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BULLETIN ALLEN MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM OBERLIN COLLEGE, XLII, 1, 1984-85

ALLEN MEMORIAL ART MUSEUM BULLETIN VOLUME XLII, NUMBER 1, 1984-85

Contents

Bergeret's "Honors Rendered to Raphael on his Deathbed" by Martin Rosenberg ------3

An Archaic Metapontine Head of a Goddess by Karla Klein Albertson ------17

Thomas Barker of Bath's "Interior of a Mill" and the Rustic Figure by Chloe Young ------25

Notes A New Director ------36 Catalogue of Japanese Prints from the Mary A. Ainsworth Collection - 36 Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes: Exhibition and Symposium - - 37 Recent Grants ------38 Lectures ------38 AlA Lectures ------38 Exhibitions ------39 Friends of Art Film Series ------41 Museum Staff ------42

Published twice a year by the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. $10.00 a year, this issue $5.00; mailed free to members of the Oberlin Friends of Art. Back issues available from the Museum. Indexed in The Art Index and abstracted by R1LA (International Repertory of the Literature of Art) and ARTbibliographies. Reproduced on University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Mich. Printed by Press of the Times, Oberlin, Ohio. Copyright © Oberlin College, 1984 ISSN: 0002-5739

COVER: Bergeret's Honors Rendered to Raphael on his Deathbed, Oberlin

QC With the support of the Ohio Arts Council and the Institute of Museum Services, a Federal agency

94 iocs XL qqq|. 05/93 01-415-00 J 1JJ ' 1. Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret, Honors Rendered to Raphael on his Deathbed, 1806, Oberlin, 82.93 Bergeret's "Honors Rendered to Raphael on his Deathbed"

The Allen Memorial Art Museum has re­ scholars assumed that the painting in the music cently acquired an important early nineteenth room at the Chateau de Malmaison (fig. 2) was century work: Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret's Hon­ the original version painted by Bergeret in 1806. ors Rendered to Raphael on his Deathbed (fig. Careful research reveals that the Oberlin paint­ 1), one of the most critically acclaimed works ing, which is signed and dated 1806, is in fact exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1806.! Until this the original bought by Napoleon, and the Mal­ painting surfaced at the Heim Gallery in 1980, maison painting is a later version by the artist.

2. Bergeret, Honors Rendered to Raphael on his Deathbed, ca. 1814, Chateau du Malmaison Photo: Studio Laverton clearly extolling an artist's status, and several deathbed scenes, including Henri TV on his Deathbed (1822; Chateau de Pau), the Death of Titian (1833) and that of Poussin (1819 and 1853), both now lost.4 These works exemplify the nineteenth-century vogue for more-or-less historically accurate scenes from the lives of famous historical figures. After his success in 1806, Bergeret revealed a particular proclivity for such scenes from artists' lives. Although Bergeret's paintings of historical subjects were his mainstay, during much of his early career he was absorbed in a long series of official commissions which he received from Dominique Vivant-Denon, Napoleon's Director of the Musee du Louvre. Between 1804 and 1808, Bergeret executed numerous designs for porcelain objects to be produced at Sevres, in­ cluding a vase and a column commemorating Napoleon's victory at the Battle of Austerlitz.5 The same campaign was celebrated on a colossal scale in the Vendome Column, erected between 3. Ann-Louis Girodet-Trioson, The Deluge, Musee du 1806 and 1810 and modeled on the Column of Louvre Trajan. To celebrate Napoleon's successful three- Photo: Musees Nationaux month campaign in Germany, Bergeret made several hundred drawings for a spiral bas-relief 6 Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret (1782-1863), a pu­ frieze nine hundred fifteen feet long. He was pil of Pierre Lacour pere, then Francois-Andre also commissioned to design reliefs for the Pal­ Vincent and Jacques-Louis David, had a long ais Bourbon. Perhaps the strictures placed on career, crowned early with official patronage Bergeret by Vivant-Denon and his loss of of­ and critical acclaim. He continued to exhibit ficial patronage after 1820 were the reasons he regularly in the Salons between 1806 and 1853.2 wrote in 1848 Lettres d'un artiste sur I'etat des As David's student, he worked in the former arts en France, a book which criticized state 7 Capucines Convent, where, according to Dele- administration of the arts. cluze, Bergeret, Ingres and Lorenzo Bartolini Turning to consideration of Bergeret's Hon­ formed a kind of "academie a part". 3 Bergeret's ors Rendered to Raphael, one would like to Honors Rendered to Raphael was only the first know why it created such a critical sensation in in a long line of successful works, many of 1806, at a Salon which also included such impor­ which were historical subjects treated in a "trou- tant works as Gros' Battle of Aboukir, Girodet's bador" vein. These included The Emperor Deluge (fig. 3), which defeated David's Sabines Charles VPicking Up Titian's Brush (1808; Bor­ for Napoleon's Prix Decennal, in 1810, and Ingres' deaux, Musee des Beaux-Arts), another work portrait of Napoleon on his Imperial Throne (fig. 4).8 It appears that Bergeret successfully executed a subject of great popular interest at a propitious time. As Rosenblum has shown, from the late eighteenth century on, French art­ ists displayed a particular inclination for paint­ ing deathbed scenes, within their general inter­ est in depicting events from the lives of famous historical figures.9 With his much acclaimed Leonardo da Vinci dying in the Arms of Francis I of 1781, Menageot inaugurated a series of art­ ists' deathbed scenes which continued through the first half of the nineteenth century. These subjects were popular primarily because they combined the elegiac appeal of the deathbed scene with proclamations of the artist's exalted status in society. The earliest version of the "Death of Raph­ ael" in France is a drawing of 1774 by Jean- Antoine Julien entitled The Muses and Graces Mourning the Death of Raphael.10 Julien's com­ position differs from all later versions in show­ ing Raphael's body head-on and strongly fore­ shortened, as in a work like Mantegna's Dead Christ (Milan-Castello-Sforsezco). Its primary similarity with later versions is the inclusion of Raphael's Transfiguration at the head of his bier. The first exhibited version of the theme in France was Harriet's allegorical drawing of the Death of Raphael, exhibited at the Salon of 1800 as a pendent to a drawing of the Death of 4. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Napoleon I on his 11 Imperial Throne, 1806, Paris, Musee de TArmee Virgil. An unfinished drawing of this subject Photo: Musees Nationaux has been designated by John Whiteley as a prep­ aratory sketch for Harriet's work (fig. 5). This ears symbolizing ignorance and a personifica­ young pupil of David quite literally translated tion of fame or painting, who points to the Vasari's statement that Raphael had died par­ unfinished Transfiguration.12 tially because of weakness produced by physi­ The first exhibited painting of the subject cians' maltreatment after his amorous excesses. was Monsiau's lost Death of Raphael (Salon of Raphael and his mistress, perhaps representing 1804) (fig. 6), which moved the theme from the profane love, are shown embracing, with Raph­ allegorical to the historical realm.!3 Forgetting ael's malady represented by a serpent coiling Menageot's 1781 Leonardo, critics praised Mon- underneath them. The two indistinct figures in siau for creating an entirely new type of subject. the background may be a physician with asses' As in earlier versions Monsiau represents Raph- tention that the Oberlin version is the original, and the Malmaison version is a later copy by the artist. The Oberlin version is signed "P. Ber­ geret/1806 Pinxit"; the Malmaison version is not dated. The Oberlin version agrees more precisely with measurements appearing in cata­ logues of the Salon of 1806 and Josephine's collection.17 Although the Malmaison painting essentially replicates the Oberlin version, there are some subtle differences: in the Oberlin ver­ sion, the foreground figure has blond hair rather than brown; an attendant carries a triangular peacock-feather fan rather than a teardrop- shaped one; the carpet is larger in the Malmai­ son version, and the Transfiguration is cropped

Fulchran-Jean Harriet, Death of Raphael, 1800, watercolor, gouache and pencil, New York, private collection Photo: Hazlitt, Gooden and Fox, London ael on his deathbed with the Transfiguration at his head, but he shows him surrounded by his pupils, patrons and admirers, including Cardi­ nal Bibbiena, Giulio Romano, Perino del Vaga, Polidoro da Caravaggio and others.14 Monsiau clearly draws on Vasari for his details and Pous­ sin's Death of Germanicus (1628, Minneapolis Institute of Art) for his composition. Yet the strong praise which Monsiau received in 1804 was surpassed by the critical acclaim which greeted Bergeret's Honors Rendered to Raphael after his Death, exhibited at the Salon two years later. [5 Until the reemergence of the painting pur­ chased by Oberlin, scholars assumed the Mal­ maison version was the original exhibited in 6. Nicolas-Andre Monsiau, Death of Raphael, 1806, engraving by Normand after a lost original, from 1806 and subsequently purchased by Napo­ C. P. Landon, Annates du Musee, "An XIV" 16 leon. Substantial evidence supports the con­ Photo: Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris in the Oberlin version, not in the Malmaison and Sixdeniers (1818) (fig. 7), the version rep­ version. Finally, the execution of the Oberlin licated is clearly the later Malmaison copy.19 In version is superior to that of the Malmaison a watercolor of the Music Room at Malmaison one. by Auguste Garneray (1812) (fig. 8), the Oberlin The details of the Oberlin version are evi­ version with its blonde page in the foreground dent in the anonymous engraving which ap­ is clearly visible.20 The combined documentary peared in the account of Bergeret's work in and visual evidence suggests that at some time Chaussard's Le Pausanius francais, le salon de between the death of Josephine in 1814, and 1806.is In a slightly later engraving by Pauquet 1818, when Pauquet and Sixdeniers made their

