, and in drawings related to it; the woman in this study may possibly have been Marie Renard .

The careful planning which went into El Jnleo is concealed by the painting's sheer bravura and immediacy. These were qualities which appealed to the critics and the public, when El Jnleo was first exhibited at the Salon of 1882. It was simply more sensational than rival paintings of a simi lar character. The Art Journal reported that "Mr. Sargent, having gained in successive years a third and second medal, now finds himself the most talked-about painter in Paris." El Jaleo was Sargent's first major s uccess, and it established him as one of the stars of the rising generation. The picture steered a delicate course between the revolutionary and deeply di s tru sted doctrines of the Impressionists, and the blatantly commercial values of the popular Salon school. The unusua l and picturesque subject of the painting at once attracted attention, while its treatment was sufficiently bizarre to be classed as avant-garde.

Even conservative critics, like the art-critic of the Athenaeum, were forced to acknowledge the achievement, though they might disapprove of the means: " To a certain extent the strength and energy, bizarre as the manifestation of the latter is, of M. J. S. Sargent's El Jaleo: Danse de Gitanes (2397), justify the large measure of praise which has been bestowed upon it." More progressive critics, like H enri Houssaye, simply raved abou t El Jaleo. In a long notice in the

15

Figure 14 . John 5. Sargent, s tudy for

EL JALEO, c. 1880-82, 25 0 x 31 }8 inches. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge.

Revue des Deux Mandes, he described its thrilling visual effect: " His wonderful movement and chiaroscuro give a play of light and shadow. Here she is, her body tilted backwards, ready to fall, her right hand propped on her hip, her left arm thrown forward in a feverish and menacing gesture. The light from below, like stage lighting, gives a magnificent sheen to the white satin of her dress and catches the green sequins on her mantilla. " The critic of L' Art summed it up more simply: " The secret lies entirely in the virtuosity of the execution."

Success at a public exhibition is not a very respectable pedigree for any picture of post-1850 .

It implies an absence of vision and commitment.

El ]aleo has m any of the fea tures of a Salon " machin": a popular subject; theatrical presentation; and technical virtuosity. What distin16

guishes it from a host of forgotten Salon pictures is its stylistic integrity. This endows the subject with qualities of tautnes s and aliveness. It is fashionable nowadays to play up Sargent's sketches at the expense of his finished works, and to regard the latter as something of a compromise.

This is too facile. Sargent's training and background, indeed the whole bias of the French art world, predisposed him to formal figure paintings.

They were a synthesis of the experiments carried out in hi s plein-air and studio sketches and of more traditional pictorial ideas. The same is true of his formal portraits. The stylization and classic formulation of Madame Gautreau' s pose is not essentially different from that of the dancer in El ]aleo, and yet both have been claimed as triumphs of realistic representation.

El Jaleo was not only successful but profitable.

John S. Sargent, study for EL JALEO, c.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Figure 15.

Figure 16.

John S. Sargent, detail from

1880-82,

91

x

13

inches.

EL JALEO.

It was purchased by the Schaus Gallery of New York for 10,000 francs (roughly $2,ooo) , and was subsequently exhibited at their premises. They sold it to the diplomat and Francophile, Jefferson Coolidge of Boston, who, in turn, gave it to Mrs. Gardner in 1914. She had recently pulled down her music room to make way for a Spanish cloister, and it was here that she devised a setting for the picture . In spite of its success, El Jaleo was the last important subject painting which Sargent exhibited until the advent of Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose at the Royal Academy of 1887. In the final analysis, it was portraiture which counted, and, with a reputation still to cement, Sargent could not afford to divide his loyalties.

Large Salon pictures involved an immense output of time and effort, with no certain prospect of reward. More significantly, El Jaleo marks the

Figure 17. John S. Sargent,

ALBERT DE BELLEROCHE,

c.

1880-82, 26 Y, x 19 inches. Collec tion of John Wolcott

Stewart, Santa Barbara . Reproduced by permission of John Wolcott Stewart.

end of a phase in Sargent's art. The growing influence of the impressionists on his work led to a radical change in his style. His brushwork loosened, his palette became lighter and more colourful, hi s interest in landscape developed.

Other factors helped to determine this change of direction, not least Sargent's permanent move to London, and the temporary loss of patronage which ensued.

Sargent painted no more exotic Spanish subject pictures like El ]aleo, but he remained devoted to Spain. El Greco and Velasquez continued to fascinate him, and he went on borrowing ideas from both artists. He listened to Spanish music as often as he could, keeping a stack of Spanish Gramophone records in his studio in later years to amuse himself and his sitters. In 1887 he contributed six illustrations to Alma Stretell's translations of Spanish and Italian Folk-Songs, among them a design after the Spanish Dance, and a wilder version of the dancer in El Jaleo .

In 1890 he organized a memorable party in New York for Mrs. Gardner, at which the celebrated 18

Carmencita danced. Sargent painted a flamboyant, full-length study of her in the same year, and she later performed at parties in his London studio. A lso, 1890 was the year in which Sargent undertook a commission to decorate the new Boston Public Library. Possibly remembering El ]aleo, he proposed a series of scenes from Spanish literature. This was subsequently altered to a religious cycle, but Sargent's first idea proves that Spain and its culture still had the power to rouse his imagination. Several of the religious motifs in the Library murals, like the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows, were derived from Spanish altar-pieces. From the late 189o' s onwards, Sargent spent several summers in Spain, painting a number of memorable oils and water-colours. He was always urging his friends to visit the country, pouring out advice to them about what to see and things to do. A love of Spain was an interest he shared with Mrs . Gardner, and it is appropriate that his early Spanish masterpiece should have found its resting place at Fen way Court.

Richard Ormond

Figure 13~4 x

1.

s.

2012

-

and the garden of th Patriar hal S minary from the G1udecca Canal, inches (.35 x .52 meters). Signed at the bottom right 路 701111 5. Sargr11t .

MARIA DELLA SALUH, VENICE

Sargent 's Water-Colours of Venice at Fenway Court

Mrs. Gardner was more sue e sful in a qumng wat r- olours from John Sargent during his lifetime (she pre-deceased him by one year), than many of his friends, for he was notoriously reluctant to part with them The only exceptions were the large groups wh1 h he allowed museums to buy. E. . Lucas (A Wanderer 111 Ve111ce, ew York, 1914) has said of his water-colours, they "are not to be obtained for love or money, but fall to the lot of such of his fnends as wisely marry for them as wedding presents, or tumble out of his gondola and need consolation." Scatter d through the correspondence between Sargent and Mrs. Gardner are references to her attempts to bag some pictures for her collection. In 1907 Sargent writes that he had received the 拢40 from his bankers for the sketch of the 811s Horses in Jerusalem and is pleased at " ... the comfortableness of the horses in their new abode. I feel that to be worthy of th is promotion they ought to have had ribands plaited into their tails and manes, like Herod's ho rses in Flaubert's beautiful Herodiade. You

Figure 3. Photograph of Ponte della Can-

onica, Rio di Palazzo, Venice.

Figure 2. PONTE DELLA CANONICA, VENICE, c. 1904, 17 Y, x 11 Y, inches (.44 x .29 meters).

Inscribed at the top left: To Miss Wertheimer: l ohn 5. Sargent.

know your sketch was done in Jerusalem [1905], but the stalls were not Herod's but Thomas Cook's who has succeeded him in Palestine."

In 1916 he promised her she should have some of the best of his work in the Canadian Rockies; and in 1920, he wrote her about the loss of an oil sketch of Deering's Villa Vizcaya in Florida 路.vhich had been burnt in the fire at the Architectural League, " ... perhaps as punishment for not having sold it to you."

The firs t of the Venetian gro up Mrs. Gardner bought in 1916 at Doll and Richards' was S. Maria della Salute and the garden of the Patriarchal Seminary from the Giudecca Canal, where early in the twentieth century there was a great deal of heav y shippin g in the kind of bragozzi seen on the left. As one of Sargent's ea rly studios was situated in the Calle Capuzzi near the Zattere, which runs along the Giudecca Canal, this was a favourite 20

spot from which to observe the life on the canal and it is not surprising that he returned again and again to the scene. (Another view of this scene by Sargent's friend, Francis Edward James, is in the same room.)

