Old Masters, New World

by Cynthia Saltzman

  Despite the Metropolitan’s new collections, galleries, and wings, the Old Masters still reign over the museum as they have for a century, enthroned at the top of the grand stairs.

  PHOTO INSERTS

  John Singer Sargent, Elizabeth Allen Marquand, 1887. Princeton University Art Museum. Sargent painted the portrait a year after he had encouraged Henry Marquand to acquire van Dyck’s James Stuart.

  Johannes Vermeer, The Concert, ca. 1665. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Gardner won the Vermeer at a Paris auction in 1892.

  Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, ca. 1662. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In 1887, Henry Marquand spent $800 on this canvas—the first Vermeer to arrive in America.

  John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1888. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Portraying Gardner as a symmetrical figure set against Venetian fabric, Sargent paid tribute to her as a patron of art.

  Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Self-Portrait, Aged 23, 1629. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. “I am bitten by the Rembrandt,” Gardner wrote Bernard Berenson in February 1896, “and today being Sunday, I wait until tomorrow and then cable ‘Yes Rembrandt!’”

  Titian, Europa, 1560–62. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. “Lord Darnley’s Titian: Europa” is a “picture for a great ‘coup,’” the dealer Otto Gutekunst wrote Bernard Berenson in 1896, and “one of the finest & most important Titians in existence.”

  Raphael, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints (Colonna Madonna), ca. 1504. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Paying $400,000 in 1901, J. Pierpont Morgan made the altarpiece the world’s most expensive painting.

  Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lady Elizabeth Delmé and Her Children, 1777–79. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Pierpont Morgan’s purchases established a taste for eighteenth-century English beauties among American tycoons.

  Edgar Degas, At the Louvre, ca. 1879. Private Collection. Degas portrayed his American friend Mary Cassatt not as a painter but as a connoisseur, looking at pictures.

  El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos), Portrait of a Cardinal. Probably Don Fernando Niño de Guevara (The Grand Inquisitor), ca. 1600. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. In 1901, an El Greco expert alerted Mary Cassatt to the rare full-length portrait, which he had recently discovered in a palace in Madrid.

  Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, The Polish Rider, ca. 1655. The Frick Collection, New York. Scouting for canvases for the 1898 Rembrandt retrospective in Amsterdam, a Dutch scholar found the painting in a castle in Poland.

  Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Self-Portrait, 1658. The Frick Collection, New York. The Ilchester Rembrandt was the sort of picture that the dealer Otto Gutekunst called “Angel’s food” or “Big-big, big game.”

  Giovanni Bellini, St. Francis in the Desert, 1480. The Frick Collection, New York. When the ravishing Bellini was first exhibited in London in 1912, it created “a sensation.”

  Giovanni Bellini and Titian, The Feast of the Gods, 1514/1529. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. “Bless the war that you have the chance [to buy],” Bernard Berenson wrote Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1917, delivering the news that the Renaissance masterpiece was for sale.

  Anthony van Dyck, James Stuart, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, ca. 1634–35. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Searching in England for Old Masters for the Metropolitan, Henry G. Marquand first saw the portrait in 1886 at Corsham Court.

  Acknowledgments

  In researching and writing this book, I depended on many people who generously gave their time and insights. Art collectors engage in mythmaking, and to break through those myths and unravel the actual buying and selling pro­cess that delivered Old Masters to America involved reading the letters of dealers and ­collectors—letters long stored and rarely, if ever, read. At the start, Konrad Bernheimer and Rachel Kaminsky gave me access to Colnaghi’s archives, and I spent heady days going through letter books at a large table on the top floor of 15 Old Bond Street (once Knoedler’s London branch), where I could hear the voice of Otto Gutekunst discussing his purchases with Berenson and Carstairs. The running commentary on the Old Master market brought the dealer, as well as his colleagues and clients, to life. In New York, Ann Freedman enabled me to understand the American side of the ­Colnaghi-­Knoedler partnership by allowing me to work at Knoedler. Equally important were the Frick Collection and the Frick Art Reference Library, where from the beginning Patricia Barnett and Sally Brazil opened the doors and in countless ways supported my research. Throughout the project, Susan Chore and above all Julie Ludwig unfailingly responded to the steady stream of requests and questions.