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7. Pauquet and Sixdeniers, engraving after Bergeret's Honors Rendered to Raphael on his Deathbed, 1818 Photo: Bibliotheque Nationale, Pans 8. Auguste Garneray, Salon de Musique, Malmaison. 1812, watercolor, Chateau du Malamison Photo: Studio Lavefton engraving, the Oberlin original was removed of 1806 also mentions a sketch which was exhib­ from Malmaison by Eugene de Beauharnais, ited with the work, identifying the figures.23 Josephine's heir, and Bergeret made the copy Such a sketch is appended to Pauquet and Six- which is there today. In 1824, at the death of denier's print. (See fig. 7.) Eugene, the work was sold to an unknown Bel­ Raphael's great patron Leo X, the most gian amateur. Its whereabouts were unknown prominent person paying homage, places flow­ until it surfaced at the Heim Gallery in 1980.21 ers on the body. Other members of the papal In depicting the homage to Raphael after entourage include Giulio de'Medici, the patron his death, Bergeret follows Monsiau's example of the Trans figuration,2^ and, behind the Pope, by showing the artist on his deathbed, with the Cardinal Bembo, Raphael's close friend, who Transfiguration at his head, surrounded by pa­ deposes a laurel wreath in his honor. Bergeret trons, pupils and admirers. By extending the reproduces Bembo s epitaph on a sheet of paper composition horizontally, Bergeret could include visible below Raphael's body.2^ In the back­ a larger number of recognizable figures than ground are numerous pupils of Raphael, includ­ Monsiau did. The dramatis personnae can be ing Polidoro da Caravaggio, Perino del Vaga, identified through the description in the Salon Giulio Romano and Giovanni Penni. On the livret.22 One of the critical accounts of the Salon right Baldassare Peruzzi points to the Transfig- uration, and Marcantonio Raimondi contem­ As in many other deathbed scenes of plates the receptacle of Raphael's blood with the period, the composition of Bergeret's downcast eyes. Bracketing Raphael's body with work is based on Poussin's paintings such as Leo X is the artist's close friend Balthazar Cas­ the Death of Germanicus and Extreme Unc­ tiglione. On the left in profile, another illustri­ tion. Bergeret had engraved the latter in 1805.31 ous writer Ariosto prepares to place his own The bed's positioning in the room and the laurel crown on Raphael. Raphael's rivals, Mi­ staccato grouping of mourners recall features chelangelo and Sebastiano del Piombo, are com­ of Poussin's Germanicus. As in Poussin's ing through the door to place a laurel branch by Extreme Unction, Bergeret places Raphael's the artist's side, and his aged teacher Perugino body parallel to the picture plane bracketed by has also come to mourn. Bramante is repre­ mourners. The emphatic horizontals and sented in the sculptured panel above the door. verticals of the room, bed and railing de­ In the lower left corner crouches the young Va­ fine a clear neoclassical stage space, in which sari penning his paean to the glory of Raphael. figures are arranged in a series of overlapping (See appendix.) planes. Despite Bergeret's apparent interest in veri­ A small preparatory sketch survives (fig. 9) similitude, the cast of mourners contains some (Geneva, Musee d'Art et d'Histoire) which obvious inaccuracies and anachronisms. Michel­ agrees closely with Bergeret's final work.32 In angelo did not attend the obsequies; Ariosto addition to much tighter paint handling, the was not in Rome, and Vasari was only nine at final work differs from the sketch primarily in the time of Raphael's death.26 Wherever possi­ one compositional detail. In the sketch two ble, Bergeret bases the appearance of his charac­ women are seated by Raphael's bed. According ters on direct sources, as with his figures of to an anonymous critic "G," Bergeret suppressed Castiglione, clearly based on Raphael's portrait them, leaving only a woman's shawl, because a in the Louvre.27 The figures of Leo X and Giu­ fellow artist asserted that their presence with lio de'Medici are also taken from the famous the Pope offended propriety. 33 Raphael portrait in the Uffizi.28 And features Bergeret's desire for effective composition, of Raphael appear to be from the double por­ design and expression, all characteristics which trait in the Louvre known as Raphael and his he would have associated with Raphael, is some­ Fencing Master.2') what abrogated by the overabundance of realis­ In keeping with the rising tide of histori­ tic details. His strong emphasis on details of cism, Bergeret fills his canvas with realistic de­ setting, furnishings and textures is certainly tails in the costumes, furnishings and architec­ closer to the style of the "little Dutch masters" tural setting. He also attempts to enhance the than to that of Raphael. Despite numerous work's interest and verisimilitude by including distractions from the main focus of the scene, two of Raphael's most popular works, both of Bergeret does introduce some meaningful com­ which were prominently exhibited in 1806 in positional subtleties. For example, he brackets the Musee Napoleon. In addition to the Trans­ Raphael between his Transfiguration on one figuration, which Vasari describes as placed at side and the Crucifix and peacock feather fan on the head of Raphael's bier, Bergeret also depicts the other. Since the peacock symbolizes immor­ the Madonna della Sedia, partially visible on tality, the arrangement of these elements im­ the back wall. 3° plies the artist's apotheosis through his work. 9. Bergeret, Honors Rendered to Raphael, preparatory oil sketch, 1806, Geneva, Musee dArt et d'Histoire

The adulation of Raphael's paintings in the factor (fig. 10).34 The French viewed Raphael as Musee Napoleon provided ample proof of Ber­ the greatest modern artist, the modern Apel- geret's implication. les.35 Since the seventeenth century, French art­ For Bergeret, more than for his teacher ists and amateurs had turned to Raphael's life David, color is a very important expressive ele­ and art for inspiration. This devotion was mani­ ment. The deathly pallor of Raphael is set off fested in David, who instilled it in his pupils against his glaring white drapery, drawing the Gros, Girodet, Ingres and Bergeret.3fi Indeed, viewer's attention magnetically. In addition to the Transfiguration was viewed, in Landon's using color to create believable textures, Ber­ words, as "Raphael's masterpiece and the mas­ geret unifies and enlivens the composition with terpiece of painting" and garnered more critical subtle touches of blue, violet, red and green in attention than any other modern work.37 Every the carpet, chair and drapery. critic mentioned its placement at the head of Taking for granted the popularity of death­ Raphael's bier in Bergeret's painting. bed scenes as a central aspect of historicism, we By painting the death of Raphael at this can suggest other factors to account for the criti­ time, Bergeret exploits the artist's popularity cal attention which Bergeret's work attracted in and the sentiment associated with his last mas­ 1806. We can explain why the theme of the terpiece. As Chaussard put it: death of Raphael meshed so perfectly with pub­ Ce tableau est un de ceux qui remplit le mieux les lic taste. Certainly, the French adulation of intentions de la Peinture. Le sujet emeut, interesse... Raphael, enhanced by the extraordinary display Le plus sublime genie eclipse avant son midi; l'hom- mage rendu au supreme talent par la puissance elie of his works in the Musee Napoleon, (including meme; les larmes de ses rivaux; cette derniere mer- early works like the Belle Jardiniere and his final veille du pinceau suspendue audessus au lit funebre masterpiece, the Transfiguration), was a major

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10. Benjamin Zix, Wedding Procession of Napoleon and Marie Louise through the Grande Galerie, detail of a drawing for a Sevres ceramic, 1810 Photo: Manufacture Nationale de Sevres

By representing the homage to Raphael as if the mize his rule, implies a plea to Napoleon to Salon viewers were a part of it, Bergeret allows become a great patron like Leo X and thereby them to identify with these illustrious Renais­ to usher in a new golden age.41 This precise sance men as they admire Raphael's master­ plea was made to Napoleon in 1803 by the Fine pieces for themselves. As one critic expresses Arts section of the Institute.42 By 1806, Bergeret it: "on est transporte au quinzieme siecle, et was certainly aware of the possibilities of Napo­ Ton voit que l'artiste s'est rendu un comte exacte leonic largesse. Napoleon's purchase of Berge­ du sujet qu'il avais a traiter. L'amateur delicat y ret's painting for Malmaison suggests that he trouve d'heureuses interpretations a y faire."39 accepted this identification with great patrons Another dimension of the work, suggested of other eras.43 by Chaussard, is the depiction of the homage of In addition to praising Bergeret for truth­ a pope and other illustrious men to an artist. fully and effectively representing a subject of An equation is suggested here: Great artists re­ great popular interest, critics found other note­ quire great men for patrons; great men require worthy aspects in his Honors Rendered to artists to insure their immortality.40 This gen­ Raphael. Many critics contrasted Bergeret's eral notion of artistic status takes on specific work with Monsiau's. Chaussard praised Mon- significance in the context of Napoleonic pat­ siau for "lelegance du dessin, la noblesse des ronage. The theme of Raphael's death, appear­ personnages et des airs du tete, l'arrangement ing just at the time when Napoleon is begin­ des draperies et le parti qu'il avait tire du cos­ ning to commission the scores of works which tume." He praised Bergeret in similarly compli­ will fabricate his personal mythology and legiti­ mentary terms for his composition, use of color

n and chiaroscuro and, above all, for the historical Unfortunately, the realities of political pat­ character of his depiction.44 Several critics, how­ ronage experienced by Bergeret in the nine­ ever, faulted Bergeret for the lack of elegance teenth century differed markedly from Raph­ in his figures, describing them as "courtes," ael's idealized relationships. After Bergeret lost "grosses" or "lourds" and "pesants."45 Chaus- a suit in 1820 against the Opera Comique for sard accounted for his weak design by sug­ whom he had been a costume designer for many gesting that Bergeret "a plus etudie les grands years, he found it very difficult to get official coloristes, que les beautes majestueuses et ele­ commissions. The source of his early successes gantes de l'Antiquite."46 seemed closed to him. His Honors Rendered to Many critics, including the writer in the Raphael provided a poignant comment on his Athenaeum, pointed to the danger of tackling decline. Beginning in 1848, Bergeret went to the subject of the death of one of the greatest great lengths to get the work (the second ver­ artists of all time. Such an eminent subject sion) exhibited at the Galerie du Luxembourg. tends to predispose judges to severity. The critic He finally succeeded in having what he consid­ was pleased to be able to praise Bergeret for his ered his finest work removed from storage and "execution brilliante et facile, une touche ferme placed on exhibition in the Palais du Senat in et vigoureuse . . . mais ce qui est beaucoup plus 1853 so that, in his own words: "dans la triste rare, un esprit sage et eclaire, un sentiment par- position ou je me trouve, j'ai besoin de rappeler fait des convenances."47 The critic found this au public mes titres a son estime."52 last aspect distinctly lacking in Monsiau's 1804 The disparity between Bergeret's early suc­ work. Although "G" praised Bergeret's colorism cess and promise and his later disillusionment lavishly, finding touches recalling the Venetians, reveal that the high artistic status which he he felt that Bergeret made Raphael's face too celebrated in his Honors Rendered to Raphael pale, a sentiment echoed by other critics as was, for him at least, only slight and transitory. 4 well. 8 For Bergeret, dreams of enduring fame and for­ Although most critics were extremely posi­ tune were ultimately nothing more than a tive about Bergeret's work, they found many romantic fantasy. minor points to criticize. The critic of Journal de la revue philosophique criticized Bergeret Martin Rosenberg for his "invraisemblances morales" in not de­ University of Tulsa picting honestly the jealousy and dislike which some of Raphael's rivals felt toward him.49 The critic "F.C" felt that although Bergeret's color was good and his expression was very fine, his figures could be more tightly finished.50 Most critics were willing to believe that the twenty- four-year old artist could correct all his failings in time. Alexandre de P summed up the general sentiment toward Bergeret in 1806: La memoire de I' immortel Raphael appartient a tous les artistes; et je crois que celui qui rend si bien la triste scene ou il a cesse d'exister est digne de marcher sur ses traces.51

