THE GREEK REVIVAL IN THE UNITED STATES
A SPECIAL LOAN EXHIBITION
\ THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART LIST OF LENDERS MRS. J. INSLEY BLAIR THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK MISS CLARA LIVINGSTON CHEESMAN OGDEN CODMAN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY THE COOPER UNION MUSEUM FOR THE ARTS OF DECORATION THE ESTATE OF GEORGE DREW EGBERT MRS. WILLIS FIELD THE GRAND LODGE OF FREE AND ACCEPTED MASONS OF PENNSYLVANIA THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA MRS. JOHN DAVID LANNON FRANCIS H. MARKOE THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY THE MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK THE MUSEUM OF COSTUME ART, NEW YORK THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY THE ESTATE OF MRS. STEPHEN H. P. PELL THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART THE RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN, THE MUSEUM OF ART MRS. H. MONTAGUE ROBERTSON THE ROCHESTER MEMORIAL ART GALLERY MRS. J. WEST ROOSEVELT MRS. J. WRIGHT RUMBOUGH MRS. ARCHIBALD SHRADY THE NATIONAL COLLECTION OF FINE ARTS OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION THE WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY During most of the last century, from Maine West brought an urgent need for new dwell to California, temple-like structures sprang ings, churches, courthouses, and capitols. In up in which our first American-born profes this broader political economy commercial sional architects strove to incorporate the buildings, stores, factories, and mills were grandeur, strength, and symmetry of ancient necessary for the new developments in home Greek buildings. The very names of new industries, and these gave scope to the new towns echoed the pervading enthusiasm for architecture. things Greek—Athens, Corinth, Sparta, and A more immediate bond between Greece Syracuse. The first evidence of this return to and the United States was the War of Inde Greece for inspiration was Latrobe's Bank of pendence against the Turks in 1824, which Pennsylvania, built in Philadelphia in 1800, awoke the emotional and romantic impulses the portico being adapted from the east of our citizens, many of whom had lived facade of the Erechtheum; the last may well through the Revolution in a similar struggle have been the Crystal Palace Saloon, built at for political freedom. Lord Byron's death at Tombstone, Arizona, in 1878. Missolonghi gave emphasis to a noble cause. The Greek temple as a model stirred the Nicholas Biddle, a rich, cultivated, and imagination of the early American builders socially popular Philadelphian, was the first because by its associations it paralleled the American actually to see the classic buildings ideal of a new and vigorous democracy. The of Greece. His published praise aroused Greek style was a simple one based entirely widespread interest, and was the forerunner on the column and lintel, without the intrica of numerous books illustrating architectural cies of arches, vaults, and domes that devel designs in the Greek taste. They stemmed oped in Roman days. Not only the trained largely from the first two volumes of the architects in metropolitan centers but the famous Antiquities of Athens published by skilled carpenters working from design books Stuart and Revett in London in 1762 and in obscure villages found a system of building 1782; this work was a fountain of knowledge both dignified and practical. and provided the first precise information Since the first settlements at Jamestown here of pure Greek form. The American and Plymouth the roots of colonial architec books began with John Haviland's Builders' ture had been chiefly English, but the War Assistant (Philadelphia, 1818-1821) and of 1812 weakened the mutual ties between continued with numerous publications by England and the United