Fenway Court: 1980 by Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Fenway Court

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Published by rhe Trusrees of che Isa bella Scewarr Ga rdner Muse um , Incorporated 2 Palace Road Bosron, Massac huse ccs Copyri g ht 198 1 Desig ned by Samecz Blackscone Associa ces Type sec by Monocype Compos ition Co. Princed by Mark-Burcon Inc. Cove r: detai l of Tician's The Rape of Europa. Froncispiece: Cupid Blowing a Horn, Itali an, XV II ce ncury, fo llower of fran~o i s Duquesnoy, bronze, H . 46.5 cm ., Inv. No. S26e6, Tician Room .

Contents

Foreword

The Rape of Europa and Re la red Ovidian Pictures by Titi an (Part 11) Philipp P Fehl 20

A Nore on a Portrait of Madame du Barry Marianne Roland Michel

26 Wh istler's Sketch of an Unfinished Symphony Deborah G ribbon 34 S. Engracia Revisited Judith Berg Sobre The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum , Incorporated Fifty-sixth Annual Report for the Year Nineteen Hundred and Eighty 44 Report of the President

Malcolm D. Perkins

46 Report of t he Director

Rollin van N. Hadley

51 Report of the Cu rator

Deborah G ribbon

54 A Recent Acquisition

Susan Sinclair

55 Publications 57 Trustees and Staff

Pau l Mansh ip's bronze plaque of The Rape of Europa. made fo r M rs. Gardne r in 1917 and placed by her below rhe painring char inspired ir.

Foreword

The se nse of discovery that thi s Museum brings to the visitor is frequen tl y enjoyed by members of the staff and those who look at it with a professional eye. Like the purlo ined letter, two small paintings kept in cases were identified for the first time. A scrap of paper with a sketch by Whi stler, tucked in with his other sketches, is presented by the Museu m's curator. It fi g ures in a project which engaged the artist for more than ten yea rs and is related to at least three large canvases. Mme Roland Michel , in much the same way, identified a mini ature porrrair , and its source in a private French coll ection . Philipp Fehl , in writing a paea n to the

Rape of Europa. specu lates on Ti tian's concept of a pi cture ga llery for his patron , Philip 11. The artist's intentions (whi ch may one day be proved or amended) are interpreted with the delightful result that the reader may see how a room of masterpieces fit for a king might look. Judith Berg obre re t urns to the problem of the S. Engrac ia Retable, on which she wrote chirceen yea rs ago, ro offe r new data on that and other Spanish altarp ieces of the fift eenth centur y, data gathered with painstaking care in Spain and elsewhere.

A g reat collection is never static. Eac h yea r our knowledge of it increases th roug h the interes t of scholars and che work in ou r laboracories and archives. On these pages, faces long forgotten are recalled from obscuricy, artists and cheir work are joined togecher, and objects are placed in an historical contex c wich ocher objects, lost, dismembered, or, more often , scan ered to che fou r corners of che earth . The sea rch continues, and d iscovery 1s che reward for chose who scop co consider a wo rk of art .

The Rape of Europa and Related Ovidian Pictures by Titian

Thi s is rhe conclus ion of a rwo-parr arricle. Parr 1 appea red in rhe las e issue of Fenway Court .

Looking at Titian's Ovidian picturepoem as it presents itself to our enchanted eyes where Mrs. Gardner judiciously placed it in the Museum , in t he lig ht streaming in on it from the window next to it, a lig ht that beautifully coi ncides with the painted light that illuminates the fig ures in the picture - though not the roseate dawn of day on the hori zon - provides enough happi ness for a lover of arr to make him wish for si lence. The work , to use a favorite word of Bernard Berenson who broug ht the picture to Mrs. Gardne r's attention and negotiated its purchase, is "life-enhanci ng." The term is now not much respected among the cognoscenti, but the silent contemplati on of Ti tian's The Rape of Europa , its pathos and laughter, and its knowledge of love, may, perhaps, show us once more what Berenson

Unfortu nately, but perhaps inescapably, t here has been considerable controversy about the interpretation of the g roup as a whole. Our enti re persuasion of what Renaissance art is abo ut - and how one most suitably sees or "reads " works by Titian - here is engaged. The li terary evidence which is , indeed, plentiful but nonetheless incomplete and pointing in various possible directions has bee n, in

meanc.

consequence, evaluaced in a vari ecy of

And there we would gladly rest ou r case were there not compell ing evidence, internal and external , that Titian painted The Rape of Europa as one in a series of six paintings, poeJie as he ca lled them , which he sent to Phil ip 11 of Spain and which he had reason to expect wou ld be shown together. All are built on Ovidian themes, all prominentl y show the fem ale nude in a grand development and dramatic action. l t is clear that whatever sig nificance and purpose we may discover in the seri es as a whole will qualify and , we can only hope, enrich our comprehension of the sense, the function, and the beau t y of its component pans. A cauti on, however, seems to

be in order. We have been touched, in looking at The Rape of Europa , by t he

immediacy of the persuasive power of Titian's narrative art . The same direct-

ness, the same convincing poetical truth also shines forth from every one of the other p ictures in the series. We must not , as we look for their common denominator, arri ve at generali zations thac will

con fine the range and the vitality of the poetry wh ich is alive in each of its component pares.

ways . The interpretations which have been offered have ranged from suppositions that the series presents a didactic prog ram , a cycle of pictu res laden with hidden allegori cal sig ni fications , to the insinuation that T itian (albeit on a sublime level) pande red to the lust of a prince.

See P. Fehl , "The Worship

We cannot here review the arguments

of Bacchus and Venus in Bell ini 's and Tir ia n's Bac-

which are all supported by suitable passages from a wide range of classical and Renaissance rexrs, nor, perhaps , wou ld it serve a usefu l purpose ro do so. Instead, I shou ld like ro enter a plea for a reconsiderati on of the unity of the series in the lig ht of the Ovidian poetry we see and hear when we stand in front of The Rape of Europa. Our principal gu ide will be Lodovico Dolce whose Trasfomzationi were the wide open window through which Ti tian himself looked in on the world of Ovid 's mythology.

chana/J for Alfonso d'Esre," S111die; in the History of Art (Nacio nal Gallery, Washingron , D.C.) , vr , 1974,

37-95. 2

C. Hope, "The 'Camerini d'Al abasr ro' of Alfonso

d'Esr e," Burlington Maga unt, cx111 , 197 1, 641-50, 7 12-2 1 .

in the rig ht places. 2 The picru res do nor combine ro tell a particular story bur the placem ent of the figu res, the life of t heir morion , the seq uence of rhe landscapes, the correspondence of the incidence of painted lig ht with t he lig ht from the windows in the room all unite the pictures and rhe srori es they tell in such a way that the room comes ro life in a g reat and musical celebration of the gifts of Bacchus and Venus.

We now come ro the second prelude. When Titian was in Rome (1545-46) he painted a Danae and a Venus and Adonis The history of the series has two prelfor Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. The udes. When Titian was young he Danae (fig ure 1) owes much ro a famous painted three mythological pictures for precedent , Correggio's, which T itian Duke Al fo nso d ' Esre 1 ro decorate a had occasion ro ad mire in Mantua (figu re room in rhe corridor connecti ng the 2). Titi an , and perhaps his patron as cas rle wi th the Ducal Palace at Ferrara. well , m ay have seen in Correggio's work The pictures were Bacchus and Ariadne a challenge in t he art of representing a (National Gallery, London), The Andribeautiful nude as she su rrenders ro rhe am and The Worship of Venus (both in the embrace of a god. ext ro rhe obvious Prado, Madrid). He also al tered the differences, t he parti cular beauty of rhe landscape and the sky in Bellini 's Feast of gi rl and the greater sense of immediacy the Gods (National Gallery of Art , Wash- Titian introduces in his picture, we may ington , D.C.) ro harmoni ze rhe picture note that Titian turns Correggio's rain with his own. Al so in rhe room was ofliq uid gold into a shower of golden Dosso Dossi's Bacchanal (National Galcoins. Thi s, wit h all its refl ections is nor lery, London). The room , by princely only a t riumph of painting in itself, but srnndards a sm all room , a camerino, was it m akes explicit the old adage, often adjacent to rhe duke's bedchamber. Ir referred ro in rhe allegorie of the srory, probably served as a conven ient withd rawi ng room, a place of delight and study, a treasure chamber for works of rare sculpture, ant iquities , coins and

medals , and , perhaps, even musical inscrumencs.'

The room, though sadly t ransformed , still exists. Thanks ro the studies of Charles Hope we are now able ro see ir in ou r mind 's eye with the pictu res hung

Fig ure 1 Tirian , Danae, oil on canvas , 12 o x 172 cm., Gallerie Nazionali , Capodimonre, Naples .

Figu re 2 Corregg io, Danae, oi l on ca nvas, Villa Borg hese, Rome.

~ . Werhey, The Painrings of Titian , London, 111 , 19 7 5 , 56- 59. 192 - 194 , 241 , 242 .

that nothing can withstand the power of gold . Cupid just now has g iven the signal for Jupiter - who is all gold below and all lig ht in t he moment of its transformati on into gold above- to descend. No one can withsta nd the power of love when gold is at its service. Thus runs the tenor of the humor in the work ; but it is only an accompaniment , a frame , as it were, for t he beauty of Danae, for the blushing sweetness of her raptu re, fo r her comprehension, her su rrender to the love of the god .

Ven111 and Adoni1 was painted as a companion pi ct ure to this work . lt is lost, but several copies or free versions (fig ure 3) demonstrate that the com pos ition was , wirhsome except ions, rather li ke the Venm and Ado11i1 Titian

painted for the series of poesie for Philip 11. ' Venus bids farewell to Adonis who, poor misg uided beautiful young fool, at thi s moment prefers the pleasure of the hunt to the embrace of Venus. The goddess is seen from behind , clearl y a compositional match to Danae who is seen from the front. The way in which the two figures in each pictu re are disposed towa rds - or away from-eac h other eq ually contributes to a sense of composit ional balance in which the two paintings are united. Aga in there is laug hter that ripples throug h the picture. The dogs are li vely and impatient , the young man is a little fool ish in hi s attempt to molli fy Venus and yet break away. Venus is so ex travaga ntl y eager in her em brace,

Figure 3 T iri an, Venus and Adonrs. oil on ca nvas, 10 6x 136 cm ., Na rional Gallery of An, Washingrnn , O. C.

Cupid is angry and cute at once. Venus also, it would seem, has placed a velvet tablecloth on the tree trunk so that she and Adonis (who only just now got up) might sir there in the soft comfort that sui ts the work of Venus. Since Adonis must go hunting she has stuffed her silky handkerchief under the rope that is tied about his left arm lest the dogs' pulling hurt his soft sk in . So much then for the sp irit of the burlesque. Bur there is an earnest , a tragic side to the picrure rhar is even heig htened in its pathos because iri s intimately joined to the picture's funny elements. Jn the copies, as one mig ht expect , the burlesq ue aspect is developed at the expense of rhe picture's pa rhos. Thar is certain ly nor so in Ti tian's Venm and Adonis for Philip of Spain (figure 4). There we see Venus twice: in the foreground , and once more, in rhe sky - a star ar once and a goddess. She looks dow n, casting her starry light in a splend id profusion upon the landscape, and sees Adonis dead. Ir is in this light rhat she wil l descend , as quick as the lig ht itself, and for a last time embrace her lover. The tragic reality of this mag nificently painted backg round tints the very sky wirh g rief. Ir also mod ifies our perception of the scene in rhe fo reground. Once we have identified rhe barely painted and yet so realist icall y suggested view of the death of Ado nis (we d iscover it wi th a sudden shock, as if through the eyes of Venus) we see so much more in the face of the goddess in rhe foreg round and in all her action than rhe amatory extravagance which she so abu ndan tly displays and which instantl y (and deserved ly) attracts our attent ion ro the

picture. Forebodings of Adonis' death now cloud the goddess' face and she almost seems to faint in a joini ng of fear and love as she holds on to her departing sweetheart. We comprehend , we see rhe goddess' helplessness against the decree that forces the fata l separation of the lovers - and rhe pleasure we rake in the picture which inextricably ties together si ll iness and pathos (as love wi ll) is ming led with a sigh. Instead of the goddess in the sky the cop ies of the Farnese painting show us only a strong burst of lig ht . There is a rainbow on the left in a sky filled with vapors bur dark clouds are about to cover

Fi gu re 4

Ti tian , VenuJ and Ad011is, oil on canvas , I 86 x 2 07 cm. , The Prado, Madrid .

Stanze di M. Lodovico Dolce nella favola d'Adone, Venice, 1545. The dedi ca cion is dated April r5, I 545, char is in advance of the rime Titi an left fo r Rome in rhe same year. The poem is difficult to loca te.

Ir will be fou nd at the end of a comedy by Dolce, II Capitane, whic h was pu bl is hed simu ltaneous ly. The two works , t hough nor related, we re pr inted as one book.

5 The boa r's arrack is devel-

oped in a copia of Ovi d's cexr. For t he Tras/ormationi

10r.

see ed. 1568 , The ch row spea r, though nor named , is impli ed in

Ovid . The Ovidio Volga rizato already spea ks of a

dardo, but rhe ri cher development is Dolce's. We must nor omi t considering

ch e possibili cy char che cop ies of t he Farnese version wh ich have come down to us may go back to an origina l char was cu e down on cop. In char case Ado nis may, all along, have had his dardo.

up the sun on rhe rig ht . The conrrasr makes us see char the srorm is moving co the rig ht and char its rage is fa r from spenr. This srormy sky also is a "march" co the sky in the Danae. As , in open ing up, it offers fulfillmenr in one picrure, so in the ocher, with its impending storm , it forebodes tragedy. Boch pictures then , the lose orig inal in the Farnese collecr ion and chepoesia for Philip of Spain , would seem co have been eq ually arriculare, even if nor with the same choice of emphasis in rhe depiction of the sorrowful aspect of rhe srory.

The tale in Dolce's poem is simply told, bur all the momenrs of passion , the joy and sorrow of the story Dolce celebrates come to life and are lov ing ly dwelled on (as ifhe had painred chem) by the poet. There are no allegories in Dolce's work, nor, as the story runs its course, any references to the world beyond it. In the beginning of rhe poem, however, Dolce, in Petrarchian manner, connects the story to his own life by add ressi ng a beautiful unnamed lady whose heart he wanes to touch with chis sorrowful tale of love, and in rhe end he introduces us to the universality of his story with a short In 1545, eig ht years before he published poem, an epilog ue, as it were, on rears. the Trasformationi, (the free version of Tears are more prec ious yet than pearls of Ovid 's Metamorphoses which we have mer the O rienr and diamonds. Nor char the in part r of this essay), Lodovico Dolce lover mourns less because he weeps or published a long poem in otrava rime, the that the sun will mind it less Stanze . .. 11ella favo!a d'Ado11e, in which he sings the joys and sorrows of the love but s11ch as grass and flowers on a meadow of Venus and Adonis. 4 This work is an grow ancestor of Shakespeare's Ve11m and so 011r tears do sorrow's /n1it bestow. A do11is and of Giambattista Mari ni 's once-famous poem Adone. It also was ar Several derails in the rwo versions of the rime the most obviously avai lable Titian's Venm a11d Adonis show char he source co inr rod uce Titian co the poetical read Dolce's poem with arrenrion and wealth of Ovid 's tale of Venus and even char certain of his modifications of Adonis. In his preface Dolce says he the pi cture in the version for Philip 11 composed rhe work from a number of were influenced by Dolce's new presentaancienr sources, bur the bulk of the tion of the story in rhe Trasformationi . In poem, up co the death of Adonis, is a the Stanze, for example, Dolce speaks of free paraphrase of the Metamorphoses. a li ttle/ontana viva, a source which issues Then Dolce turns to Theocritus (Idy ll from a rock by the side of wh ich Venus xxxr) and Bion's Lament fo r Adonis for his and Adon is lie down. We find it in the inspiration. Later, when Dolce translates Farnese picture bur nor in the Prado Ovid di rectly in the Trasformatio11i he version, nor is it in rhe Trasformationi. rakes over a number of his verses from this, h is first accounr of t he story, to such an extent did he consider the two works a pare of the same poeti cal effort.