  The book could not have been written without these and other critical archives: At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen led me to the Frances Weitzenhoffer files in the Department of American Decorative Arts, and Everett Fahy allowed me to read and quote from the letters of Henry G. Marquand and Roger E. Fry in the Department of Eu­ro­pe­an Paintings. Susan Alyson Stein guided me to important Havemeyer letters. Patrice Mattia responded to requests with consummate professionalism. In the Department of Eu­ro­pe­an Sculpture and Decorative Arts, Danielle ­Kisluk-­Grosheide shared her files on Henry G. Marquand, and in the Archives Jeanie James guided me to the Marquand and Cassatt correspondence. At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Kristin Parker helped me track down material from Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and others. At the Harvard Center for Italian Re­nais­sance Studies at the Villa I Tatti in Florence, Fiorella Superbi navigated the Berenson correspondence and found a photograph of Otto Gutekunst. At the Galerie ­Durand-­Ruel in Paris, Flavie Durand-Ruel and Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel went out of their way to answer questions about Paul Durand-Ruel’s trips to Spain and his purchases of Spanish pictures. At the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Ann Halpern steered me to the Widener correspondence, and Nancy Yeide gave me permission to quote from the letters. At the Morgan Library & Museum, Christine Nelson directed me to the papers related to Morgan’s collecting.

  I am also tremendously grateful to the friends who contributed knowledge and expertise and read parts of the manuscript: Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Jonathan Galassi, Susan Galassi, Emily Kernan Rafferty, and Gail Winston. The origins of this book go back a long ­way—to courses at Harvard and at the University of California at Berkeley, and, in par­tic­u­lar, to a seminar in seventeenth-­century Dutch art, taught by Svetlana Alpers. Over the past several years in New York, she has given me invaluable help on this book, fielding questions, providing ideas, and then reading the entire manuscript. Also in recent years, Jon Galassi gave advice on many occasions.

  If archives provided the foundation for my research, scholars helped me illuminate the material. Early on, Ron Chernow listened to my plans to write about collectors in the Gilded Age and urged me to go ahead. Alan Chong shared his knowledge of Isabella Gardner and her collecting. Nicholas Hall discussed his research on Colnaghi. David Nasaw added to my understanding of Carnegie and Frick. Flaminia Gennari Santori previewed her work on Pierpont Morgan. Dick McIntosh explained the early history of Knoedler. Jaynie Anderson put Morelli in the context of contemporary connoisseurs. Nancy Mowll Mathews pointed the way on Mary Cassatt and her role in American collecting. Barbara Weinberg talked about Marquand in the context of American art and introduced me to other scholars. Beth Carver Wees and Medill Higgins Harvey explained Marquand’s history in American silver. In Berlin, Sven Kuhrau and Dr. Tanja Baensch described their research on Wilhelm von Bode, and Ulrike Goeschen translated correspondence between Bode and Colnaghi and tracked down answers to many questions.

  I am also indebted to members of the families of the collectors and of other figures in the book: Townsend Burden and Helen Clay Chace, who encouraged me to research Henry Clay Frick; Allan Forsyth, who showed me an early portrait of Henry Gurdon Marquand; Harry W. Havemeyer, who explai
ned the history of the ­sugar-­refining industry and loaned me many books; Linden Havemeyer Wise, who shared her perspective on Louisine Havemeyer; and Blaikie Worth, who handed me Henry Gurdon Marquand’s diary and gave me a place at a desk in her living room where I could read it. In En­gland, George Fergusson introduced me to his aunt Dame Frances ­Campbell-­Preston, who gave me photographs of her father, Arthur Grenfell, and of his dining room, where he had hung Titian’s Man in a Red Cap. Lady Charlotte Townshend invited me to see the drawing room at Melbury, where the Frick’s Rembrandt Self-­Portrait had hung for over a hundred years. James ­Methuen-­Campbell showed me Corsham’s library and supplied a photograph of Frederick Methuen.