The picture had belonged to Mrs. Frederick Barnard, the mother of the two little girls who posed for Sargent's popular Academy picture of 1887, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. It had been exhibited at the Royal Water-Colour Society and sold to Knoedler, from whom it came to Boston to the Copley Gallery, Sargent's official agent here.

In 1920 Mrs. Gardner had another winning streak when her friend the artist Louis Kronberg called her attention to three water-colours in a sale at the Anderson Galleries . Two of these were Venetian subjects. (The third was of a Spanish subject The Terrace at La Granja.) Ponte della Canonica is inscribed " To Miss Wertheimer:

Figure 4. s. GIUSEPPE DI CASTELLO, VENICE, formerly PONTE SAN TROVASO, c. 1904, 111/2 x 173/ 4 inches (.29 x meters). Inscribed at the bottom left: To Helen Henschel and Wolfram Onslow Ford - John S. Sargent.

.45

Figure 5. Photograph of S. Giuseppe di Castello.

Figure 6 . Canaletto, s.

GIUSEPPE DI CASTELLO,

private collection,

Italy.

21

Figure 7. s . MARIA DEi GESUAT I, VENICE, Mary Hunter: lohn 5. Sargent.

14 l/,i

x

203/4

John S. Sarge nt ." The marble bridge fea tured here is on the canal beside the Doge's Palace, nex t beyo nd the Bridge of Si ghs. My photograph , taken in 1'}66, when I s pent three months in Ve ni ce looking for and identifying th e subjects of Sarge nt's pictures, shows the buildings along the Rio del Palazzo exactl y as they were whe n Sargent recorded the scene, probab ly abo ut 1904. It is a curious fact that he very rarel y (I can think of but two exampl es) altered the details or composed his pictures as the Ved1.1tisti invariably did: for him there were no caprices. Th e shallow Aue climbing the wall of the palace by the bridge is so characteristic of enice, where the wal ls are not thick enough to con cea l a proper chimney. This feature, too, alon g with the sca rcity and expense of fuel , ma y contribute to th e circumstance that very few \I netian s know how to build a good fire.

The other Venetian picture bought at this time 1 as inscribed " To Helen Henschel [now Lady 22

-

inches (.36 x .53 m e te rs) . Inscr ib ed a t the bottom right : To

Claughton) and Wolfram Onslow Ford " and was a weddin g present (1904) to the daughter of Sir George Hen schel, the first conductor of the Bos ton Symphony. It too has a bridge as its subject, but has been described erroneously as the Ponte San Trovaso, a much better known bridge due to its nearness to th e Customs House and being on the gondola route to the hotels on the G rand Cana l.

In Sargent's drawing of this little side canal are to be seen the three most common types of boats on the canals : the gondola, the sandalo, which many private persons such as Baron Corvo maintained for themselves as more economica l, and the topo, a slightly heavier craft. My photograph identifies the church as San Giuseppe in the Castello, a poor district from which Sargent took many of his genre subjects (beadstringers, glass-workers, and wineshops) with its attendant bridge. A picture by Canaletto shows the church and bridge together with San icolo di Bari , pulled down about 1807

Figure 8. RIO DI SAN SALVATORE, VENICE, formerly scribed at the top right: John S. Sargent.

RIO DELLE DUE TORRI, 10

Figure 9. View from other end of canal in Figure 8.

x

131/ 2

inches

( .25

x

.34

meters) . In-

Figure io. Photograph of , Ir and Mrs. Gardner with Mr. and Mrs. Zorn, Venice, 1894.

24

when Napoleon was creating the Public Garden, which many people now visit only to reach the Venice Biennale with its film festivals and modern pictures. It may surprise one to learn that Sargent was himself a frequent exhibitor beginning in 1897 with his portrait of the celebrated Dr. Pozzi, the lover of Mme Gautreau. The doctor was assassinated by a madman in his office in 1919 and at the sale of his collection Mrs. Gardner bought Sargent's small sketch in oil of Mme Gautreau holding a wineglass at arm's length. It is inscribed to Mme. Gautreau's mother, the lady from New Orleans who was so outraged by Sargent's now famous portrait of her (in the Metropolitan Museum, New York).

Still another water-colour acquired in 1920 is inscribed "To Mary Hunter" and is of Santa Maria dei Gesuati on the Fondamenta delle Zattere, the broad embankment along the Giudecca Canal.

Mrs. Charles Hunter, sister of Dame Ethel Smyth and one of Sargent's closest friends, was a great hostess sometimes called by the envious "Mrs. Leo Hunter"; being "reduced to affluence" by the failure of her coal properties, she had begun selling off her treasures from Hill Hall and at her sale in 1920 this picture of the " Gesuati" brought ÂŁ750, the highest price for any water-colour sold during Sargent's life-time. Mrs . Gardner acquired it from a Philadelphia dealer.

The Venetian canal scene which Mrs . Gardner bought in 1923 (Macknight Room) and formerly known as Rio delle Due Torre I here identify as Rio di San Salvatore from the row of round windows of the convent of the same name . It is unlikely that Mrs. Seymour Trower, to whom this picture had belonged, would have made this mistake, for she knew Venice well. Of the seven Sargents in her sale at Sotheby's in 1921 three others were of Venice. She was indeed one of those fortunate friends mentioned by E. V. Lucas as being the recipients of Sargent's generosity. He had known the Trowers from his earliest days in

England, was often at their house at Weybridge, and probably painted some of his Thames-side pictures there. (Under the Willows, now in the Gulbenkian Foundation, and The Shadowed Stream, at the Boston Museum, are both from Mrs. Trower's sale.) Many of George Meredith's whimsical letters are to the Trowers and he, as President of the Navy League, is addressed as "Admiral League" or" Admiral of the White Coin" in reference to his bimetalism; she, as " Lady ByetheWey." Mrs . Gardner's home in Venice was the Palazzo Barbaro, which the Daniel Sargent Curtises rented to her for several months every second year, rather regularly after 1884, when they like other Venetians found it pleasanter to be elsewhere: the Curtises in England, the Venetians in the Brenta or the Euganean Hills. In a photograph from the Fenway Court scrapbooks the Gardners and the Zorns in two gondolas with the Princess de Polignac's palace behind them are seen approaching the water-gate and cavana (gondola shelter) of the Barbaro. The white dress with red sash proclaims the private gondola, for this was before the day of the motoscafo or power launch; and the " awful matutinal Lido," the trip to the beach which Henry James so abhorred and thought " inhuman to the sweating gondoliers," was a daily expedition, as was a visit to a private garden, a comparative rarity, on the far side of the Giudecca Island for tea in the shade of fruit trees and leafy arbors. This pretty sight of the private gondola is now almost never seen by the visitor, and I am told that there are but three in all Venice.

Although none of these water-colours was made for Mrs. Gardner or given her by the artist, she nevertheless was fortunate in adding some of his most characteristic and sparkling work to her collection and these souvenirs of a Venice which was so dear to both must have given her much pleasure.

David McKibbin 25

Adventures of a Graeco -Roman M arble Herm In the course o f assembling an cient decorative sculptures of unus ual qu ality and interest fo r Fen way Court, Mrs. Ga rdner acquired a herm-bust of a bearded divin ity in Pentelic marble. This sculpture was created in Athens for export to Italy or in the Italian ptnin sula fr om imported Attic marble in the years between about 50 B.C. and 1 2 5 of the Christian era . The prototype or ultimate model w as fa shioned in Athens in the fifth century B.C. and represented either Dionysos god of dramatic performances or Hermes as protector of sacred areas and of people's homes. The Gardner herm was a good copy with a full , rich beard and a compa rable head of hair done in a broad fillet or band so as to lie around the crown and down the sides of the fa ce in orderly fashion (fi gs. 1-6) .