Venus' white vei l is mentioned twice in interesting circumstances in the Sta nze and Titian's Venus, in bot h ve rsions of the picture, is endowed wit h this engag ingly superfluous, ample garment. Cupid appears in Ovid , in the S1a11ze, and in the Trasfo r111a1io11i. H e is particularly mischievous in the S1a11ze and we find him so in the Farnese version . In the Trasfo rmalioni, however, the beauty of the young Adonis is quite explicitly compared with that of Cupid :

Take away Cupid's arrows And in Adonis you'll find ano1her Cupid. It's all 1he same whether you eq11ip the one Or strip the other.

Figures Tirian , Da nae, o il o n ca nvas, 129x1 8oc m ., The

Prado, Madrid .

Cupid 's being asleep is perhaps funny, but it is also has trag ic impli cati ons. He cannot now protect the love of Venus and the course of events becomes inevi ta ble. We see fate at work . In additi on , Cupid's being asleep may well indi cate to us t hat the nig ht has barely passed and t hat t he star we see so brilliant in the sky is Venus - the morning star. In both the S1a11ze and the Trasformalioni Dolce makes muc h of Adoni s' using a th row spear ( dardo) in his attac k on t he boar. It is a com pletely inadequate weapon and t he boar, irritated by the slig ht wou nd it infl icts , charges Adonis and kills him in a rage. This passage may have led Tit ia n to reconsider the longer spear of Adoni s in the Farnese version , flim sy enoug h though it is, and replace it with a throw spear. 5

6 The Josr Farnese Vmu1 and Ado11i1 was, according co an invenrory o( 1680 ,

about 123 x 149 cm .

We cou ld go on with such derai ls, bur ir would be petty. Dolce's paraph rases we re inAuenced by pictures as well as by rhe tex ts he consulted a nd borh his and Titia n's imagination we re nurtured by the same streams of poetical a nd picroria l know ledge in which mingled the waters of many sources. It does not matter a ll that much what T itian culled from Dolce's versions of a srory and transferred to his paintings as much as it matters , obviously, how he responded ro rhe world of rhe poet ry that Dolce's paraph rases invited him ro join. Jr is sweet ro think (even if we can nor "document" it) that both artists explored that realm

roge rher, in conversat ions on the subject of T itian's pictures, as each of them, each in his ow n medium, endeavored to besrow a life in beauty a nd t ruth on the same Ovidian ra le. So much fo r ou r preludes. The earliest norice we have of the series of Titian's mythological paintings whi~h here concern us occurs in a letter of Ma rch , 155 3 by Titian to Prince Ph ili p of Spain Oater Phili p 11 ). Tit ian says that the prince's favo r has made him young again and that he is now working on certai n poesie fo r him . Ea rl y in 1554 he se nds the prince the Danae now in Madr id . Soon afte r that Ti t ian writes ro Philip that he is worki ng on Venm and Adonis, a picture w h ic h wi ll be "simi lar in fo rm" ro the

Danae. "11n q11ad,路o di forma simile a q11ello. che hebbe gia la Mama Vost1l'l di Danae." Venus and Adonis is finished in Septem-

Both pict ures are clearly copie, rhar is , r icher ve rsions of the poesie Titian had pa inted fo r Al essandro Farnese. Titian was now, as it were, competing with himself. The new Danae (fi g ure 5) bears thi s our as much as the Venus and Adonis we have a lready disc ussed. The d ram a is gra nder and rhe irony more spiri ted. A little dog has been ad ded , asleep when he should be mosr awa ke ro protect his

mistress , and also a nurse who, impressed with rhe power of the coins of gold, collects rhem , awe-struck, in her ap ron. Bur Danae, a majes ti c beaut y, in extraordinary contrast wirh rhe nurse, beholds the god a nd is moved subl imely by a long ing tha t is a ll expectancy and blessed surrender in the cert ai nt y of love. The two pictu res (like the ones in the Fa rnese collection) clearly fo rm a pai r, even if Venus and Adonis is painted on a considerably la rge r canvas than is Danae ( 186 x 2 0 7 cm. as compa red ro t he 129 x 180 c m . of the Danae). 6 The world of both wo rks, the difference in

the canvases nocwichsrnnding, is the same. The figures-all, in appearance, somewhat large r tha n the size oflifecou ld step from one p icture into the othe r w ithout hav ing ro st retch or ro bend low. W hen Titian d ispatched Venus and Adonis ro Philip in London he also sent a letter ro h im in whi ch he speaks of fou r

poesie a nd makes explic it statements

abo ut som e of rhe basic aspects of these ber, 1554 and is sent by Titian ro England fou r works, char is, rhe rwo which now whe re Phi lip, w ho had recen tl y married we re go ing ro be in the possession of Ma ry Tudor, now resided. Ph ili p (DanrJe and Venus and Adonis) and two others on which he was still working ( Peneus and Andromeda [fig ure 6) and Jason r111d Medea). These fou r poesie evid ently we re a ll he contemplated at rhe

Fi gure 6

Titi an. Ptrw11and Andromttia. 01lon canvas, 18 3 x 199 cm . . The Wallace Collecflon. Lo nd on .

J ason. And. wrththe help ofG od , I hope to time. They would , he hoped , handbt able to send ; 011. besrdes these thmgs. a somely deco rate a camermo, a little lllOJt prom u'O rk on ll'hrch I hat't! bten u'O rkwithdrawing room fit for a prince, premg these past ten ;ears and u路hrch. I hope. sumably with one pictu re on each wall . will sholl' ; our /\la;est; all thefo rce of the art Titian beg ins by expressing his delight which T11tan . hrs servant . knoll's hou to that God has bestowed on Philip the emp!IJ) m pam1tng. reign of Eng land and hopes that the king will look at Venus and Ado111s with the same joyous eyes (qrm lre1r occhi) w1th The "most pious work " obviously does not belong to the series and would nor which he had looked at other works by have been shown in the same room w1th him and adds: it. T itian's speaking of It and the powe in , as ic were, che same breach , however, since the Danae which I already sent your does not mean (as has somet imes been Majeuy was seen entirely f rolll thefront I alleged) that he did not ca re about the introd11ced a variation in the other poesia difference in sub ject matter. On the con[Venus and Adonis) and showed thefig11re trary, it may be a sig n that he took the in a reverse view so that the Camerino m which the pictures are to be placed may beco!lle diffe rence fo r granted and looked upon the poesie (or favole. as he calls them on more graciom to the eye. Soon I shall send other occasions) and rhe sacred histories your Majesty the poesia of Perseus and as two very different genres of the arr of Androllleda which will again present a drfpainting in which he strove ro excel - in ferent view and, equally so. Medea and each genre with like concern but also with app ropri ately different effects.

7 The offe r was made ro rhe emperor 's ambassador in Venice, Veic von D ornbe rg, who g ives an accou nr of ic in a lette r co the empe ror, Maxim ili an . The sa le was not effected . See Wechey, 111 , 1975 , 233. For the cexr of the Jeerer see H. von Voltlini , "Urkunden und Regesren aus dem K . u . K . HausHof- und Sraacsarchi v in Wien ," jahrhurh der K11mt-

historiJChen Sammlungen des AllerhOChsten Kai1erhat1JeJ , XIII , i892 ,

8 P: Fehl , "Titian and the

O lympian Gods: The Camerino fo r Philip 11 ," Tiziano e Venezia: Convegno l nternazionale di St11di, Venezia , 1976 , Venice ,

1980, 139- 147 . 9 The heig hr of rhe bull's eye above rhe lower border ofrhe pai nring is 75 cm . and the Cup id's eyes are placed about 28'4 cm. above ir.

xlvii , no.

8804.

Fi gure 7 Ti tian, The Rape of Europa, o il on ca nvas , 178 x 205 cm., Inv. No. P26el , Titian Room , Isabella Scewa n Gardne r Museum.

The camerino of which Titian speaks in his Jeerer to Philip is most likely entirely an invention of Titian's . The very fact that the first picture Titian delivered , the Danae, is significant ly smaller than the subsequent works, which are all of the same size, suggests that it alone (and perhaps a Venm and Adonis march ing in size) was the nucleus of a commission which Titian wished ro enlarge upon. And, indeed, there soon were nor just four pictures in the series bur the six we know. J ason and Medea was abandoned and The Rape of Europa (figure 7) rook its place as a march for Perseus and Andromeda. Diana and A ctaeon (figure 8) and Diana and Callisto (figure 9) followed. In

another letter Titian even speaks of a seventh painting , Actaeon torn by his own Hounds (probably the unfinished Death of Actaeon now in the National Gallery, London) which was never delivered. And much larer, when he wishes to sell another version of the series to rhe emperor in Vienna he includes a Diana and Endymion (lose or perhaps never painted) , but che Danae is not mentioned. 7

le would seem chat Tit ian , as he proceeded with his plans for the series, found he could screech it like an accordion. The more pictures he could add to it the better he would like it , but , of course, the larger the seri es got the less would it suit a camerino. Instead, it would make an excellent sequence in a gallery. There was, however, one optimal moment in his proj ect ions when the six paintings would perfectly have fi lled a camerino comparable to the one T itian established for Alfonso d'Este at Ferrara . I have argued elsewhere chat one long wall of such a camerino (the one which received its light from rwo windows opposite) would have had Venus and Adonis in the center and, in keeping with the co-incidence of painted and real light in the room , Diana and Actaeon on one side and Diana and Callisto on the ocher. 8 Facing Venus and Adonis wo uld

have been the Danae, perhaps (because it is a smaller picture) over a fi replace, and , on the two shore walls, the other two matching paintings, Perseus and Andromeda and The Rape of Europa (fi gu res 1 o, r 1). The bull 's rogu ish eye looking at us out of The Rape of Europa, the delicate flowers on che wreath crowning the bull's brow (Europa unsuspectingly had just placed chem there, a moment ago on the shore), and the fac e chat the li ttle scars dancing above Europa's left hand-the sig n of Taurus-can hardly be discerned if the picture does noc hang relatively low suggests to us chat a viewer's opr imal eye level is nor far below rhe eye of the bull , perhaps on a level with that of Cup id, an assumption that ag rees well with certai n correspond ing derails in the ocher pictures in che seri es, as well as wi th the precedent of Ti tian's camerino for Alfonso d 'Esce. 9 But , and we cannot stress it enoug h , th is well -furnished room , complete in itself, represents on ly a passi ng scare in Titian's chinking about the series. It was never more than a temporary working hypothesis and very li kely was already abandoned in 1559 when Titian either began to paint The Rape of Europa or, after a long inrerval, took it up again. 10 His thoug hts moved from a project for a room with four paintings ro a sequence of mytholog ies chat cou ld be expanded almost ac wi ll ro be displayed in a gallery. Ir is not the room chat matters ro Titi an but che wealth , che variety, and che consonance of his pictures in, he hoped , an ever enlarg ing seq uence of commissions.

10 In 1559 Titian writes ro Philip chac he is worki ng

on cwo poe;ie wh ich he hopes co delive r soon, The

Rape of Europa and The Death of Acraeon (w hich would have become the seventh picrure in rhe series). In a ca merino, if, as

we sugges t , The Rape of Europa was co have been placed opposi re Perse111 and Andromeda. the pai nred li ghr (in correspondence

with the real light falling on the pi cture) wou ld most su itabl y have ente red the painted scene from rig he to lefr, as ir does in Diana andCalliilo. Tirian , how路 ever, prefe rred rhe light路 ing whi ch is simpl y co n路 vemio nal in paintings , from rhe upper lefr. On rhe ge nes is of rhe contrnp路 pou o in whi ch Perseus and Andromeda and The Rape of Europa are joined see Feh l, 1980, 14 3- 146.

What then is the principle of unity in the series' The shifting stages in its development, the rather obvious lack of a "message" speak against the presence of an overriding iconographi c program. The nudes, on the other hand , their g randeur and thei r erotic vividness, their pass ionate as well as their formal contrapposto from pictu re to pictu re give the series the unity and balance that we mig ht perceive in Ovid 's Metamorphoses themselves where tale after tale, in laugh ter and in tears, is developed before us, one leading into the other, in contrasts and completions, each keeping us engaged absolu tely and yet each alrogether a part of t he narraror's skillful web of tales.

section of letters by famous artists so that we may see, says Dolce, that these masters who in the art of painting even triumphed over the masters of antiquity prove that they can also be marvelously successful in the art of the pen - whenever they put thei r minds tO it and take proper care.

His choice of artists and their letters is not acc idental. There is one letter by Michelangelo addressed tO Pietro Aretino, Titian's and Dolce's g reat friend, which is fu ll of praise for Aretino. The next letter is by Raphael t0 Baldassare Castig li one on Raphael's "idea" for the painti ng of the Galatea , a letter we had occas ion t0 refer t0 in part 1 of thi s essay. And t hen fo llow five letters by Titian We see in Titian's series, and probably which , in all likelihood , were composed would see it even better if he had been for him by Dolce himself. 12 Two of these encouraged ro add more pictu res to his are add ressed ro Philip of Spain (includgallery of myt hologies, t he bli ss of love ing the letter about the Danae and the and its sorrows , t he pass ions of gods Venm and Adonis which we have quoted and men stretched tO the "utmost and above), a thi rd, ro Philip's representative are rouched by beauty, pity, fear, and Giovanni Benavides also is concerned laug hter. with the poesia of Venus and Adonis. And , as if this were not enough , at the very It is time now that we listen again t0 end of the book Dolce placed t wo letters Lodovi co Dolce. Our "'Ovid ian" view of by h imself, clearly composed with an eye the seri es has bee n based , by and large, tO publication , on the beauty and digon what the p ict ures show us. It is, nity of t he art of painting. In the first of happil y, subj ec tive but, we hope, not these he compares t he art of Michelanuninstructed in Renaissance practice. gelo and Raphael, fu ll of respect for the Dolce marvelous ly comes t0 ou r aid as a fo rmer, but tO t he advantage of the latfri end of Titian's and promoter of hi s art. ter. In the second letter he contends, l n I 5 54, not long after Titian had sent with the help of a feeling descri pt ion of V<nm and Adonis to Philip of Spain, Titian's Venm and Adonis (it is the most Dolce published a collection of letters of derailed and poeti cally responsive famous men." Thi s work also includes a description by a contemporary of any work by Titian that we have), that even the art of Raphael can be matched, if not outdone, by the art of Titian. "

Letttre di diver1i tccellentm . huomini raccolte da diversi libri: tra lequali Jene leggono molte non piu Jtampa te. Ve nice , 1554. 12

See E. Ti ecze-Con rac , "Titian as a Lecce r Wricer," Art 8111/etin. XXVI, 1944, 11 6 - 123 ; (.

Hope, "Problems of l nrer-

precacion in Tic ian's Erori c Paincings ," Tiziano e Venezia. 1980, 114 .

13 For a cransla ri on of che cwo lette rs see M. Roskill , Dolce's ''Aretino" and Venetian Art Theory of the Cinquecento. New York , 1968 ,20 1- 2 17 . Bor h lec-

cers are firs c publis hed in

Dolce's fi rst edit ion ofche Lettere ( 1554) and not , as is ofren repea ted , in 1559 .

