New Eyes on America: the Genius of Richard Caton Woodville

New Eyes on America: The Genius of Richard Caton Woodville

Organized by the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. This project is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

(Photography is not permitted in this exhibition due to contract requirements of the lenders)

Richard Caton Woodville (1825–55) was the most important artist born in Baltimore during the 19th century. His short life reflected the era in which he lived—a time of rapid technological change and more accelerated transatlantic travel and trade. Working in the artistic capitals of Europe—Düsseldorf, Paris, and London—he sent his works to New York for exhibition and sale. Woodville was one of the artists held up by the American Art-Union, a broad-based membership organization, as “perfectly American.” He changed the character of genre painting (narrative paintings of everyday life) in America. His works appealed to the new American art patron just then emerging and reached a wider middle-class audience when reproduced as prints that were circulated in large numbers. Woodville’s personal life was somewhat scandalous for his time—he rejected his family’s enterprises to become an artist, married against his parents’ wishes, left his first wife and two children for a fellow artist, and died of “an overdose of morphine, medicinally taken.” Because he left no letters or diaries, we must piece together the meaning of his works from the visual clues in his highly detailed canvases and from their rich artistic and cultural contexts. Woodville addressed his own times, painting contemporary themes that continue to have relevance today, including difficulties in communication and conflicts among generations, the disruptive effects of new technologies (for him, the telegraph and railroads), society’s responses to war, and racial disparity. African American figures included as observers to the central narrative in many of his paintings are sensitively rendered, distinctly different from the stereotyping and caricature often seen in other American genre works of the period. The exhibition is organized chronologically, tracing the career and impact of this significant artist, and includes the 15 known paintings by him, numerous drawings and watercolors, and a selection of the popular prints based on his works.

An Artist of Baltimore

In the 1820s through 1840s, Woodville’s native city was bustling with business and expanding rapidly from the original settlement around the harbor into a grid of urban streets, which grew to cover surrounding pastures and farmland. The city’s advantageous location as the westernmost port on the Atlantic seaboard drove trade and the growth of related industries in transportation, packaging, and manufacturing. The first rail of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was laid on July 4, 1828, and along its line 16 years later, the first telegraph transmission traveled from the Supreme Court chambers in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., to the B&O depot on Baltimore’s Pratt Street. Baltimore ranked after Philadelphia as the nation’s second most populous city; the 1830 census counted 80,000 inhabitants, of whom one-fifth were African American. The majority of Baltimore’s black residents were legally free; they lived and worked side-by-side with new immigrants and 4,000

1 enslaved people, many sent to Baltimore by their rural owners to earn wages as day laborers or domestic servants. It was into this rapidly changing urban environment that Richard Caton Woodville was born. Members of his family were wealthy and well-connected merchants whose business interests included the B&O Railroad and international trade. He attended St. Mary’s College in Seton Hill, where he received a classical education among boys of similar social standing. These included his friend Stedman R. Tilghman, who collected a number of the artist’s early sketches in the scrapbook on view in this exhibition.

Self-Portrait, 1844 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Baltimore, Maryland), 1825–55 Graphite on paper Collection of Stiles Tuttle Colwill

During his brief life, Woodville made several self-portraits in which he depicted himself as a fashionable young man full of confidence and swagger. In this drawing from September 1844, when he enrolled in one year of medical school, the artist sits in a tablet-top Baltimore chair, a type favored by the upper class. He placed great emphasis on capturing details of facial feature and expression, in contrast to the more loosely rendered clothing and figure.

Battle Scene with Dying General, 1836 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Baltimore, Maryland), 1825–55 Watercolor on paper Collection of Elizabeth Caton Woodville Callender

Showing a precocious talent at the age of ten, Woodville likely based this watercolor on a print. He lavished attention on the soldiers’ uniforms, horse trappings, troops in formation, and corpse in the foreground. This work descended through the branch of his family that included his son Richard Caton Woodville Jr. (1856–1927), who had a long career as a military artist and illustrator.

Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 1829 Thomas Sully American (English-born), 1783–1872 Watercolor on paper 37.1553, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737–1832) was the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence and father-in-law of the artist’s namesake and great-uncle, Richard Caton. In the last years of Carroll’s long life, the painters Thomas Sully and Chester Harding traveled to Baltimore to capture his likeness. This is a study for a finished oil

2 portrait that hangs in the Maryland State House in Annapolis. A major landholder, Carroll also invested in new technologies, including the B&O Railroad, where the artist’s father, William Woodville V, worked for a time representing Carroll and Caton family interests.

Early Art Collecting in Baltimore

Richard Caton Woodville was fortunate to have access to two major art collections during his years in Baltimore. Robert Gilmor assembled more than 400 paintings, of which nearly half were small-scale pictures by Dutch or Flemish artists. At Gilmor’s town house on Water Street and his country home Beech Hill, Woodville would have seen examples, real or attributed, by such northern European painters as Jan Steen, Gerard Ter Borch, and Adriaen Brouwer. Dr. Thomas Edmondson, who shared English roots in Liverpool and family mercantile connections with Woodville, was also a collector of northern European paintings and actively encouraged the young artist. The Maryland Historical Society, founded in 1844, began to hold annual exhibitions drawn from Baltimore collections in 1848. Two works (now lost), which Woodville gave to his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Sloan Buckler, showing an early interest in genre subjects—Woman Preparing Vegetables and Peasants Regaling—were included as “first attempts in oil (without instruction)” in the 1848 exhibition.

