Before proceeding to describe the contents of the second floor of the
Museum, I must say a few words about the School of Drawing and Painting
which, for the present, has its home in the building.
Although it is generally thought by those who hear of this school, and
always in connection with the Museum, that it is a department of the
institution, yet in fact it is only partially under the control of the
trustees.
It will be remembered that the Museum was not made all at once, and out
of whole cloth, so to speak, but was formed by bringing together certain
collections already existing—the Athenæum casts and pictures, and the
Gray collection of engravings, for instance, and by offering hospitality
to certain projects connected with the study of the arts, which were in
the air, but which could not take shape without some such help as an
institution could give.
As my readers know, the Museum became a fact in 1876, but two years
earlier, in 1874, there had been earnest talk about a school of drawing
and painting, and though nothing was actually done, yet the ground was
prepared by much discussion for establishing such a school on right
principles of theory and practice when the time should come for doing
something. The Museum once established, the trustees conferred with those
of their fellow-citizens who had been urging the foundation of a school;
the trustees offered rooms in the new building, the others raised the
necessary funds to equip the school, and on Tuesday, January 2, 1877, the
school was opened.
The school is under the control of a permanent committee, consisting
of four painters, three architects, the three principal officers of
the Museum, and two other gentlemen. The rooms occupied by the school
are in the basement of the building; they are well lighted, warmed,
and ventilated, and are furnished with all the necessary means and
appliances for instruction, while the pupils have, in addition to the
excellent teaching provided for them in the school itself, the advantage
of free access to the permanent collections of the Museum, as well as
to the special exhibitions that, from time to time, take place in the
building. The school holds a high rank among similar institutions in the
country; it is under the able and high minded management of Mr. Frederic
Crowninshield, and it is sincerely to be hoped that before long it may
find itself in quarters more ample, and better suited to the dignity
of so important a factor in the culture of the community. At the same
time the hope may be expressed, that the school and the Museum may never
part company, but that their relations, on the contrary, may grow closer
and stronger, and that in time the school may become an active part of
the foundation, and be put under the complete control of the trustees.
There could not be a better place for students than an institution like
this, where daily seeing the finest forms of antique art, and constantly
increasing opportunities for acquaintance with good modern work,
illustrate and strengthen the lessons learned in the school itself.
Immediately in front of the visitor as he enters the Museum rises the
ample staircase that leads to the upper rooms. The stairs mount in a
broad flight in the middle of the hall, to the first landing, where they
divide, and returning on themselves finish the ascent in two flights, one
at the right hand and the other at the left. On this first landing was
at one time placed a handsome original example of the carved settles
or benches of the Italian Renaissance, but this has now been replaced
by a cast of the reclining female figure called Cleopatra, but to which
the name of Ariadne is now more commonly given. The original marble is
in the Vatican. This cast is one of those purchased with the bequest of
the late Charles Sumner. On the walls of the staircase and of the upper
hall several pictures are hung, among them a few that have, at least for
Americans, a historic interest. Here are the “Belshazzar’s Feast” of
Washington Allston, a picture at one time much talked and written about,
and which played an important part in the artist’s life; the “St. Peter
delivered from Prison,” by the same painter; the “King Lear” of Benjamin
West, and the “Sortie from Gibraltar” of Jonathan Trumbull. Of course
these pictures are only placed here for a time, until the Museum building
shall be enlarged, for when all deductions have been made on the score of
artistic merit that sound criticism can demand, they will still remain as
monuments in our development, and as such deserve to be hung where they
can be better seen.
Lack of room crowds into the hall of this second story a number of small
works, such as the collection of water-color copies from the pictures
of Dutch and Italian masters made for the late Mr. Douse, and by him
bequeathed to the Athenæum. They are of little value except as memoranda,
and might as well be removed from their frames, mounted, and consigned to
the custody of portfolios in the print-room.