States. The burning Asher Benjamin in Boston and Philadelphia, of the President's house and the Capitol John Hall in Baltimore, and Minard Lafever caused particularly deep resentment and in New York, all of which appeared in many made the break complete for a time. With editions over a period of years, up to 1856. the close of the war came a period of national These books and the actual remaining expansion. New prosperity in the South fol buildings prove that the Greek Revival lowing Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton emerged as a more literal interpretation of gin and the heavy migrations from the At classicism than the Roman style favored by lantic seaboard to Ohio, Michigan, and the Jefferson, Bulfinch, Hallet, Hoban, McComb, and others who followed the first beginnings of the Graeco-Egyptian style, it was "an made by the Adam brothers. However, in association of all the elegancies of antique spite of a nearer approach to classic sources, forms and ornaments with all the requisites of the numerous architects who advanced the modern customs and habits" . . . "capable of cause of the new style interpreted Greek ennobling, through means of their shape and forms with a complete freedom from archaeo their accessories, things so humble in their logical restraint. On state capitols, country chief purpose and destination as a table and churches, plantation houses, and modest cot a chair, a footstool and a screen." His book, tages alike, the pillared portico, the carved Household Furniture and Interior Decora capital, and the crisp, formal ornament show tion, illustrated from his own collection, pays their origin clearly, but the variations are in tribute to the style: "Freedom now consoli finite. This adaptation, in every environment, dated in France has restored the pure taste of of antique form to new material bred our first the antique Greek for chairs." Five years national style of architecture. earlier, in 1802, the first publications of Many of the public and domestic temple- Pierre la Mesangere's Meubles et objets de form buildings still contribute an austere, gout included illustrations that were the dignified quality to the American commu source of some of Hope's furniture. Amer nity. The names of numerous builders are ican cabinetmakers made steady use of these known to us—James Bucklin, Ithiel Town, books for patterns, together with George and Alexander Jackson Davis of New Eng Smith's Collection of Designs for Household land and New York; Benjamin Latrobe in Furniture . .. (1808), Rudolph Ackermann's Philadelphia and the South and his pupil Repository of Arts . . . (1809-1828), and the William Strickland, who later worked in architects C. Percier and P. F. L. Fontaine's Tennessee; Robert Mills, the protege of Jef Recueil de decorations interieures (1812). ferson, in Washington and South Carolina; Many French cabinetmakers were busy, par Gideon Shryock of Kentucky; Jonathan ticularly in New York and Philadelphia; Goldsmith of Ohio; Thomas Ustick Walter Charles Honore Lannuier, John Gruez, and of Philadelphia and Washington; William Anthony Quervelle, to mention only a few, Jay and Henry McAlpin in Georgia; James were contemporaries of the better-known Dakin and James Gallier in New York and men Duncan Phyfe, Michael Allison, George Louisiana. These were the outstanding men W. Miller, and Joseph Barry. By 1840, with in the movement. the publication in Baltimore of John Hall's Cabinet-Makers' Assistant, the architectural In the decorative arts Greek and Roman style in furniture—developed with taste and motifs are freely mingled to produce the imagination and usually enriched with gilded "antique style," as the contemporary design carving and bronze appliques—gave way be ers described it. In the words of Thomas fore the massive undulating curves of ma Hope, a rich Dutch amateur who traveled hogany veneer with their warning of the widely for years in Greece, Egypt, and Sicily thick Victorian vegetation to come. before settling in England as the champion JOSEPH DOWNS The photograph of the Maguire house at Alexandria, Virginia, shown on the cover, is by Miss Frances B. Johnston. 