  Others for whose help I am grateful are Julian Agnew, Jonathan Brown, and Colin Eisler (who each discussed aspects of collecting with me), Ronni Baer (who retrieved information about Sargent buying El Greco’s Fray Hortensio Félix Paravicino for Boston), Martha Bograd, Keith Christiansen, Mitchell Codding, Philip Conisbee, Sharon Cott, Frederick Courtright, Alan Crookham, Stephanie Dieckvoss, Lydia Dufour, Barbara File, Françoise Forster-Hahn, Joseph Friedman, Isabel Galassi, Anne Guillemet, Donald Garstang, Evelyn Halpert, Harold Holzer, Bay James, Walter Liedtke, Peter Loring, Robert Maguire, Diana T. McNamara, Melissa de Medeiros, Katarina Meyer-Haunton, David Norman, Richard Ormond, Peter Paret, Inge Reist, Aaron Schmidt, James Sheehan, Amanda Smith, Rosemary Stewart, Elyse Topalian, Charles Towers, Jennifer Vanim, Edye Weissler, and Meg Winslow. Kate Daloz, Pamela Green, and Nicole Myers all contributed to the research. For over two de­cades, Christopher Burge, Michael Findlay, and Eugene V. Thaw have delivered clarifying perspectives on the art market. Timothy W. Guinnane, in the Department of Economics, Yale University, converted historical prices into 2006 dollars.

  My thanks go to the staff of the following libraries and archives: The Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Williamstown; The Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; the John G. Johnson Collection Archive, Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Thomas J. Watson Reference Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Reading Room, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York; the National Gallery Archive, London; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Zentralarchiv, Berlin; and above all, The Frick Art Reference Library, New York, and The New York Society Library.

  At Viking, I would like to thank my editor, Carolyn Carlson, who championed the book from the start and, for the second time, contributed her excellent editing to the manuscript. Also at Viking, Ellen Garrison helped shepherd the manuscript through the editing pro­cess. Nancy Resnick created the book’s elegant design and Greg Mollica its beautiful cover. Gina Anderson gave legal advice. Marlene Tungseth copyedited the manuscript and Kate Griggs masterfully managed the book’s editorial production.

  My greatest appreciation goes to Melanie Jackson, indeed the very best of agents and friends, for her astute counsel, bedrock support, and the brilliance she brings to all aspects of her work.

  Among the friends whose spirits and advice encouraged me throughout the book ­were my Society Library ­companions—Benita Eisler, Ellen Feldman, Gayle ­Feldman, and Connie Roosevelt—as well as Lyn Chase, Wendy Chittenden, Aileen ­Dodds-­Parker, Anna Fels, Alida Messinger (who inadvertently introduced me to the subject of collecting), Emily Kernan Rafferty, Susan Restler, and Margret Stuffmann. Above all, over the course of years, in two Brooklyn kitchens, Susan Galassi has offered intellectual and culinary sustenance. And Joan Gardiner accompanied me to see the picture gallery at Corsham Court and helped sharpen the ­ ­manuscript—more than once. In innumerable ways, members of my family also ­contributed—in par­tic­u­lar, Penelope Saltzman; Katherine Motley Hinckley once again corrected the French translations; Katharine Pickering arranged for me to see Frick’s property in Prides Crossing; and Elisabeth Motley did research on New York. Importantly too, in 1987, when The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner was first published, my mother gave me a copy.

  Incalculable thanks go to Matthew and William Motley for keeping me company on trips to London and Florence and for throwing doses of humor and realism into life lived during the course of this book, and to Warren Motley, who encouraged and endured my obsessive pursuit of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Henry Clay Frick, and the rest, and gave editing advice that got me to the point of the story.

  Notes

  ARCHIVE COLLECTIONS

  Colnaghi—The P & D Colnaghi Archives, London

  DBR—Duveen Brothers Rec­ords, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