Of far more value are the drawings in chalk, in pencil, and in pastel
by the late J. F. Millet, belonging to Mr. Martin Brimmer; they were
among the first things loaned to the Museum, and they still remain among
the most valuable for delight and for instruction. At the same end of
the hall, and so placed that the light from the large window is most
advantageous to it, is placed a cast of the second of the Gates, made by
Lorenzo Ghiberti for the Baptistery in Florence.
At the left hand, as we leave the stairs, is the entrance to the
extensive loan-collections which fill all but one of the rooms on this
side of the building. Although they are directly over the rooms on the
first floor, the space they occupy is not so subdivided; we have only
four rooms above the five below. The apartment we first enter is a large
one, fifty-five feet long by thirty-two wide, and was formerly given up
to the pictures which have since been transferred to the answering room
on the opposite side of the building. The room opening out of this, at
the western end, and of nearly the same size, is devoted to the same
object, but it would be impossible within our narrow limits to give an
adequate notion of their contents, particularly since, owing to want of
space, no scientific arrangement is possible, and the dazed spectator
moves about among objects of great value and interest, brought from every
clime and belonging to every age, but deprived of much of their value
because the key which order gives, is wanting.
The department of textiles, embroideries and laces is full, and of great
value, and includes some Italian stuffs and embroideries purchased by the
Museum under the direction of the late Alessandro Castellani. There are
some fine Flemish tapestries which came from the Château de Neuilly, and
a few other pieces of value, but the Museum is richest in that part of
the loan collection which belongs to Japan. Dr. W. S. Bigelow has loaned
to the Museum his magnificent collection of objects from that country,
and it may be said of it that in the field of embroideries, lacquers,
swords, sword-mounts, bronzes, ivories, and ceramics, it exhausts the
subject. It is now greatly to be desired that some one should undertake
the collection of the works of the Japanese artists in painting—a field
of great importance, and strangely neglected.
The Museum is rich in specimens of pottery and porcelain of Oriental
and European manufacture. In the latter field it is richer than the
Metropolitan Museum of New York, but the Avery collection of Chinese
and Japanese porcelain in the New York Museum is finer in quality and
more complete in its representative character than anything the Boston
Museum has. It is also far more attractively displayed. The collection
of Captain Brinckley, of Japan, of eight hundred and forty-two pieces of
Chinese and Japanese porcelain, loaned to the Boston Museum since 1884
is, however, an acquisition of great value and artistic interest, and
although not particularly well displayed is instructively arranged and
classified.
In the large western room there is a considerable number of small objects
of the period of the Italian Renaissance, some bronzes belonging to the
Athenæum, and some medals loaned by Mr. Charles C. Perkins; there is
also a considerable number of reproductions of Italian medals, made by
Elkington, of London, which serve a useful purpose in the absence of
original specimens. There are also, in this room, several good pieces of
Italian majolica; two specimens of the Della Robbia ware—one attributed
to Luca, the other to Andrea, both loaned by Mr. Perkins. The collection
is not rich in glass, either antique or modern. There are a few pieces
of old Venetian glass, but they are neither very interesting nor very
valuable.
On the south side of this division of the Museum are two rooms, one of
which is occupied with a miscellaneous collection of objects in carved
wood and ivory, Italian marriage chests, cabinets, tables, etc., etc.,
with some Japanese objects, chiefly swords, while the other is fitted
up with carved oak of the sixteenth century, the lining of a room in
some English house, with additions from other quarters. This is an
extremely interesting apartment, and, besides the wood-carving, contains
six portraits painted on panel, and forming a part of the original
decoration of the room; among them heads of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and
Queen Elizabeth. There are several pieces of antique furniture in this
room, and in the center a glass case containing some good illuminated
manuscripts. The mantelpiece, in the style of the period, is a modern
reproduction.
Returning to the stair-case hall, and crossing to the eastern side of
the building, we find ourselves in the picture-galleries. The shape and
disposition of these rooms are similar to those in the opposite wing,
but owing to the greater height of the sculpture-gallery on the ground
floor at the eastern end, the space above it, divided into two rooms, is
several feet higher than the rest of the wing. The great height of the
upper story permits this division be to made without injury to the effect.