In shore, what Dolce offers us in the Letters of the Most Excellent Men, to the ex tent chat the y concern themselves with arc , is an orchestrated program in prai se of the arc of Titian and , most telling ly, of che mytholog ies he chen was developi ng fo r Philip II . Dolce's letter on Titian'spoeria of Venus and Adonis attempts to bring to life in a painting in words the goddess and the you ch in che fullness of thei r passionate engagement, to paint the delicacy and the beauty of che young

Adonis , the splendor of the goddess of love doting in love, and the sorrow and intensity of her premonition of impending traged y. H e mea ns not to ri va l but co prai se the painter. Noc once does Dolce suggest chat the pictu re is a pare of a series of poerie - ic has to scand as a poeria by itself- no r does he make che slightest all usion to a hidden mean ing or an allegorical one. l e jusc was noc chat kind of picture. The story as he cells ic which is as Titian shows ic - has its own sig nificance as poecry, Ovidian poetry in che sense in which Dolce revived and eel-

Fi g ure 8 Titi an, Drana a nd A ctaeon. o il o n ca nvas, 188x20 6 cm . , Nac ional G all ery of Scod and , Ed inbu rg h , on loan fro m the Duke o f Suthe rl and .

Fi g ure 9 Tician , D iana and Callisto, oil on canvas , 188 x 20 6 cm ., Nar ional Gallery o f Scotl and, Edinburg h , on loan from rhe Duke of Sucherla nd .

ebrared rhe work of Ovid in his Trasformationi. Thar was enough fo r Dolce and , we may presume, fo r Tiri an as well. There is one more lerrer abour arr in Dolce's col leer ion of lerrers. Ir is by rhe peer and humani sr Annibale Caro and is add ressed ro Giorg io Vasari (Rome, May IOrh , 1 548). Caro was secrerary ro Cardinal Alessandro Farnese and an experr on rhe devisi ng of allegorical painted prog rams. Many of his own poems abou nd in finely worked-out references

ro meanings beyond rhe d irecr signifi cance of a word. In facr, one of rhese, in praise of rhe Farnese coar of arms is reprinted in Dolce's col leer ion of leners rogerhe r wi rh a long appe ndix by Caro himself, on the significance of his many allusions. Vasari , as a painter of allegories needs no introduction . Bur not all ofVasari's paintings are so organi zed (as is clear from his own desc riptions of his work) nor are all of Caro's poems , and the lener to Vasari shows, it seems to me, as much as anything we have in rhe Renaissance li terature on arr what was beginning to

be understood as a poesia in the sense in which Dolce uses the word when he describes Titian's Venus and Adonis. Caro may, in face , have been moved to write chis letter because he saw and loved Titian's Venus and Adonis in the collection of Cardinal Farnese. He desi res Vasari to paint for him a picture of Venus weeping over the dead Adon is. Caro hopes chat the pai nter will recreate the story, as much as possible, from the poem ofTheocri cus 14 but , he says, t he invention of the p icture should be Vasari 's own

Caro then goes on co suggest to Vasari not to intertwine the cwo bodies coo much . That would make the group coo intricate for a beaut iful picture. He would rather see

Venus holding Ado11is in her arms and looking al him with that grief with which we see the death of those we love best . ... A11d show, if this is possible, that from the blood roses are born, and from the tears poppies. This and similar inventions occur to my imagination

because in a picture, in addition to beauty, there must be emotion. Without it thefigtms have no life.

for in painting as in poetry one brings forth one's own conceptions and inventions with

greater zeal and love than those of another. As long as you will paint two nude fig11resa man and a woman !for these are the greatest Sllbjects of yourart)-it will befine if yo11 will place them in the poses yo11 think best in the interest of the story. Short of these two principal figures I do not mind whether yo11 add others or not, as long as the figures are not small and crowded in the distance; for it seems to me that a wide, open landscape brings more grace to a pictltl"e and lends relief to the figu res. if you wish to know my i11clination I would say that Venus a11d Adonis afford /IS the pleasure of the two most beautifu l bodies you could paint . .

Bue if Vasari would prefer to paint one fig ure rather than cwo he mig ht choose Leda and the Swan as a subject, or, perhaps, Venus rising from the Sea. Whatever sub ject Vasari picked would be welcome co Caro. He on ly has one requirement . T he pictu re should be painted on cloth and be five spans wide and three spans h igh ." Vasari was so couched by this request chat he not only pai nted che pictu re bu t also d id a match ing one of h is own invention, Psyche looki ng at Cupid who is awakened by a drop of oi l from her lamp. Boch of these pictures are lost but Vasari 's record of chem (i n h is ow n Vita) together with Caro's letter, shou ld help us to look at T itian's poesie for Phili p 11 with a renewed confidence in the obv ious. In a camerino, su rrounded by antique statuary and other works of sculpture and the minor arts , these painti ngs, true co Ovid as they are,

14 He refers ro both T heoc rirns, I dyll xxx 1and Bion' s

Lament for AdoniJ wh ich ge ne rall y was conside red another work

Theoc rirn s.

15 For a mode rn ed ition of che cexc of the Jerce r see

Ann ibale Caro, Lettere Familiari , ed . A . G reco, 11 , Florence, 1959 , 62 -64.

16 Jra li an cranslacion (see Fehl, 19 74). In none of rhe ga lle ri es are rhe pic rnres placed in kee pin g wir h a parri cular iconog raph ic sc heme. The gall ery in che Sa ry ricon incl udes a se ries of loves of rhe god s bu c the onl y lesson rhe na rra co r draws from ir is char love rroubh:s eve n the gods.

Sec W Prin z , D ie Entsteh11ng der Galerie in Fra nkreich 11nd l ta lien, Berl in, 197 0, 18 - 30 . l nrercs ring va ri ati ons ofrhc joini ns of

pai nrings evocari ve of anti quir y wirh rhc di spl ay of cla ss ica l sc ulprn re in ga ll eries , loggie, and camerini. all wirhin rhe immedi arc ra nge ofT irian's con-

cern , were offe red by rhe loggie of the Vari ca n, rhe

17 Wcc hey, 11 1, 1975, 78-84 .

{unfi nis hed) loggia of Ga la-

tea in rhc Vill a Farnesi na (sec pan 1 of thi s essay) , rhc Palazzo de! TCin Man-

18 Among recenr publicarions ch ar should be added ro rhe 8 1b/1 ographual Nore ac rhe end of parr 1 of ch is essay are: C. Hope , Titian , Londo n, 198o and D. Rosand , Titian , New York , 197 8 .

tua and , in Ve nice , rhc

Palazzo G ri mani nea r Sama Mari a Formosa (sec M. Perry, ''A Renaissa nce Showp lace of Arc ," ro appea r in Apollo, 198 1 The l irerarnrc of class ica l ant iqu ity prov ides th ree evoca ti ve desc ript io ns of

picrn rc ga ll eries : Luc ian, The Hall [De domoJ, 22 -3 1, Perronius , Saryr路icon. XXX lll , LXX XVJll , LXXX IX (see also Sary riron, x x 1x ) and Ph ilos cracus rhe Eide r's /magineJ. The lasr was known co Ticia n in an

Di ana and Actaeon

Venus and Adonis

Danae u tndou

/"'P'""

0 1..1.n..1 and Ca llisto

woul d have lived in the spirit of antiquity - not archaeolog ically datable reconstructions but li ving in the freedom and ever new topicality that we associate w it h classical poetr y and that at tends cl ass ica l art as well when it is looked at with longi ng . In a gallery the works would have had t he same effect but in an obviously g rander context. When Ti t ian was in Rome galleries were just be ing introd uced there under the influence of Card inal Alessand ro Farnese, who was one of the g reatest collectors of cl ass ical art t he Renaissance knew. 16 The prospect of a noble gallery in which g reat works of sculpture alte rnate in meas ured rh ythm with evocations of t he poesie of the ancients in the tru t h t hat painting can bestow is worthy of the contemplation both of Ti tian and of a g reat k ing. W hen Titian sent the Danae to Spai n Ph ili p was prince of Spain. When he sent him Venus and A donis (to London) Ph ilip was king of Eng land and it was then , evident ly, that the idea of t he camerino was born in Ti rfan's mind . It was probably after Philip had become king of Spain and the erection of a royal palace seemed imm inent that t he thoug ht of a gallery of poesie, a g rand representational walkway lined with scul ptures, lively and ceremonious at once, sugges ted itself to Titian and to Dolce, w it h all of its obvious advan-

Fi g ure 10 Plan of an hyporherica l ramermo for T iri an's ponu fo r Phil ip (srage 11 ). Adapted from \f1'1hey'1 p/1111 of the ramermo m Ferrara ( \\'4they. 111 , 19 75, hg. 27).

Figu re

Hypocher ica l came ri no for T ician'spoesie for Philip 11 ). (srage 11 ). Dra wing by Theodore 0. Haug.

tages. But such a gallery never was built and T iti an , it appears, never was paid in full fo r his poesie. In the seventeenth century t he paintings were hung variously, often toget her w it h relig ious paintings by Ti tia n and other g reat masters, trophies of art shown as treasures rather t han as component parts of a un ifi ed and yet versatile decorat ive scheme all'antica. 17 The dispersal of rhe series has made us fo rger rhe sense of the fes t ive coherence of these works. H appily, in rhe G ard ner Museum the Iife of the ant iq ue statuary in the courtyard and garden is nor confi ned but pervades t he entire house with irs charm and caresses Titian's The Rape of Europa. 19

W hen we call upon rhe work in the Museum its classical character becomes evident to us gently, witho ut our having to t h ink on it . T he pictu re is life enhancing in irs d ig ni ty and m irt h , and, even thoug h ir is separated from its fellow in t he series, nor at all a puzz le. ' 8

Philipp P Fehl University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

A Note on a Portrait of Madame du Barry

Among the rare obj ects fo und at Fenway Court is a crystal box, the cover of which contains a round miniature (figure 1 ). The half-leng th portrait depicts a woman in three-quarter profile, wearing a white dress, the lace collar of which is ti ed with a blue bow. Her blond , loosely curled hair is partially concealed by a wide brim med, straw hat with feathers , the ends of which fa ll over the front brim . The face, wi th its barely perceptible smi le, is young, the eyes bright , and the model, trad itionally ident ified as Madame Elisabeth of France,' radiates sweetness and charm .

These are not, however, the features of a member of the French royal family but those of Madame du Barry, the last favorite en titre of Louis XV that the anonymous miniaturi st painted. The cover of the box faithfully reproduces a portrait of t he st ill beautiful countess by Madame Vigee-Lebrun, made in 1781 at Louveciennes where Mme du Barry had ret ired after the death of the king (figure 2). 2 Even if in her Souvenirs, written at the end of her life, Mme Vigee-Lebrun confused the dates and number of her portra its of Mme du Barry,' she clearly recalled t he fresh coloring of her model who was st ill only thirty-six (blorchiness wo uld spoil her complexion some years later) and the fac t that she always refu sed rouse rouge, as was the fashion, or pow-

That is , the siste r of Louis xv i , who died on the scaffold in i 794 . The box belonged rn Louis 11 of Bavaria.

The portrait was the sub jeer of an art icl e: M. Roland Michel and C. Bind a, "Un portrait de Madame du Barr y," Revue de /'Art. 1979, no. 46, 40-45.

Fig ure 1 Afrcr E. Vi gee-Lebrun, Portrait of Madam e d11 Barry. diam . 7 cm . , Littl e Salon , Isabell a Stewart Ga rdne r Museum.

Figure

E. VigCe-Lebrun, Portrait of Madame du Barry, I 78 I, oil on canvas, 73.5 x 54 cm ., private co llection, Paris . Figu re 3 E. VigCe-Lebrun , Portrait of /Hada me du Barry. 1782, oil on canvas, 114. 3 x 89 cm., William A . Cla rk Collection, The Corcoran Galle ry of A rt, Washington , D. C.

der her magnificent ash blond hair. We also know, thanks to the Souvenirs and other contemporary memoirs, that she had an ample bosom , and that she li ked co wear, in all seasons, lig ht dresses or

peignoirs, tied wi th ribbons. It is in such attire, wearing a hat in the "style anglais,"' that Mme Vigee-Lebrun painted her for the first time in 1781. This portrait was intended for Mme du Barry 's lover, the due de Cosse-Brissac,'

3 On the portraits of Madame du Barry see the article ci ted above and ). Baillio, '" Ident ification de quelques portraits d 'anonymes de VigCeLebrun aux Etats-Unis ,"

Ga zette des Beaux-A rrs. Novembe r, 1980.

4 See M . Garland , "Rose Be rtin : Miniscer of fashion ," Apollo. Janua ry, 1968 , fig. I O.

as was another in a more elaborate cos-

tume, executed in t he fo llow ing year (figu re 3). This painting, now in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington , D.C., was also thought to be a portrait of Mme Elisabeth until recently identified by J. Baillio. 6 A third li keness of the king 's former favorite was begun by Mme VigeeLebru n in 1789, interrupted by the events of the revolution, and completed upon the artist's return from exile. 7 A

copy of this portrait, most probably the work of Mme Tripier-Lefranc, the artist's niece, is in the collecrion of the Lambinet Museum at Versail les.

2 1

5 In che same yea r, 1781, Madame VigCe-Lebrun painted a po rtrait of CossC- Br issac, as well as "'t ro is teces d 'Ccude pou r M . CossC."

6 Baillio, 1980, fig . 3.

7 This pain~in g is in a private coll eccion , Paris .

a plain tunic trimmed with braid." Mme Vigee-Lebrun painted a self-portrait in 1782 , in which she wears a soft dress of white muslin, set off only by the red ribbon at the coll ar. 12 This, then , is the context of Mme du Barry 's portrait , its exceptional success residing in part in the fa lse simpli city of her toilette as well as in the composition.

Figure 4

J.A . M. Lemo ine,

afr~r

Vigee- Lebrun , Portralf of Madame du Ba rry, 1782,

black chalk , 36 x 29 cm ., private collect ion, Pari s.

Of the three different types of portraits, the most famou s, the most charming, and the most hig hly valued is the one called au chapeau et au peignoir. which Mme Vigee-Lebrun, herself, cop ied in 1787. 8 This success, which we can well understand , is attributable to the personal charm of the model and the consummate achi evement of the portrai t ist , as well as to the taste, new in the 178o 's , for a certai n elaborate simplicity in fe minine att ire. Thus, in the Salon of 1783, Mme Vigee-Lebrun exhibits - then has to wit hdraw, t he publi c is so scandali zed to see a queen dressed in this way - the portrait of Mari e-Antoinette '~n gau!le." A miniature attributed to Boze 9 shows the princesse de Lamballe (and it is of little im portance whether it is she or not ~ it is the clothing chat is of interest here) in a linen dress with a bow and blue belt. Two miniatures by Marie-Gabrielle Capet show Mme Elisabeth and the artist herself in comparable att ire.'째 Already in 1773 Mme Vallayer-Coscer had exhibited at the Sa lon a portrait of her sister in

In face, even apart from the second version of 1787 and the miniature at Fenway Court, there is also a drawing by Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine, a pastellist and student of La Tour, who copied in blac k chalk the 1781 portrait as earl y as 1782 (figu re 4). An oval miniature encrusted with semi-preci ous ston~s and attributed first to H all and then co Lavreince also exists (figure 5). le has even been suggested 13 that the 178 1 portrait was inspired by the miniature and constituted a sort of reprise, twenty years later, of a particularly successful representation of the comtesse du Barr y. This hypo thesis is not consistent wi th the daces of Lav reinte's greatest act ivity nor, above all , with the style of the costume, and must be rej ected. It is, moreover, counter co the accepted procedure: in almost all cases it is the miniaturises who copy large portraits , not the reverse. The examples are innumerable and distinguished. One of the activities of the king's Menus Plaisirs (c harged with court protocol) was to commission mini atures,

reproducing portraits of the royal fa mily, as presents to diplomats or members of the court. Thus , we find Van Loo's portraits of Louis xv and Louis XVI, dauphin ," frequently reproduced , and Nattier's portrait of Marie Leczinska also known in nume rous repli cas on ca nvas.