The Dr. Stedman R. Tilghman Scrapbook: Early Efforts of R. C. Woodville, ca. 1838– 45 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Baltimore, Maryland), 1825–55 Watercolor wash and pencil on paper Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, J. Hall Pleasants Papers 1773–1957

Dr. Stedman R. Tilghman (1822–48) attended Saint Mary’s College and the University of Maryland College of Medicine ahead of his friend Caton Woodville. His scrapbook contains a wide assortment of personal souvenirs, including newspaper clippings, autographs, a theater notice, engravings, a beaver tail, and 23 drawings, 19 of which are signed by Woodville. Tilghman served as resident physician at the Baltimore Almshouse, where Woodville made sketches of doctors and inmates. He may have studied with the miniature painter L. C. Pignatelli, a periodic inmate there, whose pencil portrait appears on page 91 of the scrapbook.

(Please feel free to explore this facsimile of The Dr. Stedman R. Tilghman Scrapbook._

View from Beech Hill, 1822 Thomas Doughty American (Baltimore, Maryland), 1793–1856 Oil on panel

3 The Baltimore Museum of Art, gift of Dr. & Mrs. Michael A. Abrams (BMA 1955.183)

Robert Gilmor inherited Beech Hill, which commanded “a beautiful and extensive prospect of the City, the river + Bay” to the west of the city center from his father in 1822. Aware of Baltimore City’s imminent expansion, Gilmor commissioned this and a companion view toward the Chesapeake Bay from Philadelphia artist Thomas Doughty to document the landscape his father would have known. If you look closely, you can see the dome of the Basilica and the Washington Monument, the construction of which began in 1815 and was completed in 1829.

Dr. Thomas Edmondson, ca. 1844 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Baltimore, Maryland), 1825–55 Oil on academy board Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, The Dr. Michael and Marie Abrams Memorial Purchase Fund (1984.6)

Although trained at the University of Maryland Medical College, Thomas Edmondson (1808–56) never practiced medicine. A substantial inheritance from a bachelor uncle allowed him to live a life devoted to scholarship, music, art collecting, and horticulture. Woodville had access to Edmondson’s country estate “Harlem,” off of Edmonson Avenue west of Baltimore, and to his art collection, which included works attributed to well-know Dutch and Flemish artists. The older collector’s encouragement of his young friend is made clear by the inscription scrawled on the painting’s back which reads “Caton Woodville’s first kick into the world.”

The Tough Story—Scene in a Country Tavern, 1837 William Sidney Mount American, 1807–68 Oil on panel Corcoran Gallery of Art, Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund (74.69)

Robert Gilmor described the American genre painter William Sidney Mount as “celebrated for his scenes of humble + ordinary life, equal to Wilkie + almost as good as Teniers.” This painting, which Gilmor commissioned after seeing the artist’s work at New York’s National Academy of Design, hung in the hallway of his Water Street town house, which was “covered from garret to basement by pictures, statues and antiques.” Mount described the subject of this painting as a “Bar-room oracle.” Woodville would paint similar scenes of ambiguous encounters among strangers throughout his career.

Scene in a Bar-Room, 1845 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Baltimore, Maryland), 1825–55 Oil on panel

4 Godel & Co., Inc., New York

The large, corked ceramic jug in the foreground, the cracked plaster above the door, and the broken chair on which one man is seated, indicate a rough tavern environment where liquor flowed freely and fights might serve as entertainment. Despite its humble subject matter, awkward figures, and diminutive scale, this painting launched Woodville’s career when it was purchased for $75 by New York patron Abraham Cozzens from the 1845 exhibition of the National Academy of Design. Cozzens was known as “a generous and discriminating lover of art,” and likely provided Woodville with an introduction to the eminent German-American artist Emanuel Leutze in Düsseldorf.

Two Peasants in an Inn, 1630–38 Circle of Adriaen Brouwer Flemish, ca. 1605–38 Oil on panel 37.2409, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, gift of Mrs. Helen R. Cleland, 1964

In keeping with the taste of the period, half of the works in Robert Gilmor’s collection of over 400 paintings were by Dutch or Flemish artists. These included Interior with Men Drinking attributed to Adriaen Brouwer, which Gilmor acquired from a Philadelphia collector for $50. This work from the Walters’ collection, by a later imitator of Brouwer, is a poor reflection of that artist’s capacities but possibly representative of the uneven quality of many European paintings which entered American collections at this time.

The Düsseldorf Academy

The Düsseldorf Academy (Kunstakademie) was and remains an important center for art training in Germany. Located on the east bank of the Rhine River in the cosmopolitan capital of North Rhine-Westphalia, the academy had a brilliant period in the early 19th century. Director Wilhelm von Schadow, a painter trained in Berlin and Rome, assembled an inspired group of artist-instructors who in turn attracted an international body of students. Schadow established a rigorous two-year course, with preparatory classes concentrated on elementary drawing, geometry, and perspective preceding advanced study using models and plaster casts. A number of American artists attended the academy, including German-American history painter Emanuel Leutze, who arrived in 1841. William Morris Hunt, Worthington Whittredge, and Eastman Johnson were all in residence at some time during the six years Woodville spent in Düsseldorf from 1845–51. Upon his arrival in July of 1845, Woodville enrolled in the Düsseldorf Academy for one year, after which he became a private pupil of the portrait and genre painter Carl Ferdinand Sohn. Woodville socialized with his multinational artist colleagues, joining artists’ clubs and absorbing the meticulous, realistic technique that was a hallmark of the Düsseldorf Academy. The artist and his young wife Mary Buckler Woodville had two children while living in

5 Düsseldorf; in 1849, he left his family for fellow artist Antoinette Schnitzler, and Mary Woodville returned to Baltimore. In 1849, when Johann Boker opened a gallery in New York to show works by artists associated with the Düsseldorf Academy, American critics and patrons embraced the school’s “perfect fidelity to nature, in form, color, and expression; minuteness in detail, delicacy of finish, and perfectness in rendering the language of every subject,” noting that “the loftiest and the lowliest subjects alike are rendered with success.”