1. Drawing (1798) by Benjamin Latrobe for the Bank of Pennsylvania, built in Philadelphia in 1800. Lent by the Maryland Historical Society I I *U.C"t-- Xi. 2. Drawing of the Connecticut State House, built 1827-1831, and Buildings at Yale College. In scribed : A. /. Davis. Lent by the Yale University Library • ' *'"'* ami '-7/ss/// y't i / /-. . iU»/. ///'//S/t ///<- . i Je^/tn.'eu. t','. //> *:-/;./'.• /e?2S. r ^ . ^^» • 'ttMW " l££3MKC ""TMl ~ JF^ ^T ^^ ^| i / 1 -6^' -r-T-r—*fc 3. Drawing for the house of James Hillhouse, New Haven, Conn. Lent by the Yale University Library Drawing of the old State House at Frankfort, Ky., built 1827-1828, by Gideon Shryock, the archi tect. Photograph courtesy of the Kentucky State Historical Society 5. Drawing for a business block by the architect Jonathan Goldsmith. Lent by the Western Reserve Historical Society 6. Drawing by Jonathan Goldsmith of the Geauga Bank in Paines- ville, Ohio, built about 1835. Lent by the Western Reserve Historical Society 7. Drawing, possibly for the house of James Hillhouse, built in 1829 in New Haven, Conn. Lent by the Yale University Library The Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia, designed by William Strickland and built in 1818. Engraving by F. Kearny, 1824. Lent by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania 9. Corn columns in the vestibule of the old Senate wing of the Capitol, Wash ington. Designed by Benjamin Latrobe in 1807. Photograph by I. T. Frary 10. Tobacco capitals in the small rotunda of the old Senate wing of the Capitol, Washington. Designed by Benjamin Latrobe in 1817. Photo graph by I. T. Frary pa a, 1 M M ti u 60 O •j-> O _c CM -4-> J3 o d F 00 3 "3 60 U "o O T3 O o E 3 O o .£1 Q, n3 L; 60 O -4-> o c 'a, < c E 3 a rd C C > CO C 60 F 13. The Church of the Redeemer at Provincetown, Mass., built in 1847. Photograph by Philip D. Gendreau 14. The State Capitol in Nashville, completed in 1855. William Strickland architect. Photograph by Robert W. Tebbs 19. Staircase in the Thomas house in Savannah, Ga., built about 1825. William Jay architect. Photograph courtesy of John Mead Howells 20. Staircase in the Rhett house, Charleston, built about 1835. Photograph by Tebbs and Knell, Inc. 21. The Wright house in Nantucket, Mass., built about 1830. Photograph courtesy of L. A. Chambliss 22. The music room at "Strawberry" in Philadelphia, in the wing built by Judge Hemphill in 1828. Photograph courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art 23. House at 107 West Monument Street, Baltimore, built about 1830. Photograph courtesy of the Essex Institute, Salem 24. The State Capitol at Columbus, Ohio, built 1839-1861. Henry Walter, Martin Thompson, and Thomas Cole architects. Photograph by I. T. Frary 25. The old State Capitol at Benicia, Calif., built in 1849. Photograph by H.'C. Tibbitts 26. The Crystal Palace Saloon, Tombstone, Ariz., built in 1878. Photograph courtesy of the Historic American Buildings Survey 27. Capitals from a house in High Street, New Haven (built about 1825), and the Matthew Clarkson house, Flatbush, Brooklyn (1835). Lent by the Yale University Art Gallery and the Brooklyn Museum ^V^C&S*^^^-.