There were many variations on th is theme in Roman villas, parks, and temp le precincts in the centuries from Julius Caesar to the Anto n ine emperors . T he originals made in Greece, especiall y Ath en s, from abou t 460 to 420 B.C. preserved someth ing of th e fl avor of Archaic Greek sculp26

ture, and thi s elemen t was copied fa ithfully or even intensified in Graeco-Rom an tim es. For example, a kindred head and sh oulders (or, at least, major section of neck) now res tored, p erhaps correctly, as a herm in the Fi tzwilliam Museum at Cambridge in Engla nd shows a very human, modern, Graeco-Roman face of the Rom an imperi al period surrounded by a pseudo-Arch aic or " A rchaistic" hair-s tyle, beard, and lon g curls on the sh oulders.

This academic creation, also in Pentelic marble and from Italy, proba bly rep resented Dionysos (fig.

7). Both the Fitzwill iam b u st and the G ardner herm were usually thought of only as decorative heads on truncated torsoes or architectural shafts, but there are ins tan ces w here su ch heads are foun d comb in ed in Ro m an times w ith draped bodies to portray a D io n ysos, a Hermes, or even a n image of Zeus in the A rch aic fashion .

A sm all h ead in the Mu seum of Fine Arts, Boston , was p u rch ased fro m th e fam ou s " General" di Cesn ola and un d oubtedly w as acqu ired by him on the island of Cyp rus. It was ca rved in GraecoRom an tim es out of m a rble fr om th e Aegean is-

Figures 1-6. Graeco-Roman Herm Bust, probably of Dionysos, recarved in the Middle Ages. Boston, Isa bella Stewart Gardner Museum. Photos Museum.

lands or western Asia Minor (figs. 8 and 9). This head certainly belonged to a small cult-statue of Dionysos or Zeus Sabazios, divinities who resembled each other closely and who were worshipped widely throughout western Asia Minor and the related Greek islands. The face is both soft and severe at the same time. The freedom in handling the locks of hair beneath the broad headband and in delineating the curling beard makes a pointed contrast with the related presentations of the Gardner and Fitzwilliam heads. In many respects the Cesnola head comes closer than the other two to the golden ages of Greek sculpture, having the passion and humanity of the Skopasian or Praxitelean fourth century B.C. rather than a copyist's interpretation of Archaic decorative sculpture in the fifth century B.C. At least the head from Cyprus reflects the new depths of dimension imparted to images of Dionysos, Hermes, or Zeus in the century following their original creation.

The herm in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum began its career as a copy of one of those original creations.

The treatment of the hair and beard makes a special claim to our attention (figs. 3 and 4). The constituent unit in these actively modelled masses is a long lock of hair, subdivided into neat parallel strands, which echo the path given by its contour. In the upper part of the head, above the fillet, the locks lie flat, each barely asserting its independence from its neighbor. The ends curl broadly upward and tend to form symmetrical groups facing one another or lying back to back. Below the fillet, the surface is more agitated. Each tuft of falling hair is to a greater deg:ee detached from the background and endowed with a serpentine gyratory motion of its own. The ends bend sharply around dark circular voids opened up by the drill.

Yet the heightened semblance of fulness and depth thus conjured up is only lightly inscribed in the outline of the head. As seen in profile, it appears rather square, and as if helmeted by its coiffe. This hardening and schematization of forms is consistent with what we should expect in work of an unquestionably archaistic orientation. The particular quality of this archaism, however, makes us think

Figure 7. Bust of a God, Graeco-Roman Work with the Herm Restored.

Cambridge (England), Fitzwilliam Museum. Disney Collection. Photo Museum.

Fi gures 8-9. Head from a Small Statue of Dionysos or Zeus. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts. 72 .337. Cesnola Collection. Photos Museum.

instead of a Medieval reworking. The frontal view brings into sight an odd wedge-shaped form at the center of the fillet, which we are inclined to suspect as a by-product of the same restoration (figs.

1 and 2). Seemingly lyi ng on the head-band itself, it may have been designed to represent the kind of attribute-diadem or phylactery-sometimes worn by prophets in Italian Gothic sculpture, as, for example, a figure from the workshop of Andrea Pisano on the Campanile of Florence Cathedral.

The repair or alteration of Antique statuary is easy to document from the Renaissance onward.

(See M. Cagiano de Azevedo, II gusto nel restauro delle opere d' arte antiche, Rome, 1948, and the bibliography collected by H. Ladendorf, Antikenstudium und Antikenkopie, p . 159.) In the Middle Ages, an image of a pagan divinity was apt to invite concern of a less kindly sort. Yet religious and philosophical antagonism could be tempered by a certain nostalgia or momentarily swept aside by the intensity of sensual experien ce. Fulco of Beauvais's pathos-laden verses inspired b y the dis-

covery of an antique head in the ruins of the Temple of Mars at Meaux and addressed to Abbot Hugh of Cluny convey in rhetorical form a sense of profound fascination unclouded by censoriousness. Some seventy-five years later, John of Salisbury recorded with less artifice the acquisitio n in Rome of a number of ancient statues by Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester. The Roman marmorarii of the later twelfth and first half of the thirteenth century carried out for a clientele, imbued anew with a consciousness of the historic weight of the city's past, some notable imitations of antique monumental sculpture, often of wholly pagan inspiration.

Inevitably, the special connotations of the bust form in Antiquity conditioned its acceptance.

After the eclipse of monumental sculpture in the round in early Medieval art, the reliquary bust seems to have renewed the Classical conception of the funerary portrait. But the cultivation of likeness, sometimes pushed to astonishing ex tremes, receded in favor of a portrait with generalized features whose efficacy was assured by the incor-

Fi gure 10. Brioloto, Reli e f of a Crouching Man (de tail) . Verona, Mu seo Civico.

Fi gure 11. Reli ef of a Crouching Man (d eta il ). Veron a, M useo Civico.

30

poration of the relic. (See the entry "Biiste" by H. Keller in Reallexikon der Deutschen Kunstgeschichte, II, 639ff., and most recently, the survey of the question given by I. Lavin, " On the Sources and Meaning of the Renais san ce Portrait Bust," Art Quarterly, Autumn 1970, pp. 207-226 .) Images of deities and rulers suffered a different kind of transformation, retaining likeness but changing roles and identities. The portrait of Antoninus Pius which served as a model for the figure of St. Peter in the Last Judgment portal of Reims Cathedral is an example of this kind of adaptation.

The bronze aquamanile of Aachen Cathedral transmits to us both the rough outward form of the human figure in its conventional abbreviation and the physiognomic traits of an Antique image of Bacchus, while the Iustitia imperialis of Frederick the Second's triumphal gate at Capua derives from an as yet unidentified Roman personification or divinity. We may conjecture that beyond the clash of doctrines, the image of man seemingly severed in half must have been puzzling to many and in need of explanation. The series of busts associated with Frederick's building enterprises or attributable to his reign can be seen as an isolated, but vital first step in the revival of the genre in its integral form.

Instances of the restoration of Antique sculpture in late Medieval times are occasionally signalled. A fine Roman head of Antinous in the Campo Santo at Pisa remodelled in the early Quattrocento has been published by Bianchi-Bandinelli. (R. Bianchi-Bandinelli, "An 'Antique' Reworking of an Antique Head," Journal of the Warburg Institute, IX, 1946, pp . 1-9.) As in the case of the Gardner bust, this alteration affected primarily the treatment of the hair : that of the head was recut, while a beard and moustache were added. Considerably more extensive is the restoration of the fourth-century columnar sarcophagus in Mantua Cathedral, which Marion Lawrence ("A Gothic Reworking of an Early Chris-

tian Sarcophagus," Art Studies, VII, 1929, pp . 83 103), ha s analyzed in detail and with good reason connected with a new burial in 1249. A searching inquiry would probably bring to light additional examples of such operations. What moti ves might have guided them? Though it is a notion which we would more readily associate with a later age, the wish to make the original appear more "antique" by bringing it in conformity with a mental image of idealized Antiquity possibly underlies both requirements of circumstance-as in the case of the Mantua sa rcophagu s - an apparently inexplicable whim. The renovation of ancient works of art on which unusual esteem had been conferred might be rendered necessary by their condition or by other deficiencies, but we may see in it as well the occasion for a stylistic aggiornamento and through this, a silent act of solidarity.

