Enfilade

Press release (4 November 2013) from The Frick:

Xavier F. Salomon has been appointed to the position of Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator of The Frick Collection, taking up the post in January of 2014. Dr. Salomon―who has organized exhibitions and published most particularly in the areas of Italian and Spanish art of the sixteenth through eighteenth century―comes to The Frick Collection from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he is a curator of in the Department of European Paintings. Previously, he was the Arturo and Holly Melosi Chief Curator of Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. Salomon’s two overall fields of expertise are the painter Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) and the collecting and patronage of cardinals in Rome during the early seventeenth century. Born in Rome, and raised in Italy and the United Kingdom, Salomon received his Ph.D. from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. A widely published author, essayist, and reviewer, Salomon sits on the Consultative Committee of The Burlington Magazine and is a member of the International Scientific Committee of Storia dell’Arte.

Comments Frick Director Ian Wardropper, “We are thrilled to welcome Salomon to the post of Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator. He is a remarkable scholar of great breadth and vitality, evidenced by his résumé, on which you will find names as far ranging as Veronese, Titian, Carracci, Guido Reni, Van Dyck, Claude Lorrain, Poussin, Tiepolo, Lucian Freud, Cy Twombly, and David Hockney. At the same time, he brings to us significant depth in the schools of painting at the core of our Old Master holdings, and he will complement superbly the esteemed members of our curatorial team. Salomon has experience as a department head, and he has curated marvelous shows, among them a mutually rewarding collaboration with the Frick. He was a highly productive and inspiring participant in the Frick’s Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellowship program, leaving his mark already on the institution through an acclaimed Veronese exhibition as well as various other projects of distinction. In Salomon’s work, collecting has remained a critical line of art historical inquiry since the defense of his dissertation on the patronage of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini [1571–1621]. This focus resonates beautifully with us, as the institution is widely known for the interpretation of our history, holdings, exhibitions, publications, programs, and the innovative activities of the Frick Art Reference Library’s Center for the History of Collecting.”

Xavier Salomon adds, “It is a great honor for me to be appointed the Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator of The Frick Collection. I organized my first exhibition at the Frick as an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow. It is therefore a huge pleasure for me to return to an institution to which I feel deeply indebted and that I greatly admire. The Frick has a unique collection of outstanding masterpieces, and its holdings in the fields of painting, sculpture, decorative arts, and drawings are of stupendous quality. It will be a pleasure to work with the staff of noted colleagues in the fields of curatorial, conservation, and education, all of whom are leading authorities in their areas of expertise. Over the years and under the guidance of my predecessors, Edgar Munhall and Colin B. Bailey, the Frick has led the way with inspirational programming and groundbreaking exhibitions. I look forward to working on the institution’s upcoming projects, sharing, as I do, the Frick’s belief in the fundamental importance of museum research as well as in presenting wide-ranging, vibrant, and engaging offerings to the broad public and scholarly community alike.”

A Superb Résumé of Acclaimed Exhibitions

Salomon’s recent exhibitions have focused on areas of the fine arts well represented at the Frick: Spanish, Italian, and Flemish sixteenth- through eighteenth-century painting. A sought-after Veronese scholar, he is curator of a forthcoming monographic exhibition on this artist at The National Gallery, London (2014). At The Metropolitan Museum of Art, he organized Velázquez’s Portrait of Duke Francesco I d’Este: A Masterpiece from the Galleria Estense, Modena (2013). At Dulwich, he curated Van Dyck in Sicily, 1624–25: Painting and the Plague (2012) and collaborated with Nicholas Cullinan on Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters (2011). He co-curated, with Helen Langdon and Caterina Volpi, Salvator Rosa (1615–1673): Bandits, Wilderness, and Magic (which went to Dulwich and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, 2010–11). Salomon and his predecessor at the Frick, Colin B. Bailey (since June, the Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), organized Masterpieces of European Painting from Dulwich Picture Gallery, which was shown to critical acclaim at the Frick in 2010. His exhibition Paolo Veronese: The Petrobelli Altarpiece was shown at Dulwich, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas (2009–10). Best of British. The Story of the British Collection at Dulwich Picture Gallery (2009) was preceded by The Agony and the Ecstasy: Guido Reni’s Saint Sebastians (co-curated with Piero Boccardo and featured first at the Musei di Strada Nuova, Palazzo Rosso, Genoa, followed by Dulwich, 2007–08). As the Frick’s Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow, he was praised for his exhibition Veronese’s Allegories: Virtue, Love, and Exploration in Renaissance Venice (2006). He also contributed to Masterpieces of European Painting from The Cleveland Museum of Art (2006–7), From Callot to Greuze: French Drawings from Weimar (2005), Gardens of Eternal Spring: Two Newly Conserved Mughal Carpets (2005), and Raphael’s Fornarina (2004–5).

