+
The Walker Sisters and Collecting in Victorian Banister Hall, in memory of his mother. Sophia THE WALKER SISTERS Boston celebrates the renovation and expansion Wheeler Walker. This room was the College's
AND COLLECTING in of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art's Walker first formal art gallery. Walker, however, found Art Building by honoring the vision and patron- the cramped second-floor space unsatisfactory VICTORIAN BOSTON age of the building's original benefactors. Maiy for the exhibition of paintings. Bowdoin officials
Sophia Walker (1839-1904) and Harriet Sarah observed that Walker, during visits to the cam-
Walker (1844—1898) (figures 1 and 2) commis- pus, formed an "unfavorable opinion" about the LAURA FECYCH SPRACUE sioned the Walker Art Building (figure 3) in care and exhibition of the pictures.- Walker Consulting Curator of Decorative Arts memory of their uncle, Theophilus Wheeler spoke of "providing a permanent home for the Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Walker (1813—1890). He had held a deep, life- works of Art " but died in April 1890 before any
long interest in the Old Master paintings, prints, plans were made.^ Within a year of his death,
and drawings collected during the eighteenth however, Mary Sophia and Harriet Sarah Walker,
century by James Bowdoin 111. the College's his heirs, announced they would fulfdl their
founding patron. ' Walker first became involved uncle's intentions to build a new picture gallery.
with the art collection in 1850 when his close The Walker sisters commissioned one of
friend and cousin, the Beverend Leonard Woods, America's finest architects. Charles Follen
Jr., college president from 18^9 to 1866, sought McKim of the New York firm McKim, Mead, and
funds for the construction of a new chapel, White, for the design of a building "entirely
On the cover and figure i designed by Bichard Upjohn in the German devoted to objects of art.""' Surviving correspon- Robert Gordon Hardie. Harriet Sarah Walker, oil on canvas. Bomanesque revival style. When Walker con- dence reveals patrons with a remarkable vision 1900. Bequest of Miss Mary Sophia Walker. 1904.4. tributed $1,000, the Board of Trustees recog- and an architect who could realize it. Bejecting
nized his generosity by naming a picture gallery, the High Victorian Gothic used for Boston's 1876
located on the second floor of the Chapel's Museum of Fine Arts building at Copley Square,
a figii re 2
Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, Mary ?>of'hm Walker, oil on canvas.
1895. Bequest of Miss Mary Sophia Walker, 1904.8.
the Walkers sought a building whose "color [was] to be light. For his first museum, McKim offered a "balanced and symmetrical design
[McKim's emphasis]" based on Italian
Renaissance models. ' During his dedicatory address in June 1894, Martin Brimmer, presi- dent of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, hailed the new structure that "stands here to affirm, conspicuously, and deliberately, that Art is a great instrument in man's education, that it rounds and completes a training which would be
imperfect without it. " ''Two spacious sky-lighted
rectangular galleries, flanking the rotunda, held
James Bowdoin Ill's historic collection and other works that had come to the College through the
Boyd and Knox families. The Walkers' generous
donations filled the oval Sophia WheelerWalker
Gallery, located on axis with the original entrance
(figure 4). The building and collection inspired
other donors to follow the Walker sisters" exam- pie with subsequent gifts of art and funding.
From this auspicious beginning the Bowdoin
College Museum of Art. one of the first college
art museums in the United States, has grown to
become one of the nation's finest.
The Walkers' choice of a classical "temple of
art " may have stemmed from their residence in
and reverence for Gore Place in Waltham.
figure 3 Massachusetts, one of Americas most significant The Walker Art Building, designed by McKira, Mead neoclassical houses. Built in 1806 bv Rebecca and White. 1894. Bowdoin College Museum of Art. and Christopher Gore and designed with the
assistance of Jacques -Guillaume Legrand, a
highly regarded French architect, the estate was
an American model of aferme omee. where aes-
thetics of architecture and landscape design were
united with agricultural reform (figure 5)."* The
Gores' innovative house stood within a property
of 140 acres with fields under cultivation, exten-
sive orchards and fine horticultural specimens.