12 Appendix Notes This is the text of Bergeret's description of the 1 Ace. no. 82.93. Oil on canvas, 1.08 x 1.97 m. R.T. Miller, painting from the catalogue of the Salon of Jr. Fund. 1806: 2 An important nineteenth century source on Bergeret's "Raphael, etendu sur son lit de mort, est life is E. Bellier de la Chavignerie and L. Auvray, Diction- visite par Leon X, accompagne du cardinal naire general des artistes de I'ecole francaise, Paris, 1882- Bembo. Le pape, apres avoir officie, repand des 85,1, pp. 73-74. The most extensive study to date is Lu- crecia El-Abd, "Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret (1782-1863)," fleurs sur le corps de ce peintre illustre; Bembo (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1976). El-Abd y depose une couronne de laurier; Jules Romain, includes a catalogue raisonne of Bergeret's known work. Polidore, Lucas Penni, tous ses eleves et ses 1 Etienne Delecluze, Louis David, son ecole et son temps, Paris, 1855, p. 297. amis entourent son lit; Marc Antoine, celebre 4 graveur, deplore la perte de ce grand homme; Bellier de la Chavignerie, p. 74. 5 El-Abd, Chap. Ill, gives a detailed account of Vivant- l'Arioste lui fait hommage de sa couronne; Mi­ Denon's patronage. On Denon, see Jean Chatelain's chel Ange et Sebastien del Piombo, son eleve, Dominique Vivant Denon et le Louvre de Napoleon, tous deux rivaux de Raphael, viennent deposer Paris, 1973. See D. Ledoux-Lebard, "La Compagne de 1805 une branche de laurier pres de lui, en temoign- vue par la manufacture imperiale de Sevres," Revue du age de leur estime et de leurs regrets; le Perugin, Louvre, 28, no. 3,1978, pp. 178-85. 6 Bellier de la Cavignerie gives 845 as the number of accable par les ans, vient pleurer la perte de son drawings. See El-Abd, pp. 123-46, for a discussion of the eleve, sa principale gloire; enfin, le Vasari, trans- commission. porte par les beautes du tableau de la Transfig­ 7 P.-N. Bergeret, Lettres d'un artiste sur Vet at des arts in uration, ecrit ces paroles remarquables: France, Paris, 1848. See El-Abd, Chap. V. 8 The prix decennal was a 1810 competition sponsored by Ame bienheureuse et infortunee! vous serez le Napoleon for the best painting of the decade. For a con­ plus beau sujet de nos entretiens; les actions de temporary discussion of the controversy, see M. S. Del- votre vie ne sont pas moins celebres que les pech, Examen raisonne des ouvrages de peinture...ex­ ouvrages que vous laissez ne sont admirables; poses au Salon de Louvre en 1814, Paris, 1814, pp. 136ff. l'art de la peinture est pour ainsi dire mort avec Virtually every critic who wrote on the Salon of 1806 vous, et loin de pouvoir vous surpasser, on ne singled out Bergeret's work for discussion. Bergeret's pourra jamais vous atteindre." work won a First Class Medal. The criticism is preserved in the Collection Deloynes, Cabinet des Estampes, Bib­ liotheque Nationale, especially vols. 37, 38, and 40. The critics are listed by Maurice Torneux, Salons et exposi­ tions d'art a Paris (1801-70) essai bibliographique, Paris, 1919, pp. 24-27. 9 Robert Rosenblum, Transformations in Late Eighteenth Century Art, Princeton, 1967, pp. 28-40. See also Francis Haskell "The Old Masters in Nineteenth Century Paint­ ing," Art Quarterly, XXIV, 1971, pp. 55-85. 10 The work in the Institut Neerlandais, Paris, is illus­ trated in the exhibition catalogue by Jean-Pierre Cuzin, Raphael et l'art francais, Paris, Grand Palais, 1983-84, cat. no. 138, p. 135. 11 Salon of 1800, no. 182. 12 Cuzin, cat. no. 113, pp. 121-22. 13 The painting is lost. It is known through the engraving by Normand, reproduced here, which was published in

13 C. P. Landon, Annates du Musee, Paris, X, "An XIV" Salon de 1806, no. 24. The text from the livret is in­ (1805). A fine preparatory drawing survives in a private cluded in Chaussard's account of the work in Le Pausan­ Paris collection. It is reproduced by Cuzin, cat. no. 180, ius francais pp. 84-86. p. 155. G, L'Atbenaeum ou galerie francaise des productions de 14 Landon, Annates du Musee, X, 1805, p. 102, praises tous les arts, March 1806, p. 6. Monsiau for originating a new theme, in which artists In every discussion of the Transfiguration, critics em­ are represented as heroes. Landon also identifies the phasized that Giulio de'Medici had originally commis­ dramatis personnae. It is difficult to connect the names sioned the work for the French cathedral of Narbonne. with specific figures in Monsiau's work. Thus they argued that bringing the work from Rome to " On Monsiau's work, see Collection Deloynes, v. 32, France was reclamation rather than thievery. I have dis­ pieces 883 and 892; v. 36, piece 981, as well as Landon, cussed this point in greater detail in a forthcoming arti­ Annates, 1805, p. 102f. cle "Raphael as symbol under Napoleon: the Transfig­ 16 See Rosenblum, pp. 36-37 and fig. 31; Haskell, fig. 3; El- uration." Abd, p. 358, cat. no. 40. This is the text: "Ille hie est Raphael. Timuit quo sospite |T The measurements were obtained by William Olander vinci rerum magna parens et moriente mori." at Malmaison in Summer, 1982. They are: Livret of "This is that Raphael by whom in life our mighty Salon of 1806 - 3 pieds 4 pouces x 6 pieds 5 pouces = mother, Nature feared defeat; and in whose death 1.07 x 2.07 m.; Catalogue des tableaux de Sa Majeste did fear herself to die." lmperatrice Josephine dans la galerie de Malmaison.... Rosenblum, Transformations, p. 37, n. 112. Paris, 1811, 41 x 77 pouces = 1.10 x 2.07 m.; Malmai- For an illustration, see Raphael dans les collections son's version - 1.265 x 2 m.; Oberlin version 1.08 x francaises, Paris, Grand Palais, exh. cat., 1983-84, no. 7. 1.97 m. The Oberlin version agrees with the expected See Luitpold Dussler, Raphael, A Critical Catalogue of measurements quite precisely. The Malmaison version his Pictures, Wall-Paintings and Tapestries, London, is substantially higher. 1971, no. 96. The portraits of both Castiglione and Leo 18 The engraving accompanies the very extensive article X were exhibited in the Musee Napoleon. by [Publicola Chaussard], Le Pausanius francais, ou de­ See Raphael dans les collections francaises, no. 13. scription du salon de 1806..., 2nd ed., Paris, 1808, pp. Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de'piu eccelenti pittori, scultori 84-96. The engraving agrees in every particular with the et architettori, Florence, 1568, ed. Milanesi, Florence, Oberlin version. 1878-85, IV, p. 383, where Vasari describes the obsequies. " The most obvious details in the engraving which agree Rosenblum, pp. 30-38; see also Pierre Rosenberg, La with the Malmaison version are the teardrop-shaped "Mort de Germanicus" de Poussin, Paris, Editions des fan and the brown-haired page in the foreground. The Musees Nationaux, 1973, pp. 26-72, for the work's im­ engraving was exhibited at the Salon of 1822. In his Let­ pact on later art. For Bergeret's engraving, see "Oeuvre tres, p. 105, Bergeret described a copy of the painting he de Bergeret," Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque Na­ executed in chiaroscuro to serve as a model for this en­ tionale. See El-Abd, cat. no. 30. graving. See El-Abd, p. 183, n. 61. See Cuzin, Raphael et V art francais, no. 19- 20 For a useful juxtapostion of a view of the Salon de Mu- G, L'Atbenaeum, 1806, p. 6. sique at Malmaison showing the version there today The illustration here is a detail of the famous drawing with theGarneray watercolor, see Gerard Hubert, "Na­ by Benjamin Zix for a Sevres ceramic showing Napo­ poleon and Josephine at Malmaison," Connoisseur, 193, leon's marriage entourage in the Grande Galerie in 1810. Dec. 1976, p. 263. The Bergeret in the watercolor is Raphael's works illustrated here include the Belle Jar­ clearly the Oberlin verison with its narrower propor­ diniere, Madonna della Sedia, Sainte Cecilia, Madonna tions. da Fo/igno, several portraits and, of course, the Trans­ 21 The work appears in Ulnventaire apres deces de I' im- figuration. Other important works not evident in the peratrice Josephine a Malmaison, Serge Grandjean ed., drawing but on exhibit in the Musee Napoleon include Paris, 1964, no. 1088. The work was then sent to Eu­ the Portrait of Castiglione, Portrait of Leo X, the Vision gene's residence in Munich and sold, after his death in of Ezekiel, the cartoon for the School of Athens and in 1824, to a Belgian amateur. The Malmaison copy was other drawings. For the complete listing of Raphael's acquired by Louis-Philippe and eventually returned to works brought from Italy, see Marie-Louise Blumer, Malmaison. "Catalogue des peintures transportees d'ltalieen France,