The restoration of the Early Christian fresco cycle in the basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls at the hands of Cavallini and his circle, an episode of evidently greater magnitude than the remodelling of the Gardner bust, must nonetheless be seen in the same perspective.

With the help of comparisons based on style, it is possible approximately to establish the place and date of this remodelling. We believe that it must have been carried out during the first half of the thirteenth century and, with every likelihood, in Northern Italy. The head of a crouching figure in the Verona Museo Civico shows a similar treatment of the hair, albeit with somewhat less pronounced undercutting (figs. 10 and 11). The relief was carved around 1200 and is generally attributed to Brioloto, the sculptor who, on the basis of an inscription, can be credited with the Wheel of Fortune of the fac;:ade of San Zeno. One of the stylobate lions in the courtyard of the Gardner Museum can be cited as an example of the same style. (W . Cahn, "Romanesque Sculpture in American Collections. IV. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston," Gesta, Vlll / 2, No.

Virgin and Child from an Adoration of the Magi (detail). \'enice, Seminario Patriarcale.

Figure 12.

8, p. 53 .) Bnoloto's sculpture and that of his followers onstitutes an exten ion of the artistic current inaugurated several decades earlier by Benedetto \ntelami at Parma and Fidenza The group of the Adoration of the Magi from SS. Filippi and Giacomo m Venice (Seminario Patnarcale) illustrate the end-phase around i240 of the ~ame style, which had been, in the meantime, much modified through the influence of Gothic ~culpture of orthern France (fig n) The head of the hild nonetheless retains in the treatment of the hair an evident allegiance to the older manner, and , in it~ crisp interweave of neatly striated Lurls , bring~ us clo e to the Gardner bu t in its restored state.

Walter Cnhn Corne/111s Verme11/e

Rembrandt van Rijn 1he Storm on the Sea of Galilee

Rembrandt's The Storm on the Sea of Galilee (in the Dutch Room) ranks as one of the most admired paintings in the Gardner Museum (fig. 1).

Perhaps this is because of the dramatic movement of its action and composition and the immediacy in its depiction of the wildness of wind and waves.

But, also it seems likely that this painting arouses much interest because visitors generally have not seen any other work by Rembrandt which compares with it. Scenes of violent action such as this often occurred in Rembrandt's early work (The Storm is signed and dated 1633 on the rudder) but entirely disappeared in his mature years after 1640. For the most part such highly dramatic works by Rembrandt are not to be found in American museums . Moreover, The Storm is the only painting by Rembrandt in which the sea is depicted. Undoubtedly many viewers sense its uniqueness .

Rembrandt received an unusually high price for this painting. Bob Haak, curator-in-chief of the Historical Museum of Amsterdam and an authority on Rembrandt, reports that Rembrandt was paid forty-three hundred guilders for The Storm.

This was not an excessively large figure when one considers that the finely detailed paintings of Gerard Dou, a pupil of Rembrandt, brought from three thousand to fourteen thousand guilders, but it was an unusually high amount for Rembrandt, who, for example, received only sixteen hundred guilders for the Night Watch. Obviously the purchaser of The Storm prized it highly, which seems to suggest that it was more in tune with contemporary taste than most of Rembrandt's narrative paintings of the 163o's.

Bernard Berenson, who in 1898 was negotiating

the purchase of The Storm along with Rembrandt's A Lady and Gentleman in Black (fig. 2) and Terborch's A Lesson on the Lute (both also now in the Dutch Room) , wrote to Mrs. Gardner, " If in this canvas [A Lady and Gentleman in Black] you see him [Rembrandt] at his height as a portrait-painter, in the other [The Storm] you see him as the profound interpreter and great poet .

It represents Christ and the Disciples out on the Lake, when he is waked to still the storm which has arisen ... In color both pictures are in the master's blond, gentle tone." Thus Berenson emphasized Rembrandt's powers in interpreting a biblical subject rather than regarding it as a depiction of a struggle against nature whose theme incidentally comes from the Bible. No doubt it was similarly regarded in Rembrandt's time. Rembrandt was esteemed by his contemporaries primarily on two accounts, for the superiority of his portraits, and for his history painting - an established type at that time which encompassed biblical subjects. Historical painting was regarded by learned critics as the supreme category in painting. In 1626 Constantijn Huygens, a statesman and a man very knowledgeable in many branches of the arts and sciences, visited Rembrandt and his fellow artist, Jan Lievens, in Leiden . Afterwards Huygens wrote of Lievens in his autobiography, " In history pieces, as we commonly call them, he is an artist worthy of great admiration, but he will not easily equal Rembrandt's lively inventiveness. " Such " lively inventiveness" is readily apparent in The Storm in the energetic struggling of the disciples who try to pull down the sail, in the earnest entreaty of the two who have just awakened Christ, in the 33

1. Rembrandt, TH E STORM ON T H E SEA Isabell a Stewart G a rdner Mu seum, Boston.

Fi gure

OF GAL I LEE,

expressiveness of the man (said b y some to b e a self-portrai t of Rembrandt) clapping his h and to his h a t again st th e wi nd, and also in the confl icting diago nals of mas t, sails a nd rigging . The story is recounted in Ma tthew 8 : 23-27, And wh en h e wa s en tered into a ship, his disciples fo llowed h im .

And, b eh old, there arose a grea t tempes t in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves : b ut h e wa s asleep . And his disciples came to h im , a nd awoke him, saying, Lord, save us : we perish .

And h e saith un to them, Why are ye fearful, 0 ye of little faith ?

Then h e arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea ; and there was a great calm .

But the men m arvelled, saying, What manner of of m an is this, tha t even the winds and the sea obey him!

Rather than portraying the m iraculous in the story Rembrandt chose to depict a moment of terror the wildness of th e storm and the struggles of the disciples at the m oment wh en two of the disciples are pleading with Ch rist to save them. The calm and repose of Ch ris t contrast sharply with the violence and activity of the rest of the painting and fore sh adow H is role in the drama .

The variety of interesting detail done on a relatively sm all scale a nd the na turalness (suitability to the event) of th e action wh ich apparently appealed to Rembrandt' s contemporaries, were singled out fo r special praise some Bo years later

by Arnold H oub ra ken, a fa mous critic and biographer of artists. Wri tin g in 1719 in D e groote schou burg h h e stated, " A nd I h ave noticed that in h is early period he h ad the patience to work out his art pieces more thoroughly than he later had. Amon g va rious specimen s th is is es pecially to be seen in that piece k n own by the name St. Peter' s boat, which hung fo r many years in the cabinet of Jan J acobzen H inloopen, former

1633, oil on can vas, 63 x

50.

Sheriff and Burgomas ter of Ams terdam . For the figures and faces are rendered as naturally as can be imag ined af ter th e situation of the moment, a nd are besides m uch more elaborately pain ted than one is acc ustomed to seei ng fro m h im." Rembrandt executed a number of oth er h is tory pain tings (typ ically mythologica l sub jects) dese rvi ng of sim ilar p raise from Houb raken .

It was in the period of the 163o's, however, that Rembrandt enjoyed a considerable success as a portrai t pai nter and the vas t m a jority of h is wo rk a t that time was portraiture. Remb ra nd t's portrai ts of the 163o's constitu ted a m arked development from h is style of the 1620's, the Leiden period. H is paintings of the Leiden yea rs were mostly of a small or med ium-sized for ma t, were rich in fin e detail and tex tured effects, and were arranged compositionally wi th a n empha tic, often bold chiaroscuro. His portrai ts of the 163 o's (fig. 2), on the o ther h and, were often m on umental in eff ect and large in scale, more spa ring in details, while textured eff ects we re pervaded by a soft luminosity and, alth ough m asses were still organized by light and dark contras ts, the chiaroscuro was less arbitrary and seems more n a tural. In these respects, and others, Rembrand t's Storm is d issimilar. For, wh ile it is on a large scale (meas uring 63 x 50 inches) like his po rtra its, it is painted with much of the fin eness of detai l, in the fi gu res and ri gging, of his other histor y pa intings of the period. Furthermore, as in those paintings the chiaroscuro is somewha t arbitrary.