The pictures belonging to the Museum are not without interest, although
their value is not very great, if reckoned in money. The early American
pictures include portraits by Copley, Stuart, Allston, and West, but
with the exception of the well-known portraits of Washington and Mrs.
Washington, by Stuart, there is nothing here of particular interest,
although there are often pictures loaned to the Museum by old residents
of Boston, which are historically valuable. It is much to be desired that
the collection of portraits by Copley in the Museum of Harvard College
could be deposited in the Museum. There ought to be in this institution
as complete a representation of the early art of the country as can
be procured, and it would be comparatively easy to accomplish this at
the present time. It must not be inferred that the authorities of the
Museum have neglected this portion of their mission. On the contrary,
they have rendered important service in this direction, and the special
exhibitions have been of interest, and of great importance. Beside
miscellaneous loan collections, there have been exhibitions of the works
of Allston, of William M. Hunt, and of George Fuller, and every year the
visitor finds representative pictures by artists of repute at home and
abroad, which excite interest, discussion, criticism, and keep the flame
of art and the love of art burning, even if—and this by no fault of the
institution—comparatively few avail themselves of the light. The French
school of painters which had its seat near the Forest of Fontainebleau,
and which is associated with the names of Millet, Corot, Rousseau, and
Diaz, is better represented here than any other of the modern schools,
although Courbet and Couture are both seen in good examples, Courbet
especially, of whom there is a fine picture, “La Curée”—the huntsman
winding his horn to call the chase together to cut up the stag. The
Couture is the Heads of Two Soldiers seen in profile, and though of no
importance as subject, is a good example of his method.
The school of Fontainebleau, or more properly speaking, of Barbizon,
is represented by the large “Dante and Virgil,” a companion in size to
the “Orpheus” of the Cottier collection in New York, but by no means so
fine a work. There is no important work by Millet at present, although
there have been here some good examples from time to time, and especially
his “Sower,” the fine _replica_ of that picture belonging to Mr. Quincy
A. Shaw, with other smaller subjects, particularly a Sheep-shearing, a
picture in which all that is best in Millet was to be seen.
The picture gallery at the Museum is such a movable feast that it
would be useless to attempt a catalogue of its contents. Just now the
“Automedon taming the Horses of Achilles,” by Baptiste Regnault, the
“Joan of Arc,” by Bastien Lepage, and “The Walk by the River Side,” by
Henri Lerolle, are among the most noticeable of the contents of the
large room, although there are a number of smaller pictures that are
well worth looking at. There is an effort making to purchase the picture
by Regnault, and the Lerolle was presented to the Museum in 1884 by Mr.
Francis C. Foster.
The remaining rooms in this portion of the building are a small one
in which some fine old Dutch paintings are exhibited, and those which
contain the Gray collection of engravings. The Dutch pictures, it is
hoped, will one day belong to the Museum; they will form a valuable
addition to its collection.
The Gray collection fills the room which runs along the southern side of
this wing answering to the large picture gallery which is parallel with
it on the north. This collection, formed for the late Francis C. Gray
by M. Thies, a German connoisseur, is one of the two or three important
collections of prints that are owned in America, and in some departments
is excelled by none, while the fact that there is a fund derived from
moneys left by Mr. Gray, which is devoted to the maintenance and increase
of the collection, gives it the advantage over all others here, and
ensures its one day becoming of national importance. It is already very
rich in Rembrandts and Dürers, but the aim of those who have it in charge
is to make it representative in its character, not of any one school in
particular but of all the schools and styles of engraving which have
existed. The collection is under the intelligent care of Mr. Edward
H. Greenleaf, who makes the contents of the portfolios useful to the
public by a series of exhibitions of the finest specimens of the various
schools, accompanied with titles, notes, and instructive memoranda, so
that in default of proper space for doing full justice to the collection
in any permanent way, the course of the year brings before the eyes of
students and visitors a considerable number of the prints, and thus makes
no slight contribution to general enlightenment on the subject.
The next paper in this series will take up the Metropolitan Museum of New
York.