14 de 1796 a 1814," Bulletin de la societe de Vhistoire de Age of Revolution, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1974-75, l'art francais, 2 fascicules, 1936, pp. 305-308. pp. 161-230. The identification of Napoleon with great ,5 This was one of the key symbolic images of Raphael patrons of the past is suggested by T B. Emeric-David, which the French held. For a discussion of its develop­ Discours historiques sur la peinture moderne, Paris, ment and continuity, see Martin Rosenberg, "Raphael 1812, p. 244. in French Art Theory, Criticism and Practice 1660- 42 The report was read at the Institute's session of Oct. 1, 1830," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1803, by Jules Le Breton. See Collection Deloynes, L, 1979). The image of Raphael of the modern Apelles piece 1393, pp. 3-6. was given explicit visual form in Ingres' Apotheosis of 45 There is much evidence of Napoleon's identifications Homer (1827-Musee du Louvre). with great past leaders. See Rosenblum, "Painting Un­ ,6 The most comprehensive studies of Raphael's impor­ der Napoleon." In addition to buying Bergeret's paint­ tance for the French are M. Rosenberg, "Raphael in ing, Napoleon allowed an engraving (by Raphael Mor- French Art Theory," and J.-P. Cuzin, Raphael et l'art ghen) of the Transfiguration, to be dedicated to him. See francais. For David's admiration for Raphael, see D. and Ferdinand Boyer, Le Monde des arts en Italic et la France G. Wildenstein, Documents complementaires au cata­ de la Revolution et de t'Empire, Turin, 1970, pp. 157-58. logue de I'oeuvre de Louis David, Paris, 1973, p. 157. For 44 Le Pausanius francais, p. 91. David's pupils, see Sara Lichtenstein, "The Baron Gros 45 The first pair of terms are Chaussard's. See Le Pausanius and Raphael," Art Bulletin, LX, March 1978, pp. 126- francais, p. 93. The second pair were used by Fabre, 38; Robert Rosenblum, Ingres, New York, 1967. "Salon de 1806," La Revue philosophique, litteraire, et 57 On the celebrity of the Transfiguration, see Martin politique, 1806, p. 352. These and other criticisms are Rosenberg, "Raphael in French Art Theory," pp. 301- discussed in El-Abd, pp. 196-97. 307. For some contemporary criticism of the Transfigu­ 46 Le Pausanius francais, p. 93. ration in the Musee Napoleeon, see Collection Deloynes, 47 G., Athenaeum, p. 1. L, pieces 1380-1384 and J. Lavallee, Galerie du Musee 48 Ibid., p. 5. Napoleon, Paris, 1804-1828, X, chap. 120. For Landon's 49 "Salon de 1806," Journal de la revue philosophique, in remarks, see Landon, Annates, II, p. 145. Collection Deloynes, XXXVIII, piece 1040, p. 157. 38 Le Pausanius francais, p. 85. 50 F. C. [Frederic de Claric], "Lettres sur le Salon de 1806," 39 Alexandre de P., "Le Salon de 1806," Journal des specta­ Archives litteraires de V Europe, in Collection Deloynes, cles, (n.d.), in Collection Deloynes, XXVIII, piece 1048, XXXVIII, piece 1048, pp. 504-505. pp. 24-25. 51 Alexandre de P., pp. 20-21. 40 Haskell, pp. 68-73. 52 El-Abd discusses Bergeret's decline in chap. V For his 41 On Napoleonic patronage, see R. Rosenblum, "Painting efforts to get his Honors Rendered to Raphael exhib­ Under Napoleon," in French Painting 1774-1830: The ited, see p. 312.

15 1. Metapontine head of a goddess, front view, Oberlin, 2. Profile view 83.25 An Archaic Metapontine Head of a Goddess

The recently acquired terracotta head of a Greeks developed a distinctive style for their Metapontine goddess is only a small fragment own art and architecture. from a statuette, yet the smiling face contains Magna Graecia lacked the local marble the distillation of Western Greek style as it sources available in mainland Greece and the flourished in the late sixth century B.C. (figs. 1, Greek cities of Asia Minor. Terracotta, else­ 2).1 The object is mold-made, one of many iden­ where a material for derivative minor art, be­ tical pieces taken from the same matrix, but it came the sculptural medium par excellence in possesses an extraordinary crispness of detail the West, where it was used for large-scale stat- which assures us that this particular example ues3 as well as diminutive but elegant creations must have been among the first taken by the like the head under discussion. In the hands of a coroplast from his new mold. superlative artist, the fabric can be molded with By the eighth century B.C., some cities of the same fine detail as bronze sculpture while the Greek mainland had become frustrated by imparting a flesh-like warmth of color not found the inability of their poor soil to support a large in metal or stone. population and began to send out colonists The Oberlin head is really just a face in high- throughout the Mediterranean. Among the relief, made by pressing a slab of clay into a most successful of these foundations were the deep front mold.4 Also part of this mold was colonies established on the coasts of Southern the flaring headdress, or polos; its decoration of Italy, such as Metapontum, Tarentum, Sybaris, flat discs was made by hand and added later, a and Locri (fig. 3). As a group, these cities are regular procedure in South Italian terracotta called Magna Graecia, or Greater Greece. The workshops. The hair above the forehead is ar­ opportunities presented there were not only ranged in a series of rounded vertical curls or agricultural but commercial, for both the native deep waves, with the central four somewhat tribes and the highly-civilized Etruscans in the shorter. The raised outline of the elongated North were eager to trade for objects of Greek eyes and the fleshy fullness of the cheeks and design and manufacture.2 Gradually, while con­ chin are characteristics of Magna Graecian style, tinuing to absorb artistic influences from the while the upward curve of the lips, the so-called mainland "home" and the East, the Western "archaic smile," is found throughout the Greek

17 O MALTA *• '00 150 KM.

3. Map of the Greek colonies in Magna Graecia (from E. Langlotz, Ancient Greek Sculpture of South Italy and Sicily, New York, 1965) ness. Presumably more detail would have been added to the statuettes in colored slip, but no traces of painted decoration remain on either figure. The brownish-orange clay of the Oberlin head is now covered with a lighter surface pat­ ina caused by chemical actions during its long burial in the soil.6 Although these two similar figures in Amer­ ican college museums do not have a known findspot, we can label them Metapontine by comparisons with identical terracottas exca­ vated near that city in Magna Graecia. The for­ mal colony of Metapontum was founded by Achaeans from the Peloponnesus in the seventh century B.C., but there may have been Greek traders in the area even earlier. The settlers chose an excellent agricultural site on a plain between the Brandano and Basento rivers, high in the arch of Italy's boot (fig. 3), and the city thrived until her unfortunate choice of Carthage over Rome in the Punic Wars. Unlike some of the other ancient cities in Southern Italy, knowl­ edge of Metapontum's location was never lost, for fifteen Doric columns have remained stand­ ing to mark the spot of the sixth century tem­ ple of Hera, better known locally as the Tavole Palatine, or Knights' Table.7 4. Metapontine statuette of a goddess, Bryn Mawr College, Gift of Clarissa Compton Dryden The intense archaeological activity of the last twenty years has increased geometrically world in the sixth and early fifth centuries B.C. our knowledge of this site. American and Ger­ A better conception of the arrangement of man, as well as Italian, scholars have taken part the hair below the ears can be obtained by com­ in these excavations, all of which were guided paring our example to a more complete figu­ and encouraged by Dr. Dinu Adamesteanu, the rine from the same mold series, now in the Ella recently-retired Soprintendente of Basilicata, Riegel Memorial Museum at Bryn Mawr Col­ where Metapontum is located, and his successor lege (fig. 4).5 The unusual texture of the four Dr. Elena Lattanzi.8 They, no doubt, feel pur­ locks which hang on each shoulder may repre­ sued in their work by the twin horsemen of sent hair which has been braided or bound in rapid industrialization and the local clandestini, short sections. On the Bryn Mawr figure, only a or illegal excavators. Much of the attention has simple curved line indicates the upper edge of been focused on discoveries in the city proper, the woman's garment, and the small breasts particularly in the vicinity of the Temple of appear rather too high for anatomical correct­ Apollo, for this is the area most threatened by 19 modern building, but the systematic exploration priate god or goddess. These small gifts were of the countryside has been equally important. placed in the temple or sanctuary as a continu­ In an agriculturally-based community, a great ing reminder of the petitions or gratitude of deal can be learned from the farms and rural their donors. Periodically the holy place would sanctuaries around which the lives of many be cleared of past dedications which were care­ citizens revolved. fully buried nearby. Such deposits of literally Most important for the Oberlin head are thousands of figures are regularly unearthed by the finds from an ancient sanctuary at San Bi- archaeologists and sometimes constitute the agio, only a few miles from the city. Religious only surviving evidence for a particular cult.10 activity began there in the seventh century B.C. Votive figurines of this type were found in at the site of a sacred spring, and the associated great quantities at San Biagio, and it is among buildings were ornamented with handsome ar­ the polymorphous images of the goddess wor­ chitectural revetments and antefixes in terra­ shipped there that we find the parallels for our cotta.9 At this period, an essential element in small fragment. We are fortunate that these the worship of local deities was the dedication particular terracottas have been studied and pub­ of terracotta statuettes representing the appro­ lished with great care by Dr. Gesche Olbrich, a

Statuette of a goddess, excavated at San Biagio, 6. Statuette of a goddess, excavated at San Biagio, Antiquarium di Metaponto Antiquarium di Metaponto

20 German scholar who has lived in Italy for many pontine shrine. If we did not know that the years.11 The two examples from San Biagio illus­ archaic smile is merely an artistic convention, trated here (figs. 5, 6) were probably taken we might wonder if only the terracottas know from the same mold as the Oberlin head and that secret. The standard method of identifica­ Bryn Mawr figure; this can be seen in a compari­ tion for unknown deities depends upon our son of features and coiffure. Yet the handmade ability to associate their costume and attributes additions so favored by South Italian coroplasts (accompanying objects and animals) with those alter their appearance in subtle ways. Fig. 6 has of the canonical gods and goddesses we know a polos decorated with flat discs, in this case of from the mainland. This method is less satisfac­ varying diameters, and large rosettes added to tory for the Lady of San Biagio, who seems to the shoulders. Fig. 5 appears more threatening; vary her nature and disposition by bits of added the handmade replacement right arm is raised clay. Also it cannot be emphasized enough that to hold a spear in her hollow fist. The shoulders the cults of Magna Graecia were highly localized have attachments of small rosettes and serpents, and individualized, with the Greek elements now only partially preserved, while the polos often transformed by new ideas which devel­ originally sported cone-like buds along its upper oped in the Western colonies. In South Italian edge.12 Handmade birds are pressed on the and Sicilian architecture, for example, we even shoulders of yet other examples, all of which see temple plans altered from the mainland show considerable invention in their variations norm to accommodate special religious require­ on this single mold.^ Normally the forearms ments. One feature of our figures, the headdress are outstretched from the elbows, as in fig. 6, or polos, does seem to be a prerogative of divin­ and terminate in spatulate ends rather than ities,15 and this at least assures us that we are clearly-defined hands. The tangs below the waist dealing with the goddess herself in these im­ were meant to be inserted in the wheel-formed ages, rather than a mortal worshipper. clay "skirts" used for the lower half of these Dr. Olbrich postulates that the goddess rep­ figures, but the latter easily became separated resented by the terracottas is Artemis, who ap­ from the molded upper sections and are rarely pears in literature and art as both huntress and well-preserved. Keeping in mind that the same protectess of animals.16 Not only are birds con­ molds would be used for many years, this partic­ nected with our type, as mentioned above, but ular type can be dated to around 525 B.C. Thus other figurines from the sanctuary hold clay cut­ we can postulate that the small fragment in the outs of animals and occasionally appear with Allen Art Museum originally formed part of a added wings and a pointed cap, which are attri­ statuette like fig. 6 in its general, if not exact, butes of this goddess in other places.17 The mar­ appearance. At another rural Metapontine com­ tial attitude of fig. 5, more reminiscent of the munity located at modern Incoronata, a Univer­ armed goddess Athena, is an oddity at San Bi­ sity of Texas team found a head from a figurine agio, although similar figures appear in nearby of the same type; the small Archaic sanctuary colonies. Dr. Paola Zancani Montuoro has ar­ there appears to have been dedicated to the gued for the Metapontine figures' identification 14 same goddess as that at San Biagio. with an Athena of broader functions than merely This brings us around to the final difficult a patroness of war.1^ The vast majority of the question of the identity of our head and the female figurines from the sanctuary are without other female figures from this outlying Meta­ surviving attributes, and therefore can be of no