The Waltham estate was the Gore family's sum- figure 4 mer home-, in the winter they lived on Boston's The Sophia Wheeler Walker Gallery as it appeared in Beacon Hill next door to Bowdoin 111. Like 1905 with the Walker collection. Bowdoin College James
Museum of Art. James Bowdoin II. Gore was a Massachusetts statesman who also served as governor in i8og. Walker in 1904. Intensely private individuals, the
The Gores later retired to Waltham, residing Walkers eschewed any desire for public notice. there until 1832 when Christopher Gore's failing Although much about them has been gleaned health required them to spend winters in Boston. from public records, few primary materials sur-
In 1845 Nathaniel Walker, Theophilus's brother vive to shed light on their personal lives. Probate and business partner, married the Gores" grand- inventories do not detail their collection and no niece. Susan White Seaver Grant. '° Theophilus photographs are known that document their fur- purchased Gore Place in 1856. His nieces joined nished interior." Rather than imagining their him there in 1869. moving from Groton. Mass- Gore Place interior, this installation celebrates achusetts, after their mother died. At Gore Place, the Walkers' tastes and interests within the con- the Walkers furnished their two -story oval parlor text of their Boston society. The Walkers' collec- figures with European and American paintings and tion included works from the French Barbizon Gore Place. Waltham. Massachusetts, sculpture, furniture, and Asian works of art. School and its American counterparts, ancient ca. 1895. photograph by Halliday Historic Photograph Harriet Walker avidly collected miniatures and art and classicism, Japanese art. and works of Company. Courtesy of Historic New England. European textiles. contemporary artists, such as Winslow Homer
The Walker Sisters and Collecting in Victorian and John La Farge. Noteworthy objects given
Boston brings art and decorative arts in the classi- since 1894 by other Bowdoin College Museum cal and the colonial revival styles together with of Art donors as well as generous loans from the objects representing the Aesthetic Movement, a Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Portland third artistic style popular in America after the Museum of Art; and the Wichita Art Museum
Civil War. Most of the objects exhibited here were round out the exhibition to vividly illuminate purchased by the Walkers expressly for the the range of Bostonian tastes during the late
Bowdoin museum or were bequeathed by Mary nineteenth century.
5 Theophilus's successful textile factories in establishment of an art gallery in 1837, promot-
Maine and Massachusetts provided his heirs with ing American artists as well as European works. generous means for art collecting. The Walker The Walker sisters" membership there coincided sisters" interest coincided with a rise of art with their purchase of a winter residence at near- patronage in Boston, a city whose literary giants by 58 Beacon Street in 1890. enriched American letters. Among leading WTiile honoring the memory of Theophilus, authors in the Boston area were Ralph Waldo the Walkers also collected specifically to address
Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel the needs of college art education. The eclectic
Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, nature of their interests is mirrored by other col- the latter two of whom were Bowdoin College lections established to educate and refine public graduates of the Class of 1855. Boston circles taste as well as train artists working in American it was considered a civic duty to support the arts, industries, especially textiles, ceramics, and a responsibility the Walker sisters embraced by glass. Many of the objects the Boston Athenaeum making great world art available in Maine and collected, for example, were intended to address
establishing a high standard for art education at these issues. ' 'Cultural leaders and museum
Bowdoin College.'^ The 1870s and 1880s saw dra- advocates believed that educating and inspiring matic additions to Boston s cultural landscape artisans and designers would elevate the aesthet- with new buildings for the Museum of Fine Arts ics and production standards of the entire and its Museum School and the Boston Art Club, nation. At the time, textile mills in Massa- fueling the city's leadership in American cultural chusetts sent their woven fabrics to England to life. The Boston Athenaeum, founded in 1807 as a be decorated. Training local talent for the design library, began regular art exhibitions with the of these goods in America would cut costs.
6 improve competitiveness, and increase produc- public art to utilitarian household furnishings. tivity. These are among the reasons why the The Walker Art Building s classical elements —
Commonweakh of Massachusetts mandated art Greek plan, dome, rotunda, loggia, Palladian education in the pubhc schools beginning in arch, and sculpture — were drawn from fifteenth-
1870.'+ The Walkers" vision differed markedly century Florentine architecture, notably the Pazzi from that of collectors such as Isabella Stewart Chapel by Brunelleschi and the Loggia dei Lanzi,
Gardner, who built a Venetian palace to house her site of the lion statues that served as models for world-class art. Gardner acquired Renaissance the Bowdoin museum"s noted examples."'
Ancient sculpture at the Boston Old Master paintings with the scholarly advice of Athenaeum may figure 6
Charles Eliot Norton, Harvard University's great have inspired decoration of the Walker Art Elihu Vedder, Rome, oil on canvas, 1894.. Gift of the Misses Harriet Sarah and Mary Sophia Walker, iSgS.Sy. art scholar, and Bernard Berenson. It may have Building fagade. In the 1850s the Athenaeum had been the Walkers" private nature that shaped acquired full-length figures of Demosthenes and their more modest approach to collecting. Sophocles, cast from the Vatican"s collection.'*'
The Greek orator Demosthenes (ca. 384—3:33
CLASSICISM AND ITS REVIVAL B.C.E.) came from the Roman copy, presumably
Having established a new republican government of a bronze by Polyeuktos. The image of in 1789 that echoed democratic Greek and Sophocles (ca. 4.96—406 B.C.E.), a copy of a
Roman principles, Americans embraced ancient Greek marble, symbolized the concept of the forms and designs in their public and private "citizen ideal" during the nineteenth century.'' lives. The taste for classical architecture ranged By combining architecture and interior mural from formal government buildings to vernacular painting, as found in the great Italian palaces, domestic residences, and from monumental McKim created a unified decorative program in
7 .
