Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., Venice, St

Dumbarton Oaks Washington, D.C. Dumbarton Oaks Edited by Denys Sutton An Oasis of Scholarship 3 Denys Sutton The Building of Dumbarton Oaks 13 Giles Constable Ancient American Gods and Their Living Impersonators 19 George Kubler Four Maya Reliefs 31 Mary Ellen Miller The Byzantine Collection 39 Cyril Mango The Saint Peter Icon of Dumbarton Oaks 53 Kurt Weitzmann A Fête of Flowers: 59 Women Artists’ Contribution to Botanical Illustration Agnes Mongan The Gardens 69 Diane Kostial McGuire Notes on Contributors 81 © Apollo Magazine Ltd., 1984, ISSN 0003-6536 Originally published in APOLLO, Vol. CXIX, No. 266, April 1984 Denys Sutton An Oasis of Scholarship Although Henry James spent most of his life in This is not the case at Dumbarton Oaks, where the Europe, he understood much about his compatriots; house (of which the history is traced by the those, at any rate, who belonged to the upper strata Director, Giles Constable, in this issue) is an oasis of of society and especially those who went to culture where the inanimate beauty of the objects Europe. His gift for perceiving the strain of inno- within is complemented by the growing beauty of cence that could be detected in many Americans the gardens without. These were created by Mrs. when they were abroad is clear, but he was no less Bliss with the help of Beatrix Farrand, a niece of aware of their frequent search for an aesthetic ideal. Edith Wharton and an expert in garden design. Mrs. Needless to say some collectors in the United Bliss also established an important garden library. States, like those in other countries, went in for Robert Woods Bliss (Fig. 1) was the sort of ostentatious interiors and showed little true con- cosmopolitan and educated American who appears cern for art. Yet many American collectors had in the novels of Henry James and Edith Wharton. remarkable flair and bought splendid pieces: C. L. Most of his life was spent in the grand world of Freer, Mrs. J. L. Gardner, Henry Walters and Jules international diplomacy. After leaving Harvard Bache, to name only some of the most celebrated, (where he studied History), he entered the public were endowed with unusual taste. The next genera- service in 1900. His first post was in the office of tion produced people such as Duncan Phillips and the Civil Governor of Puerto Rico to whom he Robert and Mildred Bliss. The Blisses were the was appointed secretary. Later he was en poste in creators of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C., Venice, St. Petersburg, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Paris which came into the public eye in 1944 when the and The Hague. He was also American Ambassador preliminary discussions leading up to the founda- to Sweden and the Argentine. He worked in the tion of the United Nations were held there. State Department in Washington and although The Blisses were of a type that has more or less retiring at his own request in 1933, he became a vanished—the civilized amateur—and represented consultant in 1942. When Second Secretary at the American patrician culture at its finest. Those who American Embassy in St. Petersburg he was had the privilege, it was nothing less, of being presented to the Czarina and was in Russia during shown Dumbarton Oaks in the ‘old days’ by Mr. the Revolution of 1905. and Mrs. Bliss with the puckish Director, John S. Bliss’s father, William H. Bliss, was the United Thacher, in attendance, will cherish the memory of States Attorney in St. Louis and also had railway a golden phase in American life. The taste of the interests. Left a widower, he married the remarkable Blisses, Maecenases of distinction, was for the rare Anna Dorinda Blaksley (1851–1935), also from St. and unusual: the Music Room (Fig. 3) is an Louis, whose lineage gave her membership in the epitome of ‘High Culture’, with its rich gold thread Colonial Dames and the Daughters of the Ameri- tapestry, remarkable early Italian and Northern can Revolution. She had been sent to Paris to pictures, a Riemenschnieder figure, a radiant El ‘finish’ at Miss de Vina’s well known school and Greco, a marvellous Degas and one or two superb then travelled round Europe with a chaperone, Miss examples of Chinese and Egyptian art (Figs. 4–10). Emily Mason, known as the ‘Florence Nightingale Nowadays many museums have become of the South’. Lunaparks, often invaded by unruly children whose Soon after returning to St. Louis, Anna Blaksley teachers are unable, or unwilling, to control them. married her first husband, Demus Barnes, a wid- 1 Robert Woods Bliss (1875–1962) 2 Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss (1879–1969) by Albert Steiner, 1908 4 ower, whose