In our modern age, where every person is armed with a camera and computer, you’d think that we would know more. How is it possible that one of the greatest American artists of the last quarter of the nineteenth century has only 24 locatable works out of 88 that were on display in her final exhibition, and potentially hundreds more she made?
Attributed to Richard W. Dodson, American (1812 – 1867) FULL PRACTICE, dated 1867. Depicting a barn with six ratters. London; Published October 1867. By R. Dodson 147 strand. 50 cm x 67 cm.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson (American, 1847 – 1906) was born to Quakers in Philadelphia, PA. Her father, Richard Whatcoat Dodson, was an illustrator, who believed that women should not work as artists, and therefore refused to teach his daughter. She waited five years after his death to enter the Pennsylvania Academy of Art. Soon Dodson was living in Paris, her works regularly shown in the competitive Paris Salon. Despite suffering from what is regularly described in contemporary literature as “fragility,” which inhibited her ability to paint for long stretches, Dodson travelled extensively and completed major commissions for public and private collections. Her work was the centerpiece of the American galleries the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889 (i.e. the same event that gave Paris the Eiffel Tower). And, Dodson was subsequently asked to paint the monumental murals for the Palace of Fine Arts and the Women’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. When she died in 1906, Dodson’s brother Richard — my hero, albeit a tragic one — spent the rest of his life holding exhibitions in Paris, Berlin, London, Philadelphia, and New York to promote her work. His efforts were largely unsuccessful, probably resulting from a combination of the First World War and subsequent seismic shifts in art taste. So, Richard donated some of Dodson’s more important canvases to major American museums, where only one is on public display. The location of the vast majority of Dodson’s oeuvre is still unknown, unlocated, and forgotten. Two years ago, in a minor East Coast auction, I discovered and funded the restoration of her work Meditation of the Holy Virgin (1888). (More on that later.) Ever since, I have gathered more information on Dodson’s meteoric career and the whereabouts of known works. In sharing what I have learned, perhaps more will be discovered, dusted off, and put on display.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson (Undated). Photograph, reproduced from Catalogue of the Exhibition of Paintings by Sarah Ball Dodson (New York, 1911)
Less than five years after enrolling in arts school, Dodson was exhibiting at the Paris Salon. She began studies as private student of Christian Schussele (French/American, 1824-1879) at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Today, Schussele is best known as the design of the United States Medal of Honor. Dodson began working with Schussele just as he was diagnosed with a debilitating illness. Thomas Eakins (American, 1844-1916) would fill in for Schussele when the latter was too weak to tutor Dodson.
From Pennsylvania, Dodson moved to Paris, where she studied privately with the monumental history painter Évariste Vital Luminais (French, 1821 – 1896), who appears to have been a friend of her mentor Schussele. Dodson then matriculates at the Académie Julian, which was distinct for allowing women to study with world-class artists, even as the official École des Beaux Arts did not. She became close with Jules Joseph Lefebvre (French, 1835 – 19111) and the less remembered Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (French, 1851 – 1913).
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson (American, 18847 – 1906) L’Amour Ménétrier (also titled Pupils of Love or Cupid, the Fiddler), 1877. Private Collection.
Dodson’s first publicly-exhibited work was L’Amour Ménétrier (1877) in the Paris Salon of 1877 as “Number 724” of 3,554 paintings shown in the Salon. The work was unusually ambitious for a woman of the era. Typically, women were relegated to the non-figurative sections of the Salon, specializing in still lifes, animalier, and floral works. Dodson was among the and influx of women graduating from the Academie Julian who pushed the expected limits placed upon them by custom and bias.
The painting as subsequently sent to Philadelphia for an exhibition where a local critic, Edward Strahan, wrote:
“What could be more unexpected than that a quiet lady of the Quaker City, imprisoned during early life in the straitest-laced tradition, should suddenly bloom-out, after a short resident in Paris, into a full-blown Louis Quinze spirit, fit to decorate with Boucher-like cupids the bedstead carved by [Charles] Boule!…” (Edward Strahan, The Art Gallery — Exhibition of the Philadelphia Society of Artists,” Art Amateur, Vol. IV (December 1880), 5.