Mlle Boquet , an artist in the Academie de Sai11t-L11c" and well-known as a miniaturist , made a specialty of the portrait of Louis xv wearing the order of the SaintEsprit , after Van Loo. As for the portraits of Marie-Antoinette that Mme V igeeLebrun painted between 1 778 and 1783, the y served as models for, in turn , Dumont , Sicardi , Campana , Doucet de Surigny, and others whose names have been lost but who drew upon the same sources. 16 It was not only the portraits of royalty, nor even of the favorites that were translated on vellum or ivory. The miniature, toward the last third or quarter of the eighteenth century, became an enti rely separate genre to which the doors of t he Salon de Saint-Luc and that of the Correspondance were open. At the latter, Boquet exhibited many mini at ures in 178r, among them , "two portraits from life and three" after Subley ras, Rembrandt , and Largilli erre. And Dideror was pleased to recall that the miniaturi st Pasquier "painted [him) after a canvas by Madame Terbouche; " " he even added , somewhat fatuously, ''I'm cold l was not at all bad." This example clearly at tests ro the common use of the miniatu re: co render a likeness in an eas ily access ible

Whe reabo uts unknown ;

see Rol and M ichcl and Binda, 1979.

9 Louvre, RF 4969.

See P. de N olhac, Ma da me Vigee-Lebnm , Pari s, 1908, So and P. de Lespinassc, La miniature en Fra nce au xvweme sitde, Pa ri s, 1929, 14 ).

See A . Dori a, Gabrielle Capet, Par is, 1934 , pl.

Lond on.

Wall ace Co ll ecrio n,

XV III , X X l l.

15 II

See M. Roland Mic hel, Anne Valla)'tr-Cos ter. Pari s, 197 0, 20 6 .

Ir should be noced rhac miniaruri sts were muc h more numerous ac the Acadtmie de Saint- Luc than at chc Acadtmie Royale.

Pri va cc co ll ec c1on, Pari s.

See M . Jalluc , Mar1e-A11tomeffeet sespemtres. n.d., 4 1,

56.

Thi s is a porcraic of Diderot in che g ui se of an ancie nc philosopher pai nccd by Mada me D. Terbusch at the rim e of he r stay in Pari s and receptton inco chc Academic in 1767.

and portable format ; in short , the eq ui v-

alent of the phorog raphs that today everyone carries in a waller. This prac-

tice was so common that Mme VallayerCoster, less well-known as a portraitist

Fi g ure 5 An ribuc ed ro Lavreince. afre r Vi gee -Lebrun , Portralf of Mada me du Ba rr). Louvre, Cab inet des Dessin s, RF 50 58 .

than as a sti ll-life painter, copied in miniature, fo r the Marquis de Marig ny, the famous portrait of Mme de Pompadour by Boucher (figu re 6)-it is t rue, of course, that the latter includes fl owers' One should also mention in an account

of eas ily portable mementos of a loved one, a portrait by Roslin in which the model, Mme de Crosne, holds a miniature encircled with gems and showing a small child, presumably her son (figure 7). An anonymous mini atu re reproduces the upper ro rso of Mme de Cros ne (figure 8); the child is nor visible, but one can imag ine a whole play of portraits into depth ; M . de Crosne holding the mini ature of a portrait of his wife, etc. Certain painters - and it is nor by accident that they are the most famous portraitists-seem ro have inspired miniaturists more than others. One need onl y name Nattier and the miniatures based

on his portraits of the queen , as well as the duchesse d 'Orlea ns as vestal virgi n , and Louise-Henri ette de Bourbon-Conti as Hebe," Drouais, with his En/ants de 8 011illon en Savoyards , or portrait of Mme de Pompadour, 19 and , finally, Greuze, Fi gu re 6 A . Vallaye r-Coste r, after Boucher, Portrait of /Hadmne de Pompado11r,

Cramer co ll ect ion , The H ag ue .

Figure 7 Ros i in, Portrait of M a da me

de Crome. Ca ill eux collecti on, Par is.

whose Bacchante, J eune fille en priere, or Belle lessiveme were a heyday for many miniaturists. 20

Bur it is, without doubt, to Mme VigeeLebrun that the palm should be given. Leaving as ide the portraits of the queen , the enormous success of which has been mentioned above, there are her self-porrrait of 1872 copied in miniature by J acq ues Thouron , 21 the portrait of the duchesse d'O rleans reduced by F. So iron , 22 and many others. And , as we are speaking of Mme du Barry, we should note that the portrait in the Corcoran Gallery of Art was also copied in miniature (fi g ure 9). Some of the miniaturists are known: Sic-

cardi or Dumont , copyists of Mme Vigee-Lebrun, and Augustin who was inspired by G reuze. Bur most of them have fa llen into the anony mity of work in which lack of invention is nor contra-

dicted by quality. One would like, at rimes, ro recognize in these medallions

Fig ure 9 After Vi gfe -Lebrun , Por-

trait of Madame du Barry, (Phoco: Witt Li brary, Cou n auld Inst itut e, Un iversi ty of Lond on).

Figu re 8 After Ros i in , Portrait of Madame de Crome.

has never, to my know ledge, emerged from its appropriate anonym ity. On the other hand , the identification of its model associates it with a famous painting and adds a valuable element to the history of the portrait and its reproductions.

and box covers the hand of the inve ntors of the source, and it was not uncommon , a century or less ago, to attribu te a miniature to Greuze or Drouais themselves - somewhat like the famous fan of Mme de Pompadour painted by Watteau that Balzac mentions in Le Comin Pons. Unless these works were g iven to the virtuosi of the genre: Lavreince, H all , Augustin , Fran~o i s Dumont . The miniature portrait of Mme du Barr y in the Louvre testifies with eloquence to the denial of anonymi t y in a work of quality. The one in the Gardner Museum

Let us speculate on this subj ect. Afrer the execut ion of the due de Cosse- Brissac, the due de Rohan-Chabot, his successor in Mme du Barry's favors, retrieved her portraits. He wrote his mistress in September 1793 t hat he had kept one of the small portraits for hi mself: " "it is the orig inal of the one in which you are dressed in a white chemise or peignoir and wear a hat with a feather ... [it) is so lovely, such a good likeness and so lively that I am very happy with ir." Later in the letter, one of the last he wrote to the countess before his ow n arrest and execution, he added: "I want nothing more than to have one that I can carry on me, that would never leave me." Jn all likelihood, it is because of t his wish that one of the mini ature replicas of the 178 1 portrait was made. W ho can say that it is not the one that today adorns the box at Fenway Court '

Marianne Roland Michel

18 Louvre , RF. 30 994 , the miniature of Louise Henriecre de Bourbon-Conti is the wo rk of Cazaubon. 19 Louvre, RF 1 51 . 20

Two ve rsions of the Bacchante are in, respecrively, t he Louv re (RF 30 84 3) and the Wallace Collection , London ; chejeunefi //e en pritre by Lou is- Li e Perrin , as well as rhe Belle /esJiveuu , are ac rhe Louv re (Inv. 32 338 and RF 4291 ).

21 Wa llace Collection, Lond on. 22 Formerly in the Pan hard collecrion . 23 Lecte r cited in all the biog raph ies of Mme du Barr y.

Thi s art icl e has been trans lated from t he French by D eborah Gribbon .

Whistler's Sketch of an Unfinished Symphony

Preserved with leners, phorographs , and memorabilia in the Whistler case at Fenway Court is a small sketch that until recently has gone unrecog ni zed (fig ure 1). The d raw ing was executed in pencil , gouache, and watercolor and is sig ned at the left with Whistler's emblem , the bunerAy. It depicts a g roup of women: a fig ure crouching next co a Aowering plant, ano ther woman at the left bending over as 1f co watch her, and a third standing co the n g ht, a large parasol behind her. The plant rests on an open bench but the rest of the background is indicated onl y summanly and is difficult co read. When or how the sketch entered M rs. Gardner's possession is unknown, but 1t may certainly be identified as a compos1rion rh ar ,

one form or anorher1

obsessed the artist for mo re than a decade. Whi stler was amo ng the fi rst contempoF1 ~u r e 1

James tc edl \Vhmler. Thruf:1x11 rtJ, ea rl y 187o's. pcnCll . gouache, and "1.Jttrcolor on paper, 8 7 x q \cm . Long Galler)'. Isa be lla cewa rc Gardner Museum

rary arr is rs whose '''Ork Mrs. Gardner

collected . They mer in 1879. She was tnv1ted co v1s1t his studio 1n 1884, 1 and tn 1886 , dunng a fo rm1g ht's stay in London , she sac fo r a portrait in pastel and purchased two oc her works : The Violet

ote, also a pastel , and The ll'etl hop, Che/Jea. a sma ll painting . On subsequent trips co Eu rope the Ga rdners usually visited Whistler, whether in London or in Paris . They were enterta ined at his famous .. unday breakfasrs ," and often left his studio with a paint ing or pastel

Harmony

111

Blue and ilt'f:r. Tromâ&#x20AC;˘1//e \\.IS oc111me. Bl11ea11d

acqui red in 1892 ,

dver, Ba11ersea Reach and Lap/J Lawlr in 1895 . 2 The compositions with which chis ske1Ch is associated we re made many years before their meeting. The history of these p ictu res is complicated , and at some points confused, for they belong 10 a period of personal and professional upheaval in Whistler's life. 1 The earliest work to which the gouacht 1s related is The \flh11eSJmphonJ: Tim< C11'/s (fig ure 2). This freely painted od sketch , now in the Freer Gallery of Arr Was hingron , D.C., employs virtual I) the same compos1tton with slight differences - for example, the crouching woman wears a loose-firrii1g gown s1m1Âˇ

Jar co her companions, and the figure a1 the left carries a fan. The semng in the Freer painttng 1s mo re clearly d1scern1blt as a space enclosed by a low wall and b1llowing awnings , w1th a b1t of blue sky v1s1ble between the wall and awnings

The \'(l/}//e S)mphon) : Three C1r/J is one of the so-called 1x Proiects Whistler painted 1n 1867 and 1868 . A enes of oil sketches that , with the except1on of a \len111 . deptcr rwo or more women , the: 1x Proiects fuse ant1que and onental mot1fs (fig ure 3).' The costumes , fans, and umbrellas , as well as the general design of the paintings reAect the profound inAuence of Japanese arr upon

See Whistler's Jeerer ro Mrs. Ga rdner, Mu seu m archi ves. 2

Fo r furth er information on rhese paincings and paste ls see P. Hendy, 拢11ropea11 and American Paintings in rhe Isabella Srewarr Gardner /\路l11se11m. Bosron , 1974 , 289 - 29 3. Mrs. Ga rdne r also acqui red W his d er 's lithographs and etch ings , includ ing che French set , che Thames set , and t he fi rst and second Venice sec - the lase two pu rchased from Wunderlich , New York in 1890. In 1904 H arpe r Penn ingron senr Mrs. Gardner "'some o( J immy's drawi ngs .'" These ce rtai nl y included t he pen ske tches afrer rhe Peacock Room and , perhaps, a drawing o( Six F1g11re1 ma La11dJCape.

T his h isrory is exhausrively documented by A . Mc l aren Young , M . Mac Donald , R . Spencer and H . Miles , The Pau11mg10/)ames /\l cNn// \'(/hurler. New H aven and London , 1980 , 47- 54 . Marga ret Mac Donald, who is prepa ri ng a cata logue o( Whistler's d rawings, pastel s, and wate rcolors, has been mos r ge nerous in sharing her op inion o( rhc Ga rd ner skerch . 4

Figu re 2 The White Symphony: Three Gir/J , 1867/68, oil on millboard , 46-4 x61 .6 cm., Freer Galle ry o( Art , Washington, D.C.

Figu re 3 Symphony i11 Blue and Pmk. 1867/68, oi l on mi ll board, 46.7x61.9cm., Free r Ga ll ery o ( Art , Washingron , D.C.

In addition co The \'(lhrtt Synphony: Three Girl!. rhe Six Projects include Venus, Symphony 111 Green and V10/e1. Variations m Blue and Green. Symphony m Whitt and Red. andS)mphon) 111 Blue and Pmk, all in the Free r Galle ry o( Art. Washi ngton , O.C. See ;b;d .. pl. 66, 48 - ~ o.

A . Mclare n Young , }ameJ

McNeil/ WhiJtler, London, 1960,87.

6 E. R. and). Pennell , The Lifeofjamn McNei/! W hi;tler. London, 1908, 1, 149.

7 A . C. Sw inburne, "Nores on Some Paintings of 1868,'" EJJayJ and St11die1.

London. 1875, 372, 373Pennell , 190 8, I , 148 .

9 W hi stler to Thomas Winans, n.d . , Revillon Collecti on, Glasgow Universi ty Li brary, q uoted in Young

J ameson shared his studio with Whistler Whistler. The women's robes we re eq ually inspi red by H ellenistic scu lpture. for seven months during the winter of (Wh istler's patron, Aleco Ionides, col1867- 68 and recalled the period as an unproductive one for the artist during lected Tanag ra fi g urines, and Whistler himself owned an album fi lled with pho- which he repeatedly scraped down and tographs of the statuettes. ' ) repainted the canvas. 8 Whistler hi mself described the situat ion when writing a friend in 1869 to ask for a loan : The Six Proj ects also mark a significant change in the artist's oe11vre. Just a few yea rs earli er Whistler had been painting I a111 s11re you will sympathize with my anxiwi th Courbet on the French coast. Harety in my work which will not admit of my 111ony in Bl11e and Silver. Tro11vi//e is a prod- being co111ented with what merely 'wo11ld sell' uct of this expedition . Bur by 1867 he -For instance I had a largepict11re of three repudiated reali sm in favo r of the more fig11 res nearly life size fully 11nder wayromantic subj ects and evocative style of indeed far advanced towards completion-the t he Six Proj ects. owner delighted-and everyone highly

Was hi ngton, 0.C. ,

T he Pennells, Whi stler's biog raphers, suggest that the Six Projects were preliminary stud ies for a decorative project commiss ioned by Frederi ck Ley land , the Liverpool shipow ner for whom Whistler later desig ned the Peacock Room. 6 If so, the idea we nt no further. Whistler did , however, develop The White Symphony: Three Girls into a nearly life-size canvas fo r Leyland . We can be certain that Whi stler was working on the larger com position by 1868 because Swi nburne describes it (and the Freer pa inting) in an

quoted in ibid.

essay written in that year:

eta/ . , 198 1, 5 1. IO

Whi stl er co Frede ri ck Leyland , n.d . , Jose ph and E. R. Pennell Collecrion,

Library of Congress, Was hing ton , D.C. , quoted in ibid. II

See Whisrler's leH er co Leyla nd , 4 September 1875, J ose ph and E. R . Pen nell Collecrion, Li brary of Congress,

12 T R . Way, Memories of James AlcNeill W hiffler. the Artist. London and New York,

1 9 1 2,

25, 26 .