what became known as the American Renais- score the importance of Classical themes. Greek
sance style. For the large lunettes in the rotunda, and Roman art, architecture, history, and
four murals by leading American artists depicted mythology had inspired Western art beginning in
creative centers of Western art: Rome, Athens, Renaissance Florence. Roman commemorative
Florence, and Venice (figure 6). For the Walkers, medallions and coins were the sources for later
art "[made] the past present and real."'^ medals and plaquettes, such as the 1551 double
In selecting works for the Bowdoin museum. portrait medallion by the Florentine sculptor
Harriet and Mary Sophia Walker sought the Francesco da Sangallo (figure 8a and b). Flemish
advice of Edward Perry Warren (1860—1928), an tapestry makers vividly depicted Roman histori-
eminent antiquities collector, who had grown up cal narratives. Circa 1600 in Brussels. Nicaise figure 7 in Waltham, not far from Gore Place. Sculpture, Aerts is credited with The Cor^ference between Creek, after Lysippus. Head ofZeus or
Heracles, marble, third or second century red-figure pottery, and glass were among the Scipio and Hanni bal before the Battle ofZama . one
B.C.E. Gift of Edward Perry Warren, first ancient art objects the Walkers acquired for of a series from The Ston^ofScipio Africanus illus- Esq. .Honorary Degree, 1926. 1908.8. Bowdoin. Their fateful contact with Warren trating events of the Second Punic War (figure 9).
became an "acorn in the forest," a seed that The impressive twelve-by-fifteen-foot tapestry,
inspired his subsequent gifts of nearly 600 part of the Gore Place collection, was given to the
objects which today form the core of Bowdoin s Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through the
notable art collection of the ancient Mediter- bequest of Mary Sophia and in honor of Harriet
^° ranean world.''' One of Warren's early gifts was a in 1904.
marble head of Zeus, copied after a work by When Charles McKim began designing the figure 8a and 8b
Francesco da Sangallo, Helena Marsupma Lysippus, one of ancient Greece's best -known Walker Art Building, he was in the midst of a
( reverse) Francesco Sangallo (obverse) and da sculptors (figure 7). monumental architectural program for the bronze, 1551. Gift of the Misses Harriet Sarah and Subsequent gifts to the museum also under- World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago Mary Sophia Walker. 1895.85.
8 buildings in the Beaux Arts style that gave it the
name of the "White City." Promoting American
progress, world knowledge, and the arts and
industries of all nations, the fair also represented
an unprecedented collaboration of architects,
artists, and sculptors. Winslow Homer, one of an
estimated 37 million visitors to the fair during its
six- month run, documented his trip with The
Fountains at Night. World's Columbian Exposition
(figure 13). An unusual subject for Homer, the Nicaise Aerts, Tlie Conference between Scipw and Hannibal Left: before the Battle ofZama. wool and silk tapestry, painting captures the illuminated sculpture in the figure w 1550-1635. Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Court of Honor which symbolized America's Daniel Chester French, Theophilus Wheeler Gift of Miss Harriet Sarah Walker (through the bequest of artistic achievements. Walker, bronze, 1894. Gift of the Misses Harriet Mary Sophia Walker), 04.. 279. Nineteenth- century American artists found Sarah and Marv Sophia Walker. 1894.14.