21 help in the search for a proper name. Only the Notes discovery of positive inscriptional evidence will 1 decide this point in the future. Ace. no. 83.25, Friends of Art Endowment Fund. Pre­ served H. 8 cm., W. 5.3 cm. (ear to ear), face H. 5 cm. In the final analysis, we should be content (center of hairline to chin). The head was purchased to recognize that she was the goddess in this par­ from the Ariadne Gallery in New York City; it report­ ticular rural community, another multi-faceted edly had been owned by a New York coin collector since manifestation of what is called the Great God­ the early 1960s. Previously the object had been offered dess, who governed many aspects of human and for sale by the Summa Galleries and appeared in their Catalogue 1: Ancient Art (Beverly Hills, December animal life. Knowing her official designation— 1976) no. 58. whether Artemis, Athena, or Hera—brings us 1 would like to thank Dr. Richard E. Spear for allow­ no closer to what we really would like to know: ing me to examine the head both before and after its the actual feelings of her worshippers toward acquisition and for encouraging me to write this article. 2 this divine presence. Reading St. Luke's descrip­ For a general overview of this early colonization, see A. G. Woodhead, The Greeks in the West, New York, tion of Mary does not convey the hopes of a 1962, pp. 31-66. mother praying for her child to a healing icon 3 An example, close to the Oberlin head in style, would be of the Virgin. Religion at this basic level re­ the well-known seated goddess of the early 5th century mains personal, and the true character and B.C. from Grammichele in Sicily, H. 96.8 cm., now in the power of the Lady of San Biagio is locked in the Syracuse Museum. See. E. Langlotz, Ancient Greek Sculpture in South Italy and Sicily, New York, 1965, pp. heart of the past. 262-63, pi. 39. 4 The back of the object, not illustrated here, has been Karla Klein Albertson partially hollowed with a blunt tool to remove some of Bryn Mawr College the excess clay. The head is broken off from the main body of the figurine in a semicircular fracture under the chin. Missing from the polos are the right edge and a fifth clay disc attached there, and ihe upper edge of the four remaining discs. Some of the visible imperfections (e.g. holes in one of the curls above the forehead) are molding flaws produced during the manufacturing process. 5 Inv. no. T-223; gift of Clarissa Compton Dryden, daugh­ ter of the archaeologist D. Densmore Curtis. Preserved H. 16 cm., W (at shoulders) 10 cm., face H. 4.7 cm. The figure lacks the handmade discs on the polos but has an added tab of clay on each shoulder, perhaps used to at­ tach some larger ornament (see n. 12). In modern times, the entire surface of the terracotta has been coated with an opalescent sealing agent of unknown composition. I would like to thank Dr. Brunilde S. Ridgway and Bryn Mawr College for allowing me to publish this piece and for providing further information used in this article. 6 On the Munsell Soil Color Chart, the interior is 7.5YR 6/6 "reddish yellow" with a surface color 10YR 7/4 "very pale brown." Fairly smooth clay with fine mica but no visible larger inclusions.

22 The surface deposit allows us to distinguish between 12 Note that the "tails" of the snake protomes on the ancient breaks, such as those on top of the four remain­ shoulders of this particular figure resemble the tabs on ing discs, and damage which has occurred since the ob­ the Bryn Mawr example illustrated in fig. 4 and may ject was excavated. The break on the right corner of the suggest a correct restoration for the missing attach­ headdress appears to be modern and has exposed the ments of the latter. darker interior clay color. 13 For a catalogue of these figurines with their measure­ 7 A brief history of Metapontum by R. Ross Holloway ments, see Olbrich, p. 158, no. A124, pi. 30 and the re­ can be found in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical lated heads with bibliography on p. 323-24, no. C247, Sites, Princeton, 1976, pp. 574-75. The bibliography pi. 101. there can be updated by the references in the notes 14 See the catalogue listed above n. 9, fig. 29. The results of below. these excavations will also appear in the supplements For more information, see D. Adamesteanu, La Ba- to Notizie degli Scavi, but the University of Texas at silicata Antica, 1974, pp. 11-91 with an aerial photo­ Austin has published several well-illustrated pamphlets graph of the Tavole Palatine on p. 53. on their finds, Excavation in the Territory of Metaponto 8 The results of these excavations are to be published as 1976 and University of Texas Excavations at Metaponto, supplements to Notizie degli Scavi; Metaponto I has 1978. already appeared in conjunction with the 1975 volume. I would like to thank Dr. Ingrid Edlund, who has Many of the articles in the former Soprintendente's re­ catalogued many of the terracottas in the "Ancient cent Festschrift, Scritti in onore di Dinu Adamesteanu: Crossroads" exhibition, for keeping me in touch over Attivita Archeologica in Basilicata 1964-1977, Matera, the years with the University's work in this area. 1980, also deal with the discoveries at that site. For good 15 This divine attribute is discussed at length in E. Simon, summaries of the recent archaeological activity there "Hera und die Nymphen: ein bootischer Polos in Stock­ with further bibliography, see Archaeological Reports holm," Revue archeologique, 1972, pp. 205-220. for 1976-77, pp. 53-56 and those for 1981-82, pp. 74-76. 16 This identification is presented in the chapter of her 9 Some of the finest of these architectural terracottas were book on cult and iconography at San Biagio, Olbrich, pp. on view in an exhibition organized by the University of 70-98, and in a previous article in La Parola delPassato, Texas at Austin, which toured the United States and 1976, pp. 376-408. Canada from 1977 to 1979; see Ancient Crossroads: The An inscription with the name "Zeus Aglaios" was Rural Population of Classical Italy. Guide to an Archae­ found near the sanctuary, although few male statuettes ological Exhibition, Austin, 1977, figs. 19-22. have been discovered at the site. The cult connected 10 See, for example, R. Higgins, Terracottas in the British with the spring seems to have included both purification Museum, I, London, 1954, p. 336, on the "Fondo Gio- and healing. vannazo" at Tarento which contained 30,000 terracottas 17 Good color photographs of these unusual terracottas from the sanctuary of a male divinity. appear in D. Adamesteanu, La Basilicata Antica, 1974, 11 G. Olbrich, Archaische Statuetten eines Metapontiner p. 59. Heiliglums, Rome, 1979, henceforth abbreviated as Ol­ 18 P. Zancani Montuoro, "I labirinti di Francavilla ed il brich. culto di Athena," Rendiconti della Accademia di Arche- I am most grateful to Dr. Olbrich for her unfailing ologia, Lettere e Belle Arti, Napoli 50,1975, pp. 125-40, courtesy and for sharing with me her study photographs, particularly pp. 136-39. two of which are reproduced here as figs. 5 and 6.

23 1. Thomas Barker of Bath, Interior of a Mill, 1807, Oberlin, 40.41 Thomas Barker of Bath's "Interior of a Mill* and the Rustic Figure

One of the first acquisitions by the Museum been done in the field of English romantic when purchase funds began to be available in painting, is indeed our good fortune. The late 1940, chiefly through the generous benefactions Wolfgang Stechow, who began teaching at Ober­ of R.T. Miller, Jr., was the painting Interior of a lin the same year that the Barker was acquired, Mill, dated 1807, by Thomas Barker of Bath was instrumental in its purchase. He recognized (fig. I).1 It was an extraordinary purchase for its key position in English art, both as an echo the Museum to have made at that date. The gal­ back to the "country life" pictures of Gainsbor­ leries were still virtually empty of the master- ough and Morland, and as a precursor of the less works they now contain; the walls were hung pastoral, less picturesque, more realistic view of with the Hall Bequest of oriental carpets, and the rural worker that one finds in the work of the sculpture court filled with plaster casts (both Constable,6 or William Henry Hunt (1790-1864); collections still highly prized by the Museum see no. 155, Farmer in a Barn, ca. 1825-35, De­ but relegated today to less prominent locations). troit/Philadelphia Romanticism catalogue, Barker of Bath was scarcely known in this coun­ 1968. But the tradition of depicting the rustic try (and is hardly more known today, although worker was quick to die out as new subjects the inclusion of our painting in the Detroit/ took hold in nineteenth-century England: mys­ Philadelphia Romanticism show in 1968 [no. ticism, the Gothic Revival, the Romantic Sub­ 109] brought it to national attention). He was lime, Pre-Raphaelitism, and the strong and worth an article in the Dictionary of National continuing tradition of portraiture and land­ Biography,2 two short articles in Connoisseur scape, not new, of course, but different. In in 1904 and 1905,3 and has been noted, though France the representation of the plight of the scantily, in general works on British painting rural worker goes on until the end of the cen­ since the nineteenth century. One author re­ tury: from Millet to Pissarro. Why this occurred garded him nearly the equal of Constable in in France and not in England I leave to the "breadth of handling, in his firm grasp of essen­ social historians, and to Robert Herbert, who tial truths of nature."4 Another thought him "as has written with such insight on the rural good as Gainsborough in color." 5 worker in France (see especially "City vs. Coun­ That this work landed in Oberlin, long be­ try: The Rural Image in French Painting from fore any important work of scholarship had Millet to Gauguin," Artforum, 8, February 1970,

