Early Flight Collection Lands at the National Air and Space Museum
Miniature watercolor painting of a balloon over a French military camp, ca.1794 (Smithsonian Institution: Evelyn Way Kendall Ballooning and Early Aviation Collection, NASM2014-06559)
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Press release (19 December 2014) from The Smithsonian:
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum has acquired the Evelyn Way Kendall Ballooning and Early Aviation Collection. The collection has more than a thousand works of art, prints, objects, books, photos, and manuscript materials documenting the history of flight from the late 18th to the early 20th century, most of which have never been exhibited. This rare collection was donated to the museum by the Norfolk Charitable Trust.
The sight of the first colorful balloons rising into the air in 1783 generated an unprecedented wave of excitement across Europe. Tens of thousands of spectators crowded the streets of Paris to catch a glimpse of human beings in flight. Due to this excitement, people flocked to print shops to obtain images of the balloons and the men and women who flew them, and consumers rushed to buy memorabilia featuring balloon motifs.
Beginning in the 1920s, Evelyn Way Kendall (1893–1979), the wife of textile manufacturer Henry P. Kendall, began to search antique shops and auction catalogs on two continents for items commemorating the birth of flight. By the 1960s, she had built one of the largest, most diverse and comprehensive collections of historic art and artifacts documenting the birth of the air age in private hands. Highlights of the collection include oil-and-water color paintings of balloon flights in Europe, America and Japan. More than 400 historic prints and engravings depict early flights and the men and women who first braved the skies. Other treasures include 18th-century miniature paintings of the first balloon flights on a variety of small objects; delicately painted ladies fans created in Paris before the French Revolution; a large oil painting showing T. S. C. Lowe’s Civil War balloon equipment during the Peninsula Campaign of 1862; a colorful hatbox covered in wallpaper commemorating a balloon flight from Cincinnati in 1835; and scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings chronicling the history of ballooning from the 1780s to the 1890s.
The Ontario-born Kendall and her husband, world-class collectors with broad interests, have donated other collections of art, artifacts and manuscripts to the Royal Ontario Museum, the University of South Carolina and the New Bedford Whaling Museum. With the support of the Norfolk Charitable Trust, work is underway at the museum to catalog and conserve the collection. Plans for exhibition of the collection are underway but a definitive date has not been determined.
“We look forward to sharing the riches of the Kendall Collection with the millions of visitors who pass through the doors of the museum each year,” said Tom Crouch, the museum’s senior curator of aeronautics. “It will enable us to present the story of the birth of flight through objects that communicate the sense of wonder that inspired those who witnessed those first forays into the air.”
Louvre Aims to Purchase the Teschen Table
Johann Christian Neuber, Teschen Table, 1779, H. 81.5 cm; W. of tabletop: 70.5 cm, wooden core clad with gilt bronze, hardstones, Saxony porcelain (Photo by Philippe Fuzeau for the Musée du Louvre)
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Included in the exhibition Gold, Jasper, and Carnelian: Johann Christian Neuber at the Saxon Court, the Teschen Table was on view in 2012 at the Grünes Gewölbe (Dresden), the Frick Collection (New York), and the Galerie Kugel (Paris). The Louvre’s campaign to raise acquisition funds for the table runs until the end of January 2015.
Press release (17 October 2014) from the Louvre:
New Donation Campaign for the Acquisition of a ‘Work of Major Heritage Value’
In the wake of the Tous mécènes! (Become a patron!) donation campaigns launched by the museum in 2010 for a painting by Cranach, in 2011 for the restoration of two treasures from Cairo, in 2012 for the acquisition of two magnificent ivory statuettes thought lost, and in 2013 for the restoration of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Louvre is once again appealing to the generosity of the general public to raise one million euros to add to its national collection with the purchase of the famous Teschen Table, a masterpiece of 18th-century decorative arts and monument commemorating a key moment in European history.