^ 28. Details of woodwork from the State House, New Haven (1828), and the Matthew Clarkson house, Flatbush, Brooklyn (1835). Lent by the Yale University Art Gallery, the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection (top), and the Brooklyn Museum II .31 G • a Q 1 rr—•\-~~ j 1 L=J f fig] jE F=n ! • —__— 29. Engraving from Practice of Architecture, by Asher Benjamin, Boston, 1835. Lent by Columbia University D£3i&M f'J'A A ?'AOii'( DO O'si. 30. Engraving from The Beauties of Modern Architecture, by Minard Lafever, New York 1856. Lent by the New York Public Library. ANASTATIC PRESS 31. Engraving from The Builders' Assistant, by John Haviland, 1818-1821. The Metropolitan Mu seum of Art, Dick Fund, 1938 32. Engraving from A Guide to V/or\ers in Metal and Stone, by Thomas U. Walter and J. Jay Smith, 1846. Lent by Columbia University Room in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum furnished in the Greek Revival style r,„ 738 J^. . .__^N -y ( ) jv*"-—. ->J , . •J ^-ec^-ii 34 and 35. Illustrations from The Cabinet Makers' Assistant, by John Hall, Baltimore, 1840. Lent by the New York Public Library ,0 O F H K o 2 N 6 M-H g * HI o 1) s 3 gs pa — n* o , ( u is , oo 4) G O in > -2 E 4-> o 2 o 2 60 3 o s 3 Pi .60 o • ^ £ Q >^ r ' >-J 5 fe -J g 3 o •3" sc 4_T EH 0H' < ,—1 '-K. '.J 3 o £ 3s 3 cc 'J w >N 3 X) 2 G" G 4J w ~0 -5 0 oI- ui-i o E2u 13 - T3 3 r/3 43 OD u s 2 £ J03 G F 5 ^ H x B. « H s HJ CgO "D 0\ C TJ C c o ja o pi 42 a '3 E G cd u HH >N O I 3 £ S T3 s F 42 and 43. Wooden figures of Faith and Hope. Carved by William Rush about 1811 for the Masonic Hall in Philadelphia. Lent by the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Pennsylvania. Reproduced from William Rush . . . , by Henri Marceau (Pennsylvania Museum of Art, 1937) 44. Wooden figure of Hercules carved by Dodge and Sharpe in New York in 1820 for the U. S. S. "Ohio." Photograph courtesy of Frederick B. Pratt 45. The Greek Slave, by Hiram Powers, 1843. Marble. Lent by the National Collection of Fine Arts of the Smithsonian Institution 4* - C 0 >- 2 >+* '-t— O O >x >, +-I CJ U tu u 42 ^g •^ M-t O o 3 E 3 3 W 4-3. l- CO "S o >-l d) 60 3 3 3 -5 -a "5 to 3 £ co H CO tb C (2 H r> TJ 5 r^ *o 48. Rosewood ottoman with stenciled decoration, made by Duncan Phyfe about 1825. Lent by the Brooklyn Museum 49. Rosewood and gilt table, probably made by Charles Honore Lannuier in New York about 1817. Lent by the Brooklyn Museum 52. Card table made by George W. Miller in New York between 1821 and 1830. Lent by the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery 53. Rosewood piano with stenciled decoration, made by John Tallman, 15 Barclay Street, New York, about 1825. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Crosby Brown Collection 54. Painted and gilded looking glass, one of a pair originally used in a house on Washington Square, New York, about 1820. Lent by Mrs. J. Insley Blair 55. Sofa with stenciled decoration, probably made in Boston about 1825. Lent by the Yale University Art Gallery, the Mabel Brady Garvan Collection 56. Painted secretary with stenciled decoration, New York, about 1825. Lent by Francis H. Markoe 57. Convex looking glass with gilt frame, originally owned by John Baltius Schmelzel, a merchant in Canal Street from 1820-1851; lent by Mrs. Archibald Shrady. Pier table of mahogany and alabaster with stenciled decoration, New York, about 1825; lent by the Museum of the City of New York . 3 4= J^ H O 1-u1 Qc 0D . CO tu -5 43 ri '+~ 2 O Cfi £ CJ w £rt (> 43 CJ w '%3 './ ) "O CJ 4^ CH ei U 4= 1) 'j JSu, IN -J C -D r^i a, r\3 43 -3 o OH 3 (H _g PH 43 H r—> £ ft 4-> 3 CO < r; "3 rt M-i > 2 o 3 K 6 "j 3 0 43 CD I* 4 J 3co G "" _3 2 j_, q H U* 4-rt1 HI K> •J . r. Do , >1M> O c s %^o 63. Gilt-bronze mantel garniture formerly owned by Mrs. Alexander Hamilton. French, about 1810. Lent by Mrs. J. West Roosevelt W 64 and 65. LEFT: Cast-iron stove made by Stratton and Seymour in New York between 1837 and 1842; lent by the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, RIGHT: Street lamp set up outside Mayor Hewitt's house at 9 Lexington Avenue in 1887; lent by the Museum of the City of New York a6 H X 'J 3 PH 3 PH 43 a. < £ 3 1 s G 3 r< CO 3 43 C g >. £ 8 JJ-fl H£ CHO, O .co c § CD «j 43 KJ CD "a-a 43 C w CO s a r- o "O G