Th e Storm also rela tes to Rembrand t's early years in respect to the Baroque elements of its composition - the for ceful movements of diagon als up and into space formed by the hull, mas t and sail and the up ward swi rl ing of the brightly lighted portions of waves and clouds. The energy and obliqueness of these movements stemmed largely from Rembrandt's acquaintance w ith Rubens' work and disappeared from Rembrandt's m a ture works.

35

Figure 2. Rembrandt, A l;\OY A D GENILEMA Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

IN BLACK,

1633, oi l on canvas, 51314 x

42.

Figure 3. Jan Porcellis,

STORMY SEA,

1629, oil, Altere Pinako thek, M un ich .

Although The Storm must be classified as a history painting, it bears a curious relation to seascape painting of its time and exhibits an awa reness of the latest developments in that genre, which had only reached adolescence, as it w ere, at that time . Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of the mature years of Dutch seascap e paintings of the 164o' s and 5o's w as that they were tonal paintings in which the color s w ere so subtly and gradually blended that they gave an almost monochrome effect whereas in its infancy the Dutch seascape painters u sed brighter colors with stronger color contrasts between brush strokes and between local areas. Alon g with the new tonality went a naturalistic rendering of atmospheric effects. The first seascape painter to introduce tonal painting into seascapes w as Jan Porcellis (1584-1632) and T he S to rm seems to indicate the influence of his works. W e know, in fact, that Rembrandt collected Porcellis' paintings.

Therefore, the infl ue n ce is q uite likely . We may tak e as an example Porcellis' Stormy Sea (fig . 3) p ai nted in 1629 (n ow in Mu nich ) in wh ich th ere is a simila r storm- tossed sh ip in th e left fo reground. As in R emb ra n dt's p icture, th e hull, m ast and sails are set ou t at rakish d iagon als. W h ile the hues each ar tis t ch ose vary, bo th, aside fro m the u se of chiaroscuro cont ras ts, are for th e mos t p art ton al in effect. Porcellis' Stormy Sea \s pervad ed b y an oli ve-grey ton e and a grey sky accented wi th a few light pin k areas, while Rembran dt' s Th e Storm except fo r th e cloth ing of th e fi gu res displays a un ifo rm g rey to b rown ton ality in the d arks opposed to b rightly lig hted areas in a p inkish oran ge, and in on e area of th e sky a light blue. The atmosphere of a storm a t sea is strikingly rep resented in b o th p ai ntin gs. Similar also is the use of dark waves in the foregrou nd which serv e as a repoussoir to set back th e brightly lighted areas b eyond . There is similarly 37

Figure 4.

THE STORM ON THE S EA OF GALILEE.

Detail of Figure

a very low horizon line which makes the sky and clouds dominant in the composition. Also as a result of the low horizon, the transition from the foreground to the far distance is quite abrupt in both paintings. In the far distance of each we see the ghost-like outlines of struggling ships with sharply tilted masts (fig. 4).

While Rembrandt's The Storm incorporates many of the elements of Dutch seascape painting, it is basically a history painting, in which the human drama is paramount. Painting on such a large scale in which the action and conflict are so directly represented were uncommon in Rembrandt's oeuvre and entirely lacking in the time of his full maturity . We owe it to the persuasive powers of Bernard Berenson, who called it one of the " jewels" of the Hope Collection from whence it came, that it is part of the Gardner collection.

James W. Howard, Jr.

1.

Fi gure 1. Page 1 with the chant for the fe ast of 5.

Andrew. The initial

u

has

T HE CA LLI NG OF

s.

ANDREW .

Notes on an Italian Choir Book

39

Figure 2. Detail of page 29, initial U with 5.

Lucy in a white and gold dress, lavender and gold overdress and yellow mantle. She carries her eyes on a plate, and the palm branch of martyrdom.

Alone on top of a large chest under Sargent's portrait of Mrs. Gardner is a choir book, written on vellum and in its original binding, brown leather over boards decorated with brass corners of open work. In the center of the front is a medallion of the M adonna and Child. It is a large book, 24 in . x 17 in., 154 leaves in length, and was a gift from George A. Gardner (1829-1916), Mrs. Gardner's brother-in-law.

In the ca talogue A Choice of Manuscripts and Bookbindings from the Library of Isabella Stewart Gardner (privately printed by the Merrymount Press, 1922, pp . 22-25) Morris Carter wrote : " This volume is said to have been recovered from a shipwreck in the Bay of Naples .... " As there is no record of the former owner, it is ass umed that this story came w ith the book when George A . Gardner acquired it and he repeated it to Mrs. Gardner.

The evidence of water damage is confined to a portion of the first few pages, suggesting that water fell on it at some time.

Carter was misled by a date (1733) and signature above a h and written index on the inside

of the front cover. Seymour di Ricci in a note in the museum's archives read the signature as Venturinus Bayans and believed the book to be Spanish in origin. In a later note Carter rightly concluded that the author of the index was not responsible for the rest of the book, which, on the basis of style, appears to be earlier. The real colophon may be found on folio 152 verso which reads " Fr. Hieronymus Notanus (Notarius?) ex [pro Jvincia S. Catherin~ de senis scribat anno domini [ ] ." Brother Jerome possibly of an ecclesiastical see named for S. Catherine of Siena wrote the book . (Provincia was generally used to designate an administrative unit in church government.) The coat of arms of S. Dominic which appears as a medallion on the back cover of the book and at the bottom of the first page (fig. 1) sugges ts that in all likelihood the book was written for a Dominican monastery.

Choir books such as this played an important part in mon astic life. One, the Graduale, contained music (introits , gra duals etc.) for the celebration of the Mass. The other, of which this is an ex-

Figure 3. Detail of page 73 with the initial 5 and THE CONVERSION OF s. PAUL with Christ appeari ng above, a crimson scarf floating behind him, and cherubs' heads on the clouds. 5. Paul leans agains t hi s white horse, wearing a blue cuirass over a yellow tunic.

..

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ample, the Antiphonarium, contained music for the Office Hours. The Hours were derived from the Jewish hourly prayers and were the focus of monastic life. They were: Matins before sunrise, Lauds at sunrise, Prime at six o'clock, Terce at nine o'clock, Sext at noon, Vespers at sunset and Compline before retiring . The Offices consisted of psalms, psalm responsories (antiphons) and hymns . The antiphonary contained these hymns and antiphons, but only the first verse of the psalm, in its proper place, as psalms would have been memorized by the monks. Choir books traditionally were large enough to be read by several chanters together.

A lthough this book covers the entire church year, it contains only the principal feasts, leaving the lesser days to older antiphonaries, or more likely to printed editions. On major feast days the book would be brought out for all to see and the copyist signed it, knowing that its appearance not contents was important. Most choir books were not signed.

Music as well as liturgy in the Christian Church

has its ties with Hebrew worship. Notice, for example, the striking similarity between the Yemenite psalm tone and the common Gregorian psalm tone lf, built on the first mode, re to re, with an ending on fa.

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J11DJJ!11 These roots, under the influence of European fo lk tradition, provided the church with its first ritual music. Much of the chan t repertory was se t long before a system of lines and spaces was devised. In a sense, it is true liturgical folk music.

Quite naturally many dialects as well as many rites evolved. Charlemagne, wishing to bring order to worship in his domain, the Christian world, established the Roman rite and Roman music

41

A po rt ion of the antiphon

42

CUM P ERN I V ISSET

for the feas t of S. Andrew the Apostle.

The antiphon transcribed directly from the manuscript.

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I

'

supreme, saying that if one wished pure water, he must go to the source. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) is credited with the codification of the chant according to the days of the Roman Calendar. Melodies were provided for texts requiring them; this has continued right up to the present day as minor changes in the Calendar demanded the addition of new chants.