in 1898 to celebrate the four-hundredth anniver- inspiration in ancient forms, material, and sub- Right: sary of the landing of Christopher Columbus in ject matter. Two portraits in the museum's col- figure 11 the Caribbean. ^' The international fair recreated lection serve as important examples of sculpture Thomas Crawford, Professor George Washington
Greene, plaster, ca. 1845. of Henry the splendor of Rome, Europe's fabled art city, on based on classical models. The bronze tablet Wadsworth Longfellow, 1879.1. 63o acres of reclaimed marshy ground near Lake Theophilus Wheeler Walker by Daniel Chester
Michigan. A spectacle of tremendous propor- French, who was one of McKim's collaborators at
tions, the fair was noted for its extensive use of the Columbian Exposition and is probably best
electricity, never seen before on this scale, and known for his statue of Abraham Lincoln at the
for the acres of highly decorated white plaster Lincoln Memorial, is the largest and most ambi-
9 figure 13
Winsiow Homer. Vie Fountains at Night. World's
Columbian Exposition, oil on canvas, iSgS. Bequest of
Mrs. Charles Savage Homer, Jr.. 1938.2. When he traveled to Italy with extended family in
1868, the studios of American artists were among
their stops. Among these was Maine artist John
Rollin Tilton, who kept a studio in Rome and trav-
eled extensively. The Walkers acquired his Temple
ofAphaea. Aegina, (figure i3) depicting one of the
architectural wonders of the ancient world. This
picture is typical of the Mediterranean landscape figure 14
that inspired Americans.^* ElihuVedder spent Elihu Vedder, Eugenia. Head ofa Roman Girl. figure i3 oil on panel, 1879. Courtesy of the Museum of John Rollin Tilton. Temple ofAphaea. Aegina. oil on much of his career in Rome, where he produced Fine Arts. Boston. 33.488. canvas, ca. 1875. Bequest of Miss Mary Sophia a great body of work, drawing from Italian life. Walker. 1904.15. Painted in 1879, Eugenia. Portrait ofa Roman Girl
tious of his low- relief sculptures (figure 10).-^ (figure 14) was purchased in Boston by Thomas
The Bostonian Thomas Crawford was one of Gold Appleton, an avid collector and Henry
many American artists who lived in Italy, Longfellow's brother-in-law. Appleton gave it
where access to ancient models was immediate. to Ernest W. Longfellow, Henry's son, who was a
His bust Professor George Washington Greene. professional artist. In 19^3 Ernest Longfellow
American author and abolitionist, which was bequeathed dozens of paintings to the Museum
given to the College by Henry Wadsworth of Fine Arts along with generous endowment
Longfellow in 1879, is based on Roman republi- funds. ^5 From the French Barbizon School to
can portraiture (figure 11). American Impressionism, the pictures donated
Henry Longfellow patronized dozens of by Ernest Longfellow are related in style and sen-
American artists, many of whom worked in Italy. sibility to the Walkers' collection. Classical subjects also found their way into a figure in the colonial revival movement was
wide range of household objects, often elevating Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who embraced
utilitarian furnishings to art. For example, the American history with his poetry. His iconic
emigre French cabinetmaker Alexander Roux works included stories of the Puritan origins of
settled in New York, achieving extraordinary suc- Massachusetts in The Courtship of Miles Standish
figure 15 cess in the 1870s. His firm produced furniture in and the heroism of great Revolutionary Boston Mount Washington Glass Company, New a range of styles to satisfy the eclectic tastes of patriots with Paul Revere s Ride. A native of Bedford. Massachusetts. Royal nemish Covered Victorian Americans. His cabinets, used in par- Portland, Maine. Longfellow graduated from Jar. blown and enameled glass. 1889-1895.
Courtesy of the Portland Museum of Art. lors to exhibit fine sculpture, porcelains, or sil- Bowdoin College in 1825 and became the school's
Portland. Maine. 2002.ii.i83. ver, epitomize the sophisticated Renaissance first professor of modern languages. On moving
Revival style with its architectural form and neo- to Cambridge to teach at Harvard University,
classical details. On a smaller scale, but equally Henry Longfellow occupied the historic 1759
revealing, is a jar bearing Renaissance coins or Vassall House on the Charles River that had
medallions (figure 15). In 1889 New England's served as George Washington's headquarters
Mount Washington Glass Company developed an during the siege of Boston in 1775 and 1776.