daughter, Cora, was older than she. intriguing Americans of his time—Royall Tyler The new Mrs. Barnes was devoted to her step- (1884–1953), whom she had known since 1902, daughter after whose premature death she built in and with whom she corresponded until his death. her memory a special mausoleum at Woodland, Tyler, whose ancestor was the first Chief Justice of New York. Her own husband died too, but not Vermont and the first American playwright, and before they had had a daughter, Mildred. Barnes, whose grandmother was of Slavonic origin, went to who had interests in Fletcher’s Castoria Corpora- Harrow and then to New College, Oxford, but left tion, left his widow an exceedingly wealthy woman. after four terms. He studied in Saragossa and It was an instance of the close ties linking the became a close friend of the Rector, Miguel de Barneses and the Blisses that Mildred Barnes (Fig. Unamuno. A polymath and a brilliant linguist, Tyler 2) should have married her step brother, the was commissioned by Grant Richards to write a handsome Robert Bliss. book on Spain (1909). This remarkable volume is Mrs. Bliss Senior was clearly a forceful person- one of the first publications in English to pay ality, with a pronounced taste for good music. tribute to El Greco. Tyler eloped with the beautiful Although before the First World War she and her Mrs. Richards, born Contessa Elisina Palamidessi de second husband spent most of the year in Manhat- Castelvecchio, the descendant of a son of Louis tan, she decided to build a mansion in Montecito at Napoleon, King of Holland. Royall Tyler was then Santa Barbara, California. The result was Casa employed by the British Public Record Office as Dorinda, which was erected during the War, a Editor of the Calendar of the Spanish State Papers. handsome example of the American eclectic style The Tylers had established their home in Paris; with strong ‘Churrigueresque’ features. One it was there that Tyler first made Bliss aware of the attraction of this vast residence is the grand music beauties of PreColumbian art, taking him to the room where such famous artists as Paderewski and small shop of Joseph Brummer in the Boulevard Heifetz would perform. Raspail where he bought his first piece—an Olmec The older Mrs. Bliss’s love of music was figure. Bliss’s response to Pre-Columbian art was inherited by her daughter and stepson, who often analogous to that of many of the Paris avant-garde gave concerts at Dumbarton Oaks, which they to Negro sculpture. bought and renovated in 1920. The Blisses were Bliss later confessed that on the day he saw the friends of Nadia Boulanger and commissioned Olmec figure ‘the collector’s microbe took root...in Stravinsky to compose his celebrated Dumbarton very fertile soil’. Although he looked for pieces in Oaks concerto (1938) in honour of their Golden Latin America he never found anything worthwhile Wedding. The tradition of music-making at there: his collection was formed of items bought in Dumbarton Oaks continued after it had ceased to Europe and the United States. He had no interest in be a private home: it had been given by the Blisses the anthropological or historical aspects of Pre- to Harvard University in 1940. Columbian art; he only acquired items that ap- As yet the development of the Blisses’ love of pealed to him as works of art. The result is a works of art has not been examined in any detail. collection which is one of the most aesthetically Their long stay in Paris, where Bliss served at the pleasing of its kind in existence. It was on view at American Embassy from 1912 to 1920, was of the National Gallery, Washington, D.C. for many paramount importance for shaping their taste. In years and, after the owner’s death, it was installed in 1918, for instance, Mrs. Bliss acquired Degas’s La a special wing, designed by Philip Johnson, at Répétition de Chant (Fig. 10) at the artist’s studio sale. Dumbarton Oaks. The Blisses moved in the smart upper class intellec- Dumbarton Oaks, however, is best known for tual society of the time, which is depicted in the its celebrated collection of Byzantine art and its memoirs of Mrs. Wharton with whom Mrs. Bliss Antioch mosaics which were excavated by a did not get on. Princeton University team. The Blisses had devel- A determining inf luence on the Blisses was oped their taste for Byzantine art during their time Mrs. Bliss’s friendship with one of the most in Paris, largely owing to the influence of Tyler. He 5 3 The Music Room, facing East 6 4 Maddona and Child by Tilman Riemenschneider (1460–1531). Wood, height 95.25 cms. Acc. no. H. 24.4 5 Head of Bodhisattva, Chinese, T’ang period, 618– 906. Black stone, height 43 cms.

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