During the course of the Middle Ages with the gradual admission of new forms in church music, the chant lost its special place and spirit, and by the thirteenth century the pure forms were changing, and the old melodies when used were tortured to comply in some way with the current canon of taste. This choir book represents the final stage of development before the great restoration of Gregorian chant in the nineteenth century by the monks at Solesmes.

Similarly, changes in the appearance of the choir book reflected the evolution of painting in Italy. This is not so evident in the script or format which follows the late medieval style of the fourteenth century or earlier but in the decorative elements, the illuminated and decorated initials and the colored borders. Of the decorative initials, there are plain letters in red or blue, large single letters in red with blue flourishes filling the spaces created, a still larger letter with more elaborate scroll ornament, the whole enclosed in a square frame the color of the letter, and large, plain letters in a gold frame , the space within the letter blue, the space around it red, or vice versa, with scrolls of white and gold.

Seven pages have illuminated initial s, the first with a complete border, the rest with a border at the top and left only; the gold initial, and the border are enclosed in a gold frame. The borders are richly colored and the scenes have remarkable bright colors; for exa mple, on page one (fig. 1) The Calling of S. Andrew, Christ has a blue tunic and crimson mantle, Andrew, a light green tunic and reddi sh yellow mantle. The border is in crimson, blue, green, red and gold. In the comers are medallions of S. Michael (upper left) , Raphael with Tobias (lower left) and the other two much blurred are probably Gabriel and Uriel. The other six hi storiated initials are of S. Nicholas, S. Lucy (fig. 2), S. John on Patmos, S. Vincent, The Conversion of S. Paul (fig. 3) and The Annunciation to Zacharias .

Although the artist of these was not distinguished, the style shows some awareness of the Baroque painters of the early seventeenth century in central and southern Italy and the earliest date for the book would, therefore, be the middle of that century .

Thi s choir book, commissioned some two hundred yea rs after the invention of movable type, presents an interesting historical document, the anachronism of the manuscript form and the late medieval chant, and the efforts of the artist to reconcile the art of the miniaturist with the religious art of Baroque Italy.

Dennis Crowley Rollin van N. Hadley 43

John S. Sargent, ISABELLA STEWART Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

44

GARDNER, 1888 ,

Isab ell a

Report of the President

TO THE TRUSTEES:

Far and away the most importan t occurrence pertaining to the Museum during the year 1970, and indeed for many years, was the retirement of George L. Stout as Director after fifteen and one half years of distinguished service to the Museum and the appointment of his successor Rollin van N. Hadley, the former Administrator.

George Stout was only the second Director since Isabella Stewart Ga rdner's decease in 1924. It is not an exaggeration to state that no one could have been better equipped for the job than he, nor more helpfully backed than he was by his charming wife Margaret.

The Trustees of the Museum are indeed grateful to him for his meticulous care of both the collection and whole fabric of the structure itself.

Not the least of his contributions was searching for, finding and helping train a worthy successor.

Rollin van N . Hadley, the third Director, was graduated from St. Mark's School, Southborough, Massachusetts, and, after serving in the Army during 1946-47, from Harvard College, Class of 1949. Then came eight years of manufacturing, sales and finance experience in the Corning Glass Works. Preferring a scholarly life he resigned and then spent two years at Universita Bocconi, Milan, Italy, and two years in graduate studies in Fine Arts at Harvard. It was from there seven years ago that George Stout persuaded him to join the staff at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum where he attained the title of Administrator. We are confident he will carry on the high tradition of the previous Directors.

Many of the details of the Museum's affairs will be found in the Director's Report. Suffice it to say that it has been a good year and that we are grateful as always to the devoted and efficient staff.

G. Peabody Gardner President 45

Report of the Director

TO THE TRUSTEES : Morris Carter, in the director' s report for the year 1934, unknowingly set the stage for many years to come. It was announced that George Stout had joined the staff of the museum. A laboratory was equipped for his use and two apprentices were hired. Sharing his time with the laboratories of the Fogg Museum at Harvard, his home base, George undertook the care of the collection, and during the next thirteen years most of the important paintings received his meticulous care. This work was interrupted by distinguished war service with the Navy and as a Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives officer with First Army and Twelfth Army Group in Europe and in Civil Information and Education of the headquarters in Japan . He resigned in 1947 to become director of the Worcester (Massachusetts) Art Museum and it was from that position that the Trustees in 1955 called him back as director. A more successful choice would have been difficult to imagine. His retirement in 1 970, the year set by him some time ago, deprives the museum of his particular knowledge and experience. As a founder, the first president and one of two honorary fellows of the International Institute for Conservation, his reputation is well established. His integrity and generosity as well as his wisdom are known to many who have had the good fortune to work with him.

In California where he and his wife now reside, he continues to give assistance and counsel to fine arts collections.

Care of the collection continues and will remain our first obligation for many years to come .

The work is time-consuming, painstaking, and demanding of skill and sensibility. But the rewards are gratifying. A fourteenth century fresco from the Veneto was given new life by the removal of dirt and application of varnishes. Renaissance sculpture was a major concern and five pieces were treated. All the furniture in the galleries

received three coats of an emulsion to counteract dryness, and repairs were made to twenty-one pieces. Another 80 objects in metal, ceramic, leather, wood, and paper passed through the laboratory and back to exhibition. Textiles were equally demanding. While progress on one tapestry crept along throughout the year, another requiring less repair was finished and rehung. Lace, linen and silk in a variety of surviving forms were dealt with, about twenty in number, and other less important materials were replaced or repaired.

During August the walls were painted in the Room of Early Italian Paintings, and in several other rooms not open to the public. Electricians installed security devices and intercoms and laid a cable to melt winter ice from drains on the sides of the glass roof over the court. The heating unit was replaced in the cottage beside the greenhouses in Brookline.

The gardeners continued to keep the court and outer gardens filled with unusually fine specimens.

Their talents were recognized by two awards: the Antoine Leuthy Gold Medal and the Massachusetts Horticultural Society Gold Medal. The experimental use of hexline, commonly called baby' s tears, as a ground cover in the court has been so successful in the past several years that it will replace the tradescantia formerly used.

George Stout's TREASURES FROM THE ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM (Crown Publishers, New York 1969) was added to the publications for sale during 1969 and has been as well received by the public as it was by the press. It is a brief history and description of the museum - the only one of its kind - with biographical material and photographs of the persons who contributed to make the museum what it is . The 135 illustrations include a selection of the best objects with comments on them.

The journal, FENWAY couRT, appeared six times completing the third volume. Short articles on the

collection will accompany the annual report in the future, allowing for greater latitude in layout and illustration than was possible with FENWAY couRT. The larger publication promises appropriate shelving in the libraries to which it will be sent.

Attendance was only slightly less than the high figures for 1969 : Weekdays Sundays Closed-day tours Special visits during closed hours

Return at the Sales Desk was: Books Guides and Information Folders Cards Color Transparencies Miscellaneous Total

Total

1970 $ 3,0 2 9.45

1969 $ 2,933 .50

3,080.65 4,206.65 2,370 .90 676.27

3,623 .90 4,014.00 2,119 .90 1,233 .39

$13,363.92

$14,234.19

During 1970 the museum offered 176 programs of music, of which 118 were weekday concerts one-half hour in length. Hour-long programs were presented on 47 Sundays and first Thursday evenings of 11 months. Presentation of the New England Chamber Orchestra was assisted by a generous grant from the Music Performance Trust Funds of the Recording Industries, obtained with the co-operation of Local 9-535 A.F.M. Soprano Gretchen D' Armand appeared under the auspices of Young Musicians, a program sponsored by the Council on the Arts and Humanities of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As in the past, the 1970 concert schedule presented a variety of music, both traditional and modern. Several contemporary compositions were introduced at the museum. A number of young performers made their Boston debuts here, and several established artists from Communist countries were heard for the first time in the United States.