The Teschen Table, also known as the Breteuil Table or the Table of Peace, is the only work of its kind, made unique by its illustrious past and virtuoso craftsmanship. Both a table and a piece of jewelry, it was listed as a ‘National Treasure’ then as a ‘Work of Major Heritage Value’ by the French Consultative Commission for National Treasures. The table’s wooden structure, clad with gilt bronze, is inset with 128 numbered samples of semiprecious stones representing Saxony’s geological riches and Saxony porcelain medallions, allegorical celebrations of peace, on the table’s oval top. A booklet from 1780, kept in a drawer beneath the tabletop, identifies each numbered stone. By the precious nature of the materials used, likening it to the work of a jeweler, and the ‘stone cabinet’ layout of the tabletop, the table is a surprising and spectacular display of the rise and development of the natural sciences during the Enlightenment. It masterfully illustrates the secular tradition of decorative furniture made to the glory of European sovereigns.
The total budget for this exceptional acquisition is 12.5 million euros. Every donation, regardless of the amount, will be crucial to the success of the campaign to give the Teschen Table its rightful place in the Department of Decorative Arts. The Louvre is thus appealing to the generosity of the general public once again to raise one million euros before January 31, 2015. At the same time, the museum continues to seek funding from corporations and major donors, and will draw significantly on its own acquisition funds.
A Monument Commemorating European History
The War of Bavarian Succession broke out in 1778, when Maximilian Joseph, Elector of Bavaria, died without a legitimate heir on December 30, 1777. The clash between contenders to the Bavarian throne, which also threatened the interests of the Prince-Elector of Saxony, centered round the rivalry between the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II and King Frederick II of Prussia. For six months this conflict, gravely threatening the balance of European power, prompted impressive troop movements and intense diplomatic negotiations. The emperor’s brother-in-law Louis XVI played a dominant role in the ‘diplomatic war’ led by the French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes. The king wisely refused to involve France in an armed conflict. Louis-Auguste Le Tonnelier, Baron de Breteuil, his ambassador in Vienna, was charged with vigorously affirming France’s neutrality and offering to mediate.
During the peace negotiations in Teschen, a city now divided into two towns in the Czech Republic and Poland, Breteuil conducted himself courteously, discreetly, and skillfully. The Teschen Peace Treaty was signed on May 13, 1779, under the successful joint mediation of France and Russia. As a mark of gratitude for his ministrations, and particularly for safeguarding the interests of Saxony, Baron de Breteuil received as a gift from Frederick Augustus III, Elector of Saxony, this table decorated with semiprecious stones. The Teschen Table or Table of Peace, a genuine monument commemorating a key event in European history, has remained with his descendants until today. To many historians, the Teschen Table immortalizes the Treaty of Teschen, considered by diplomats to be the first modern treaty in which two nations, France and Russia, served as guarantors of peace between Austria and Prussia and, more globally, collective security in Europe.
A Masterpiece by Johann Christian Neuber, Goldsmith and Mineralogist
Johann Christian Neuber (1736–1808), a hardstone merchant and principal jeweler to the court of Saxony, finished his career as curator of the royal collections amassed in the Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault) in Dresden by the electors of Saxony since the Renaissance. Herein undoubtedly lies the originality of an artist who was also a man of science and inventor of the ‘Zellenmosaic’ technique, or mosaic composed of hardstones and semiprecious stones extracted from Saxony’s mineral deposits. Neuber was renowned for his snuffboxes, genuine miniature mineral display cabinets captioned with numbers and accompanied with an explanatory booklet, keenly collected by scientists and scholars. The Louvre has twelve of these exceptional Steinkabinett Tabatieren on display in the new Department of Decorative Arts galleries devoted to the 18th century (room 56).
During the Enlightenment, while Paris was the undisputed capital of taste and fashion in Europe, Neuber distinguished himself by his personal, innovative style. With the Teschen Table, Neuber created one of the first neoclassical masterpieces in Germany: shaped feet, garland decoration, palmette friezes, fluted legs reinterpreted to exalt the goût grec (Greek taste). The grisaille medallions painted on Saxony porcelain by Johann Eleazar Zeissig, known as Schenau, are still in keeping with the rococo tradition, but the iconography is clearly inspired by the Antiquity and neoclassical in nature, particularly the central medallion depicting the closing gates of the temple of war and the flame reignited over the altar of Peace.