Bird Shoot of the Düsseldorf Artists at the Grafenburg, 1844 Karl Friedrich Lessing and Friedrich Boser German (Düsseldorf), 1808–80 and 1809–81 Oil on panel New-York Historical Society, The Robert L. Stuart Collection, on permanent loan from the New York Public Library (S-92)

A joint production by the German artists Carl Friedrich Boser, who painted the figures, and Karl Friedrich Lessing, who painted the landscape, this group portrait shows the artists of the Kunstakademie (Art Academy) in Düsseldorf, including Woodville’s friend Emanuel Leutze. When put on exhibition in the Düsseldorf Gallery in New York in 1849, a contemporary American critic praised it as “full of grace and life, while for the truthfulness of the portraits it is of inestimable value.”

The Christ Child, 1849 Andreas Johann Jacob Müller German, 1811–90 Oil on panel 37.178, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Artists of the Düsseldorf Academy were admired for the polish and delicacy of their technique and their meticulous observations of nature. Andreas Johann Jacob Müller served on the faculty. Best known for monumental church frescoes, Müller rendered flora and fauna laden with Christian symbolism in minute detail in this small painting. Woodville’s miniaturist technique was well suited to this style, and he made rapid advances once in Germany.

The Card Players, 1846 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Oil on canvas Detroit Institute of Arts, gift of Dexter M. Ferry, Jr. (55.175)

In the first painting he sent back across the Atlantic from Düsseldorf, Woodville adapted the time-honored European genre subject of the card game. Although he produced the work in Germany, Woodville made the painting distinctly American by including a

6 thoughtfully rendered African American observer, advertisements for Baltimore’s Front Street Theater, and broadsides for the stagecoach service between Baltimore and Washington. Unaware of the complicity between the two younger men, the older “mark” confronts them both, stabbing his finger at an offending card. Exhibited at the American Art-Union in New York in 1847, this image was published by the thousands as prints distributed to members in 1850.

The Card Players Richard Caton Woodville American (possibly working in Baltimore, Maryland), 1825–55 Graphite on paper 37.2650, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, gift of Mr. Kurt Versen, 1991

This preparatory drawing, which may have been made in Baltimore, contains specific references to the area—the arrival of English actor William E. Burton at the Front Street Theater in 1844, a notice for the Lock Hospital on Pratt Street, where Dr. Hitzelberger treated sufferers of venereal infections, a flier for the Canton racecourse, and a stick- figure evoking the emblematic image of the runaway slave from newspaper advertisements and reward posters.

Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1853 Paul Girardet after Emanuel Leutze American, 1821–93; German-American, 1816–68 Steel engraving on paper Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundation

One of the most famous images of American art was painted in Düsseldorf following the failed revolution of 1848. The German-American Leutze wished to inspire continued political resistance in the German populace by glorifying a successful revolutionary hero. The painting depicts Washington’s surprise foray across the Delaware River on Christmas Day 1776 to attack British troops. Woodville took note of the fact that the print was produced by the Paris-based firm of Goupil & Co. with which he would later work as well. Priced relatively cheaply and distributed widely, this printed image was pinned up on schoolroom and parlor walls throughout the United States. Surviving prints often show the wear-and-tear resulting from this kind of use.

The Mexican-American War

The Mexican-American War (1846–48) was politically contentious, splitting the country along lines that would deepen in advance of the Civil War (1861–65). U.S. President James K. Polk of Tennessee won the 1845 election on an expansionist agenda, rooted in America’s “Manifest Destiny” to span the North American continent. When diplomatic negotiations failed to resolve the Texas-Mexico border, Polk stationed American troops south of the border, where

7 they were attacked by Mexican soldiers on April 25, 1846. Polk proclaimed this an incursion onto U.S. soil and called on Congress for support. The fractious Congress split broadly on geographic lines, undermining the integrity of the national parties. Whereas the Southern Whig party fell in behind Polk’s Democratic administration, Northern Democrats questioned the war’s constitutionality and motive. Abraham Lincoln, a first-term Whig congressman from Illinois, was a vocal opponent of the war, at the cost of his reelection bid in 1848. Maryland Senator Reverdy Johnson (whose son was a friend of Richard Caton Woodville’s) deserted the Whigs, speaking in support of the war “to have American rights recognized, and American honor vindicated.” Despite this political contention, American troops soon controlled California and occupied Mexico City itself—the “Halls of Montezuma” in the Marines’ hymn. On the home front, timely news from the battlefields transmitted by the new invention of the telegraph was widely distributed in American newspapers. The war concluded with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February of 1848. Mexico ceded a vast territory including present-day California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming—and the fate of slavery in these territories became the most divisive issue in national politics in the 1850s.