1969 80,526 60,028 4,228

1970 75 ,711 62,247 4,789 4,016

5'426

146,763

150,208

Included in those figures were the following : Scheduled tours, open evenings Boston public schools Schools outside Boston Colleges and technical schools Other organizations

Groups

Persons

11 14 122

186 428 4,875

26 50

875 1,744

Special visits were permitted to many organizations. Those of more than a hundred persons were: 16 January

19 January 9 April 15 April 8May 5 June 17 June

Greater Boston Chapter, Massachusetts Heart Association, Inc. Saint Sebastian' s Country Day School American Burn Association Society of Neurological Surgeons Office of the President, Simmons College Alumnae Association of Simmons College National Congress of Applied Mechanics

(412) (340) (131) (166) (194) (463) (651) 47

12 July 16 October 25 October

American Society of Civil Engineers Junior Class of Emmanuel College Italian Culture Commission

(100)

(738) (200)

At the service in memory of Isabella Stewart Gardner on Tuesday, 14 April, the celebrant was the Reverend Father Alfred L. Pederson, S.S.J.E. Reported with sorrow is the death of Herbert A. Berry, watchman, on 29 May. Four of the Staff have retired: John F. Barrett, guard, 23 January; Mary McCarthy, maintenance technician, 26 May; Paul Petersen, guard, 23 January; George L. Stout, director, 30 June.

Three have resigned: Mercedes Gonzalez, maintenance technician, 27 April ; Jacqueline Hill, conservation technician, 28 May; Muriel Phipps, maintenance technician, 4 November.

Ten have been engaged for regular duties: Marjorie Bullock, conservation technician, 1 June; George E. Coleman, maintenance technician, 16 September ; William Driscoll, guard, 24 February; Stanley Kozak, gardener, 9 March; Thomas Little, watchman, 29 June; Yvonne Mercer, maintenance technician, 19 October ; Patricia Peterson, conservation technician, 14 September; Martin J. Roper, guard, 24 January; David Twomey, guard, 1 February; Ivy Williamson, maintenance technician, 10 November.

On restricted schedules were: Laurel Arnold, Robert Bovaird, Mary Campbell, Dennis Crowley, Louise Desbiens, Chester Howes, Joseph Kiarsis, Eric Ladd, Joseph Lin, Joan Manheimer, John Maretti, Vincenza Romano, Edwina Seybolt, Kathleen Sheridan.

Rollin van N . Hadley

MADONNA AND CHILD, Venetian (1350-1450), fresco transferred to linen, 64 Y-I x 47 0 inches (1.65 x 1 .2 meters). Cleaned and restored during 1970. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

49

Note on the Organization of the Museum

Publications

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated (Museum Corporation), a Massachusetts charitable corporation, is the sole trustee under the will of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Upon her death in 1924, Mrs. Gard ner left to seven individual trustees the property which now constitutes the Museum - Fenway Court and the works of ar t she had collected there, some of which were owned by her directl y and some by a corporation of which she owned all the capital stock, Th e Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the Fen way, Incorporated (Fen way Corporation).

She also gave her trustees an endowment fund for the support of the Museum .

In 1936 the individual trustees under Mrs. Gardner's will organized the Museum Corporation and resigned as trustees under the will. The Museum Corporation was appointed by the Probate Court to be successor trustee in their stead and now holds all the trust property, consisting of the real estate, the collection (owned either directly or through Fen way Corporation), and the endowment.

Under the By-laws of the Museum Corporation it is managed by a board of seven trustees who have the power to fi ll vaca n cies in their own number. The officers, elected annually by the trustees, are a President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary. A Finance Committee of at least two members appointed by the trustees is responsible for the Museum's investments.

Under the terms of Mrs. Gardner's will full authority over the Museum, the collection, and the staff is vested in the Director, who is appointed and subject to removal by her trustees (now the Museum Corporation).

GENERAL CATALOGUE, by Gilbert W .

Lon gstreet An itinerary catalogue of the collection, with brief descriptions of all the objects.

Cloth bound $2.50 Postage and $ .40 (domestic) packing $ .50 (foreign) CAT A LOGUE OF THE EXHIBITED PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS, by Philip Hendy A descriptive catalogue, with biographies of the artists and reproductions of the paintings.

Cloth bound $2.50 Postage and $ .40 (domestic) packing $ .60 (foreign) DRAWINGS/ ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM, edited by Rollin van N. Hadley A small group of notable drawings ranging in date from the late fifteenth to the early twentieth century ; illustrated with 38 pix., frontispiece in color.

Paper bound $2.5 0 Postage and $ .25 (domestic) packing $ .35 (foreign) ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER AND FENWA Y COURT, by Morris Carter A biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner and a history of the formation of her collection, by the first director of the museum ; illustrated.

Cloth bound $3.50 Postage and $ .40 (domestic) packing $ .50 (foreign) MUSEUM GUIDE For the use of visitors ; illustrated; 98 pp.

Paper bound $ .75 Postage and $ .25 (domestic) packing $ .3 5 (foreign)

TITIAN'S RAPE OF EUR OP A, by Arthur Pope A study of the composition and the mode of representation of this and related paintings; illustrated.

Paper bound $1.95 Cloth bound $2.95 $ .25 (domestic) Postage and $ .30 (foreign) packing FENWA Y COURT A small illustrated journal, each issue on one subject. A list of 22 subjects will be sent on request.

30 cents per issue (Library discount offered only on set of 22 issues.)

A CHOICE OF BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY OF ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER A descriptive catalogue of rare books and fine bindings. 71 pages .

Cloth bound $2.50 Postage and $ .25 (domestic) packing $ .35 (foreign) 25 copies available.

THE GARDNER COLLECTION: Mrs. Gardner and the Treasures of Fenway Court, by Morris Carter (The Arts Foundation, New York) A brief history of the museum and a description of its collection by the first director. 93 illustrations, 13 in color.

Cloth bound $2.50 Postage and $ .20 (domestic) packing $ .30 (foreign) 20 copies available.

TREASURES FROM THE ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM, by George L. Stout (Crown Publishers, New York) An illustrated history of the museum and its collection by its second director.

Cloth bound $10.00 Postage and $ .40 (domestic) packing $ .5 0 (foreign) MRS. JACK, by Louise Hall Tharp (Little, Brown, Boston) A recent biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner.

Cloth bound $6.95 Postage and $ .40 (domestic) packing $ .50 (foreign)

*Mail orders will be shipped by 4th class, library rate (domestic) or surface rates (foreign). Please make check or money order payable to l. S. G. M. Libraries and other educational institutions are offered a 40% discount.

Trustees

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated Sole Trustee under the will of Isabella Stewart Gardner President G. Peabody Gardner Vice-President and Secretary Malcolm D. Perkins Treasurer John Lowell Gardner

Elliot Forbes Mason Hammond Francis W. Hatch, Jr. James Lawrence, Jr.

Staff*

Director Emeritus George L. Stout ADMINISTRATION

Director Rollin van N. Hadley Secretary for Administration Janet Gardner Associate Secretary for Administration Beverly J. Chatham Secretary for Music Johanna Giwosky Secretary for the Collection Linda V. Hewitt Research Associates Paula M. Kozol Yasuko Horioka Docents Anne D. Bergquist Jessie M. Stuart Nicholas A. Tranquillo Photographer Joseph B. Pratt Sales Clerk Carl R. Erlandson COLLECTION

Conservator James W. Howard, Jr. Conservator of Textiles Yvonne A. A. Cox Conservation Technicians Marjorie Bullock Leo V. Klos Patricia Peterson Ana Wertelecki

Technicians and Watchmen Robert Anderson Flora A. Berry Patrick Burns George E. Coleman Wi lliam Evans Robert French Thomas Little Dennis S. Mahoney Yvonne Mercer Joseph Miniutti Patrick J. Naughton Elwin F. Ric h Alfred J. Smith Ivy Williamson Guards Stanley F. Bentley Alfred J. Donnell Harold J. Edgett Anthony Flynn Michael Flynn Thomas F. Flynn Albert B. Gordon Henry L. Gormley Edwa rd Gray Harold R. Holm Patrick Hurley Patrick McDonough John F. McElhinney D aniel J. McGuire Charles A. McStravick Edwa rd P. Naylor Charles R. Parsons Clement F. Reardon John F. Reardon Thomas D. Reynolds Martin J. Roper D avi d A. Twomey Walter J. Westwood