A Prolific Scholar and Speaker

Much in demand as a writer, Salomon has contributed myriad essays and entries to publications produced by institutions internationally, including the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Palazzo Venezia, Rome; and the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Among the journals that have published his research are The Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal, Apollo, The Burlington Magazine, Master Drawings, The Medal, The Art Newspaper, and the Journal of the History of Collections. He is a frequent reviewer in The Burlington Magazine, with up to seven appearing annually. Salomon has delivered conference papers and lectures at the Musée du Louvre; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Frick Collection; the Morgan Library & Museum; the universities of Rome and Padua; the Musei di Strada Nuova, Genoa; Cambridge University; Dulwich Picture Gallery, and the National Gallery, London, among other institutions.

From the museum press release (1 November 2013) . . .

William Aikman, Portrait of Patie Birnie, the Fiddler of Kinghorn, ca. 1718 (Scottish National Portrait Gallery)

A rare, early portrait of a Scottish folk musician, the celebrated eighteenth-century fiddler Patie (or Peter) Birnie, has recently been acquired by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh and is on public display for the first time.

This charming portrait by the Scot William Aikman (1682–1731), who portrayed many of the leading political and literary figures of his day, was probably painted in the period between 1715 and 1720. A memorable and welcome addition to the Gallery’s collection, it is a significant example of a portrait by a prominent Scottish artist in which the sitter, who is clearly identified, comes from the lower ranks of society, rather than the ruling élite. It complements other renowned portraits of musicians in the collection, such Sir Henry Raeburn’s portrayal of the fiddler Niel Gow, painted in 1787, and also provides a compelling contrast with the Gallery’s other portraits by Aikman, which are primarily of aristocratic subjects.

In the striking and unusual composition the famous musician is shown laughing, and is identified not only by the fiddle he holds, but also by a painted inscription which describes him as “The Facetious Peter Birnie / Fidler in Kinghorn.” Although the word facetious is generally used in a derogatory sense today, in the eighteenth century it meant “gay; chearful [sic]; lively; merry; witty” (Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary). Most of our information about Birnie comes from Allan Ramsay the Elder’s Elegy, published, presumably shortly after Birnie’s death, in 1721, which states that Birnie was present at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge in 1679. The Elegy was later used by the Rev. James Granger in his Biographical History (1769):
“Patie Birnie resided at Kinghorn, on the sea coast, about nine miles north of Edinburgh, where he supported himself by his consummate impudence. Not by honest labour, but by intruding upon every person who came to the public house… He then fell into the utmost familiarity… his… exploits [involved] showing a very particular comicalness in his looks and gestures; laughing and groaning at the same time. He played, sung, and broke in with some queer tale twice or thrice e’er he got through the tune; and his beard was no small addition to the diversion.”

In addition to performing in such a memorable manner, Birnie is reputed to be among the earliest composers of strathspeys (a type of dance in 4/4 time). His fame was such that a number of engravings after Aikman’s painting were made, an example of which is in the Gallery’s collection. The painting was formerly in the collection of the Earls of Rothes, at Leslie House, Fife (where it was recorded in 1839) and was acquired by the Gallery from the London dealer Philip Mould.

Speaking of the acquisition, Christopher Baker, Director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, said: “This is an especially attractive and endearing addition to our eighteenth-century collection: Birnie was a man renowned for his music and vivacious performances and Aikman commemorated him in a wonderfully appropriate, informal and engaging manner.”