War News from Mexico, 1848 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Oil on canvas Courtesy Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas

Painted during the contentious Mexican-American War (1846–48), Woodville’s most famous work is centered on the reading of a newspaper. The telegraph had greatly increased the speed with which information from the battlefront could now travel. Hundreds of daily papers sprang up in this era and were distributed throughout the country by the postal service. The people in the scene will be affected in widely contrasting ways by the war’s expansionist outcome. The sympathetic portrayal of two African American onlookers, in tattered red, white, and blue clothing, may be the closest we come to a sense of Woodville’s awareness that their freedom is at stake and that the issue of slavery is beginning to divide the United States. He produced this work in Düsseldorf in 1848 when revolutionary activity swirled in the streets around the art academy. It was shown at the American Art-Union in 1849. Reproduced in 14,000 large engravings distributed to subscribers in 1851, this image hung in middle-class parlors around the country.

From the Conservation Lab: The artist reworked the scene from his original design in major and minor ways, as can be seen in the pentimenti (the underlying painted images) and as is recorded in this infrared reflectograph. The most notable alteration is the reaction of the pensive man knocking wood at left, who originally was portrayed as an enthusiastic, open-mouthed, hat-swinging celebrant who made direct eye-contact with the viewer (see photo).

8 Portrait of Maria Johnston, 1847 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Oil on canvas Private Collection

Miss Maria Johnston (1781–1875) traveled with Caton Woodville and his young wife from Baltimore to Düsseldorf in the spring of 1845. This small portrait spares no detail of the sitter’s advanced age or homely appearance, though softened by the delicate lace cap and pink ribbons. Miss Johnston was the model for the woman in the window in War News from Mexico. It is likely that she accompanied Mary Woodville and her two children back to Baltimore in November of 1849, bringing this portrait, which descended in her family.

POLITICAL CARTOONS

Düsseldorfer Monathefte, 1847–61 Henry Ritter Canadian-born (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1816–53 Reproduced from Düsseldorfer Monathefte, Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

The radical satirical journal, the Düsseldorfer Monathefte (Düsseldorf Monthly Magazine), published bi-weekly from 1847 until 1860, took advantage of the close relationships between that city’s visual and literary artists. Several of Woodville’s acquaintances, including the Düsseldorf native and history painter Wilhelm Camphausen, landscape painter Andreas Achenbach, and Canadian-born Henry Ritter, created biting political cartoons for the journal. These two, both by Henry Ritter, address the disruption to the status quo by railroads, the telegraph, and burgeoning tourism by steamship on the Rhine River. “Excuse me, sir, which is the fastest means of transportation from here to Cologne, steamship or railroad?” “I wouldn’t recommend either of those to you; the fastest by far is the telegraph, and since I read in the Cologne newspaper that as of October 1, it is open to the public, I recommend you use it.” “Oh my, I hadn’t considered that I would ride the telegraph!”

Mocking a pair of tourists on a steamship on the Rhine: “Excuse me, sir, what is the name of that ruin?” “Hold your mouth, Kratzmann, or he’ll know that we’re Germans.”

Politics in an Oyster House, 1848 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Oil on fabric

9 37.1994. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, gift of C. Morgan Marshall, 1945

Woodville’s father delivered this commission to prominent Baltimore citizen John H. B. Latrobe with a note saying “Caton desires me to say to you, that if you do not like it, you must not hesitate about returning it to me, and he will, with the greatest pleasure, paint another one for you.” Here, the younger man leans across the table, counting arguments off on the fingers of one hand and clasping the newspaper that fuels his opinions in the other. The older man, balding, ruddy-faced, and red-nosed, looks out bemusedly at the viewer. Although painted in the mid-19th century, the intergenerational tension between the two characters is timeless.

From the Conservation Lab: Subtle changes were made between the underdrawing and the final painted image of the older man. In the underdrawing (see photo), he appears younger, with a full head of hair, gazing at the viewer with a tired expression; in the final painting, he is older and has a more engaged, quizzical look.

Man Holding a Child, 1848 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Watercolor on paper 37.1538, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

The harried subject of this finished watercolor carries the accoutrements of a typical tourist—an umbrella, carpetbag, and pillow. The unusual subject may speak to the artist’s personal domestic circumstances—he had two small children at the time. This drawing was in William T. Walters’ album of American drawings assembled in 1859.

Soldier’s Experience, 1847 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Watercolor on paper 37.945, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

In this finished watercolor, an injured young soldier tells his personal war story to concerned older family members, including a robust elderly relative of the generation of the American War of Independence. His association with that event is made clear through the print dated 1776, the tricorn hat, and the musket lined up on the wall above. Woodville produced this work in Düsseldorf in 1847 and likely worked from models. Included in the humble domestic interior are depictions of a Baltimore chair and a cushioned armchair that also appear in The Sailor’s Wedding of 1853.

Old ’76 and Young ’48, 1849 Richard Caton Woodville

10 American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Oil on canvas 37.2370, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, museum purchase, 1954

A young soldier, injured arm in a sling, has just returned from the Mexican-American War to the opulent dining room of his family home. Gesturing expansively toward the Revolutionary portrait, he seeks the approval of an elderly relative, who appears diminished and lost in memory. The African American servants observing this emotional family encounter from the doorway place the scene in America and remind the viewer of the unequal effects and divided public opinion about the expansionist ambitions of that war.

Man with Long Hair Man in a Red Hat Profile Richard Caton Woodville American (Baltimore, Maryland), 1825–55 Watercolor on paper Collection of Stiles Tuttle Colwill

From his earliest school days, Woodville was interested in rendering the nuances of character in human expression. In these undated sketches, he appears to have worked from models while grounding his observation in artistic precedents, including Roman portraiture and historical prints. The fez-like red hat appears in one of his first genre paintings (narrative paintings of everyday life) and was a fashion among artists in Düsseldorf.