art glass it called Royal Flemish, incorporating Nathan Appleton. a successful textile industrialist
classical ornament into sophisticated designs. like Theophilus Walker, purchased the house as a
wedding gift for his daughter Fanny and Henry in
THE COLONIAL REVIVAL 1843. Although the Longfellows could have
With the celebration of the centennial of the afforded to build a residence in the latest archi-
United States in 1876, Americans reflected on tectural style, they chose a beloved historic resi-
their nation's democratic independence and dence. By doing so, the Longfellows made
found inspiration in its historical past. A leading fashionable that which was old-fashioned, and a nation followed their example. tion miniature for Goodrich in 1820."'' During
Like the Longfellows, the Walkers revered the the American Revolution, Knox had a distin- historical past. They honored the life of one of guished career as an officer. He boldly delivered early America's leading statesmen by preserving Rritish guns captured at Fort Ticonderoga to not only Gore Place but also many of its original Roston. thus forcing the Rritish evacuation. As features, including early nineteenth-century George Washington's close friend and military wallpapers that other owners might readily have advisor. Knox later served as the president's first replaced. Of particular interest is a French wall- secretary of war. In 1796 Knox retired to paper border, installed circa 1806 in the great Thomaston, Maine, where he began to develop an figure 16 hall. Its decorative motifs include a Roman elegant agricultural estate similar to Gore's/emie Probably Salem. Massachusetts. Desk. drinking cup {kylix)and a pitcher {oinochoe) .^'^ omee. He died in i8o6 before his vision could be mahogany. iy8o-i8oo. Gift of the Misses Harriet Sarah and Mary Sophia Walker, 1897.2. Across a wide spectrum, Americans collected fully realized.^" A pair of early eighteenth- century eighteenth-century "colonial" furniture, silver, English side chairs with original needlework ceramics, and other decorative arts with histori- seats depicting English pastoral scenes provides cal associations. A particularly fine example in another example of the colonial objects revered the Walkers' collection is a Massachusetts desk, and collected by Americans. Unusual survivors, once owned by Nathaniel Hawthorne, they are included in the exhibition to represent
Longfellow's college classmate (figure 16). The Harriet Walker's interest in early textiles. ^'
Walkers also acquired the portrait of General
HemjKnox, painted by the young miniaturist THE AESTHETIC MOVEMENT
Sarah Goodrich after a work by Gilbert Stuart Proponents of the Aesthetic Movement of the figure 17
(figure 17). The two artists held one another in 1870s and 1880s believed in art for art's sake and Sarah Goodrich. General Henry Knox, watercolor high regard, with Stuart painting a demonstra- not for any particular moral or social considera- on ivory, ca. i83o. Bequest of Miss Mary Sophia Walker. 1904.69.
i3 tion. "Artfulness" was a contrast to the classical
revival, which valued ancient Greece and Rome
because of their political associations with
American democracy. The Aesthetic Movement,
synonymous with the artful interior, manifested
itself in furniture, silver, textiles, stained glass,
and glass and ceramic tablewares. Many
figiire 20 Americans became more discriminating, a state Kinko. Japanese. Tsuha (sword guard), sentoku elegantly captured by Julian Alden Weir's The (copper alloy) with ishime finish, nineteenth
Connoisseur of 1889, an impressionistic picture century. Bequest of Miss Mary Sophia Walker.
of a contemplative lady examining a print (figure 1904.8.3.11.
18). Weir's choice of the woman's loose gown, bined with world art, including American and
resembling a kimono, heralded his interest in European painting and sculpture, Persian car-
Japanese art and culture. pets. Japanese metalwork. and Chinese porce-
Many American manufactories, desiring to lains, to create domestic spaces valued for their
fill the demand for finely made furnishings, dis- artfulness. Wallpapers created a profusion of pat- ligure it)
Julian Alden Weir, The Connoisseur. tanced themselves from shoddy mass-produced tern, the stylish backgi ound for an artful interi- oil on canvas. 1889. Courtesy of the Wichita Art wares. For example, objects produced by Gorham or. The wallpaper included in the exhibition, Museum. Wichita. Kansas, 1978.91. Manufacturing Company and Tiffany Glass and inspired by the English designer William Morris,
Decorating Company were appreciated for their was generously donated by Bradbury and
fine design and detailed manufacture. Often with Bradbury Art Wallpapers.
considerable handwork, they were elevated to a The Aesthetic Movement coincided with the
level of art. These household objects were com- end of feudalism in Japan and the opening of
14 trade with the West. These events fueled
American fascination with Japanese art and culture, especially in Boston. Among the first
Americans to collect Japanese art was Charles
Appleton Longfellow, the Longfellows' eldest son. Acquired during extensive travels from 1871 to 1878, his collection decorated the family s
Cambridge home. Bostonians William Sturgis
Bigelow, Edward S. Morse, and Ernest F.
Fenollosa compiled a great collection of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts.^^ Winslow
Homer's innovative watercolor techniques in his late watercolors are believed to have been inspired by Boston s Japanese paintings as seen in The End of the Hunt, one of his finest
Adirondack watercolors (figure 19). ^5 Japanese metalwork, especially swords and sword guards or tsuba. were eagerly acquired by Americans. Tsuba also appealed to Winslow Homer, who figure 19 Winslow Homer, The End of the Hunt, watercolor. Originally worn for balance and to help protect installed one, decorated with a cricket, on his fire- 1892. Gift of the Misses Harriet Sarah and Mary the wearer from the sword's blade, tsuba place inglenook at his Prouts Neck, Maine, com- Sophia Walker. 1894.11. bined craftsmanship, symbolism, and utility. studio. Enameled Asian metalwares, known as
The Walker sisters acquired numerous examples, cloisonne, were highly valued in the late nineteenth many of them signed by their makers (figure '20). century. Harriet Walker so treasured her cloisonne
15 .