SECURITY AND MAINTENANCE

Supervisor of Buildings John F. Niland Security Foreman Patrick T. Ni land Maintenance Foreman John J. Kennedy Shop Technician Michael Finnerty "'on regular duty 31 December 1970

GARDEN ING

Head Gardener (Greenhouse) John F. Sullivan Head Gardener (Museum) John A. Madden Gardeners Michael Cogavin Martin Davis Stanley Ko zak Robert M . Macken zie

Report of the Treasurer STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND FUND BALANCES DECEMBER 31, 1970 AND 1969

ASSETS

$

$

(ASH

INVESTMENTS (Note 1) : Bonds (quoted market price at December 31, 1970 $4,889,983) Common stocks (quoted market price at December 31, 1970 $9,859,075)

5,480,553 $10,739,913

MusEuM PROPERTY, primarily at appraised values (Note 2) : Land and buildings All the outstanding shares of The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in the Fenway, Incorporated, representing 4,015,000

4,015,000

49,000

49,000

$ 4,430,400

$ 4'430,400

Contents of Museum building Lot and greenhouse

101,658

Adjacent land, at cost

Total assets

$ 4,532,058

$ 4'430,400

$15,309,265

$15,240,050

LEss: Reserve for Federal income taxes

24,000 $15,285,265

$15,240,050

FUND BALANCES $

OPERATING GENERAL PENSION MAINTENANCE

AND

DEPRECIATION

34,008

$

193,026

13,263,518

13,292,311

1,163,701

1 ,163,701

824,038

591,012

$15,285 ,265

$15,240,050

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these statements.

ST ATEMENT OF INCOME AND EXPENDITURES AND ALLOCATION TO FUNDS FOR THE YEARS ENDED DECEMBER 31, 1970 AND 1969

1970

1969 (Note 5)

$261,344 333,244

$248,487 319'954 $568,441

INVESTMENT INCOME:

Interest from bonds Dividends from common stocks

$594,588 OPERATING EXPENDITURES:

Museum operating expenses Maintenance and security Gardening and grounds Music Care of collections and paintings Administration Insurance Compensation of managing trustees Professional services Greenhouse consulting fees Miscellaneous, general and administrative expenses Pensions (Note 4) Sale of publications and other items at Museum*

$204'483 57,008 35,713 42,545 108,775 14,327 3,980 18,825 10,525 317 20,000 (19,g18}

$183,854 54'947 42,128 27'346 109,321 16,098 3,96o 17,600

$496,580

$453,698

$ 98,008 24,000

$i14,743

NET INCOME

$ 74,008

$114,743

Nn INCOME

$ 74,008 {28,793)

$t14,743 279,465

$ 45,215

$394,208

$ 34,008 {28,793)

$

3,213 11,927 (16,696}

ExcEss OF INVESTMENT INCOME OvER OPERATING EXPENDITURES PROVISION FOR FEDERAL INCOME

TA)(

CAPITAL GAINS (LOSSES)

ALLOCATED TO FUNDS AS FOLLOWS:

Operating (Note:>) General Pension (net of pensions paid) (Note 4) Maintenance and depreciation

40,000 $ 45,215

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these statements.

9,753 342,003 34,518 7'9H $394,208

SUMMARY OF CHANGES IN FINANCIAL POSITION FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 1970

Unrealized Gains

Cost Basis Cash and securities Museum property Balance, December 31, 1969

$10,809,650 4'430'400

$3,767,597

$14,577,247 4'430'400

$15,240,050

$3,767,597

$19,007,647

Balance consists of Cash and securities Museum property Reserve for Federal income tax

98,008 (24,000)

98,008 (24,000) (28,793)

Excess of investment income over operating expenditures Provision for Federal income taxes Realized capital gains (losses) previously unrealized Net increase in quoted market price Balance, December 31, 1970

Total Funds Including Unrealized Gains

2 8,793 212,755

212,755

$15,285,265

$4,009,145

$19,294'410

$10,777,207 4,532,058 (24,000)

$4,009,145

$14,786,352 4,532,058 (24,000)

$15,285,265

$4,009,145

$19,294'410

FUND ALLOCATIONS FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 1970

December 31,

Operating

$

1969

Transfers (Note 3)

193,026

$(193,026}

Income and Allocations Total Allocations Income

$ 94,008

$(60,000)

$34,008

Pension (Note 4) Maintenance and depreciation Total

-

40,000

193,026

591,012 $

$ 74,008

$

-

December 31, 1970

$

34,008 13,263,518 1,163,701

20,000

(20,000)

1,163,701

$15,240,050

$

(28,793)

13,292,311

General

Gains (Losses)

824,038

40,000 $74,008

---

The accompanying notes are an integral part of these statements.

$(28,793)

$15,285,265

NOTES TO STATEMENTS DECEMBER 31, 1970

REPORT OF INDEPENDENT PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS

Investments Investment securities held in the general fund are stated at cost, less amortization of bond premium, if acquired subsequent to December 24, 1936, or at market values shown in the Trustee's inventory as of that date. All other securities are stated at cost.

To the Trustees, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated, Trustee Under the Will of Isabella Stewart Gardner:

1.

Museum Property The Museum land and buildings, together with all the shares of the Isbella Stewart Gardner Museum in the Fenway, Incorporated (representing the contents of the Museum building, lot and greenhouse) are stated at appraisal values as shown in the Trustee's inventory as of December 24, 1936.

2.

3. Restriction upon Surplus of Income The Trustees are directed under the Will of Isabella Stewart Gardner to pay to certain named hospitals any surplus of income which, in the opinion of the Director and Trustees, will not be needed for the proper and reasonable maintenance of the Museum.

These amounts, if any, are payable at the end of successive five-year periods, the next of which ends in 1974.

The last such period ended December 31, 1969, and the Director and Trustees determined that there was no surplus income for the period 1965-1969 which, in the opinion of the Director and Trustees, would not be needed for the purposes of the Museum. Accordingly, the five-year accumulative surplus of $193,026 as of December 31, 1969 was transferred to the maintenance and depreciation fund during 1970.

4. Pen11ion Fund The Museum has no formal pension arrangements with employees. The Trustees made discretionary payments of $20,000 to certain retired employees during the year ended December 31, 1970. These payments were allocated to the Pension Fund, as was an equal amount of investment income.

5. December 31, 1969 Reclassifications In the accompanying December 31, 1969 statements certain items therein have been reclassified to conform to the December 31, 1970 statement presentation.

6. Federal Income Taxes The Museum is preparing to file an application to be classified as a Private Operating Foundation with the Internal Revenue Service. The accompanying financial statements have been prepared assuming that this application will be filed and accepted. In the event that the application is not accepted, different distribution requirements will have to be met by December 31, 1971.

We have examined the statements of assets and fund balances of THE ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM, INCORPORATED (a Massachusetts corporation, not for profit), TRUSTEE UNDER THE WILL OF ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER as of December 31, 1970, and the related statements of changes in financial position, income and expenditures, allocation to funds, and fund allocations for the year then ended. Our examination was made in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards, and accordingly included such tests of the accounting records and such other auditing procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We have previously examined and reported on the statements for the preceding year.

The accounts of the Museum are maintained on the cash basis, except for Federal income taxes, and the accompanying statements have been prepared on this modified basis. The Museum has consistently followed the practice of expensing capital assets acquired subsequent to December 24, 1936, and of making no provision for the depreciation of Museum buildings.

Allocations to the maintenance and depreciation fund are credited thereto when authorized by the Trustees.

In our opinion, the accompanying statements present fairly the assets and fund balances of The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated, Trustee Under the Will of Isabella Stewart Gardner as of December 31, 1970, and its changes in financial position, income and expenditures, allocation to funds, and fund allocations for the year then ended in accordance with the method of accounting mentioned above, applied on a basis consistent with that of the preceding year.

ARTHUR ANDERSEN & Co.

Boston, Massachusetts, January 21, 1971.