A New Masterpiece for the Recently Inaugurated 18th-Century Decorative Arts Galleries
Solemnly presented on January 1, 1780 to the Court of Dresden, and celebrated as far as Versailles upon its arrival in France in August, the Teschen Table has remained in the Breteuil family since the 18th century, and has rarely been exhibited outside the Château de Breteuil, in the Chevreuse Valley, 40 km west of Paris. In 2012, it was the focus of remarkable exhibitions at the Grünes Gewölbe (Dresden), the Frick Collection (New York), and the Galerie Kugel (Paris).
The addition of this exceptional table to the Louvre’s new 18th-century decorative arts galleries inaugurated in June 2014 would be a highlight of the museum. Showcased within the revamped museum space, the artwork would be given a worthy setting at the center of the neoclassical masterpieces. Its acquisition is a unique opportunity to welcome a masterpiece whose symbolic, historical, and artistic dimensions naturally resonate with the Louvre’s vocation as a national museum.
18th- and 19th-Century American Galleries Reopen at Delaware
Press release (24 November 2014) from the Delaware Art Museum:
Raphaelle Peale, Portrait of the Reverend Absalom Jones, 1810 (Delaware Art Museum, Gift of Absalom Jones School)
The Delaware Art Museum is pleased to unveil its renovated and reinstalled 18th- and 19th-century American Art galleries—Galleries 1, 2, and 3—to the public on Friday, November 28. Just in time for the holiday season, the beautifully redesigned space will display over 50 works of art, including many permanent collection objects that have not been on view for over 10 years. As part of this reinstallation, the galleries will highlight 150 years of portraiture, sculpture, landscape painting, still life, and history painting.
“I am excited to be able to present our regional history within the context of the dynamic national art scene,” explains Heather Campbell Coyle, Curator of American Art at the Delaware Art Museum. “The product of more than two years of research and planning, the redesigned space gives us the opportunity to showcase the Museum’s outstanding collection of American art to the local community, visitors, and school groups in new and exciting ways.”
The first gallery presents portraits that span 1757 through 1856, featuring familiar favorites by Benjamin West (1738–1820), Thomas Sully (1783–1872), and Raphaelle Peale (1774–1825). Two images of Delawarean women, five-year-old Anna Walraven (1846–1927) and Sally Ann Ross Paynter (1812– 1866), will also be on view. These portraits, all produced within a 50-mile radius of the Delaware Art Museum, reflect the aspirations and accomplishments of local families.
The second gallery introduces landscape painting, which became very popular during the mid-1800. The loan of Michele Felice Cornè’s romantic overmantel painting (circa 1800), which hung in the main house at Mount Cuba Center in recent decades, provides a prelude to the meticulous landscape paintings of the Hudson River School. These evocative landscapes are joined by history paintings, sculptures, and a luscious still life by Severin Roesen (1815–1872).
In the third gallery, the story of landscape painting continues with works by George Inness (1825–1894) and John Twachtman (1853–1902), which now hang near an early painting by Robert Henri (1865–1929) and a pair of etchings by Thomas Moran (1837–1926) and local printmaker Robert Shaw (1859–1912). One wall has been hung salon-style, creating an interesting juxtaposition of 16 works of art from the Museum’s 12,500-object permanent collection and select loans.
In November 2013, the Museum underwent a major renovation and reinstallation of its gallery dedicated to contemporary American art, which nearly doubled the amount of objects on view from the permanent collection. The reinterpretation of the permanent collection galleries allows the Museum to find new ways to present its history and material culture to visitors of all ages.
About the portrait of Absalom Jones:
The Reverend Absalom Jones was the prominent minister of St. Thomas African Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Born a slave in Sussex, Delaware, Jones eventually won his freedom, became a founding member of the Free African Society, was ordained the first African American minister of the Episcopal denomination, and helped to organize a school for African American children. His church congregation may have commissioned this painting from noted Philadelphia painter Raphaelle Peale.