Idealizing the Past

Woodville was sensitive to the American market for art and attentive to the tastes of the managers of the American Art-Union, who were his primary patrons. He practiced the sentimental-romantic mode of history painting then very much in vogue. German and American artists, including Woodville’s friend Emanuel Leutze, looked for subject matter to the 17th-century English Civil War, “the troublous times of Charles and the Puritans.” This subject provided artists with a way of alluding to brewing democratic revolutions in Europe and to the growing tensions between northern and southern states in America, so evident in polarized public opinion about the Mexican-American War of 1846–48. Veiled allusions in these works to American character types of northerners descended from English Puritans and southerners with English Royalist ancestors pointed to the growing schism over the issue of slavery. It also manifested a yearning for images of decorum and courtliness in a time of increasing discomfort over the social changes brought about by urbanization and immigration. Unlike Leutze, Woodville did not depict specific historical events or characters, choosing instead to paint scenes of polite social interaction and domestic life.

Group of Men Playing Cards, ca. 1845 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Graphite on paper Collection of Stiles Tuttle Colwill

A group of four people gathers around a table before a half-open lattice window to watch two men playing cards. The man facing toward the viewer is a cavalier among peasants—his ruffed shirt, high boots, and sword mark him as a social superior. In this outline drawing, Woodville works out the composition and arrangement of figures, reducing the length of the table, placing a jug in the foreground, and showing some of the musculature of the man standing at the right.

Man at a Table, ca. 1840s Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Graphite on paper Collection of Stiles Tuttle Colwill

An elderly man sits at a table, one foot supported by a low hassock. This quickly executed sketch was likely made in the elementary drawing class at the Düsseldorf Academy, where Woodville was enrolled from1845 to 1846. The artist rendered shadow and volume through quick, sure lines and shading, emphasizing the outline of the chair arm and the rounded shapes of jug, glass vessel, and half-filled glass.

Three Local Characters Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Pen on paper 37.2007, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, gift of William T. Hassett, 1947

Game-playing was a favorite subject of Woodville’s. In this example, three men huddle around a checkerboard. The man in a fez points to the board, while his opponent looks on bemusedly. A standing observer completes the composition.

Bringing in the Boar’s Head, ca. 1845 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Graphite on paper 37.2006. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, gift of William T. Hassett, 1947

Here, Woodville sketches a procession of costumed characters, lavishing the most attention on the bare-headed servant carrying a roasted boar’s head on a platter. This popular subject was associated with hospitality and holidays.

Old Woman with Child Reading Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Oil on canvas 37.2930, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, museum purchase with funds provided through the bequest of Laura Delano Eastman by exchange, 2011

In a scene of domesticity and contented coexistence between generations, an old woman looks pensively into the distance, while the young girl at her side reads from a large book. Details of costume such as the lace collar or ruff and the roughly-finished carved chair, place this scene in the 17th-century context fashionable among American collectors and Düsseldorf artists. In this painting, which descended in the family of Woodville’s second marriage, the artist turned from the unruly external world to the calm and quiet of the home.

The Fencing Lesson, 1847–49 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Graphite on paper Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., gift of the Estate of William Woodville VII (1996.38.1)

This carefully crafted drawing is set in a 17th-century domestic interior. A father plays at sword-fighting with his young son, while the mother and a younger child look on. The intergenerational interaction here is calm and playful, though the boy’s assured stance speaks to his future as a soldier.

Knight and Scribe, 1852 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Graphite heightened with white crayon on paper The Baltimore Museum of Art, gift of Mrs. John Sylvester, 1936 (BMA 1936.597)

Woodville made a quick visit to the United States in the summer of 1851 and again three years later. This finished drawing appears to have been a gift to his friend, the artist Frank Blackwell Mayer (1827–99), who throughout his life collected drawings by fellow artists in a “souvenir sketchbook.”

Head of a Soldier, 1847 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Oil on canvas

13 Collection of Stiles Tuttle Colwill

This oil study indicates how quickly Woodville progressed in the stimulating artistic environment of Düsseldorf. His subject exudes martial energy: head tossed back, teeth bared, and eyes glinting menacingly. It may be a study for the soldier in The Cavalier’s Return, produced in the same year. The contrast between carefully rendered facial features and broader paint application in the uniform is characteristic of the artist, whose eye and interest were focused on depicting subtleties of character.

The Parlor

One of the defining social transformations underway in the first half of the 19th century was the industrial and urban expansion that physically separated male employment from the home. Gender roles became more distinctly articulated and domestic life more closely associated with “a woman’s sphere.” In this cultural framework, the parlor, a space between the outside world and private family life, became an essential element of domestic architecture for the middle and upper classes. Set apart from the rest of the living area, this room was where visitors were received and social rituals—social calls, parlor games, reading aloud—were enacted. The furniture and accessories of the parlor—medallion carpeting and ornamental draperies, patterned wallpaper and upholstered furniture—newly accessible to the middle class through mass production, set the stage for polite social interaction. The Ladies Book of Etiquette exhorted women to display “curiosities, handsome books, photographs, engravings, stereoscopes, medallions, [and] any works of art you may own” to stimulate conversation.

Portrait of a Woman, 1846–49 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Oil on canvas 37.2652, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, gift of Kurt Versen, 1990

Turned slightly to the left, the subject’s hairstyle was fashionable on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1840s. Although she is not identified, the sitter resembles Woodville’s first wife, Mary Theresa Buckler, with whom he had a tempestuous and ultimately failed relationship. In 1990, Walters conservators discovered this unfinished portrait underneath the 1848–50 Self-Portrait in Black Coat on view in this room.