13 See Whistler 's lett er to his s iste r-I n- law, quored in Young et al ., 1980, 51 , 52 .

The great pict11re which Mr. Whistler has now in hand is not yet finished enough fo r any critical detail to be possible; it shows already promise of a more majestic and excellent bea11ty offo r111 than his earlier st11dies, and of the old delicacy and melody of ineffable color ... in ... a sketch for the great pict11re the soft bri//iant floor-work and wa//-work of a garden balcony serve . .. to set forth the flowers and fig11res offlowe.-/ike women. 7 Work proceeded slow ly as Whistler strugg led with the canvas. Frederick

pleased with it. -.except myself. - lmtead ofgoing on with it as it was , l wiped it clean, scraped it off the canvass and p11t it aside . .. and now I expect shortly to begin it al/ over again from the very beginning!8 111 with a certai111y that will carry me thro11gh in one third of the time.' 9 A vain hope: Whistler worked on the canvas for the next ten yea rs. In 1872 he ass ured Ley land that "I am well at work at yo ur large picture of rhe three Girls."10 In the fa ll of 1875 Whistler retained a model ro pose nude for all three figures. 11 But by 1878, althoug h it apparently had evolved from the original conception , the large-scale WhiteSy111pho11y was still unfinished . According to a contemporary:

} wt before sending-in timefo r the second Grosvenor Exhibition [r878] he [Whistle,.] had a show day, and many people ca111e tosee his pict11res. There were, I think , only three on view . .. [inc/11ding] the unfinished picture of the 'Three Girls' . .. The figures wereal this ti111e n11de, and I do not think Whistler did 11111ch to them afterwards, so that the pict11re probably never reached the ideal arrived at in the [Freer] sketch.

Whistler seemed incapable of either completing or abandoning The White Symphony. But while he may have worked on little else between 1868 and 1870, the 187o's were not on the whole unproductive years. It was in this decade that he painted the great nocturnes, Nocturne, Blue and Silver, Battersea Reach among them . As Whistler roiled on the troublesome

White Symphony his financial situation deteriorated. He lived well and entertained lavishly throug hout the 187o's. His greatest extravagance was the construction of the White House, an elabo•ate residence large enoug h for an atelier, begun in 1877. But in that same year Leyland , displeased with Whistler's work , paid only half the ag reed amount for the decoration of the Peacock Room , and Ruskin's charge that the artist , ··a coxcomb;' asked "two hundred g uineas for fling ing a pot of paint in the public's face" limited other commissions. Whistler's famous libel suit proved an expensive revenge. In 1879 he was forced ro declare bankruptcy. Virtually all of hi s work , his private collection, the White House and i rs contents were sold to appease his creditors, and he moved ro Venice for thirteen months. The fate of the large White Symphony is a mystery. le has noc been traced to any of the sales that followed che bankru prey although Whistler insisted that it had been among the works carried from the White House. 13 le may, however, exist in

fragmentary form as Girl with Cherry Blossom (figure 4). This picture is an appropriate scale and was certainly cue from a larger composition similar ro the Freer White Symphony: pare of an umbrella is still visible at che right and x-ray

Figure 4

Girl with Cherry Blossom, 1868'7 8, oi l on canvas, 139. 2 x 73. 7 cm., presenc location unknown .

See ibid., 53,54: the firsc owner, Charles McLaren , wrote chat he saw the canvas in Whistler's scud io, "there was a sta nding figure holding the umbrella of w hi ch a portion is left" before che canvas was cue in cwo, and he acqu ired Girl with Cherry Blossom ac che cime of Whiscler's bankruptcy. But accord ing to his daughter-in-law the picture was pu rchased from Whiscler in 1874.

15 I bid. , 43.

16 Ibid. , 47= none of the accounts includes a description of The White

Symphony.

Figure 5

Pink and Grey: Three Fig ures, 18 79 , oil on canvas , 139 .7 x 185Acm. , Tate Gallery, London .

examination revealed part of a figure standi ng to the left." The young woman in Girl with Cherry Blossom is in the same setting and pose as the central figu re of the Freer \Vhite Symphony but is dressed only in a transparent drape- reflecting, perhaps, Whistler's work from a nude model. Even the d isposi ti on of the Six Projects is not enti rely clear. At t he time of the bankruptcy, Thomas Way, Whistler's friend and printer- also one of his chief creditors - pu rchased a number of wo rks, including the Six Projects." Contemporary accounts of paintings seen in

Whistler's studio after his ret urn to London suggest that he retrieved five of the Six Projects- all except the small \Vhite

Symphony. 16 Five of the Six Projects (again , not The \VhiteSymphony) were certai nl y in Whistler's possession by t892 for in that year he sent them to be cleaned and varnished. 17 Whistler sold these five oil sketches to Charles Lang freer in r903. The \VhiteSymphony was exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists in 1887-88, but it was Way who sold the picture to Freer in 1902, indicati ng that he retained ownership after 1879.1â&#x20AC;˘

In 1879 Whistler painted replicas of some of the paintings about to be sold as the resu lt of his bankruptcy, presumably so that he could continue work on the compositions. On 22 March 1880, he wrote his sister-in- law from Venice: "on

one of the last days in the White House I painted a rough copy, of the 3 gi rlson the same size canvas ." 19 This third ver30

sion of the composi tion, entitled Pink and Grey: Three Figures, is now in the Tate Gallery, London (fig ure 5) 20 . It is impossible to say how closely, except in size, Pink and Grey corresponds to che lose version of The White Symphony. le certainly differs from che Freer painting. Like che Girl with Cherry Blossom, che figures in the Tate canvas are nude or wear transparent gowns. The rig ht hand of che crouching fig ure does not extend beyond the plane as it does in che Freer painting or the Girl with Cherry Blossom. Details of setting and accessories also have been changed: there are no longer blossoms at the left and rig ht of t he com posit ion , che left figu re does not carry a fan, nor the woman to the rig ht a bas ket. Pink and Grey: Three Figures seems tO have sati sfied Whistler even less t han its predecessor. He made every effort ro block its sale in 189 1, going so far as ro write a letter ro the Morning Post declaring the picture

Fig ure 6

Three Figures, detail o f fig ure 1 , e nlargement of bur ce rA y s ig nature .

The owne rs hip of Pink and

G rey: Three FigureJ was also

17 See Whi s tl e r's let te r co hi s

res rorer, S. Ri chards , quoted in ibid. 18

a work long ago barely begun, and thrown aside for destruction. . I think it not only just to myself to make this statement, but right that the public should be warned against the possible purchase of a picture in no way representative, and, in its actual

condition absolutely worthless.

Where, then , does the Gardner gouache fie inro this complicated seq uence '" Its butterfl y signature is a cancali zing clue (figure 6). Whistler began ro sig n his works wi th a st yli zed butterfl y by 1869. The appearance of t his signature changed

Exhi bi ted as Symphony m \Vhite and Red. Young er al. ( 1980 , 43) sugges r th at

beca use Whi sde r ex hi bited rhe paintin g he may have retrieved ir by th is time from Way. Whi stl e r could , howeve r, have borrowed the pi c tu re fo r the

exhib iti on. Ir seem s un li kely that if it were in hi s possessi on he would not have had ir cl eaned and va rn ished with the or he rs in 1892.

19 Whi stle r to Mrs . W ill iam

Wh iscler,

March,

1880, Rev illon Collec t ion , Gl asgow Uni ve rs it y Li brary, q uoted in1 b1d .. 52 .

a subjecc o f di spure. Le yland cl aim ed chac it was che paincing he had com mi ss ioned-a nd adva nced Whi s cle r money agai nsc so chat he was che rig htful ow ner. Whi sd e r in sisted chat che p ict u re was pa inred afce r bankru ptcy and so be longed co him . The man e r was dec ided in fa vor of Le yl and but it is nor cc rcain chat chc ca nvas was ever g iven ove r co him . Jes ne xc recorded appearance is in 1886 ac che Live rpool Arr G alle ry and by 189 1 ir was in che possessio n o f Alfred Chapman who o ffe red ic fo r sa le rhroug h Oowdeswe ll in London . Seerbid., 52 , 53.

is reduced to a transparent drape- similar ta that found in the Girl with Cherry Blossom and Pink and Grey.

Figure 7

Nude girl leaning fo rward, ca. 1871f72, blac k and

whice chalk on paper, 3 1.2x20.7 cm., Huncc r路 ian Arr Gallery, Universicy of G lasgow.

Morning Po1t. 27 July 1891, quoced in ihid., 53. 22

Morri s Cane r made an inventory of che Wh isde r case someti me after he beca me d irccror in 1924 . One ent ry of che inventory reads: "C rayo n skecch, made wh ile ca lling on Mrs. Ga rdne r ac he r horel in Pari s, & give n to her by Whis d e r." (W histlir and Mrs. Ga rdne r we re in Paris ar rhe sa me rime in 1888 and several rimes du ring rhe 189o's.) If rhis note does refe r to t he gouac he it is mis raken in at leas e irs desc ri ption of rhe medium . Ca rte r's inve n路 tory of the case is demon路 srrably unre li able in oche r in scances: fo r example, he wrote ch ar Mrs. Ga rd ne r sa id Whisrler gave her the Peacoc k Room skecc hes; they were , in fan , a gift from Harpe r Pennington (sec note 2).

every few years so it is poss ible ta establish an approx imate date that the work was sig ned. The emblem on the Gardner sketch , though faded , indicates a date not earlier than 1885 , nor later than 1889. 23 The fl aw in this bit of evidence, of course, is that Whistler may have sig ned the sketch years after it was completed. (This is precisely what he did , at Mrs. Gardner's reques t , for the Harmony in Blue and Silver, Trouville and Nocturne, Blue and Silver, Battersea Reach.) Signed between 1885 and 1889, the sketch itself could have been executed any time between 1868 and 1889. Further comparison to other versions of the composition narrows this range. The

gouache is closer to the Freer White Symphony than to the later Tate Pink and Grey. Two of the figures in the Gardner sketch are dressed as they are in the Freer painting and the woman ta the rig ht st ill holds a basket. Perhaps of g reater importance, the distinct yet fluid , wide st rokes that defi ne the fig ures and the fall of drapery in the gouache are simi lar to those in the Freer White Symphony. There are, however, differences: the fan is missing

and the garment of the crouching figu re

The Freer Symphony in White, Pink and Grey, and Girl with Cherry Blossom do not exhaust the possibilities for comparison. Numerous small works are related to this seri es. Some are executed in chalk, others in pasrel or ink, but virtually all of them concentrate on only one or two figures, extracti ng them from the setting (figu re 7)." There is only one other compositional sketch: a pen drawing in the Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow (figure8). T he Gardner gouache is closer to this pen sketch than ta any other version of the compos ition . Both are related to the Freer painting more than to that in the Tate. Further, there are features shared by the pen sketch and the gouache that are absent from the other versions of the composition. In both , the awning in the background continues ta the left, a flowering branch is visible at the left but not at the right, the umbrella is centered behind the fig ure rather than tilting to cne side, and the hands of the crouching woman do not extend beyond the trunk of the flowering plant as they do in The White Symphony, Girl with Cherry Blossom, and Pink and Grey.

On the basis of its graphic style and butterfly signature, the pen sketch is securely dated to the early 187o 's ." It seems most likely, then, that the gouache also dates from the early 187o's, shortly after the Freer painting, when Whi stler was actively working on the large version of The White Symphony. We cannot, however, entirely exclude the possibility that the gouache was produced later, sometime before 1889 , and only inspired by the pen sketch (which he presumably retained in his possession) or by the Freer painting which was exhibited in 1887-88.

to sign it . She demonstrated a similar desire for works lying about a studio some years later when she carried away the plaster casts that Sarge nt used in his decoration of the Boston Public Library. Thus , this small sketch, surrounded by Whistler's letters , photographs-even his walking stick- merits close attention. It not only displays the arti st's talent for capturing an image in the bri efest , most evocati ve terms , ic summari zes an idea that alternately com pelled and frustrated Whistler, and to which he devoted a significant part of his ca reer.

It may well be that on one of her visits to Whistler's studio in 1886 or 1888 , the small sketch caught Mrs. Gardner's eye and she swept it up, asking the artist 23 Margaret MacDonald disag rees (lener of 6 Novem ber I 980), proposing a wider range: 1885-1895 .

She also favo rs a later date for the gouache itself, ca . 1891 , suggesting that Whistle r may have been inspired by having seen rhe Tate painting ac Dowdeswell . 24 See Young era/. , 1980, 52

for references to oche r related works . 2j

lhid.; MacDonald , Jenee of 6 November 1980.

Figure 8

Study for Symphony in White: Three Gir/J . ca. 187 112, black ink on paper, 18-4x21.8cm. , Hunre rian Art Gallery, Universi ty of Glasgow.

Deborah Gribbon

S. Engracia Revisited

The oeuvre of the most individualistic of Spanish fifteenth-century painters, Bartolome de Cardenas, called Bermejo, is relatively modest. There are a few self. contai ned sing le panels , but most of the retables produced by the artist survive on ly in fragmentary form. For this reason , t he remains of the S. Engracia Retable are particul arl y interesting, for they give us the closest indication of what a fullscale al earpiece by the arcisc must have looked like. Though dis man tled and dispersed, enough of this retable has come down to us to permit a reconstruction of its original appearance. The large central panel is in che Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (fig ure r) , ' the Crucifixion (figure 2), as well as a mutilated side panel , the !111prison111en1 o/S. Engracia (figure j), and chc com piece banco (predella) are rn the Museo Colegial ofDaroca. Another side panel , depicting the Arrest o/S. Engracia (fig ure 6) is in San Diego, and the Museo de Bellas Artes of Bilbao has a thi rd lateral , the Flagellation of S. Engracia (figu re 7).

Fig ure

Barcolome de Cardenas, S. Engracia, Retable of S. E11graoa, o il on panel : 164.2 x 72.5 cm ., image: 164 x 69 c m . Inv. No.

P1 9e25, Tapes try Room , Isabell a Scewa rc Ga rd ne r Mu se um .

In an earlier article, I discussed the problems of provenance and patronage of the altarpiece, locali zi ng che commission to a merchant of Daroca, Johan de Loperuelo, and suggest ing chat ic was painted before 1477 and intended for a side chapel of t he Franciscan monastery of the same city, which was destroyed in r835. ' It was probably during che latter year, whe n due co exclauscracion edicts and anticlerical ri ots many Spanish monaste ri es we re burned and looced, that the S. Engracia Retable was broken up and sold . 3 As was so often the case, most of the elaborate frame which housed the al earpiece was evidentl y destroyed at this time.

P. H endy, Europea n and There have been several arcemprs co Crucifixion and central image. A second American Paintings in the determine the retable's orig inal format. hypothesis was put forth by the Span ish /1ahella Stewart Gardner Everyone agrees about the basic arrange- scholar Juan Francisco Esteban Lorance, Museum , Bosrnn , 1974 , 23,24. ment of certain parts of an altarpiece, who suggested that there were actually six narratives, three co each side, stacked constant in virtuall y all retables from 2 eastern Spain. The banco formed the base one on cop of another in two vertical J. B. SobrC, "BarcolomC de Ca rdenas, che Pi edar of on which the body of the retable res ted . strips.' Johan de Loperuclo, and The center of the altarpiece was occupied painting at Daroca (A raby a formal effigy, in this case From an intense stud y of retable produc- gon)," The Art 8111/etm. 1977, 496-500. S. Engracia. Above this would have bee n tion and structu re in Aragon during the last half of the fifteenth century, I believe the Crucifixion. Conflict arises mainly 3 about the number and disposition of the t hat both of these reconstructions are I bid.. 496. erroneous. A compa ri son of incacc reralateral narrative panels, which wou ld have flanked effigy and Crucifixion. bles from the area around Daroca, as well 4E. Young , Barrolomt Beras clues that dimensions and frame fragme;o: The Great HupanoFlemiih Master, London, ments from t he extant panels of the The two latest hypothetical reconstruc1975, 60,120. S. Engracia Retable can give us, will enations , both made in 1975, refl ect this disagreement. Eric Young, in his mono- ble us co reconstrucr its orig inal appea r5 J.). Esteban Loranrc, ance (d iagram). graph on Bermejo, suggested that t he Mmeo Colegial de Darora. altarpiece originally had eig ht narraMad rid , 1975, 26-29. tives, fou r on either side of t he central image.' His reasons for this assumpt ion were that he detected a general compositional movement from left co rig ht in the Arrert, Imprisonment and Flagellation , which suggests co him that all th ree would have been placed co the left of the central image. H e also felt (thoug h he offers no reasons co substanti ate it) that the banco should not be wider than the width of the retable's body, so that t hree panels across would be coo narrow. He therefore proposed two vertical rows of two panels each on each side of the

Fi gu re

BarrolomC de Cardenas,

Cruafixion. Retahleof S. Engracia. oil on panel (includi ng frame andpo/sera): 115.5 x 100.8 cm., im age and pinnacles : 98 x 76 cm., Museo Colegia l , Oaroca, ( Phoro: Archive Mas).

