THE WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST COLLECTION Photographs And
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THE WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST COLLECTION Photographs and Acquisition Records On Microfiche Published with the kind cooperation of The Library of the C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University Donald L. Ungarelli, University Director of libraries And with the kind assistance of Taylor Coffman, Consulting Editor By CLEARWATER PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. 1995 Broadway, New York, NY 10023 (212) 873-2100 PUBLISHER'S PREFACE By Norman A. Ross This project was suggested to Clearwater Publishing by Elsie Wilensky, to whom the publisher is grateful. The project was organized and managed by Clearwater's stalwart editors, Eleonora Bertacchi and Caroline Murphy, to whom the publisher is also grateful. And enormous counsel and assistance were provided by Taylor Coffman, who guided us in the filming, wrote the introduction and prefatory notes and who edited the subject index. The publisher apologizes to readers of this Guide for the fact that the type faces vary. However, it was necessary to produce the various sections of the guide using different software packages and different output devices (included plain old typewriters) and it wasn't feasible to get everything to look the same. Nevertheless it is believed and hoped that this guide will prove to be quite thorough and very helpful to users of the microfiche collection. Annotated Table of Contents Wherein the Succeeding Pages are Explained The William Randolph Hearst Collection, an introduction and brief history by Taylor Coffman, which will certainly be invaluable to anyone working with the collection 1 Prefatory Notes, also by Taylor Coffman, prepared after the microfiche were produced in order to guide the reader carefully through what may be a bit confusing 7 Major Subject Categories, being a list, largely in the sequence of the books (and microfiche), providing an overview of the original organization of the collection 9 Alphabetical Index to the Book Titles, being quite similar to the previous page, however this listing is in alphabetical order and provides the microfiche numbers in addition to the book numbers 10 Table of Contents to the books and microfiche, providing a numerical listing of the numbered books and an alphabetical and chronological listing of the sales catalogs 11 Subject Index to the entire collection, based on the titles of the numbered volumes and their subtitles as well 23 I THE WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST COLLECTION By Taylor Coffman The legendary publisher William Randolph Hearst belonged to a generation of great American collectors that included Joseph Widener, George Blumenthal, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Archer Milton Huntington, Samuel Kress, George Grey · Barnard, and Clarence Mackay. So much for Hearst's being readily definable, whether as a publisher or as part of a generation of collectors. He was a supreme individualist, a bold nonconformist; therein lies the allure--as well as the controversy--that has always surrounded him. But Hearst was similar to at least two of his contemporaries, Widener and Huntington, in being a second generation collector within a wealthy family, his first-generation predecessor having been his mother, Phoebe Apperson Hearst. Hearst, who was born in San Francisco in 1863, went to Europe with his mother as early as 1873. Even then the ten-year-old boy had, in his mother's words, "a mania for antiquities."1 During that first trip abroad he made a few small collections, prophetic of things to come, among them some papal medallions he acquired in Rome. Of Hearst's collecting during the 1880s about all that is known is that while a student at Harvard he bought a rare edition of The Federalist. In 1891 Hearst bought some American historical autographs at the Leffingwell sale in Boston. A year later he bought some mummies in Egypt, the whereabouts of which are now unknown. In fact, before Hearst was thirty he bought only one item that can readily be located today--the Italian pozo (wellhead) for which Phoebe Hearst named the Hacienda del Pozo de Verona, her country estate near Pleasanton, California, where her son installed the wellhead in the 1890s. In the 1920s Hearst removed the wellhead to his own country estate at San Simeon. In moving from San Francisco to New York in 1895 to assume ownership of his second newspaper, the New York Morning Journal, Hearst gained direct access to the leading art and literary markets in the country. About this time he began to keep at least partial records of his purchases, although it was not until the 1920s that he started keeping systematic, comprehensive records. Despite their spottiness, Hearst's early records · reveal in microcosm the diversity that characterized his lifetime of collecting--Chinese porcelains in 1894, Remington