Cooper Hewitt to Reopen on December 12th
With the newly renovated Cooper Hewitt opening December 12th, you’ll have to visit the museum’s website to make sense of it all, everything from a specially commissioned typeface (Cooper Hewitt, which you can download for free here) to an interactive pen. I’ve noted one exhibition below, but presumably there are lots of eighteenth-century attractions. –CH
From Cooper Hewitt:
Caroline Baumann, director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (formerly Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum), has announced plans for the opening of the renovated and restored Carnegie Mansion and the 10 exhibitions that will inaugurate the revamped and expanded gallery spaces. The nation’s only museum devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design, Cooper Hewitt will open its doors to the public on Friday, December 12. The museum will boast 60 percent more gallery space to present its important collection and temporary exhibitions and will offer an entirely new and invigorated visitor experience, with interactive, immersive creative technologies.
Cooper Hewitt’s renovation provides the opportunity to redefine today’s museum experience and inspire each visitor to play designer before, during and after their visit. Visitors will explore the museum’s collections and exhibitions using groundbreaking technologies that inspire learning and experimentation. This new participatory experience is specifically designed to engage all audiences—students, teachers, families, young children, designers and the general public.
All visitors will be given a newly developed interactive Pen to collect and create. They will be able to digitally collect design objects on view, as well as additional objects from the ultra-high-definition interactive tables. Visitors will become designers in their own right by creating their own designs with the Pen. Symbolizing and embodying human creativity, the Pen is a key part of every visitor’s experience. With it, they will be able to record their visit, which can be viewed and shared online and supplemented during future visits. . .
The largest initiative in Cooper Hewitt’s history, the renovation and expansion of the entire campus on New York’s Museum Mile—the Carnegie Mansion, Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden and the museum’s two townhouses on East 90th Street—have been achieved through a successful $91 million capital and endowment campaign.
“With four floors of exhibition galleries that can now stay open 12 months of the year, free garden access, extended garden and café hours, an inviting new street entrance and the digitization of our collections, Cooper Hewitt will reach a broader audience and be more accessible than ever before,” said Baumann. “We have created a 21st-century museum that will bring our collections to life and make design even more relevant and exciting to today’s audiences, while continuing to respect the history of this museum and the integrity of the much-treasured Carnegie Mansion.”
In addition to Cooper Hewitt’s physical transformation, the museum now has a new name, graphic identity, website and custom typeface. Formally the “Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum,” the museum has been renamed “Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum,” emphasizing the museum’s heritage. The museum has taken on a bold new graphic identity designed by Pentagram and the typeface “Cooper Hewitt” designed by Chester Jenkins of Village [available for free download here; see Michael Silverberg’s discussion here] . . . .
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About The Models & Prototypes Gallery:
Staircase model, France, late 18th century; Joined, bent and carved pear, wrought brass wire; 75 x 67.3 x 67 cm (NY: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; photo by James Hart)
This new second-floor gallery will be home to rotating installations showcasing the important role of design models and prototypes. For the opening installation, the gallery will present the exceptional 18th- and 19th-century models of staircases and some significant architectural models donated to Cooper Hewitt by Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw (16 models altogether with four accompanying drawings).
The models represent a range of design styles and techniques, but most of the staircase models were designed in the compagnonnage tradition. Compagnonnage, meaning ‘group of companions’, is a type of design practice that combined formal study with practical training from masters. Apprentices honed their skills in a workshop during the day, taking courses in the art of geometrical drawing and design in the evening, living together in a boarding house. First, concepts were taught, then the handiwork, both of which became increasingly sophisticated. Each successful member made a ‘tour de France’, working and studying under masters in major cities. At each stage of the learning process (acceptance, reception, mastership), apprentices created models, leading them to become masters of their craft and design. Most of the staircase models produced in this tradition were made by masters of woodworking—joiners, cabinetmakers, and/or carpenters.