25 pp. 44-55). tution between 1807 and 1847, rarely at the The new social attitudes that occurred at the Royal Academy (eighteen exhibits on seven oc­ end of the eighteenth century, when the poor casions: 1791, 1796, 1797, 1798, 1800, 1804 and man took on a new dignity, and 'industry' be­ 1829). came his chief virtue, were accompanied by a In his youth he painted a number of land­ spate of paintings of rural genre subjects. In scapes, both in the style of, and copied after, 1792 the Royal Academy exhibited more pic­ Gainsborough and Morland. His early works tures in this category than ever before—three tend to be thinly painted; see, for example, the times the average of the five preceding years, as fine self-portrait in the Holburne of Menstrie one writer figured (see n. 14). While these social Museum, Bath (another version in the Tate Gal­ changes are best exemplified in literature in the lery, no. 5044), probably painted soon after his poetry of Wordsworth, in the visual arts they return from Rome, and the portrait of compar­ are anticipated as early as the 1780s in the late able quality of Priscilla Jones, ca. 1795-96 work of Gainsborough, and it is the relationship (whom the artist married in 1803) in the same between Gainsborough and Thomas Barker that museum in Bath. His later work, and this is is one of the main themes of this article. already evident in our picture, is more loose in The Museum files contain correspondence technique, painted with loaded brush, with between Stechow and Lawrence Gowing on the strong chiaroscuro effects in such landscapes as Interior of a Mill and its historical and artistic Sheep Shearing and Wick Rocks, both in the importance. Although Gowing declined Stec- Holburne Museum. how's request to publish the painting in this One of the largest collections of paintings by journal, having other commitments, his insights Barker of Bath is in the Victoria Art Gallery of expressed in this correspondence have informed that city (fifteen paintings, nearly one hundred my own thoughts and will be acknowledged drawings, lithographs, and a number of litho­ below. graphic stones). The Old Woodman from that Barker of Bath was born near Pontypool, museum (fig. 2) is stylistically close to our pic­ Monmouthshire, in 1769 and died in Bath in ture and in details of the male costume. It is 1847, which makes him a close contemporary of larger (65>/J X 53'A in.) and later (1818-19) than Morland, Turner and Constable (born 1763, the Miller. Compositionally they resemble each 1775 and 1776, respectively), and a generation other in the central vertical split, with larger younger than Gainsborough (born 1727). His figures close up on the right, and small figures father Benjamin was also a painter (of horses), in the middleground on the left. The National as was his brother Benjamin. In 1782 the family Gallery in London owns one work from the moved to Bath, where Thomas came to the same year as Oberlin's, acquired in 1878, the attention of a coachbuilder, Charles Spackman, Tate Gallery six, including The Woodman that who set the young artist to making copies of his the Tate dates ca. 1787 (fig. 3), the Victoria and collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings. In Albert six (one oil and five watercolors). That 1790 Thomas went to Rome, returning to Bath the greatest concentration of his work is in in 1793, where he lived the remainder of his life, Bath seems to suggest that he was mainly a a painter of landscapes and rustic genre scenes, painter of local repute. However, he is widely and occasionally of portraits and religious sub­ represented in public and private collections jects. He exhibited regularly at the British Insti­ throughout Great Britain and, curiously enough,

26 2. Barker of Bath, The Old Woodman, 1818-19, Victoria Art Gallery, Bath Photo: Courtauld Institute of Art 3. Barker of Bath, The Woodman and his Dog in a Storm, after 1793, Tate Gallery, London has a fair representation in American museums: Photo: Tate Gallery Philadelphia, Hartford, and the Yale Center for British Art, to name three. Both Thomas and his brother Benjamin exhibited frequently in ing a tole-ware coffee urn from ca. 1800 with a America during their lifetimes; Thomas on rustic scene painted in polychrome and gold. twelve occasions at the Boston Athenaeum be­ Also, Thomas' work was widely copied by tween 1827 and 1832, Benjamin on sixteen occa­ transfer-printing on English pottery and sions in Philadelphia between 1823 and 1850. textiles.8 Their appearance in America may owe to the Barker of Bath was an excellent draughts­ fact that the Bath painters Samuel Scarlett and man, a talent not always evident in his paint­ Joshua Shaw settled in America in 1817 and ings but no more clearly demonstrated than in a were active both as artists and as dealers.7 portfolio of lithographs after his drawings that Parenthetically, to indicate the range of his was published in Bath in December 1813 under activity, Thomas Barker early in his career pro­ the title 40 Lithographic Impressions from duced decorations for metalwork. The Cooper Drawings by Thomas Barker, selected from his Union in New York owns several pieces, includ- Studies of Rustic Figures after Nature.1) The

27 drawings are remarkable when compared with drawing and wood-cutting of the early sixteenth his earlier drawings in the manner of Gainsbor­ century. Perhaps the new reproductive medium ough, which are often simply pastiches of the made Barker think of Diirer; there are of course older artist.10 The pen lines are vigorous, as­ echoes of Diirer in British art in the next de­ sured, with sensitive cross-hatchings worked up cades, notably in Palmer, and elsewhere. But to various stages to suggest degrees of shade. Barker sometimes gives odd reminders also of Other lines are short and curved, especially in Bruegel's naer het leven drawings and there is a areas of clothing, which emphasize their rum­ series of majestic and sombre old women that pled, shabby appearance. To Lawrence Gowing makes me think of the chiaroscuro sybils of the drawing style "is reminiscent of German Guido Reni. An unusual combination, but it is

4. Barker of Bath, PI. 15 from 40 Lithographic Impressions from Drawings by Thomas Barker, selected from his 5. Barker of Bath, PL 14 from 40 Lithographic Impressions, Studies of Rustic Figures after Nature, Oberlin, 68.5 Oberlin, 68.5

28 united by a continual sympathy with country is equally intense but diverted slightly to the people and the work and condition of the left.12 poor...."11 The Oberlin painting is of a pronounced ver­ Some of the figures in the lithographs have tical format, one frequently used by Barker in been borrowed from the Oberlin picture. The his several pictures of woodmen (figs. 3,7). The fifteenth sheet in Oberlin's set (there are no old miller fills the right half of the picture. To table of contents, figure or page numbers) is the left in the background are a seated figure after the young girl seated in the background and a kneeling figure. Beams and possibly a holding a bag or a rolled cloth and a sheaf of device used for filling bags of grain occupy the gleanings (fig. 4) (BM 235). The fourteenth upper part of the composition. The colors are sheet appears to be after the same model as mainly greys, browns, blacks and whites, with that for the miller, although beardless and seen just two accents of more dominant colors: blue in profile. The twenty-fourth sheet shows a in the vest of the seated figure and red in that seated figure also like our miller (fig. 5), with of the miller, also in his flesh tones. The paint the same wide-brimmed hat and staff with is applied in a mixed technique of transparent curved handle. In the lithograph he stares out and opaque paint, the latter of creamy consis­ at the spectator. In our painting the miller's gaze tency retaining brushmarks, and in highlighted

6. Barker of Bath, Reclining Shepherd, drawing, Oberlin, 70.2

29 7. Barker of Bath, The Woodman Returning, Lord Barnard, Raby Castle Photo: The Mansell Collection areas, a low impasto, chiefly of a cool grey tone. The attitude of English poets towards the The transparent tones are principally earth pig­ rustic poor mirrors that of painters in the late ments, as well as the reds and blues. What star­ eighteenth century and early nineteenth cen­ tles is the psychological intensity of the miller's tury, but the painters seemed to be more igno­ gaze—his almost direct confrontation with the rant, or less caring, of their plight than the spectator. He is not one of Gainsborough's early poets, with the exception of George Morland. rustics, courting a milkmaid or contentedly Morland moved among the lower classes, so his ploughing a field. The harshness of his exis­ sympathy was bound to be engaged by the poor. tence is evident in his expression as well as in In the case of Gainsborough's landscapes, the his bent figure. But at the same time he is seen figure, though not a dominant theme, is usually with dignity and compassion and has a stolidity present, indulging in some sort of rustic, and and directness, both in execution and demeanor, cheerful, activity. But one or two late paintings that anticipate Van Gogh of the 1880s. Almost by Gainsborough, as we shall see below, are anachronistic is the seated figure at the left in profoundly sympathetic to the rural poor: this the tilt of the head, the grace of the features, from the supreme painter of England's elegant both more typical of the rococo than of the new society from the mid-1740s to the late 1780s. realism evident at the turn of the century. How far we have come from Richard Wilson, One may speculate that Thomas Barker where figures have no "reek of the human." knew his poets of rural life. Evidently several of Horace Walpole began to notice in the 1760s his paintings of woodmen were inspired by that the 'Englishness' of English art was being Cowper's poem "The Task," Book V, lines 41-57, overlooked (he was speaking of the poets but published in 1785: "Forth goes the woodman, could well have included painters) when he leaving unconcern'd / The cheerful haunts of wrote "Poets warm their imaginations with man .... His dog attends him. Close behind his sunny hills, or sigh after grottoes .... Our ever- heel / Now creeps he slow .... / snatches up the verdant lawns, rich vales, fields of hay-cock, and drifted snow / With iv'ry teeth .... / Heedless hopgrounds, are neglected as homely and famil­ of all his pranks, the sturdy churl / Moves right iar objects."15 As poetry gradually began to ac­ toward the mark; nor stops for aught, / But knowledge both "the comforts and rigors of now and then with pressure of his thumb / T' rural life," as John Barrell puts it,16 so Gainsbor­ adjust the fragrant charge of a short Tube / ough moved from the 'happy labor' of the joyful That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud rustic of the 1750s and '60s to a more realistic / Streams far behind him, scenting all the air." B depiction of the rural worker as a figure of pov­ Wordsworth's "Leech Gatherer," published in erty, even despair. 1807, the same year the Miller was painted, is Gainsborough's early ideal of the bold and comparable in its view of old age. Both artist happy peasant is reflected in Oliver Goldsmith's and poet seem more impressed by the dignity "The Deserted Village" (1770), where the poet than the poverty of their characters. Words­ remembers a village which he calls Auburn, worth's description of the lonely leech-gatherer with affectionate nostalgia: "How often have I could well be a description of our miller: "A bless'd the coming day, / When toil remitting lonely place, 'a pond by which an old man was lent its turn to play, / And all the village train, ...:' not stood, not sat, but was—the figure pre­ from labour free / Led up their sports beneath 14 sented in the most naked simplicity possible." the spreading tree" (lines 15-18). But even Gold-