From the Conservation Lab: In nearly original condition, this unfinished work gives insight into Woodville’s artistic process, from the extensive and delicate underdrawing to his subsequent application of thinned layers of black and brown paint to block in hair, dress, and black ribbon. The contour of the sitter’s head and hairline were reinforced with ink. Washes of paint brushed with loose, free movements describe the woman’s torso and background; tighter, small strokes define her face, hair, and blouse.

14 Portrait of Mary Buckler Woodville Carl Ferdinand Sohn German (Düsseldorf), 1805–67 Oil on canvas Private Collection

Richard Caton Woodville married Baltimorean Mary Theresa Buckler in secret and against his parents’ wishes in January 1845. When they arrived in Germany, she was seven months pregnant. The household ledger book she kept records details of purchases of food, servant’s wages, theater tickets, and sundries, as well as paints, models, and academy tuition. The Düsseldorf school was known for portraits of beautiful, pious, demure women, but Woodville’s teacher Carl Ferdinand Sohn painted his subject in a pose more common to male military figures; her strength of will is expressed through her uplifted gaze and firm anchoring of hands to hip.

William T. Walters’ American Drawings Album No. 1, showing Bringing in the Boar’s Head, 1845 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Album of 47 works on paper; drawing; ink on paper 11.1 and 37.1547, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Viewing albums of original drawings was an elite form of parlor entertainment. This pen and ink drawing was in the album of American drawings assembled by collector William T. Walters, where it would have been admired as an intimate remnant of the artwork of the short-lived Woodville. Woodville combined drawing with social correspondence: on the back is an enigmatic note, likely to his friend, artist Frank Blackwell Mayer—“Dear Frank—Do not expect me to[morrow]—I will not be able. R.C.W.” Album of 47 works on paper; drawing; ink on paper 11.1 and 37.1547, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Ornaments of Memory Gift Books

Literature and art came together in fashionable gift books richly illustrated with engravings. These books of poems and sentimental literature were published in the middle of the 19th century as “messengers of love, tokens of friendship, signs and symbols of affection, luxury, and refinement.” At the peak of their popularity, more than 60 gift books appeared each Christmas season. Along with popular prints, they helped to distribute works of American art, including Woodville’s War News from Mexico and The Game of Chess, the latter known only from the print, to a mass audience.

Ornaments of Memory Gift Book, featuring War News from Mexico, 1856 Alfred Jones (1819–1900) engraver, after Richard Caton Woodville Engraving

15 George Peabody Library, The Sheridan Libraries, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (818.3 O76 quarto c. 1, p. 153)

Ornaments of Memory Gift Book, featuring A Game of Chess, 1855 Alfred Jones (1819–1900) engraver, after Richard Caton Woodville Engraving The Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Special Collections, The Sheridan Libraries, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, gift of C. Marshal Barton (PQ510.O7 1855 Q c.1, p.35)

Waiting for the Stage, 1851 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Paris, France), 1825–55 Oil on canvas Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund, William A. Clark Fund, and through gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Lansdell K. Christie and Orme Wilson (60.33)

Woodville returned to a familiar subject and anonymous public interior in this, one of his last known paintings. Three men sit at a drop-leaf table in a tavern, playing cards and drinking as they wait for the next stagecoach. The open face and wry expression of the bearded player and the rough-hewn details of his knitted sweater and large hands contrast with his nattily attired and top-hatted opponent, whose spread-out hand of cards is more visible than the features of his averted face. Standing above the players is another well-dressed traveler wearing dark glasses, whose role in the implied conspiracy is telegraphed by his newspaper, The Spy.

Self-Portrait in a Black Coat, 1848–50? Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55 Oil on canvas 37.2645, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Kurt Verson, 1990

Woodville portrays himself as a privileged urban gentleman, in a formal black coat, white shirt with wing collar, and black bow tie. He fixes a penetrating, arrogant gaze on the viewer and embodies the elite social world in which he was raised and which he left behind in choosing the life of an artist in Germany. The painting descended in the family of the artist’s second marriage and was tacked on top of the unfinished Portrait of a Woman on view in this room.

Self-Portrait with Flowered Wallpaper, 1848–50? Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Düsseldorf, Germany), 1825–55

16 Oil on panel 37.2644, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Kurt Verson, 1989

The more informal of two self-portraits in oil by the artist, he sits in a parlor chair, facing the viewer while looking off to the left. His attire is casual: a tan jacket haphazardly buttoned, white shirt with black bow tie, gray vest, and blue-green trousers with a checkerboard pattern—the height of current fashion. The hand-to-face pose suggests introspection but is also found frequently in works based on photographs in this period. Putting a hand to the head helped a sitter hold a pose through the long exposure a photograph required at this time. The light brown wallpaper with bouquets of pink roses places the scene squarely in the domestic realm.