paintings in 1895, Hispano-Moresque ware in 1898 and 1899, genre paintings throughout the late 1890s, Greek vases in 190 l. That he had actually acquired considerably more during these years is evident from Mrs. Fremont Older's life of Hearst. "As early as 1893," Mrs. Older noted, "Hearst followed the great art sales of the world. At thirty he was known to dealers as an enthusiastic and judicious collector of art objects."2 In reference to the late 1890s in New York she wrote, "He attended almost every auction of consequence, or sent a representative with a list of objects interesting him and the price he was willing to pay."3 Her description of the Worth House on Twenty-fifth Street, where Hearst lived from 1897 to 1900, is equally telling: "He put in beamed ceilings, tiled floors, rare mantels, and furnished the rooms with antique furnitures and tapestries."" (The tapestries may have been his mother's since Hearst himself did not begin collecting in that area until shortly after 1900.) Further evidence of greater collecting activity can be found in the auction-room reports of the New York newspapers of the period, in which the name "W. R. Hearst" often appears. 1 Nor with only few exceptions did Hearst record his European purchases before those he made through the Paris art market in 1901 and 1903. But once again there is evidence of greater collecting activity. Edward Fowles of Duveen Brothers, for example, recalled Hearst's having bought some German beer mugs about 1900 at their London galleries; Fowles also recalled that Hearst was "soon to become one of Duveen's greatest clients and to be known to the world as a great newspaper magnate."6 The names of other European dealers first appear, perhaps belatedly, in Hearst's records for the first decade of the century--Arthur Tooth & Sons in 1905; Julius Bohler in 1908; Etienne Delaunoy, Galeries Heilbronner, and A. S. Drey in 1909. And also in 1909 the names of the European auctioneers Frederik Muller and Rudolph Lepke first appear. In 1900 Hearst moved to 123 Lexington Avenue, the former home of President Chester Arthur. John K. Winkler's description of the Lexington House in 1905 vividly conveys the eclecticism of the period: A score of costly paintings stood on the floors, leaning against the walls. Here was a wonderfully painted and gilded Egyptian mummy case standing on end under glass; there a complete suit of ancient German armor. On a pianola stood a gilded bronze statuette of Caesar crossing the Rubicon and one of Napoleon as First Consul. In a corner gleamed Fremiet's golden St. George and the Dragon and under a window a beautiful porcelain Eve with Cain and Abel, as infants, playing at her knee. Through an open door could be seen the quaint oak dining room with deer antlers for chandeliers and picturesque groupings of Delft and old glass.6 Despite its four stories, the Lexington house was inadequate for Hearst's growing collection. In 1907 Hearst moved to the Clarendon apartments at 137 Riverside Drive, where, after dramatically altering the upper floors, he had more space for his remaining years in New York. Mrs. Fremont Older · described the . Clarendon as a "vast, high, distinguished Gothic hall, gleaming with armor," in which some of Hearst's "rarest tapestries were suitably placed."7 By 1907 Hearst was a seasoned "amateur," an auction-room sportsman with an intimate knowledge of the New York market. In The Elegant Auctioneers, Wesley Towner's invaluable history of the salesrooms, Hearst figures prominently in the recounting of the Stanford White sales of that year, the first two which were held in White's Gramercy Park mansion. "Only the most exclusive trade was actually admitted to the house.... Even John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and William Randolph Hearst were required to identify themselves," Towner wrote. Of the bidders at the White sales, Hearst and Rockefeller "were perhaps the bitterest opponents, spatting like schoolboys over everything in sight."8 Among Hearst's purchases was the ceiling from Stanford White's drawing room, a rare example that Hearst later used at San Simeon. Until the 1920s, however, Hearst's records continued to omit more items than they listed; the ceiling was eventually inventoried as "No Record of Purchase." At any rate, Hearst clearly was collecting with a passion during the first decade of the century, and he continued doing so during the second decade. 2 The year 1919 saw Hearst make the transition from impressive collecting to spectacular collecting. Phoebe Apperson Hearst died, leaving him a fortune in mining properties and real estate to add to his publishing empire. With the World War over, Hearst was ready to collect with new fervor. And now there was San Simeon, the estate he began developing in California that year, to inspire new directions in collecting, particularly along Spanish and Italian lines, both of which were ideally suited to the recent shift in the market toward southern European importations.