31 smith goes to the "dark side of the landscape" in literary and musical circles.) when the village is destroyed by the repeated A contemporary critic remarked that the Enclosure Acts, which allowed the rich to en­ model for Gainsborough's large Woodman was close commonland to improve their own hold­ "a poor smith worn out by labour.... Mr. Gains­ ings and turn out the peasant who had lived on borough was struck by his careworn aspect and the land, often for generations. Likewise Gains­ took him home; he enabled the needy wanderer borough in his later work hints at the poverty by his generosity to live—and made him im­ of the rustic and his struggle for survival (e.g., mortal by his art! He painted him in the charac­ Cottage Door with Children Playing, ca. 1778, ter of a woodman; and to account for his dejec­ Cincinnati Art Museum, where women and chil­ ted visage introduced a violent storm .... The dren are at ease in front of a cottage, but a action of his dog, who is starting with his head laborer is shown at the left in semi-darkness, reversed, is well expressive of a momentary straining under his load of faggots). burst of thunder. A brilliancy of colour on the Although a number of late eighteenth- and woodman's rustic weeds is also descriptive of early nineteenth-century artists painted pictures the lightning's flash." 22 E. K. Waterhouse, in with laborers—Sandby, Morland, Wheatley, comparing Gainsborough's Woodman to Words­ Lambert, Rowlandson, Turner, among others— worth's poem "Michael" as a nearly perfect the theme of the single rustic figure dominating analogy of the two arts, sees the artist's imagi­ the picture plane comes from the late Gainsbor­ nation as approaching the actuality of Words­ ough. In the summer of 1787, a year before his worth's world.23 When Gainsborough was on death, Gainsborough painted a very large pic­ his deathbed, he asked Joshua Reynolds to come ture of a woodman,17 which is known now only to look at his last works (the two artists had from a reduced version18 and an engraving of been estranged for some time). He particularly 1791 (fig. 8).!9 The original was destroyed by wanted to show Reynolds his Woodman, which fire at Exton Park, home of the Earl of Gains­ he regarded as his greatest work. Reynolds borough, in May 1810. In the engraving, and came, and later wrote, "If any little jealousies presumably in the reduced painting (present had subsisted between us, they were forgotten, location unknown) which was made for the in those moments of sincerity ...."24 Apparently engraver's use, the figure stands erect, clasping a reconciliation was effected. a walking stick, his clothes tattered, his haggard Thomas Barker was likely to have known of face in full light looking up and to the left, his the famous painting of his famous compatriot. dog likewise turned toward the left. A bundle of Although the elder artist moved from Bath to faggots rests on the ground as in several prepar­ London eight years before Barker settled in 20 atory drawings for the painting. In one draw­ Bath, and died when Barker was just nineteen, 21 ing the figure carries the bundle on his back, Gainsborough exerted a profound influence on bent under the load as he strides towards the the younger artist and it is conceivable that left. The model appears to be the same for the draw­ Barker knew the Woodman by reputation or had ing as for the painting. (It does not seem far­ seen either it or the engraving. One must as­ fetched to suggest that the Cowper poem [1785] sume that he knew it, as Barker painted several may also have inspired Gainsborough [1787]. versions of his own woodman (cited in n. 13) The artist claimed not to have been a reader, which resemble in several details the Gainsbor­ but he was a learned man and had many friends ough painting: the pile of faggots, the dog with

32 8. Pierre Simon, stipple engraving after Gainsborough's The Woodman (destroyed 1810), 1791, Nagler and Le Blanc 13 Photo: Courtauld Institute of Art head turned, the scale of the figure in relation Notes to format (figs. 3,7). Farington, in a diary entry of 1807, wrote that Barker "lives upon the rep­ 1 Ace. no. 40.41. Purchase. Oil on canvas, 42 1/2 x 30 1/2 utation of His Woodman but His Portfolio is in. (108 x 80 cm.) Signed and dated lower right: "Tho. Barker Pinx. 1807." Private collection Westchester, stored with subjects of Peasants etc.... for truth N.Y.; Norman Hirschl Gallery, New York. of expression excellent, unrivalled." 2 DNB, London, 1885, III, pp. 211-12. Although Barker's several woodmen derive 3 Percy Bate, "Thomas Barker, of Bath," X, 1904, pp. 107- partly from the Cowper poem of 1785 (or do so 12; XI, 1905, pp. 76-81. 1 through Gainsborough), the great Gainsbor­ W. H. Fuller, Early English and Barbizon Paintings be­ longing to ... Chickering Hall on ... February 25 ..., New ough of 1787 is their pictorial source, complete York, American Art Association, 1898, p. 53- with dog and storm. The Tate dates their ver­ 5 Ibid., pp. 108-109. Quoted from the London Times, No­ sion ca. 1787 (fig. 3), thus acknowledging the vember 9,1887. relationship to Gainsborough's masterpiece. 6 Constable puts his laborers in the middleground of his More likely the Barker woodmen are somewhat paintings and creates a state of harmony between the figure and his environment. If Constable is less involved later, probably after the artist's return from Italy with the poverty of his workers than Morland, say, he in 1793. does reject the eighteenth-century concept of the happy The somewhat lengthy discourse on wood­ peasant. men, when the Oberlin picture is a miller, is 7 See F.J. Dallett, "The Barkers of Bath in America," An­ intended to point out that these several wood­ tiques, XCIII, 1968, pp. 652-55. 8 Cooper Union Chronicle, II, no. 3, June 1951, fig. 12, men by Barker, in the particularity of their p. 82. For a textile see Antique Collector, III, no. 5, style, in composition, but most importantly in 1932, p, 110. the attitude shown towards the rural poor early 9 Samuel H. Kress Fund, 68.5. A set in the British Mu­ seum is catalogued 52/12/11—221 to 261. in the nineteenth century—an attitude shared 10 by other artists and a major shift of direction in E.g., chalk drawing of landscape in Cleveland Museum of Art, which combines three separate Gainsborough English art—anticipate the Oberlin miller. In motifs, noted by John Hayes, The Drawings of Thomas sum, by the end of the eighteenth century the Gainsborough, New Haven and London, 1971, p. 78. pastoral or idealized image of the rural figure 1' From a letter to Wolfgang Stechow, February 5,1967, in Museum files. has disappeared, as it had in most writers. The 12 peasant in the late Gainsborough is shown at The Museum possesses a wash drawing by Barker of 26 Bath in which the line work resembles that of the litho­ work, not merrymaking. Likewise the miller graphs in its nervous angularity in the definitions of the in Interior of a Mill stands firmly, sternly, and forms (fig. 6). Ace. no. 70.2. Pen and brown ink, brown in harmony with his surroundings, giving a wash and watercolor, 182 x 257 mm. Olney Fund. new dignity to the workingman, who had been 13 See The Woodman and his Dog in a Storm, coll. B. Har- treated with condescension, even levity, in the greaves, London, photo Witt Library, and The Wood­ cutter, coll. Chrestien, Newick House, Heathfield, photo art of an earlier generation. Witt Library. See also fig. 7, a woodcutter with the ubi­ quitous pipe and dog from the Cowper poem, also a Chloe Young bunch of faggots. Also see engraving by Gaugain after Thomas Barker titled Labour and Health, with the pipe- smoking woodman, accompanied by a young woman—a unique addition to this congeries of woodmen as far as I can ascertain.

34 14 From Memoirs of Wordsworth, on his poem "Resolu­ 19 Pierre Simon, The Woodman, 1791, stipple engraving, tion and Independence," quoted in The Poetical Works Nagler and Le Blanc 13. of Wordsworth, ed. Thomas Hutchinson, London, New 20 Hayes, The Drawings ..., nos. 849, 851, 852. York, Toronto, 1959, p. 701. 21 Study of a Woodman carrying Faggots, Hayes, no. 850. 15 Anecdotes of Painting, I, ed. 1828, p. 121. 22 Quoted in W. T Whitley, Thomas Gainsborough, New 16 See John Barrell, The Dark Side of the Landscape. The York and London, 1915, p. 285. Rural Poor in English Painting 1730-1840, Cambridge, 25 E. K. Waterhouse, "Gainsborough's 'Fancy Pictures'," 1980, passim, from which many of my ideas on this Burlington Magazine, LXXXVIII, 1946, pp. 139-40. subject derive. I should like to thank Bryan Wolf for 24 Quoted by J. Hayes, in Thomas Gainsborough, exh. cat., calling this book to my attention. Barrell discusses just London, Tate Gallery, 1980, pp. 40-41. three artists: Gainsborough, Morland, and Constable. 25 The Diary of Joseph Farington, K. Cove, ed., VIII, July 17 E.K. Waterhouse, Gainsborough, London, 1958, no. 806; 1806-December 1807, New Haven and London, 1982, 92 3/4 x 61 1/2 in. Unsold at the artist's death; bought p. 3138. from the 1789 sale of the artist's effects in Schomberg 26 George Morland (d. 1804) gives a less generalized image House by the Earl of Gainsborough for 500 guineas. of rural life than Gainsborough, and a more radical view. 18 Smaller version made for engraver P. Simon exhibited at One feels in a painting like The Alehouse Door of 1792 the British Institution, 1814, no. 39, lent by Archdeacon (Tate Gallery) a sympathy with the condition of the Markham, 23 1/2 x 15 1/2 in., bought at Robinson and poor that may be connected with the growth of radical Fishers before 1900 by Sir Charles Holmes. Exh. Bicen­ feeling in the country around the turn of the century. tenary Memorial Exhibition of Thomas Gainsborough, Two peasants are outside the door, one seated, one R.A., Ipswich Museum, 1927, no. 61, and Gainsborough standing, seeming to be in earnest conversation, Loan Exhibition, 45 Park Lane, London (Sir Philip Sas- no longer submissive or passively accepting of their soon's), 1936, no. 28, lent, to both exhibitions, by Sir condition. Charles Holmes.

35 Notes

A New Director M. Kirby Talley, Jr. has been appointed Di­ rector of the Museum, after a two-year search, effective October 1,1984. Richard Spear, Direc­ tor from 1972 to 1983, has returned to the Art Department on a full-time basis. Mr. Talley is only the fifth Director since the founding of the Museum in 1917. He comes to us from the Cul­ ture Ministry's School for Restorers in the Netherlands, of which he has been Director since 1977. His field of expertise is seventeenth and eighteenth century English art with a strong side interest in artist's techniques and materials and methods of conservation. He holds a B.A. from Trinity College, an M.A. from Rutgers, an M.A. from the University of Amsterdam, and a Ph.D. degree from the Courtauld Institute in London.

Catalogue of Japanese Prints from the Mary A. Ainsworth Collection The catalogue of the Ainsworth collection of Japanese prints, long in preparation, will be published in December, to coincide with an ex­ hibition of approximately 150 prints in the Mu­ Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi, Hosokute. Horikoshi Tairyo haunted seum. It was written in 1979 by the eminent by the ghosts of victims. No. 49 from the series The Sixty- nine Stations of the Kisokaidb Road. 1852. Color wood­ scholar/connoisseur in this field, Roger S. block print. K536 Keyes, who with his wife, Keiko Mizushima Keyes, spent that summer studying, catalogu­ ing, making condition notes and performing minor restoration on the entire collection. Keiko Keyes' work led to a study on the proper-

36 ties of fading in Japanese prints by Robert Fel­ University. They will be joined in a panel dis­ ler, Mary Curran and Catherine Bailie of the cussion in the afternoon by Stella Blum, Direc­ Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, which is published tor of the Kent State University Museum and as an appendix to the catalogue and should be formerly Curator at the Costume Institute, The an important tool for print curators and paper Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Roger Cope- conservators in the handling and treatment of land, Associate Professor of Theater, Oberlin this fragile art. College. The catalogue was both written and printed with partial support from the National Endow­ ment for the Arts. It also received support from private individuals, including descendants of Miss Ainsworth, who graduated from Oberlin in 1889. It is being distributed by Indiana Uni­ versity Press and contains 272 pages, 541 black and white illustrations, and 35 color plates.

Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes: Exhibition and Symposium From February 19 to March 31, 1985, the Museum will exhibit fifteen rare costumes de­ signed for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes by artists Leon Bakst, Natalia Gontcharova, Nicholas Roe- rich and Henri Matisse. On loan from the Cos­ tume Galleries at Castle Howard, England, the costumes were designed for productions that include "The Firebird," "The Sleeping Princess," and "The Rite of Spring." In conjunction with the exhibition, the Mu­ seum has organized a symposium which will begin with an opening lecture by Richard Rob- son, Curator of the Castle Howard Galleries, on Friday, February 22. On Saturday, the following will present papers: Dale Harris, Professor of Literature and Writing at Sarah Lawrence Col­ Henri Matisse, Costume for a Chinese Mourner from "Le lege, Adjunct Professor of Art History at Cooper Chant du Rossignol," 1920 Union and Adjunct Professor of Drama at New York University; Jean Ross Acocella, Lecturer in Dance History, The School of Visual Arts, New York; and Robert Hansen, Chairman of the Theater Department, Bowling Green State

37 Recent Grants and Professor Emeritus, Department of Art, "Are These All Originals?" The Museum was one of nineteen Ohio muse­ ums to receive a grant from the Institute of A lecture under the auspices of the Alumni Museum Services and one of nine in the state to Office was presented on September 19 by Joel receive the maximum funding of $50,000. The Isaacson, Oberlin, Class of 1957, of the Univer­ grant will be used for consultation fees to study sity of Michigan on "Observations and Experi­ computerization of the collections, for salaries, ment in the Early Work of Claude Monet." On and for exhibition support. November 12 Steve Cagan spoke on "Artistic The Institute of Museum Services also and Cultural Policies in New Nicaragua" under awarded conservation project support to the the sponsorship of the Museum and Third Museum to the amount of $14,609, which will World House. enable the Museum to complete two conserva­ tion projects: the rematting of the Museum's On February 11, Mary Ellen Miller, Yale Uni­ collection of Japanese prints, and the recon­ versity, will give a lecture on "Bonam Pak: The struction, restoration and reinstallation of the Splendor of Mayan Mural Painting" with the second section of an Antioch mosaic acquired support of the Baldwin Fund. by the Museum in 1945 (the first section was so treated in 1979-81, and reported in this Bulle­ tin, XXXIX, 2,1981-82). AIA Lectures From the Ohio Arts Council the Museum The Oberlin-Ashland-Wooster chapter of continues to receive program support, this year the Archaeological Institute of America is spon­ to the amount of $18,333. The funds will sup­ soring three lectures during the 1984-85 aca­ port the Diaghilev costume exhibition and sym­ demic year: November 28 at Oberlin, Prof. Mir­ posium, several other exhibitions, and intern iam Balmuth, Tufts University, "The Mysterious salaries. Island of Sardinia"; February 22 at Ashland, Prof. Lilly Kahil, an AIA annual Norton lec­ ture, title to be announced; April 22 at Wooster, Lectures Prof. William Biers, University of Missouri, Five members of the staff—Art Depart­ "Archaeology on the Edge of the Ocean: Exca­ ment and Museum—gave lectures in the fall: vations at Mirobriga, Portugal." September 25, William Olander, Curator of Modern Art, "Postmodernism or Revivalism," in connection with the exhibition Drawings after Photography; October 4, Phillip Chan, Vis­ iting Assistant Professor, "Absence/Presence;" October 15, Richard E. Spear, Professor, Depart­ ment of Art, "Caravaggio and Naples;" Novem­ ber 1, Athena Tacha, Professor, Department of Art, "Massacre Memorials and other New Ur­ ban Sculpture Proposals;" November 27, Ellen H. Johnson, Honorary Curator of Modern Art

38 Exhibitions 1984-85 October 30 - December 1 *The Prints of Barnett Newman August 28 - October 14 Barnett Newman (1905-1970) was a leading *Drawings: After Photography member—along with Mark Rothko, Clyfford Over 50 drawings by 26 contemporary art­ Still and Willem deKooning—of the generation ists who exploit photography in a number of of American Abstract Expressionists who rose divergent, post-Pop, and post-Conceptual man­ to prominence following World War II. Best ners. Works range from Sherrie Levine's deli­ known for his monumentally-scaled "stripe" cate watercolor "reproductions" after fine art paintings, Newman also produced a significant masterpieces to Christof Kohlhofer's strident number of prints. This exhibition is the first series of U.S. Presidents called "Ali Baba and comprehensive gathering of Newman's prints the Forty Thieves." Organized and circulated by and includes 43 works—lithographs, etchings, Independent Curators, Inc., New York City and and aquatints—all produced between 1961 and supported by a grant from the National Endow­ 1969. Organized by the University of Massachu­ ment for the Arts. Catalogue, Stern Gallery. setts, Amherst, with the generous cooperation of the Barnett Newman Foundation. Catalogue, August 28 - September 23 Stern Gallery. Contemporary Drawings and Photographs from the Permanent Collection December 11 -January 27 In conjunction with "Drawings: After Pho­ Masterpieces from the Mary A. Ainsworth tography," works from the Museum's perma­ Collection of Japanese Prints nent collection by pre-Pop artists like Jasper The Ainsworth Collection is the finest Johns and post-modern photographers, includ­ group of Japanese woodblock prints in an ing Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince. Ripin American college museum. This is the most Print Gallery. comprehensive exhibition of its holdings since the spring of 1951, the date of the original be­ October 2 - November 18 quest. "Masterpieces" coincides with the publi­ * Piecing Together the Past: The Art in cation of the catalogue of the collection by Roger Archaeology S. Keyes. The exhibition includes major works This exhibition features artifacts from an­ by 18th century masters Masanobu, Toyonobu, cient Greece and original watercolors of Bronze Harunobu and Utamaro, and 19th century mas­ Age ceramics, drinking vessels and murals, fo­ ters Kuniyoshi, Hokusai and Hiroshige. Stern cusing on the palace of King Nestor of Pylos. Gallery. Organized and circulated by the Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati and the Taft Museum. Ripin Print Gallery.

39 February 19 - March 31 May 21 - Summer *Diaghilev Costumes from Castle Howard, New Acquisitions England A selection of paintings, sculpture, works Fifteen original costumes designed for Ser­ on paper, and objects from among those ac­ gei Diaghilev's famous Ballets Russes gener­ quired by the Museum via gift or purchase since ously lent from the largest private costume col­ 1983. Stern Gallery. lection in Britain. Included are costumes by, *With the support of the Ohio Arts Council. among others, Leon Bakst, Nicholas Roerich, and Henri Matisse, and from such extraordinary ballets as "The Rite of Spring," "Daphnis and Chloe," and "Firebird." A lecture series is plan­ ned to coincide with the exhibition. Catalogue, Stern Gallery.

February 17 - March 31 In the Circle of Diaghilev: Works from the Permanent Collection A selection of prints and drawings by artists associated with Diaghilev, including Pablo Pi­ casso, Henri Matisse, and Raoul Dufy. Ripin Print Gallery.

May 21 - Summer In Honor of Paul B. Arnold: Artist, Professor, Alumnus Paul Beaver Arnold (Class of 1940, M.A. 1941) has been the Professor of Graphic Arts at Oberlin College since 1941, since 1982 John Young Hunter Professor of Art. In addition, he served as Department Chairman from 1970-79 and at the College, as Director of the East Asian Language and Area Center in 1967-68. As a printmaker, Professor Arnold has had over 30 one-person shows and has participated in over 130 group exhibitions. In honor of his retire­ ment and his 45th reunion, a selection of Pro­ fessor Arnold's prints, collages, posters and pub­ Paul B. Arnold, Hunter, I960. Color woodblock print lications will be shown in the Ripin Print Gallery.

40 Friends of Art Film Series Films on dance is the theme of this year's Friends of Art film series: The Red Shoes (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948) and A Study in Choreography (Maya Deren, 1942) on October 2; Isadora Duncan (Ken Rus- sel, 1966) and Entr'acte (Rene Clair, 1924) on October 10; Spartacus (Derbenev, 1977) on Oc­ tober 16; An American in Paris (Vincente Min- nelli, 1951) on October 30; Backstage at the Kirov (Derek Hart, 1983) on November 7; and Wild Style (Charlie Ahearn, 1983) and Le Ballet Mecanique (Fernand Leger, 1924) on Novem­ ber 13.

41 Museum Staff M. Kirby Talley, Jr., Director Chloe H. Young, Senior Curator and Bulletin editor Ellen H. Johnson, Honorary Curator of Modern Art William Olander, Curator of Modern Art Elizabeth Shepherd, Curator Publications Michael Holubar, Technician Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin, Vols. I-XLII, Judith E. Fannin, Administrative Secretary 1944-1985. Some issues out of print. Indexes avail­ Fiona F. Maxwell, Intern able through Vol. XXX at S1.00 each. Jonathan Louie, Intern Catalogue of European and American Paintings and Sonia M. Lismer, Graduate Assistant Sculpture, 1967, 359 pp., 278 illus., S3.50 Arthur Fowls, Head Custodian Painting and Sculpture Acquisitions 1966-1969 Jacqueline Pries, Senior Guard (Winter 1970 issue of Bulletin), 24 illus., S2.00 Forrest Mack, Senior Guard Catalogue of Drawings and Watercolors, 1976, 295 pp., 303 illus., $12.50 Japanese Woodblock Prints: A Catalogue of the Mary A. Ainsworth Collection, 1984, 272 pp., 576 illus., including 35 color plates, S65 Museum Hours Also available from the Museum are photographs, School year: postcards, notecards, numerous exhibition catalogues, Closed Monday and slides of works in the collection. Tuesday 11-8 Wednesday through Friday 11-5 Saturday and Sunday 2-5 Vacations, summer, and January term: Closed Monday and Tuesday Wednesday through Sunday 2-5

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