Japanese taste, belonged to Harriet Walker (fig-
ure 20- It bears the engraved Arms of the Mystic
Owls, a private society in Atlanta, Georgia, to
which Harriet Walker belonged. Harriet is
believed to have designed the heraldic device for
the club. ^7 The Herter Brothers of New York,
whose furniture represents the forefront of the
Aesthetic movement, also looked to Japan for
design sources. Bowdoin owns a fine side chair
figure 22 from a suite made in 1882 for the William H. Constant Troyon. Goat and Sheep, oil on canvas, ca. Vanderbilt house in New York City. The carefully figure 21 1850-1860. Gift of the Misses Harriet Sarah and Gorham Manufacturing Company, MugwUhArms Mary Sophia Walker. 1894.. 5. inlaid daisies on the crest rail relate to similar of the Mrstic Owls, silver with gilt highlights. 1879. motifs found in Japanese textiles. Bequest of Miss Mary Sophia Walker. 1904.157. vases featuring irises that she included one of In the field of painting, the Walkers were
them in her portrait (see cover) drawn to the Romantic sensibilities of the French
Elements of Japanese design, particularly its Barbizon School and the landscapes of Jean-
profound connection with the natural world and Baptiste-Camille Corot and Jean-Frangois
an unusual asymmetry, made their way into Millet. The work of these French artists was
American- made objects. The Gorham brought to Boston when painter and tastemaker
Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode William Morris Hunt returned from France in
Island, was one of America's pre-eminent pro- 1855.^^ Constant Troyon's pastoral Goat and Sheep
ducers of fine silver tablewares. A small silver had been in the Boston collection of John K.
mug, with ferns and butterflies executed in the Hooper before the Walkers purchased it for
16 Bowdoin (figure 22). Painters in Boston inspired They decided on allegorical representations of by these French models included the talented great centers of artistic achievement in Western
Joseph Foxcroft Cole and John Appleton Brown, art. Visitors enteringthe original main door less well-known today but beloved by Bostonians faced Elihu Vedder'sflom e. Also called Tire Art during their lifetimes. +° Idea, Rome or Nature, seen holding the Greek
The global nature of the Walkers" art interests letters Alpha and Omega, is the source of all and collecting suited the needs of an educational inspiration. Clockwise, the other murals are institution. They selected a wide range of Chinese Venice by Kenyon Cox, Athens by John La Farge — figure 23 jades and porcelains. Indian furniture, and regarded as one of America's finest muralists — Persian. Shield from a Suit ofArmor, steel with Persian metalwork to complete their collection. A and Horence by Abbott Thayer. Cox's Venice inlaid silver, seventeenth century. Gift of the Misses Harriet Sarah and Mary Sophia Walker. seventeenth- century Persian suit of armor Enthroned is flanked by Mercury, the patron of 1894.84. included a shield beautifully inlaid with silver commerce, and Painting with her palette. The
(figure 28). Its ornamentation incorporates ani- lion of St. Mark and other Venetian attributes are mals, hunting scenes, and other courtly pursuits. visible in the background. In his asymmetrical
composition. La Farge rendered Pallas Athena
CONTEMPORARY ART: (Minerva), on the left, drawing a portrait of
ANOTHER WALKER LEGACY Nature from life with her stylus and wax tablet.
As wide-ranging as their collection was. the Observing from the right is the personification of
Walkers remained grounded in Boston's contem- Athens. In Abbott Thayer's design, influenced by porary art world. Working with Charles Follen Italian altarpieces, Florence protects the Arts.
McKim, they selected four artists to paint the The Walker murals, set off by architectural twelve-by twenty-four-foot lunettes spanning framework and dark red walls, survive essentially the Walker Art Building rotunda (see figure 6). unchanged. These extraordinary works represent
'7 the Walkers' philosophy of collecting art of their Cover Illustration: Robert Gordon Hardie. Harriet Sarah Walker.
see figure 1. own time. The sisters continued their association Design: Wilcox Design. Cambridge. Massachusetts. with John La Farge when they acquired three water- Printer: Arlington Lithograph.
colors with Oriental subject matter (figure 34). Copyright © 2007 by Bowdoin College.