Technical Research

In 2011, with the generous support of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, we conducted a technical research study on all of the 16 known paintings by Richard Caton Woodville. The goal of the project was to study how Woodville developed as an artist, what materials he used, whether he changed materials and techniques as he moved from Baltimore, to Düsseldorf, and to Paris, and to determine whether his painting materials and techniques were similar to those of his Baltimore contemporary, Alfred Jacob Miller, who, some have speculated, might have been one of Woodville’s early teachers. The paintings underwent visual, microscopic, infrared, x-radiation, x-ray diffraction, x- ray fluorescence, gas chromatography mass spectroscopy, cross-sectional, and Ramen analysis. What these studies revealed was an artist who made significant changes to details and to the placement and expressions of his subjects and who emphasized the depiction of character over form. From the beginning, he used fine, tight brushwork, perhaps working under magnification, techniques that he could have learned from one of the many miniature painters at work in Baltimore in his youth. He adopted the latest innovations in the market for artists’ supplies, using commercially prepared pasteboard and canvas supports and purchasing new and expensive pigments, such as cadmium yellow. Woodville’s adoption of the highly polished, meticulous painting style of the Düsseldorf Academy was swift, intense, and noteworthy. In oil sketches, he used freer, looser brushstrokes, applying paint into still-wet paint. Although several of the paintings he produced after leaving Düsseldorf in 1851 continue that style, such as Waiting for the Stage and The Sailor’s Wedding, exposure to contemporary French painting may have broadened his technique. Italian Boy with a Hurdy-Gurdy is composed on a larger scale, with freer, more assured brushwork, using mixtures of color in the thickly applied off-white areas that recall the work of French academic painter and instructor Thomas Couture.

Conservation Photos with Captions

[1] This x-radiograph revealed different versions of the boy’s face painted directly onto the canvas (see label nearby for details). (Detail from Italian Boy with a Hurdy-Gurdy)

17 [2] This photomicrograph of the woman’s left eye shows underdrawing in pencil, thin paint glazes, and final accents in pen and ink. (Detail from Portrait of a Woman)

[3] This infrared image revealed Woodville made changes to the girl’s arm and the jug. (Detail from The Sailor’s Wedding)

[4] This infrared image shows that the canvas was originally painted with the portrait of an old man (see his nose and mouth in the area of Woodville’s beard).

[4a] A magnification of a cross-section of the painting in normal light (left) and ultra-violet light (right) shows the original portrait’s ground layer (1) and paint layers (2 & 3) covered by a second ground layer (4) and various paint and resin layers (5–9). (Detail from Self-Portrait in a Black Coat)

[5] Woodville used new, commercially prepared artists’ supplies, such as this pasteboard support. (Back of the portrait of Dr. Thomas Edmondson)

[6] This photomicrograph shows Woodville’s tiny, precise brushstrokes, demonstrating his use of magnification. (Detail from The Sailor’s Wedding)

Italian Boy with a Hurdy-Gurdy, ca. 1853 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Paris, France), 1825–55 Oil on canvas 37.2602, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, bequest of George C. Doub, 1982

Boys from the Savoy region of Italy who made their living as street musicians and chimney sweeps were popular subjects among European artists during the 19th century. Woodville depicts a young boy in worn clothing, holding his instrument and gazing out from under hooded eyes. Dated to the final years of his career, this work is singular in the artist’s body of work. The larger canvas size, loose brushwork, monochromatic palette, and individual subject with one accessory all depart from the multi-figure narratives filled with carefully rendered details seen in the rest of his works.

From the Conservation Lab: The subject of this painting is at least a third larger than those in Woodville’s multi-figured scenes. The brushwork is vigorous, and the pigments are blended on the palette and applied in a moderate impasto. At the same time, fine details in the instrument, tuning key, and boy’s left hand, were rendered in the artist’s meticulous technique. X-radiographs reveal numerous changes to the boy’s face, collar, hat, and hand (see photo). In an earlier version, he stared directly at the viewer (red highlight), in a second (blue highlight) his head was tilted back slightly, in a third the placement of his eyes was adjusted (yellow highlight), and in the final (green highlight) he looks out from under hooded eyes with a less confrontational, more seductive expression.

Visual Imagery for All

During the 19th century, mass production expanded the markets for many objects that earlier were available only as luxuries. During the decade from 1841 to 1851, the American Art- Union, a subscription organization with the mission of promoting the fine arts in the United States, published print reproductions of oil paintings as premiums for its members in editions numbering in the thousands. The Union’s volunteer Management Committee organized annual exhibitions at their gallery at 497 Broadway in New York. Paintings by American artists that the committee purchased from the exhibitions were selected for engraving if “the subject of the picture is of homely, but universal interest; one that will appeal to all hearts, and to all understandings.” To produce its prints, the Art-Union employed engravers, many of whom also made portraits and decorations for federal and state banknotes. Richard Caton Woodville’s subject matter suited these criteria and he became one of the favorite artists of the American Art-Union managers. Of the six paintings he sent for exhibition from Düsseldorf between 1846 and 1851, the Art-Union purchased five and then commissioned prints to be made of four of them. Distributed widely and used for decoration in the homes of subscribers throughout the country, prints based on works by Woodville often show signs of use and are in less pristine condition than prints stored in portfolios and meant for connoisseurs.

Mexican News Alfred Jones (1819–1900) after Richard Caton Woodville, War News from Mexico New York: American Art-Union, engraved 1851, issued 1853 Engraving with hand coloring 93.142, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

The Art-Union commissioned two engravings of War News from Mexico from Alfred Jones, a British-born engraver and genre and portrait artist. The smaller version appeared as the front plate of the Bulletin of the American Art-Union for April 1851, and this larger engraving, of which 14,000 impressions were made, was distributed to subscribers in 1851. Another engraving of this subject appeared in the gift book Ornaments of Memory in 1855. In the advertisements for the engraving, the Art-Union described its subject as “strictly AMERICAN.” Numerous changes can be observed between the original painting and mass-produced print, most strikingly in the broader expressions of the figures overall and a less sympathetic, more caricatured depiction of the African Americans.