100. 8-

6.j

r 94

279 .7

- - - - - - - - - - 22s- -

Diag ram

Retahle o/S. Engracia, auchor' s reconst rucr ion . (D ime ns ions in

ce nti mete rs) Fig ure 3

Scud io of BarrolomC de Ca rde nas, Retable of SS. Ma rtin . Syfoe!terand SuJana ,

Daroca.

Museo Colegial ,

The beautiful and elaborate frames wh ich surrounded and separated the painted porti ons of Spani sh retables were an integ ral part of thei r planning. Aragonese cont rac ts d uring the las t half of the fi fteenth century often spent a large part of their rexr on fra ming specifications: the fi rst contract for Bermejo's own Retable ofS. Do111i11go de Silos (1474), also made for Daroca , is a prime example of t hi s. 6 Thoug h onl y t he central effi gy of this altarpiece survives , a reasonably complete example wi t h much of its orig inal frame from Bermejo's own stud io ca n sti ll be found in Daroca, 路 the Retable o/SS. Marti11 , Sylvester a11d S11sa11a (fig ure 3) in the Museo Coleg ial. For the most part , however, rhe delicately carved tracery of tubas (canopies) and cha111bra11as (arched pinnacles) placed over panels, as well as rhe pillars separating them , we re usually the first parts of the retables to suffer the ravages of rime. They were often completely stripped away or mutil ated when re ra bles were forcibly removed from their orig inal sites

and broken up for sale. In addition , the painted panels t hemselves were often cut down . The painted image did nor extend to rhe edge of the panel; strips on either side were left pl ain or painted black . These strips were covered by g ilded pill ars. The Gardner S. E11gracia had almos t all of these neutral strips cut away. 7 The !111priso11111e11t ofS. E11gracia suffered worse: the lower third of its surface was sawn off. Ir: spite of damage, each panel of the S. E11gracia Retable has indications which , when stud ied indi vidua lly and then comparatively, allow us to make some g uesses about their original measu rements, how they fir together, and what their framing elements looked like. The beautiful ba11co survives intact. Five images, S. 01111phri11s, S. Peter Mozo11zo (or Valerim), the Res111Tectio11 (fig ure 4), S. Bra11lim and S. Catheri11e o/Sie11a are

all pai nted on a single long panel. They are separated by narrow pillars and each is topped by a gi lded archet, a small gothic arch decorated with delicate tracery. Unlike the chambranas and tubas found in the body of the retable, these archels appear to have been g lued on the panels before the preparatory coat of gesso was put on prior to painting . The entire banco is enframed by a gi lded heavy mould ing (the esbasa). A brief glance ar the dimensions of components of the banco will indicate how much is occupied by framing elements. The entire width of the banco is 225 cm . , its total height , 72 cm . The pai nted surface of each panel is 38 cm . wide by 53 cm . hig h. Thus 19 cm . of the total heig ht is taken up by archel and moulding, while 33 cm . of the total width is ei ther pillar or moulding (nearl y the wid th of one painted panel' ).

M. Serrano y Sanz , "Oocuheig ht is taken up by frame and polsera mencos relativos a la pin (the latter projects 12-4 cm . on either rura de Arag6 n du rance el side). There is clear ev idence of a chamsig lo xv ," Rtvuta dt arch1 brana orig inall y enfram ing the cop of t he 1101, bibliotÂŤ aJ, y muuoJ, 19 16, 282 - 284 . Cmcifixion. As in ocher panels chat we re p laced at the cop of retables , the area 7 above the chambrana was probably orig i- N ew strips were later added co each side. nally covered with a piece of brocade.

The lmprisonmenl ofS. Engracia appears to be the victim of a botched restoration, for not only was it cut (its total heig ht is now 84 .5 cm .), but someone evidently cri ed to exrend the com position over the spaces where its chambrana was pried away (figu re 5). Jn spice of rhis, the shape of the chambrana , si milar in shape ro the one over the Crucifixion, can aga in be eas il y reconstructed.

Fi g ure 4

The Crucifixion is particu larl y valuable for reconsrrucrion clues, as it is the only panel flanked by the remai ns of pillar pinnacles , and it also has a section of the retable's polseras or guardapolvos , the socalled "dust guards" -painted, slig htly tilted outer enframements wh ich su rrounded the entire body of the altarpiece (figu re 2). The surviving polsera runs along the top of the panel , and about halfway down its sides. At its lower edges it is cut diagonally ; thi s indicates where the polseras above the lateral panels would have joi ned it . As we shall see, this will help us to determine t he total heig ht of the retable's body. The Crucifixion is 76 cm . wide, including t he space occupied by the pinnacles , and 98 cm . hig h . The rest of its total 100.8cm . of width and 11 5.5 cm . of

Banolome de Ci rde nas, Resurrtcllon, sen ion o ( che

banco, Rt tablt o/S. Engra mt . oil on panel, Mu seo Coleg ial , Oaroca, ( Phot0:

Archivo Mas).

ChambranaJ could occu r o n

a lowe r reg1s rer of narrao ve panels , bu r on ly 1f no t11ba1 were present. Co nve rsely, a// laceral panel s cou Id be copped by 111ba1 (for example in specificati ons 1n rhe conuacr o f Maro n Bernac's Rnablt of All Sam/J for Zaragoza Cathed ral of148 7 , see errano y Sanz , Rnm ta dt arrhwo1 . . .. 19 15, 440-44 3. However, 1f tuba and chambrana were comb1 ned , rhambranaJ were confined co che upper reg1scer of the recable, as 1n Mi g uel Ximenez' Rttabltof S. Fabian . concran ed fo r che Parish hurch ofPan 1za 1n 14 75 (Serrano y Sanz, Rn1iJ1a dta rrh1t'OJ .. 19 14 , 4 36-4 37).

Since recabl e pill ars were cuscomanl y uni fo rm 1n w1dch , eac h woul d cherefore have bee n 7 5 c m

Fig ure 5 Barto lome de Cudena.s,

Tht l mprllo nmtnf of S. Engrana , Rttablt of S. E11grana . o il o n panel 84 . 5 x 6 2 cm . im age: 59 x 52 cm ., Musco Co leg 1al , Daroca , ( Phoco: Arch1 vo M as).

The lmpmo11men1 is intact at the sides and chi s g ives cl ues co the origina l width ofrheorher late ral narrat ives . Ir is62cm. wide, while the actual painted surface occup ies onl y 52 cm . The balance was Jefr un painted, and the pai nt itself extends very unevenly along these neutral stri ps , indicating that they would be masked by the divid ing pillars. The Arre.JI o/S. E11grarra was also cut, 1n this case on the rop and sides (figure 6). It presumably occupied an upper space in the alra rp1ece, for it bears traces of a chambra11a . the framing device normally resmcted ro rhe upper regisrer of retable panels . 8 This chambra11a is virtually 1denC1 ca l ro char of the lmpmom11en1 in both shape and width , rhoug h ICS pinnacle has bee n cur off. Ir 1s presently 97. 5 cm . high , of wh ich 92 cm . 1s painted su rface. ince the upper porrion of the

lmpmo11111en1 is intact , and the painted surface of the Arresl is quite well preserved , we can reconsrrucr the origi nal meas urement of both panel s by adding the heig ht of the coral painted su rface of the latter co chat of the chambrana and brocaded inserr of the former. We cited the surviving heig ht of the l111prisonment at 84 . 5 cm . Jes painted su rface occupies 59 cm. , thus the area of chambrana and brocade covered the remaining 25.5 cm. If we assu me that the painted composition of the !111pmo11ment was orig inally 92 cm . like the San Diego Arrest, then its orig inal height, including framing elements , would have been 117. 5 cm . Presumably this would have been the origi nal heig ht of the complete Arrest as

well , if we assu me a similar measurement for ir cruncared rap. The Arre.JI of . E11g,.,,rra's painted surface is actually a b1t narrower than the I111pm011111ent. on ly 49 cm. , and its unpainted side smps have been cu t as well , fo r the complete panel now measures on ly 54 cm . But a difference of 2.5 cm. of painting on e1ther side wou ld have appea red negligible when the complete rerable was asse m bled with superimposed

columns, as ca n be seen in our reconsrrucrion. Unlike t he !111pmo11111ent and An路est. the Flagella11011 o/S. E11gracia is rectang ular in shape (figu re 7). The presence of a flat top rather than an arched one suggests char this pa nel was intended for the

lower rier of laceral narratives, and ir would have been crowned by a tuba-

Fig ure 6

Bart o lo me de C.udcnJs,

Tht A rrtJ I

o/ 5 E.nxrafla

RttabltrJ/S. Enf,rdtta.

01!

on pa nel 97.5 x ~4 cm,

im age: 92 x 19 c.m , Sa n Di ego Muse um of Arc Fi gu re 7

BJrtolomc de <...t rdt"n.u, TM r la1.tila11&n "! 5 En1,r<.1c1a Rttahlt of S fnf. rat1a oil on pJn<:l 94 x ~2 cm 1mJge 92 x ~2 cm , Musco de Bdbs A rte~ Balb.10. cPhow An.h1\o 1't.u>

a ca nopy- like affa ir of goch1 c rracery racher chan a chambrana . Unlike che chambrana, which 1s g lued or nailed to che panel surface, che 111ba pro1e cs away from che panel su rface and 1s nailed ro ics edges or ro a na rrow smp above che panel. The w1d ch of che Flagella1w1. now red uced ro pa1nred su rface only, 1s 52 cm ., and once again suggescs che rrimming of che sides . Jes he1 g hc 1s 94cm . The large cenrral panel 1n che Ga rdner Museum has also suffe red some reduccions (fi g ure 1). le prese nd y meas ures 164 .2 cm . in heig hc , and in w1dc h , 69.5 cm ., wich an add ic ional 3 cm . of added srrips on che sides . Since che Gardner panel was origi nall y placed below che Crucifix1on , ic woul d have had ro have confo rmed ro che laue r in wid th in order ro make up an harmonious cencer srrip (or casa) in che rerable. Thus che S. Engracia effi g y roo muse have orig inally had a widch of abo uc 76 cm . le roo is recrangul ar, suggescing char " also would have had a 111ba over ic.

All of chese calculaoons of miss ing pJrtS enable us ro make some intelligent g uesses as ro che orig inal appea rance of che . E11grana Rett1hle, since we ta n now approximate width and he1g h1 of panel , as well as frame derail s, and thu Jrm t ac reasonable rocafs fo r 1he d 1mens1on of che whole alra rp1 ece (fig ure 8). The overall w1dch of che recable ta n be ligu red as foll ows . Each side sm p would have been close co 62 cm wide, while the cenrral casa has been esomated ac 76 cm Thi g ives us a rocal width of 200 cm . or chis roca l, abo uc 170 cm . would have been pa1nred su rface (allowing fo r slig ht d ifferences 1n widt h among the panels), che remaJ ning 30 cm . would have been caken up by che four p illars supe ri mposed over che edges and 1oins of che panels. 9 Add che approx1mace w1dch of che polseras ac 12 .4 cm . each side, and we have a rora l of 224 .8 cm . fo r che eno re w1d ch of che recable.

top of the Crucifixion. Further, if we subtract 62 cm . from the total height of the central casa, we arrive at a heig ht measurement for the sides of 2 17. 7 cm. (including the polsera)-very close indeed to what we calculated for chem' If this is so, then Esteban Lorante's theory of three panels to each side is impossible, for then the sides of che rerable would be substantially hig her than its center. 10

Fi gure 8 Retable o/S. Engracia . auchor's reconsrruccion.

The height varies wit h the d iffe rent pans of the altarpiece. The central casa of S. Engracia and Crucifixion (with polsera) is 279 . 7 cm. The side measurements are by necessity approximate, since we are estimat ing the total heig ht of the upper narratives ac r 17.5 cm . If we add the latter figure to the 94 cm . of the lower panel(s), and approximately 6. 5 cm. for the upper polsera, we arrive at a tota l of218cm., or61.7 cm. lower than the central casa. We would expect che heig ht of the laterals to correspond to the point where the surviving polsera is cut off at the sides of the Cmcifixion , which is in fact, about 62 cm. from che

We have seen from calculations of the width that at 224.8 cm. , the body of the retable, with polseras, just about equals the 225 cm. of the banco. Althoug h the banco is wider than the body of the retable without the polseras, chis is fa irly frequent in Aragon. The Retable of SS. Martin , Sylvester and S11sana's banco is slightly wider than the body of the altarpiece. Bancos which are even wider in relation to the body of the retable are not unusual, however, as in che case of the Retable of the Coronation of the Virgin by the Master of Florida in Teruel Cathedral (figure 9). " Thei r construction as a self-contained box housi ng a series of small paintings , and their heavy frames, make them a physical and liturgical base on whi ch che retable's body rested (indeed the word banco translates as "bench"). Such a function makes Young's reconstruction of the recable improbable, for if we add two more lateral casas of 62 cm . to the width, we would have a very wide body of 348.8 cm. resting on a base of on ly 225 cm.-noc only precarious in che case of the function of the retable, but not in conformity with the aesthetics of the region. 12 Our reconstruction of the S. Engracia Retable (figure 8) which shows a rectangular altarpiece embellished with chambranas,

111baJ and pi liars, resting on a sol id Iy framed banco, puts Bermejo's work into a solidly Arago nese context. This is also borne our in the artist's use of haloes of raised rings, unusual for him , but quire usual for Daroca . The missing pa rts of the polseraJ would have bee n ado rned with fig ures of prophets, much like those surroundi ng the Cruafixron, and chat is the Arago nese t radi tion as well .

f igu re 9 Master of Florida, Rtra blt of tht Corona11on of tht V1 ,.g1n , Teruel achcdral

Esteban Lorant e ( 1 97~. 27) seems co have assumed chat the d 1mens 1ons of the l mpr1Jonmtnt were the same also for che A rrt1r and

Flagtlla11on

Onl y cwo quest ions about t he original re table remain . One concerns the placement of the !111prison111en1 pa nel. According to the story of Engrac ia's mart yrdom , she was arrested by Dac ian when she entered Za ragoza , and was t he n imprisoned . One would thus expec t t he Arrest of Engracia to have been placed ro the vi ewer's left of che Crucifix1on, and the !111prison111en1 to the right, if we read the narrative sequence from left to rig ht in hori zontal zones . The l111pmon111en1 . however, has its un pai nted strip over the entire leng th of the panel on its left side, ind icating chat a pillar wou ld have been placed over it extend ing rig ht to t he top of the panel. There is no such st ri p nex t to and above the cha111brana to t he rig ht , just a strip starting below it. Bue the column pinnacles remaining ac t he sides of the Crucifixion would also have acted as dividers between it and the upper side narratives. Therefore, their unpai nted strips would have had to have been at their outer edg es, since they shared t he inner pinnacles with the Crucifixion . The Arrest has been cut at the top, so there is

Jn hig h alt ar retables of eas tern pain , banroJ also ~rfo rm ed

a luurg 1ca l

funcu o n rhe ir cente rs were occupi ed

by a r a~ r足

nacle whi ch held rese rve

hosu 12

Jc was us uall y o nl y in hi g h alt ar recab les 1n Aragon (thoug h more frequendy 10 Caral on1 a) char ba nro1 were someomes subsun-

no cl ue as to which , if any, side had traces or indicanons of pinnacles, bur the blank scrip on t he l111pmonmen1 clearl y imp lies a posi tion to the left of the Cr11cifix1011 , t hus t hrowi ng che story our of order, if we we re to read che story in t he modern sense from left to rig ht. Bur can we be certain chat fi ftee nth -centur y Aragonese arti sts and their patrons conceived of thei r recables wi t h the narra[ives arranged in rhis sequence?