Thankful for Saved Collections: Wedgwood and the DIA
Announced 3 October 2014, from Save the Wedgwood Collection:
The Wedgwood Collection—one of the most important industrial archives in the world and a unique record of 250 years of British art—has been saved for future generations. The Art Fund raised £15.75m in total, including £2.74m through a public appeal that reached its target within a month of launching. Donations were matched pound-for-pound by a private charitable trust. Thank you to everyone who donated to and supported the appeal!
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From the Detroit Free Press:
Mark Stryker, “With Its Art Collection Saved, DIA Looks to the Future,” Detroit Free Press (9 November 2014)
Museum leaders spent the past year and a half fighting to prevent the sale of any of its irreplaceable treasures to satisfy city creditors—an epic battle for its life that ended with Friday’s [November 7’s] court approval of the bankruptcy restructuring plan that preserved the DIA collection. . . . The grand bargain granted the DIA its freedom from city ownership for the first time in nearly a century. The move, which will take effect in the coming weeks, ensures that its collection will never again be held hostage to municipal debt or the vagaries of city government. . .
Cumberland Art Gallery Opens at Hampton Court Palace
Cumberland Art Gallery at Hampton Court Palace
Photo from a tweet by Patrick Baty, who assisted with the project
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Press release (28 October 2014) from Historic Royal Palaces on the opening of the Cumberland Art Gallery:
This November, a stunning new art gallery will open at Hampton Court Palace, occupying a newly restored suite of rooms designed by William Kent for a Georgian prince. The Cumberland Suite—one of the earliest surviving examples of the Gothic Revival style—is situated at the heart of the palace, where Tudor meets Baroque and will now house changing displays of artworks, principally from the Royal Collection, reflecting the palace’s long history as a destination for the work of renowned artists.
The rooms designed by William Kent for William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland, the youngest son of King George II, were the last major royal commission undertaken at Hampton Court. They will become a fitting backdrop for a display of treasures from the other legacy of Hampton Court’s royal residents: the Royal Collection. This winter, to mark the opening of the gallery, visitors will discover a selection of the Collection’s finest paintings: masterpieces by Holbein, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Bassano, and Gainsborough, and other artists who worked for, or were collected by, four centuries of royal patrons.
After two years of meticulous research, Kent’s Cumberland Suite has been returned as closely as possible to his original scheme. The great architect created a suite of rooms for a young prince which embraced the latest Palladian fashions but also took inspiration from the palace’s Tudor past. One of the rooms, the Duke’s large light closet, will be opened to the public for the first time in 25 years, to display the 12 smaller ‘Grand Canal’ views of Venice painted by Canaletto at the zenith of his career.
Hampton Court Palace has a long history of displaying great works of art. Over the centuries, successive monarchs filled the state apartments with splendid works of art for the private enjoyment of the royal family, or as imposing statements of regal authority. Although the palace’s life as a royal residence came to an end in the eighteenth century, thousands of artworks, now part of the Royal Collection, are still in their original locations and form part of the story of the palace today.
The Cumberland Art Gallery is a new dedicated space for artworks from the Royal Collection and will enable visitors to view and explore them in a gallery setting. The selection of paintings in our opening display broadly reflects the period of royal residency at Hampton Court, from the Tudor period to the middle years of the 1700s, when great royal collectors and connoisseurs, like King Charles I and Frederick Prince of Wales, assembled one of the largest and finest art collections of its kind in the world.
New Book | Paintings in the Collection of the Society of Antiquaries
Forthcoming from Brepols:
Jill Franklin, Bernard Nurse, and Pamela Tudor-Craig, Catalogue of Paintings in the Collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London (Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2014), 520 pages, ISBN: 978-1909400191, $285 / 200€.