Mexican News Alfred Jones (1819–1900) after Richard Caton Woodville, War News from Mexico New York: American Art-Union, engraved 1851, issued 1853 Engraving 93.146, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

19 War News from Mexico Alfred Jones (1819–1900) after Richard Caton Woodville, War News from Mexico New York: American Art-Union, engraved 1851, issued 1853 Engraving Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., gift of the Estate of William Woodville VII (1996.38.3)

Confederate News Unknown artist, 1860s, after Richard Caton Woodville, War News from Mexico Oil on canvas Maryland Historical Society

The wide impact of Woodville’s images during and after his lifetime is a subject worthy of further study. This amateur work, copied from the print of War News from Mexico, was owned by Baltimore’s Germania Club, established in the 1840s, and given to the Maryland Historical Society at the peak of anti-German sentiment during World War I. One altered detail—the placard on the left calling for “Volunteers for the Southern Conf. Army”—helps date the painting to the period of the Civil War. Baltimore had many Southern-sympathizing citizens, including the prolific German artist/dentist Adalbert Volk, who may have produced this unsigned painting.

The Spy Print of Waiting for the Stage After Richard Caton Woodville Paris, New York, London: Goupil & Co., 1851 Lithograph with hand coloring The Baltimore Museum of Art, gift from the Estate of Mrs. Thomas Harrison Oliver (BMA 1942.73)

The painting for this work was produced in Paris, during a time of great change for the artist. Richard Caton Woodville had left Düsseldorf and his young family for a fellow student and painter Antoinette Schnitzler, whom he would marry in 1854. The ready market he had enjoyed with the American Art-Union had come to an end with the closing of that venue in 1851. In Paris, he was closer to Goupil & Co., print publishers already working with his friend Emanuel Leutze. The lithograph based on the painting was produced quickly by Lemercier in Paris and published by Goupil in New York in 1851.

20 The Sailor’s Wedding, 1852 Richard Caton Woodville American (working in Paris, France), 1825–55 Oil on fabric 37.142, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, acquired by William T. Walters, 1861

Woodville rendered this dramatic moment with remarkable economy, from the irritated reaction of the judge interrupted at supper, to the conciliatory gesture of the bowing groomsman, to the oblivious pride of the sailor and the humble expectation of the elderly members of the wedding party. The Bulletin of the American Art-Union wrote: “Woodville has been engaged at Paris upon a new work, The Wedding Before the Squire, which we understand has been purchased in advance by Goupil & Co. It is a subject well adapted to the artist’s peculiar powers.”

The Sailor’s Wedding Claude Thielley (1811–91) after Richard Caton Woodville Paris, New York, London: Goupil & Co., 1855 Lithograph with hand coloring Collection of Stiles Tuttle Colwill Woodville sold the painting The Sailor’s Wedding to Goupil & Co. for the large sum of 1,500 francs, thus joining such internationally famous French painters as Paul Delaroche and Ary Scheffer as the most highly compensated artists in the dealer’s stock book. French artist-lithographer Claude Thielley produced this print, published in France, Germany, England, and the United States in 1855, the year of Woodville’s death from “an overdose of morphine, medicinally taken.”

Politics in an Oyster House Michele Fanoli after Richard Caton Woodville Paris, New York, London: Goupil & Co., 1851 Lithograph with hand coloring 93.145, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, gift of Miss Sadie B. Feldman in memory of her brother, Samson Feldman, 1987

Michael Fanoli’s transformation of the older man’s expression from the painting to the lithograph had a considerable impact on its contemporary reception. One critic invented a long story about the print’s “benevolent-looking” older gentleman, as opposed to the mildly intoxicated man in the painting, connecting him to the old man in The Card Players: “Our old friend is not as choice as he might be in his company: you remember that hard looking youth he was playing card with in the country, and here in the city he has fallen in with one of the same kidney. . .”

Conversation in an Oyster House Michele Fanoli after Richard Caton Woodville Paris, New York, London: Goupil & Co., 1851

21 Lithograph with hand coloring Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., gift of the Estate of William Woodville VII (1996.38.2)

Politics in an Oyster House Michele Fanoli after Richard Caton Woodville Paris, New York, London: Goupil & Co., 1851 Lithograph with hand coloring The Baltimore Museum of Art, gift from the Estate of Mrs. Thomas Harrison Oliver (BMA 1942.72)

The leading European art publishing firm Goupil & Co. opened its first foreign branch in New York in 1848, establishing direct contact with American artists and audiences. Goupil issued more than a hundred American works of art, including lithographic reproductions of paintings by the leading genre painters of the period before the American Civil War: William Sidney Mount, George Caleb Bingham, and Richard Caton Woodville. In this advertisement from The Literary World in December of 1850, the lithograph by Michele Fanoli after Politics in an Oyster House is offered along with prints of genre works by Mount, Gilbert Stuart’s iconic Portrait of George Washington, and “views of the most interesting objects and scenery of the United States of America.”

A Place in History

For a brief period from 1845 to 1855, Richard Caton Woodville sat at the pinnacle of the expanding market for American art. His “uniquely American” subject matter, executed in the delicate finish and minute detail then in fashion, told stories valued by a new middle-class audience for art. His patrician Baltimore heritage and advantageous connections in the art world ensured his place in the developing art press, as a taste for genre painting rivaled that of landscape painting during the middle years of the 19th century. During the final years of his life, he appears not to have painted much at all. Woodville died mysteriously and tragically of “an overdose of morphine, medicinally taken” in London at the age of 30. When American tastes in art shifted away from genre painting after the Civil War, Woodville lapsed into relative obscurity. In the 20th century, when American Art became a serious field of study, his reputation was quickly reestablished. To this day, his images provide a visual record of, and a social comment on, a fascinating period of our nation’s history.