Great Boston collections set standards for the Endnotes
nation, documenting patrons and their tastes — 1. Lillian B. Miller. "The Legacy: The Walker Gift. 1894." inTTie Le^acro//ames Boujdom /// (Brunswick. Maine: Bowdoin College from James Bowdoin 111 and the Longfellows to Museum of Art. 1994). pp. 187-215. members of the Boston Athenaeum. Unlike these 2. William Northend to George Little. July 16. 1889. Walker .Art Building correspondence. Special Collections. Bowdoin College
individuals about whom much is known, the - Library (BCL) . For a time, the Maine Historical Society estab
lished temporary headquarters in the gallery. Eileen Smnott Walker sisters left little written evidence to Pols. "The Walker Art Building 1894: Charles F. McKim's First
express their views. It is the Walker Art Building Museum Design" (Master's thesis. University of Texas at Austin.
1985), p. 39. and their Victorian collection that best illuminate 3. Harriets. Walker to Charles F. McKim,July6, i8gi. Walker Art their extraordinary vision for Bowdoin s remark- Building correspondence. Special Collections. BCL.
4. Walker to McKim, July 6. 1891. BCL, See also Walker biographi- able art collection. cal references in BCMA donor files. figure 24 5. Walker to McKim. July 6. 1891, BCL. The dedication to "art pur- John La Farge, Meditation Kuwannon. water- The Walker Sisters and Collecting in Victorian Boston, on view from of poses" appears in an inscription in the rotunda floor. October 14. 2007, to August 24. 2008. celebrates the Walker Art color, ca. 1886. Bequest of Miss Mary Sophia 6. WalkertoMcKim.July6. 1891. BCL. Building's renovation and expansion by architects Machado and Walker, 1904.18. 7. Charles F. McKim to Harriet S. Walker. August 10. 1891. Walker Silvetti Associates, Boston. .Art Building correspondence. Special Collections. BCL; Pols,
A generous Henry Luce Foundation grant made the exhibition and "Walker Art Building 1894," pp. 81-82.
this accompanying publication possible, with additional support 8. Martin Brimmer. Address Delivered at Bowdoin College Upon the
from the Elizabeth B. G. Hamlin Fund. The Bowdoin College Openmgof the Walker Art Biuldmg. June 7. 1894 (Bninswick. Me.: Museum of Art gratefully acknowledges important loans from the Bowdoin College Museum of Art), p. 2.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Portland Museum of Art, Portland. 9. Today Gore Place is maintained as a public museum by the Gore Maine; and the Wichita Art Museum. Wichita. Kansas. Bradbury and Place Society. For more information, please visit its Web site at
Bradbury Art Wallpapers of Benicia. California, contributed the www.goreplace.org. See Laura Fecvch Sprague. "Theophilus
exhibit's wallpaper. It was kindly installed by Greg Kirk of Greg Kirk Wheeler Walker and Gore Place." in The Legacy- ofJames Bowdoin
Painting, Portland, Maine. III. pp. 216-224. For more on the estate's architectural signifi-
18 cance, see Charles A. Hammond, '"Where the Arts and the M. ^estley, ArsAntiqua: Treasures from the Ancient Mediterranean 30. Carolyn S. Parsons. "'Bordering on the Magnificent': Urban
Virtues Unite': Country Life near Boston. 1637-1864" (Ph.D. World at Bowdoin College (Brunswick. Me.: Bowdoin College Domestic Planning in the Maine Woods." in Charles E. Qark.
thesis. Boston University. 1982). Museum of Art. 2005). pp. 19-28. and Kevin Herbert, ylncient James S. Leamon, and Karen Bowden. eds.. jWaiae in theEady 10. Theodore Woodman Gore, comp.. The Gore Family: John Gore of Art in Bowdoin College (Cambridge, Mass,: Harvard University Republic: From Revolution to Statehood (Hanover. N.H.:
Roxbury. Massachusetts i63^- 1657 and his Descendants to the Ninth Press, 1964), University Press of New England for Maine Historical Society
Generation (typescript at Gore Place Society), pp. 118. 186. 187. 20. Further details about why this was sent to Boston and not and Maine Humanities Council. 1988). pp. 62-69.
11. Although most of the Walker collection came as a bequest from Bowdoin are unknown. Because of the tapestry's condition, it 31. Handbook, pp. 56-58. Because of early twentieth- century prac-
Mary Sophia Walker in 1904. details of how it was installed at was not possible to display it in this exhibition, tice to exhibit objects for long periods, often in high light lev-
Gore Place are not known. 21. The American Renaissance. iHjG-it)!] (New York: The Brooklyn els, many of Harriet Walker's textile objects survive only in
12. Trevor Fairbrother. The Bostonians: Painters of an Elegant Age. Museum. 1979). pp. 12. 14. 17. fragile condition.
1S70-1930 (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts. 1986), p. 3i. 22. Winslow Homer at Prout's Neck (Brunswick. Me.: Bowdoin 32. Novelene Ross. Tou'ard an American identity: Selections from the
13. Stanley Ellis Gushing and David B. Dearinger./lcquireci Tastes: College Museum of Art. 1966). no. 27. Wichita Art Museum Collection ofAmerican Art (Wichita. Ks.:
200 Years of Collectingfor the Boston Athenaeum (Boston. Mass.. 28. Originally in the Sophia Walker Gallery on axis with the main Wichita Art Museum. 1997). pp. 254-255.