The paintings owned by the Society of Antiquaries of London are important for the quality of some of the individual paintings and for the collection as a whole. Before England’s National Portrait Gallery was founded, the Society pioneered the study of royal portraiture, seeking to establish the true likenesses of the Tudor and Plantagent monarchs and some of their continental counterparts. In the words of Sir Roy Strong, the Society’s early portraits are “of the utmost national importance … next to the Royal Collection, the most important series of early sixteenth-century royal portraits to survive as a group.” They are joined in this scholarly catalogue raisonée by works that have been exhibited in Europe’s major museums: among them are Hans Eworth’s portrait of Mary I, Simone dei Crocifissi’s Dream of the Virgin, an outstanding example of fourteenth-century Bolognese Gothic art now on long-term loan to the National Gallery, and portraits of Daniel and Rebecca Minet by Thomas Gainsborough. This fully illustrated catalogue, wedded to meticulous scholarship and the results of the latest scientific dating techniques, ensures that the art historical world now has access to art that will be studied and discussed for many years to come.
Film | National Gallery
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Frederick Wiseman’s new documentary from Zipporah Films has its US premier in New York this month at Film Forum (November 5–18), with the director himself appearing at several of the early screenings (November 5, 7, and 8). The DVD release is scheduled for early 2015.
Frederick Wiseman, National Gallery (Zipporah Films, 2014), 181 minutes.
London’s National Gallery, one of the world’s foremost art institutions, is itself portrayed as a brilliant work of art in this, Frederick Wiseman’s 39th documentary and counting. Wiseman listens raptly as a panoply of docents decode the great canvases of Da Vinci, Rembrandt, and Turner; he visits with the museum’s restorers as they use magnifying glasses, tiny eye-droppers, scalpels, and Q-tips to repair an infinitesimal chip; he attends administrative meetings in which senior executives do (polite) battle with younger ones who want the museum to become less stodgy and more welcoming to a larger cross-section of the public. But most of all, we experience the joy of spending time with the aforementioned masters as well as Vermeer and Caravaggio, Titian and Velázquez, Pissarro, and Rubens and listen to the connoisseurs who discourse upon the aesthetic, historical, religious, and psychological underpinnings of these masterpieces.
More information is available from the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Two More Waddesdon Manor Treasures Now Online
Le Ballet Royal de La Nuit and Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables choisies, two treasures of Waddesdon Manor’s library collected by Ferdinand de Rothschild (1848–1898) are now accessible via the online collection catalogue.
Jean de La Fontaine, Fables choisies, (Paris, 1755–59); Waddesdon, The Rothschild Collection (The National Trust) Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957; acc. 3681.1-4. Photo by Mike Fear © The National Trust, Waddesdon Manor.
Le Ballet Royal de La Nuit at Waddesdon was probably produced as a gift for Louis Hesselin (1602–1662) as a reward for the successful staging of the ballet, first performed at the French court on 23 February 1653. It contains material from three distinct sources: the booklet of the ballet printed by Robert Ballard in 1653, a poem called Le Docteur Muët, and 129 original designs depicting costumes and scenes from the ballet now attributed to Henry Gissey (c. 1621–1673). Reproductions of the bindings; inscriptions by a previous owner, Baron Jérome Pichon (1812–1896); as well as the designs are available online, accompanied by commentaries based on the publication: Michael Burden and Jennifer Thorp (eds), Ballet de la Nuit: Rothschild B1/16/6 (Hillsdale; Pendragon Press; 2009).
Also now online are entries for four volumes of Jean de La Fontaine’s (1621–1695) Fables choisies, published in Paris between 1755 and 1759 by Desaint and Saillant. This edition is considered to be the most magnificent illustrated book made before the advent of modern printing. The binding of the Waddesdon example, by Louis Douceur (d. 1769), is decorated with specially-cut tools also illustrating the fables. The dolphin which occurs on the spine panels of the Waddesdon volumes may indicate that these were bound especially for the Dauphin Louis (1729–1765), son of Louis XV. Details of the location and sizes of the illustrations in all four volumes, along with a transcription of the title and names of the designer and engraver of each print, are included in the online entries.
Both books can also be explored further in the newly published catalogue by the late Giles Barber, The James A. de Rothschild Bequest: Printed Books and Bookbindings (The Rothschild Foundation, 2013). The Waddesdon collection is one of the finest of its kind in the world, and the published catalogue along with the online entries allows for many of these treasures to be revealed to the public for the first time. For more information about the printed catalogue, please visit the website.