  TFC/FARL—The Frick Collection and Frick Art Reference Library Archives, New York

  HCFACF—Henry Clay Frick Art Collection Files

  HCFP—Henry Clay Frick Papers

  C—Correspondence

  GLB—General Letterpress Book

  ISGMA—Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Archives, Boston

  Knoedler—Knoedler & Company, New York

  MMA—The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

  EP—Department of Eu­ro­pe­an Paintings

  INDIVIDUALS

  BB—Bernard Berenson

  MB—Mary Berenson

  AC—Andrew Carnegie

  CSC—Charles Stewart Carstairs

  MC—Mary Cassatt

  CWD—Charles W. Deschamps

  PDR—Paul ­Durand-­Ruel

  HD—Henry Duveen

  JD—Joseph Duveen

  HCF—Henry Clay Frick

  ISG— Isabella Stewart Gardner

  OG—Otto Gutekunst

  HOH—Henry Osborne Havemeyer

  LWH—Louisine Waldron Elder Havemeyer

  RK—Roland Knoedler

  HGM—Henry Gurdon Marquand

  NOTE ON PRICES

  In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the pound sterling was worth $ 4.86 and the dollar worth 5.1French francs. Throughout the text, in translating the value of the historical prices of works of art into 2006dollars, the United States consumer price index was used. This index suggests how many dollars would have to be spent in 2006to get the same “bundle” of goods in a par­tic­u­lar year in the past. These figures are only approximations. In addition, the consumer price index mea­sures the prices paid on goods bought by average ­house­holds and not ­house­holds of the rich, who buy expensive goods (wines, porcelain, silver, and so forth, in addition to paintings), which may have a different rate of inflation than the goods used in the index. Finally, the figures translated into 2006 dollars reflect inflation and not the time value of money.

  INTRODUCTION

  1 “game of civilization”: Henry James, “The American Purchase of Meissonier’s ‘Friedland,’1876,” in James, The Paint­er’s Eye, ed. John L. Sweeney (London: Rupert ­Hart-­Davis, 1956), 109.

  1 “quite left out”: Henry James to Mary Walsh James, October 13, 16, [17], 1869, Pierre A. Walker and Greg W. Zacharias, The Complete Letters of Henry James, 1855–1872, vol. 2 (Lincoln, NE, and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), 145.

  1 “no museums, no pictures”: Henry James, Hawthorne (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1997), 34.

  2 “no Raphael, no Michelangelo”: Roger E. Fry, “Ideals of a Picture Gallery,” MMA Bulletin, 1, no. 4 (March 1906), 59.

  3 French Revolution: Francis Haskell, The Ephemeral Museum (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2000), 4.

  5 to disguise it: P. A. B. Widener, in Esmée Quodbach, “The Last of the American Versailles: The Widener Collection at Lynnewood Hall,” Simiolus, 29, no. 1⁄2 (2002), 75.

  5 “most of them exquisite”: “The Travel Diaries of Otto Mündler,” 1857, in Fifty-­First Volume of the Walpole Society, ed. Carol Tagneri Dowd (Oxford: Walpole Society, 1985), 152.

  5 French capital: MB to her family, January 12, 1913. Mary Berenson: A ­Self-­Portrait from Her Diaries and Letters, ed. Barbara Strachey and Jayne Samuels (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1983), 186.

  6 “YOUR ADVICE”: JD to BB, February 9, 1910, in Ernest
Samuels, Bernard Berenson: The Making of a Legend (Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987), 101.

  6 “VERMEER FORGOTTEN”: CSC to OG, December 5, 1911, Knoedler.

  6 “urge it upon you”: BB to ISG, April 24, 1917, Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1887–1924, with correspondence by Mary Berenson, edited and annotated by Rollin van N. Hadley (Boston: Northeastern University Press, c. 1987), 601.

  7 “not Morgan or Frick”: ISG to BB, August 26 [1907], Letters, 405.

  CHAPTER I. “AMERICAN CITIZEN’PATRON OF ART”

  12 “solicit a bid”: HGM to CWD, September 26 and 16, 1886. MMA Archives.

  14 Betrayal of Christ: See “Taking of Christ,” Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, in Christopher Brown and Hans Vlieghe, Van Dyck, 1599–1641 (London: Royal Academy Publications. Antwerp: Antwerpen Open, 1999), 144; The Trea­sure ­Houses of Britain (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1985), 338.

  14 350,000 visitors: Calvin Tomkins, Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1970, 1989), 58.

  15 most important: Winifred E. Howe, A History of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, c. 1913–46), I, 194.

  15 “artistically hardly any”: New York Times, February 22, 1880, in Elizabeth McFadden, The Glitter and the Gold (New York: Dial Press, 1971), 186–87.