The Boston Athenaeum. 2007). pp. 34-35. In 1897 New York's entrance, the tablet is now installed in the rotunda. The muse- 33. For more information, seewww.bradbury.com.
Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration opened to um's bronze roundel of Robert Louis Stevenson by Augustus 84. William Hosley. 7?ie Japan Idea: Art and Life m Kictonati America
provide a visual design resource for industrial artists; see Saint -Gaudens (1904.29) illustrates another classical form; see (Hartford. Ct.: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1990). p. 42.
Russell Lynes. More Than Meets the Eye: The History and Margaret R. Burke, ed.. Handbook of the Collections (Brunswick. 35. Judith Walsh. "Innovation in Homer's Late Watercolors." in
Collections of the Cooper -Hewitt Museum (Washington. D. C: The Me.: Bowdoin College Museum of Art. 1981). pp.104- Nicolai Cikovsky. Jr.. and Franklin Kelly. WmslowHomer
Smithsonian Institution. 1981). pp. 11, 21 -22. 24. John Coffey, Twilight ofArcadia: American Landscape Painters m (Washington. D. C. National Gallery of Art. 1996). pp. 287-
14. Diana Korzenik. Drawn to Art: A Nmeteenth-CenturyAmerican Rome. i83o-i88o (Brunswick, Me,: Bowdoin College Museum of 290.
Dream (Hanover. N.H.: University Press of New England. Art. 1987). fig. 24. pp. 29 and 85-86. 36. The sword guard is in a private collection. Tom Denenberg.
'985)- PP- 153-154- 25. The author is most grateful to Victoria Reed at the Museum of chief curator. Portland Museum of Art. kindly assisted with its 15. Patricia McGraw Anderson, The Architecture of Bowdoin College Fine Arts for her assistance with the Ernest Longfellow collec- research.
(Brunswick. Me.: Bowdoin College Museum of Art. 1988). pp. tion. 87. See research by Martha Gandy Fales in the object file. BCMA.
43-48. See also Richard V. West. The Walker Art Building Murals: 26. Burke. Handbook, p. 117. 38. Katherine S. Howe. Alice Gooney Frelinghuysen. and
Occasiona/ Papers / (Brunswick. Me.: Bowdoin College Museum 27. Christopher P. Monkhouse, "Longfellow in Eveiyman's Home." Catherine Hoover Voorsanger. Herter Brothers: Furniture and
of Art. 1972). lecture presented at Maine Historical Society's Wadsworth- Interiors for a Gilded Age (New York: Harry N. Abrams. Inc.. in
16. Gushing and Dearinger. Acquired Tastes, pp. 252-255. Longfellow Forum. September 22, 2001: see also Kathleen M, association with the Museum of Fine Arts. Houston. 1994). pp.
17. Gushing and Dearinger. /Icquired Tastes, p. 255. Catalano. "The Longfellows and their 'Trumpery Antiquities.'" 2og-2u.
18. Brimmer, ylddress. p. 3. The American Art Journal (Spring 1988): 21 -3i. 89, Fairbrother. The Bostonians. pp. 33-37. The Walker drawings by 19. In 1929 Sir John D. Beazley honored Warren's legacy when he 28. This border was recently reproduced and reinstalled by Gore William Morris Hunt at Bowdoin are 1897.7 ^n*^ 1897.8.
observed in his eulogy: "... a coin, a gem. a vase, a statuette, Place Society. Thanks are due to Lana Lewis, collections manag- 40. Fairbrother. 77ie Bostonians. pp. 202. 204. The Walkers would speak of Greece in the heart of Maine; and sooner or er at Gore Place, for her assistance. acquired two Brown pastels (1894.18.2 and 1904.24) and ITie
later there would be a student whose spirit would require them. 29. Susan E. Strickler..4mencari Portrait Miniatures: The Worcester Art /liinisquam River, near Gloucester. Massachusetts by J. Foxcroft There was no hurry: an acorn in the forest." For more on Museum Collection (Worcester. Mass.: Worcester Art Museum. Cole (1894.8).
Warren's collection, see James A. Higginbotham and Katherine 1989). pp. 108-109. 41. Accession numbers for the La Farge watercolors are 1904.18. 1904.19. and 1904.20.
19 Bowdoin College Museum of Art www.bowdoin.edu/art-museum