The Huntington Acquires Fuseli’s The Three Witches
Henry Fuseli, The Three Witches or The Weird Sisters, ca. 1782, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches (San Marino: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens)
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Press release (7 October 2014) from The Huntington:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens announced today the acquisition of one of the best-known compositions by the Anglo-Swiss painter Henry Fuseli (1741–1825). In private hands since its creation around 1782, The Huntington’s version of Fuseli’s The Three Witches or The Weird Sisters appears to be a finished, full-size study, presumably made before the two other known full-size, final versions Fuseli made of the subjects. These are in the collections of the Kunsthaus Zurich, and the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, England. After months of conservation treatment at The Huntington, the new acquisition will go on public view for the first time on October 11 in the Huntington Art Gallery.
“Given the fame of The Huntington’s collection of 18th-century British paintings, it may come as a surprise that we did not already have a painting by Henry Fuseli—one of the most celebrated, notorious, and inventive artists of the period,” said Kevin Salatino, Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Collections at The Huntington. “Finally we do, and a great one, a picture full of mystery and suspense. Its powerful composition packs an incredible punch, second in impact only to the artist’s famous painting The Nightmare at the Detroit Institute of Arts, which is from the same period. The acquisition of The Three Witches now fills a major gap in our collection.”
Acquiring a Fuseli has been a longstanding goal at The Huntington, as the finest examples of his work rarely appear for sale. Catherine Hess, chief curator of European art at The Huntington, said that Fuseli’s work has been sought not only because of his importance to the history of art, but also because of his relationships with Sir Joshua Reynolds and, especially, William Blake, both of whom are well represented in Huntington collections. Also, Fuseli’s fascination with the work of William Shakespeare dovetails with The Huntington’s stature as one of the premiere collections of early Shakespeare folios and quartos in the world. The Three Witches reveals a great deal about how the artist worked, said Hess. “Its surface is thickly textured with paint, and the strokes are varied and energetic, betraying a freedom and immediacy that shows Fuseli at his most experimental and expressive.” The painting depicts the pivotal moment in Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth (act 1, scene 3) when the protagonist encounters the demonic trio who foretell his fate.
“Fuseli revels in the play’s ominous mood, isolating and tripling the motif of hooded head, extended hand, and sealed lips,” said Hess. The witches’ mannish features are taken directly from the playwright’s description: “… you should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so.” They may also have been modeled on the male actors who would have played them on stage in Fuseli’s day.
The Huntington’s painting includes a gilded frame (likely added by early owners) with a quote from Aeschylus’ ancient tragedy, The Eumenides: “These are women but I call them Gorgons.” The quote also appears written on the reverse of the painting and was almost certainly provided by Fuseli, who prided himself on his erudition.
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R E L A T E D I N S T A L L A T I O N S
Wrestling with Demons: Fantasy and Horror in European Prints and Drawings from The Huntington’s Art Collections
The Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino, CA, 30 August — 15 December 2014
This focused exhibition explores the darker side of the imagination through a variety of works on paper depicting death, witchcraft, and the demonic in European art. In this group of 15 works spanning the 16th to the 19th centuries, artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Jan Lievens, Francisco de Goya, and William Holman Hunt tap into human fascination with the macabre in works of art that demonstrate our attempt to wrestle with the unknown.
Eccentric Visions: Drawings by Henry Fuseli, William Blake, and Their Contemporaries
The Huntington Art Gallery, San Marino, CA, 22 November 2014 — 16 March 2015
In an age of great drawing, Anglo-Swiss painter Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) and his circle in Britain helped to push the medium into new areas of expressiveness, invention, and boldness of conception. This small exhibition consists of about 30 works from The Huntington’s exceptional holdings of drawings and watercolors by Fuseli, William Blake, and the artists most closely associated with them, including George Romney, John Flaxman, Joseph Wright of Derby, James Barry, John Brown, and Richard Cosway. It complements the installation of The Huntington’s newly acquired painting by Fuseli, The Three Witches.
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