Apparently sometimes t hey did , but an examinati on of ex tant retables shows chat frequently they d id noc. Rarely does a retable contract from Arago n specify placement of the narrati ve panels around the central image in any sequence-indeed they seldom spec ify subj ect mac-

oall y narrower ch an che rerable body, bu r ch is was because chey we re Rank ed by paint ed doors . us ually Pete r wHh imag es of and Paul , wh ic h made up the d iffe rence in lateral space be twee n wi dt h of rcca ble body and ba nco.

It seems, then , that in the Crown of Aragon at lease , fifteenth century painters and patrons had a much more casual accicude toward che ordering of narratives than we have today. Thus che apparent "reversa l" of che positions of the Arrest and Imprisonment panels of the S. Engracia alcarpi ece is less st range than would first appear.

The other riddle is the identity of che m issing lower narrative. Presumably ic would have shown yec another episode of Engracia's long and arduous mart yrdom , but chat is all chat we can g uess. Figure

Maste r of Mo rara, Retable of the Virgin, Merropo liran Muse um of Arr , New York .

ter beyond naming the saint and g iving The rich architectural frame enhances the number of ystorias (story panels) and unifies the paintings and minimi zes req uired. Often narratives are arranged the discrepancies of perspective within che ind ividual panels. We so often study to read vertically, top to bottom , as in the Retable of the Epiphany by Tomas Bermejo's style by dissecting his paintings ouc of concexc. Taken as an entity, Giner in the Museo Diocesano, Calacayud . O ccas ionally they read verticall y che S. Engracia Retable reveals the from bocto.n to top as in the Retable of painter's g reat genius in visuali zing and S. Thomas by che Mascer ofMoraca in che carryi ng out a work of many interrelated Museo Coleg ial of Daroca, and in a secpares. ond recable accribuced to che same artist, now in the Mecropoli can Museum of Arc Judith Berg Sobre University of Texas at San Antonio in New York, dedicated to che Virg in (fig ure 10 ). Ochers, such as che Retableof SS J usta and Rufina in the chu rch of che same name by Domingo Ram and Juan Rius , and a sixtee nt h-century Retable of the Virgin by an ano nymous Aragonese anise in che Museo Colegial, Daroca, seem to follow no particu lar orde r at all. Since some of che smaller recables have more than one narrative painted on a sing le wooden panel, chis variety of arrangements of narratives cannot be d ismissed merely as lacer reshuffling of panels when che al earpieces were restored or moved.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Incorporated Fifty-sixth Annual Report for the Year Nineteen Hundred and Eighty

Bronze bea r, Chi nese , Han dy nasty, ca. I ce nru ry B.C., gi lt bro nze, H . 15.5 cm., Inv. No. S 15w15, Room of Ea rl y Italian Pai nr ings. O ne of a pai r treated in

1980.

Report of the President

At t he Gard ner Museum nothing may be changed. The bui ld ing and t he collection form an integral work of art that will always be kept just as Mrs. Gardner left it. People sometimes wonder whether without the exc itement of new acquisitions, t he opportu nity to build new galleries and rearrange the exhibitions, t he staff fi nds itself tread ing water in an eddy, lacki ng challenges and sti mulation. Noth ing could be fa rther from t he trut h . Consider the problem s that arise in preserving , repai ring, restoring pai ntings, drawings, manuscri pts, sculpture, ceram ics, tapes tries , brocades,

leather, mosaics. No one person could ever maste r the req uisi te learn ing, tech-

nology and skills. Beyond t hat t he business of cleaning, repair and restorat ion

entai ls mak ing deli cate, controversial and somet imes perilous judg ments delicate because d rawi ng the fi ne line between proper res toration and coun ter-

feit requ ires suc h a high orde r of scholarship, restraint and integri ty; controversial

because experts can disag ree violently on what should and should not be done ; perilous because, for example, parts of a pai nt ing can float away in t he wrong solvent.

Apart from t he collection , t he Museum engages qui te mag nificently in horticu lture and in music, as is evident to visi-

tors who see t he fl owers or attend any of t he three concerts g iven each week. There is indeed no deart h of com plex, exact ing, chal lengi ng and sti m ulat ing problems, and we have a d irector and

staff who, far from treading water, meet the challenges with style and imagination , and fl ourish in response to the sti mul i. O ne new adventure on which the staff has embarked is the project to improve the lig hting described in the di rector's report . As he notes, t he fi rst stage is to tr y new ways of using daylight to illuminate t he collection . The principal objectives are to reduce the g lare from the windows wi thout interfering with the view, to increase the amount of daylight t hat is reflected from the ceiling on pictu res and ocher obj ects, and to block the entry of destruct ive ultraviolet lig ht. Ingenious approaches are being reseed whi ch should be of g reat interest to ocher muse ums havi ng wi ndows in thei r galleries. Finall y a fi nancial note. The Museum rook in more than it spent in 1980. Unfortu nately chis does not spell secu ri ty because due to inflation the dollars in o ur e ndowment are worth less every year; o ur expe nses exceed our e ndowment

income and t hey continue inexorably co cl imb. The excess of our receipts over our expend itures goes in to a reserve, but it is not enoug h to offset what we lose th ro ug h inflation or to ensure a balanced budget in the future. Such considerations have caused us to ask for gifts from visitors and to invite people to become contribut ing Members. W hat t hese cwo groups gave last year accounted for practically all of t he amou nt by whi ch our intake exceeded our expenses, but t heir fri ends hi p means more t han fi nancial support. Since we

sent our the first invitation in the fall of 1979 over 600 people have joi ned the Museum, and the list is growing. The Members are the strong allies of the Museum , they will be its spokesmen and its champions, and through them the Museum will acquire a widening circle of new visitors and admirers. The Gardner Museum has a loyal and growing family, and for the future that is indeed a hopeful sign. Margaret Stout died during 1980. She was the widow of George Srour, our director from 1955 to 1970. Herself an artist, she rook an active and appreciative part in the Museum's affairs and contributed greatly to the warmth and charm that characterized the Stours' tenure at Fenway Court.

Malcolm D. Perkins

Pi ero de Ila Francesa ,

Hermles, fresco, 151 x r26 cm ., Inv. No. P15e1 7 Room of Early

Icalian Paincings. Cleaned and resrored in 1980.

Report of the Director

Artificial lig hting in t he Museum's galleries has been a topic of conversat ion for many years, with as many opinions as there are voices. The galleries have more day lig ht t han most museums and many of the best paintings are placed advantageo usly to be seen in this best of all possi ble light. But that is of little use in the da rk days of winter and is a d istinct

walls and to avoid the g lare caused by refl ection on the poli shed floors. Plexig lass louvers direct the daylig ht toward the ceiling for general illumination and another plexig lass sheet filters the ultravi olet rays. At the same time one is conscious of the world beyond , often a welcome contrast co the intimate examination of works of arr.

threat co cexciles, drawings, and water-

colors, which fade and d isintegrate from exposure to ultraviolet rays. The fi rst step therefore, in any conside rati on of lighti ng in the galleries , is to mod ulate and fi lter daylig ht wi thout d istorting the view throug h the window. Our consultant , George Sexton, has dev ised an ingeni ous soluti on , an example of which has been placed in a window of the Veronese Room . The lig ht is softened to

O f course the orig inal plans for the Museum had little if any artificial lighting as it was not to be studied at nig ht. Mrs. Gardner preferred candles and indeed candles were used for many years after her death , most notably in the Tapestr y Room during concerts. By the time that Sargent's Eljaleo was installed in the Spanish Cloister in 1914 , wiring was

allow the eye co concencrare on inte rior

Perfo rm ance of Fiorella in che Tapes cr y Room , Ocrober 15, 1980.

avai lable for that and perhaps in other places. But most of the Museum's lig hting has been added bit by bit over the years, by wiring candelabra and other fixtures, introducing floor lamps or picture lights and , most recently, cei ling fixtures directed toward works of art . These will all be reviewed to g ive some unity to the prog ram and provide sufficient lig hting for m ajor objects. Because of the delicate balance between domestic and institutional lighting , any change should enhance the Museum's character, and not perceptibly alter it. All of this wi ll take the best part of three years, and during that time there will be trial, error, and much debate. The opportunity for membership in the Museum , announced in the annual report last year, has attracted growi ng interest. More than 600 persons were on the roll in the first six months along with several corporate and foundation names. The Museu m continues to define its services to members and has published a list of benefits offered to individuals, famili es, and major supporters. Looking after the members and the lengt hy correspondence that entails has been nicely handled by Mary Anne Dig nan and Ada Logan. Amherst Webber's light opera, Fiorella , which bad its one and only perfo rmance in America at the Museum in 1906, was revived in O ctober by the Boston Lyric Opera in two special performances, one for ou r members and one for theirs. As the scene for the opera is Venice, the stage was placed in front of the Venetian windows in the Tapestry Room , with the audie nce seated in a semici rcle during the hour-long performance. The orches-

tra , performance, and subject fitted so well into the setting t hat the aud ience was charmed with t he resu lts. Eric Young , autho r and connoisseu r, was our fi rst scholar- in-residence during which rime he wrote an anicle on the Spanis h pa inti ngs in the collection and lectured to our members. Dav id Howarth of Edinburgh University also lectu red tO our members on the Earl of Arundel, whose portrai t by Rubens hangs in the Dutch Room. Other lec tures and concerts have been pla nned for 1981, in most cases to be followed by a recept ion. The reg ul ar music prog ram with concerts th ree times a week from September through June, enjoyed cont inuing popularity and some new direct ions. A seri es

of concerts was presented by facu lty of the University of Massachusetts. The work of Edward Tubin , the Esroni an composer who visited in Boston in the winter, was presented by an orchestra

John Balme, Mu sica l Direccor of rhe Bosron Lyri c Opera, conducred a rehea rsal for Fiorella.

Both the textile catalogue and the checkli st of ra re books moved closer to publicati on. The t ypescript of the former is now close to completi on , and the latter is com pleted but awaiting final editing before going to t he printer.

Eric Young and rhe dirccco r in fronc ofBermejo's

S. Engracia.

in Decem ber. The establi shed Spani sh pianist J oaqu in Achucarro played at the Museum as well as six young concert artists who were maki ng debuts in Bosron , New York, and Baltimore sim ul taneously. As a change the MIT players performed Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors on a Tuesday even ing. T he Massachusetts Cou ncil on the Arts and H umani t ies again made a g ran t to ou r mus ic series, furt her recognit ion of t he part it plays in t he com mu nity. To enhance the quali ty of t he pia no m usic in the Tapestry Room , Roger Clemens of Resolu tions, Inc. came to t he Museum fo r a week t0 rebuild t he conce rt grand p iano.

O ur entry in the New Eng land Hort icul tural Society Flower Show was by far our most ingenious in years, and received first prize with a sil ver medal. It has occasioned a new pri ze, the whi msical award. 'A Dragon's G arden" des ig ned by Mrs. J ames Lawrence, presented the viewer with a g reen dragon d rinking from a pool fed by three brooks. In the brooks were azaleas and around them standard jasmine, surely a phantasy not seen in t his or any other show before. In the Camellia Show the Museum received t he Gold Medal for t he display, and, as evidence of except ional cultural skill , a cu lt ural cert ificate for the camellia "Tomorrow." In other gardens in and arou nd the Museum , the garde ners cont inued t0 provide fl owers of unusual beauty. There are a nu mber of new plants in a cont inuing effort to show plants native to various climates, particularly the Medi terranean. The elation which g reets their work, both here and at the Flower Show, is a source of pride to all of t he staff.

Income from the Sales Desk for 1980 was For Mrs. Gard ner's b irthday concert , the $48, 158, only slightly less than 1979. Museum was fortunate t0 have t he Cam- Attendance continues on a slow upward bridge Cantata Singers under the di reccurve. Last year's was 136,000 in comtion of their conductor J oh n Ferris, at his fa rewell performance. Thei r program included works by By rd, Palestr ina and Wolf. T he Cowley Fathers agai n said the memorial Mass on t he morn ing of April 14th, ro whi ch, for the fi rst ri me, invitations were sent to members.

parison with 129 ,000 in 1979 . Special visits by non-profit organizations (attendance in parentheses) are listed below: Februar y 8: MIT Sloan Fellows Prog ram (1 00 ) March 28: Assoc iati o n of Child Psyc hoa nalys is ( 12 5) May 4: Norrheascern Unive rsity (300)

May T Boscon Scace College (200) May 15: Frie nds of Mass. Mental Hea lth Ce nte r ( 120) May 22: Depa rtment of Neu ro logy, MG H ( 150)

May 29: The Ch ildrens Hospi cal Medical Center (300) May 30: Harvard Busi ness School Class of '65 (200)

June 4: The Bosto n Baller Socie t y (200) June 14: Department of Anesthes ia , MG H (190 ) July 18: Ameri ca n Associa ti on of Coll eges of Pharmacy (100)

September 12 : Jubil ee 350 (35 0) Septembe r 28: Church of the Advent (400) October 5: Uni ted Press Inre rnac io nal (5 00) Occober 9: H arva rd Med ical School ( 125) Occobe r 1 2: Boston Chapt er of Li nks (300)

The cafe in its first full year of operation proved to be everything that was expected of it, thanks largely to the carefu l planning of the assistant director. It served occasional small lunches or dinners, the Trustees' meetings , the staff and the visiting public. Under the able direction of its first manager, Kit Hammond, the problems of any young business were mer with, and resolved. With her return to university, the management passed ro the eq ually capable hands of Jill Charvat. From all points of view the cafe has been a success. Other staff changes include the reti rement of Michael Shea and resig nat ions by John Murphy and Michael Hurley, g uards, Bruce Bayleran, Leslie Gardner and Eileen Murphy, warchdesk , and Louise Olsen , assistant textile conservator. Engaged for regular duty were, in the cafe , Alexa Trefonides , Kathryn McLaug hl in , Kathleen Smith on the warchdesk , Peter Clapper and Terry Shaneyfelt , and as g uards , Susan Cohn , J ohn Lonergan and Peter Blanchette. Employed in restri cted schedules were Lawrence Williams, June Gardner, Catherine Myers, Paul Hook , Michael Zeoli , Susan McHug h , J ames Harti n, Patricia Clark , Philip Walsh , Sonja Gropman , and Magg ie J ones. Em ployed on a work study program from Boston University is Ann Kibbie who assists the staff phorographer.

David Howa nh who spoke co the membe rs o n che Ea rl of Arundel as a colleccor.

A Dragon's Garden , rhe Museum's entry in rhe

New England Horticu l路 rural Society Flower Show.

Four staff members attended the American Association of Museums meeting in Boston in June, at which time the museum gave a dinner for the Art Museum Directors. Others attended the regional meeting of the AAM in the fa ll . The di recror attended the Association of Art Museum Direcrors' meetings in January and June. With this issue of Fenway Court we begin a new decade, my second as di recror of the Museum. The presiden t , in his report on page 44, has reiterated the restrictions imposed by Mrs. Gardner's will, restrictions wh ich when I hear them d iscussed as I often do, puzzle many and upset not a few. They are

opportunities seem unlimited, increasing and not diminishing as the years go by. As any reader of the last ten numbers of Fenway Court has found, the Museum is constantly reachi ng out.

