Carlquist Lloyd Hyde Thesis 2010.Pdf
1 Introduction As the Colonial Revival reached its zenith in the 1920s, collecting American antiques evolved from nineteenth-century relic hunting into an emerging field with its own scholarship, trade practices, and social circles. The term “Americana” came to refer to fine and decorative arts created or consumed in early America. A new type of Americana connoisseurs collected such objects to furnish idealized versions of America’s past in museums and private homes. One such Americana connoisseur was Maxim Karolik, a Russian-born tenor who donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston one of the most celebrated collections of American paintings, prints, and decorative arts. A report about the collection’s 1941 museum opening described how “connoisseurs looked approvingly” at the silver, “clucked with admiration” over the Gilbert Stuart portraits, and turned “green-eyed at the six-shell Newport desk-and-bookcase.”1 Karolik began collecting antiques in the 1920s, adding to those that had been inherited by Martha Codman Karolik, his “Boston Brahmin” wife. His appetite for Americana grew until he became one of the 1930s’ principal patrons, considered second only to Henry Francis du Pont. He scoured auction houses, galleries, showrooms, and small shops. Karolik loved the chase and consorting with dealers. He enjoyed haggling over prices despite his wife’s substantial fortune.2 1 “Art: Boston’s Golden Maxim,” Time (December 22, 1941). 2 Frieda Schmutzler (of Katrina Kipper’s Queen Anne Cottage), Oral History, May 26, 1978, Winterthur Archives. See also Carol Troyen, “The Incomparable Max: Maxim Karolik and the Taste for American Art,” American Art 7, n 3 (Summer 1993): 65-87.
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