In this decade of intense inflation , the Museum has been able ro increase visiting hours and professional staff and has initiated new programs. This has happened without endangering the endowment. It has been possible because of the dedication of chose who work here, the advice and concern of the Trustees and , in the past year, the generosity of ou r members who have added another parag raph to the hisrory of th is remarkable Museum.

interpreted as idiosyncratic , or worse,

the height of vanity, and even are thought tO be a burden to the staff and a disservice co the visitor. Conversely one also hears "this is my favorite museum" and for those of us who work in it , the

Rollin van N. Hadley

Report of the Curator

The Museum participated in the celebration of Boston's 35o th birthday with an exhibition , Boston's Mrs. Gardner. Photographs, newspaper clippings, letters, and excerpts from g uest books were d isplayed in eig ht cases, each refl ecting Mrs. Gard ner's influence on the city's cultural institutions, on soc ial and intellectual Boston - even her keen interest in local sports of all kinds. Amusing photographs and newspaper accounts of soc iety events fi lled one case. Some of the letters on dis play illustrated Mrs. Gardner's support of the new Symphony H all , the ailing Boston O pera, and the new Harvard University Annex- now Radcl iffe College. Another case incl uded an endearing exchange express ing Mrs. Gard ner's g lee that H arvard defeated Yale at football (the Harvard team celebrated with d inner at Fenway Court) and a cli ppi ng record ing the Boston victory in the World Series of 1912 - Mrs. Gard ner had wri tten "Oh you Red Sox" across the top. On view from June 1 thro ugh September 30, the exhibition was extremely popular with visi tors who were fa mil iar with Mrs. Gardner's collection but only d imly aware of her wider role in the ci ty's li fe. The Museum continues to add to its im portant archives. Two acquisi tions

were made this year. O ne, a letter from John Singer Sargent given by Mrs. W illiam Rod man Fay, is d iscussed in the note fo llowi ng this report. Later in the year three photographs of Mrs. Gardner were purchased at auc tion with funds provided by membersh ips. The photographs were taken in 1906 by Baron Adolph de Meyer.

The archivist has beg un a thorough inventory of the archival collection and, at the same time, is attempt ing to locate material related to Mrs. Gard ner and Fenway Court in the archi ves of local institutions. A photograph of Mrs. Gardner and a few of her letters have already been fo und at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Typescripts of Mrs. Gard ner's correspondence-approx imately 6,ooo letters-conti nue to be made. In order to aid in evaluation of the Museum's lighti ng, the conservators collaborated on a technical su rvey of

Bouon's Mn . Gardner. 1 June-30 Seprember 1980 .

of I caly, was created by Gabrielle Kopelman and , with the g rime of many decades removed, rhe almost life-sized figure is more striking than ever. Masaccio's The conservator of paper, in add ition co profil e portrai t of a You11g Ma11 i11 a Scarlet her usual work, prepared frag ile material Turban whi ch hangs nearby was also for exhibit ion in Bos1011路s Mrs. Gard11er. crea ted , revealing high lights obscu red Ralph Waldo Eme rson's manuscri pt of by an earlier res toration . Finally, the anThe Method of Nature was repai red and cient bronzes in the Early Italian Room, rebound in its original binding. includi ng the much-loved Han Dynasty Bears and the Egyptian Harpocrates, The cexcile conservati on staff examined received attention from che conservaror material chat will be included in the of objec ts . As is often the case with archeolog ical bronzes , these had conforthcom ing catalogue. Work continues on che Amazo11 Queens , one of the most tracted bronze disease, a chemical reacimportant fifteenth-century Flemish tion which, if nor stabi li zed, eats away at tapestries in che collect ion . The text ile rhe surface of objec ts. Fortunately, in this wo rkroom welcofTled a Kress Foundation case the d isease was arrested before any intern , Betsy Gould , who was trained in damage was sustained. tapestry repair. Ms . Gould assisted in the restorat io n of a sixceenrh-century Frames in the col lection have also been Flemish tapest ry represe nting Spri11g: exam ined and repa ired . These are of conafter the old lining was removed , and the side rable interest in their own right so it tapestry washed ar rhe Merrimac k Valley is fortunate that the Museum has mainTexti le Conservation Center, slits were tai ned its fine frames, rather than change rei nfo rced, broken warps rejoined , and chem over the years. a new backing added . Another intern , Cassie Mye rs, wo rked ar the Museum for In add iti on to talks presented to memthree months , dusti ng and vacuuming bers, the Museu m sponsored the third large objec ts and rexriles in rhe galleries. annual lectures on rhe history of art g iven by g raduate students from local Conservati on in the Room of Earl y l ra linst itutions. The staff also met wi th ian Paintings was particularl y notable museum studies classes from Boston this year. Afte r an abse nce of many College and the DeCordova Museum . months, Piero della Francesca's Hermles was ret urned to ex hib iti on . The fresco, The conservator of paper attended Camthe onl y work of its kind by Pi ero outside bridge 1980, an international confe rence for conservators of works of art on paper, books, or archival material, held in Eng land . The conservator of textiles represe nted the Museum in Italy at rhe I nternarional Conference on the Conservation and Restorat ion of Historic existing natural and artificial lig ht and es tablished g uidelines for any additions or changes.

Textiles , and in Washingron , D.C. at a Textile Preservation Symposium on Textiles and Museum Lig hting. The archivist parti cipated in a Smithsonian workshop on Museum Archi ves, also held in Washingron , D.C., and the curaror attended a symposium on realism in French nineteenth-century pai nt ing, organi zed by the Cleveland Museum of Art. As always, the staff was ass isted by a number of interns. This yea r, Leslie Butler, Carol Cheswick, Susan Taylor, Kazum i Furagawa, June Gardner, Shelagh Coogan , and Amy Eshoo generousl y volunteered their rime and boundless energy.

Deborah G ribbon

Masaccio, Young Man in a Scarlet Turban, rempe ra on panel , 41 x 30 cm ., Inv. No. P1 5e26, Room of Early lralian Paintings. Before rrearmenc (left ), and afte r resrorarion .

A Recent Acquisition

Mrs . William Rodman Fay of New York City has generously g iven the Museum a John Singer Sargent letter to her mother, Grace Schirmer. Thi s amusing letter with a sketch by the artist on the back is a welcome addit ion to the Museum Arch ives which has letters from argent to Mrs. Gardne r. Sargent probably introduced the Schirmers to Mrs. Gardne r. On her birthday in 1903, she invited the Schi rmers to Fenway Cou rt fo r a concert of Charles Martin Loeffler's new compositi ons , including a chamber music version of his Pagan Poem. Loeffler was Mrs . Gardner's most talented musi cal protege, and she hoped to persuade Gustave Schirmer, the son of the founde r of the prom inent music publishing house, G . Schi rmer, Inc. , to publish Loeffler's work. Mrs. Gardne r

The last lavish concert staged at Fenway Cou rt , November 22, 1907, was a second performance ofLoeffler's Pagan Poem, now fully orchestrated and dedicated to the memory of Gus rave Schirmer. Mrs. Fay has previously given the Museum a letter sent to her by Mrs . Gardne r on the occasion of her engagement. Su1an Sinclair

A letter from John Singer Sargenr ro Mrs . Gusrave Sc hirmer, gift of Mrs.

William Rodman Fay.

was , as usual, successfu l and chirme r

later arranged that a copy of the published work be printed especially for her. Gustave Schi rmer became ill and died during a visit to Boston in 1907 . Mrs. Fay recalls that Mrs . Gardner sent a large box of orchids to her father's bedside.

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Publications

A Ilse o( s lides is available on requesc . Librari es and ocher ed ucauonal 1n st 1cu t1ons arc offe red a 4 0% d1scounr o n most items. Mail orde rs will be

sh•pped by 4th class, book rare {domes u c) o r su rface races ( 1nre rnauo nal). Please make check or money o rder payable rn che Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

G111dt 10 rht ollemo11. An illustrated gu ide fo r v1s1tors, w1Ch a brief sketc h of the founder. H1g hlig ht1ng the collec(IOn , room by ro m, w ith arcnbu[lons and desc rqm ons refl ecr 1ng recent publ1 ca t1ons ; rev15ed 2nd ed1C 1on; 11 6 pp. Paperbound 2.00, Posrage a nd packing .Bo (domeSC1 c), 1.00 (1nte rnat1ona l). Or1en1al a11d /Jlamrc Arr 111 rhe /Jab<lla Srewarl ard11tr M 1m11m. by Yasuko Horio ka , Marylin Rh1 e a nd Walte r B Denny, 1975. A fully dlu traced ca calog ue ; chlS sm all o lle c1on includes scu lpcu re, pa intings, eram1 s, la quer ware, miniatures and carvings. Paperbound 3.50, Poscage and packing .80 (domeSClc) 1.oo (incernat1onal).

mlp111re 111 the /Jobe/la Smwrt Gardntr t\111m1111. by Corne I 1us . Ve rmeu le, 111 , Walcer a hn a nd Rollin van l . Had ley, 1977. An dlusrraced ca talogue of che sculprure colic c1on, whi ch includes examples from the Jass1ca l and medieval periods throug h the Renaissa nce to che modern e ra ; 264 black and whlfe dlusrracions. Pa perbound 9.95; Clothbound 15.00; Postage a nd packing . 85 (domeSC1c) 1. 50 (1ncerna t1 onal). The /Jabella Sttll'tlrt Gard11tr /\ l11Jeu111. 1978. A ha ndsomely illusrraced book, containing essays on the founde r and che collect ion by the director, c urator and prominent sc holars ; 80 pp., 24 color places. Clothbound 18 .00; Poscage and packing .85 (domestic) 1.50 (i nternational).

European anti Amerf(an Pa1111tngs 111 thr /Jabd/a 1<11<1rl Gard11er 1\l 11J<11111. by Philip I fendi•, 197~. A descripC1ve cacalogue, w1Ch b1og raph1ts of che anises a nd reproducC1ons of all pain rin gs, 282 bl,1ck a nd wh1Ce dlusrrat1ons, 38 color places. Clochbound .w .oo; Poscage and packing 2.25 (domeSC1c) 2.50 (1ntt rnat1onal). O ra11 •111gJI Jwbella Smwrt Gard111:1· 1\l 11Jeu111. ed 1Ced by Rollin va n . Hadley, 1968 . A small g roup of norable drawings ranging 1n dace from che lace fifreench to t he early cwenc1 ech century ; 38 dlusrrat1ons, fronrnp1ece 1n color. Pape rbound 1.25; Po rage and packing S.80 (domeSC1 c) 1.oo (ince rnaC1 onal).

Manu sc nptS on sub1ens relaced co rhe coll ecr 1o n will be conside red fo r pub· licar1on . Please send pro· p0sa ls co che cu raco r

Isabella Stell'ort Gord11er /11111eum. A elert1011 of Pa111t111gs. Drau•111gs a11d \flotmolors. The University of Chicago Press, 1976. A mi crofiche wit h 167 color dluscrac1 on , captions, and b1 og rap h1ca l kec h of Mrs. Ga rdner. Paperbound 19.50; Posrage and packing .50 (domest1c) 1.25 (1ncernac1ona l).

Isabella teu•art Gord11er a11d Fer1U'O) Coun. by tom s Career. A biography of Isabella cewarc Gardner and a h1s rory of che format1o n of her collect1on by che fi rst director of che museum ; foreword bi• G . Peabody Gardner ; dlusrraced ; third ed 1t1on . lothbound 8.oo; Postage and pack ing .85 (domest ic) 1.50 (int t rnat1 ona l).

A h•rklm of the Cm'l't1po11de11re of lsabellt1 teu ·art Gard11er at the Gord11er t\l 11mm1. Wmers, compo ers, pe rfo rmers , pol1t 1cia ns, h1 rorian , and friends from the 186o's co the 192o's, numbering over 1000 names, With a gu ide tO the JocaflOnS of collected letters 1n che museum , 12 pp. Paperbound . 1o; Postage and pa king . 18 (domest1c) -40 (1nrernat1onal).

Femvoy Court. Illustrated arcicles on the collect ion and the archives, from Sargent's wa tercolors ro Mrs . Gardner's trip ro Bay reut h ; museum reporcs by che president and d irecror. Annual Reporcs fo r 1970 and 1972 th roug h 1977 and 1979 are avai lable. Pape rbound S2 .50 (1970: 2. 00); Postage and packing .Bo (domest1c) S 1.oo (incernacional).

Staff·

Trustees

The Isabella Sc ewa rc Gardne r Muse um , l ncorporared, o le Trusrec under rhe will of Isabella Scewarc Gardner Pru 1dmt

AOMI N ISTRATIO

SECUR ITY AND MAI NTENANCE

GUARDS

01rt<tor Ro llin van N . Hadley

Suptrrmor of 811J/dmg1 j ohn F. Noland

AsslI/ant D1r« tor Lrnd a V Hew m

Strurt1y Fortman Pacri ck McCollum

Curator

A1111tanr Strurtt) Fortmtn Charl es He idorn Brian Scarry

Thomas Abraham Mauri ce B Ahern Hen ry Barry Pasq uale D'A lcss 10 Thomas D1rr ane Edward P Downs Frede ri ck C. Doyle Dennis Fu zgerald Franc is R Gillis Alfred H azou ry j ohn H Holland Herbe rc Kenney j ohn) K ing J ohn Lonergan Daniel Mclaughlin Charles Mc trav1ck Daniel O 'Connell J oseph Ra1unas j oh n C. Robner J eremiah Ryan achy Schwarcz Terr y Shaney(elc M ichael Shea Pac ri ck H lev1n J ames Sullivan Louis Yacheua

Ma lcolm D. Pe rkin s

Vl(t·Pru 1dtn1 and Trta111rtr John Lowell Gardner

Deborah Gribbon Arrh1111tf Admrn11tra111 1t A111Jtan1

Susan 1nclair Stcrtta')

James L. Terr y

Adm1n11trat1t t Strrttary

Hop<

oolidge

Ell 1oc Fo rbes

Mason Hammond

Franc is W. H atch . Jr. Jam es Law rence

t\famttnanrt Fornnan Alfred) Smoth Shop Ttchnman M ichael F1nneny

Collrr11om trrttary Karen E H aas MA INTENAN

/\1tmbersh1p Sta-trants Mary Anne Dignan Ad a Logan

Photographtr Greg He in s D1rtrtor of Aluur J ohanna G1wosky

Doan ts Ma n e L Diamond Judith E . H anh1salo Clara . Mon roe Ada Logan SaltJ Clerk Loren L. Benson

AND WATCH

Rohe n An de rson Elizabeth Bing Pecer Blanchcrrc Patr ick Burns Pete r C lappe r usan ohn J ohn o ll eran William Evans Donald Feeney Rohen French Thomas Luri e Louise Marraltano Yvonne Merce r J oseph M1n 1uc t1 Pacri ck il and J onathan Randolph Stanley Scanul Pi ece r Vanderbeck

GAROEN I 'G

Head Ga rdtntr Ro~rc M Mac Kenzie Ga rdtntrJ Charles P. Healy, Jr J oseph F K1 a rs1s Scanley Kozak

CONSERVATIO CAFE

Chu/ Comtn ator 1

J ack Soulran1an ConunJator of PamtmgJ Gab ri elle Kope lman Comtn1ator of Paptr Ca rolrne Graboys Conurvator ofTtx11/tJ Maq oric R . Bullock A 11111ant , TtxtdtJ Marl ene Eidelhc1t

Caft Suptrvuor Jill Cha rvac A11man1 Caft Suptnmor Alexa Trefon1d es CaftA11111an/J Kachryn Mc laugh lin Kac hleen Sm1ch

• on rtgular dut) J t Dtctmbtr 1980

M USEU M OFF ICE

Palace Road Bosron , Massac husetts

02 11 5