The next known work from Dodson was similarly ambitious and multi-figural: The Invocation of Moses (c. 1882). It is inspired by a dramatic battle described in the Book of Exodus 17, between the Children of Israel, led by Moses, and the people of Amulek. As they fight, whenever Moses hands are raised, Israel prevails. When his hand grow heavy and Moses rests, Amulek’s side progresses. Therefore, Aaron and Hur stand on either side of the Prophet to keep his hand “steady until the going down of the sun,” securing victory. Whereabout of the original painting are unknown; but, the oil study was gifted by Richard Ball — Dodson’s Brother — after her death.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson (American, 1847–1906). Study for Invocation of Moses, ca. 1882. Oil on canvas, 13 3/4 × 13 3/4 in. (35 × 34.9 cm) frame: 17 × 16 1/2 × 1 1/2 in. (43.2 × 41.9 × 3.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of R. Ball Dodson, 25.522. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
The following year, Dodson was 43 years old, and created her breakthrough work: The Bacidae (1883). In subject and style, it was a departure from previous known works. “Bacidae” is plural the historical bacis or bakis: female prophets and oracles who, from 700 to 500 BCE, were central to Greek life. People would make offerings to the bacidae, who would consult the entrails of animals and stars to dispense predictions, wisdom, and cures.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson (American, 1847–1906) The Bacidae, 1883. Oil on canvas. 79 x 63 in. Newfields Collections, Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Dodson shows the Elder bacis sitting on a marble throne with a younger apprentice alongside. On the the trípous — a ritual three-legged stool — is a freshly disemboweled, upturned bird. As the senior bacis voices the interpretation of what she sees, the younger dramatically recoils.
This is a tour de force of figurative competence by Dodson, combined with a mature and dramatic interpretation of classical culture. The work placed her immediately in the upper echelons of academic artists of her time, including Jean-Paul Laurens and William Adolphe Bouguereau. It was first shown at the Paris Salon of 1883, then was sent to New York, where Dodson became a major draw at the 1884 Annual National Academy of Design Competition. (Charles M. Kurtz. “National Academy Notes.” New York: 1884, 82.)
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson. The Signing of the Declaration of Independence in the State House, Philadelphia, Fourth of July, 1776 (1885) Oil on canvas. Location Unknown.
As her star rose, in Europe there were increasing demands for Dodson to return to the US. The recent Centennial led Dodson to paint the monumental The Signing of the Declaration of Independence in the State House, Philadelphia, Fourth of July, 1776 (1885). The finished work was more than 10 feet long and contained 25 figures. While the work does owe some debt
John Trumbull (1756 – 1843) Declaration of Independence (1819) 12 x 18 feet. United States Capitol Building, Washington DC.
Dodson, as well as all the people viewing her painting, would have been familiar with John Trumbull’s painting of the same subject from some sixty years earlier. While Dodson does owe some debt to the composition, which she has reversed, it is clear that her image is much more dynamic; each of the figures exhibiting individuality without seeming contrived.
Dodson promised to gift the painting to Philadelphia as long as city officials agreed to hang it permanently in Independence Hall, where the event took place. This proviso caused leader to include a group of local historians who, after deliberations, rejected Dodson’s painting on grounds that not all of the 25 figures depicted were present and signed the Declaration on the same day. Deliberations continued for more than 30 years, with one letter, written by her brother six years after Dodson’s death reading:
“I presume nothing yet has been decided about the Declaration of Independence. I have seen several newspaper articles disputing the statements of the older historians that any signatures were attached on the 4th of July, but if that is the ladies sole objection the mere dropping of the date would make the picture fit the case, for signatures were attached at various dates, and in the informed manner portrayed by my sister.” (Richard Dodson, letter to J.E.D. Trask, September 18, 1911, Archives of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.)
The painting was never accepted by the city. To make matters worse, according to contemporary accounts, at some point between 1911 and 1920, the painting was damaged by fire, although it is not clear how extensively. Its current location is unknown.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson (1847-1906) The Morning Stars (Les Etoiles du Matin), 1887 Oil on linen canvas 23 x 30 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
In 1887, Dodson had sailed back across the Atlantic, this time to Brighton, England where she would live for the rest of her life. There she painted the ethereal Les Etoiles du Matin (The Morning Stars) (1887) was accepted to the Paris Salon. It appears to be something conceived for a much larger scale, and could have possibly been an early study for monumental murals made for the 1892 World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago.
The Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago,1893)
Dodson was responsible for making a now lost painting, Pax Patrieae (1891) installed as part of an architectual elements in the three-story Women’s Building. (The building was demolished only a few years later.) For the Exposition, Dodson painted the monumental Meditation of the Holy Virgin (1899), which, until recently sold at public auction, was missing for more than 100 years. In fact, the strikingly similar Under the Weeping Ash Tree (1900) painted the year after, was often misidentified as the work shown in the Columbian Exposition.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson (1847-1906), under the weeping ash tree, 1900. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson (American, 1847–1906) Meditation of the Holy Virgin, 1889. Oil on canvas. 67 x 45 in. Anthony’s Fine Art, Salt Lake City.
At some point in the 1880s, Dodson travelled to Italy. These two virginal painting, for me at least, are clear evidence of her encounters with Italian Quattrocento artists, especially Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430 – 1516).
Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430 – 1516) Madonna and Child (1510) 33 3/8 x 45 1/8 in. Pinacoteca di Brera.
In some writings about Dodson, there is discussion of her becoming a Pre-Raphaelite artist. That infers Dodson had some relationship with Jean Everett Millet, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, et al. But, I was unable to find any meaningful personal connection between these artists. I don’t believe Dodson knew them. If anything, they all share a desire for an alternative visual language the pre-dated the compositional spatial formulas established by Raphael and subsequently built upon by the European academy. Here Dodson channels Bellini, centering the beautifully and naturalistically painted figure in a surreal, unrealistic, and symbolic setting.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson (1847–1906) Le Berceau (The Cradle), 1900-1906. Oil on canvas. 46 1/4 x 29 1/8 in. Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Dodson’s work at the World’s Fair was a critical success; but, it came with severe physical costs. Over the next 17 years, she remained in Brighton, England. Contemporary visitors to her studio report that Dodson would paint for a few minutes and, exhausted, lay down for several hours in order to recover strength. All her life, she had been described as “fragile” or “weak.” So, it was no surprise to many when she died in 1906 of what one doctor described as heart failure at the age of 69.
For the final years of her life, Dodson had been working on a monumental painting, Le Berceau (1900-1906) left unfinished in her studio, of angels preparing for the return of Jesus Christ.
Sarah Paxton Ball Dodson, Wild Parsley, 1900, oil on canvas, 14 1?8 x 18 in. (35.9 x 45.6 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Richard Ball Dodson, 1923.8.2
Following her death, Dodson’s brother Richard organized a series of exhibitions in Brighton, London, Philadelphia, and New York, the latter with the help of the influential Goupil Gallery, for which a catalogue was produced. (You can read the full text here.) It lists some 88 works, including a large number of landscapes, which are beautiful, evocative works that seem to borrow from the same kind combination of observed naturalism and invented symbolist atmosphere. These landscapes seems to have been the most successful sales at the exhibitions, leaving Richard with a large number of important figurative works. These he eventually gave away to institutions throughout the United States. Today, only 24 of those 88 are known.
The term “post-narrative painting” was coined by Susan Siegfried in her landmark book Ingres: Painting Reimagined. At a time when Neoclassical depictions of virtuous actions — popularized by his teacher Jacques-Louis David — dominated French art, Ingres created works that confounded and frustrated the public by “abandoning physical action as a basis of heroism.”1
In this week’s discussion, we use Siegfried’s writing as an approach to understanding the unusual development and career of Jean-August-Dominique Ingres (French, 1780-1867). As you can tell from the recording, I was just overcoming a nasty flu and nearly lost my voice by the end. (Sorry.) Enjoy.
Attempting to summarize David’s career in 90 minutes is futile. Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748-1825) is one of the most discussed artists in history. His approach to Neoclassicism affected generations of artists. Combining his revolutionary artistry and political activities, makes David a perpetual well of interpretation and intrigue.
As part of an ongoing weekly discussions with contemporary artists, I explored the career of Antonio Canova (Italian, 1747-1822). Today, Canova is considered a major proponent of Neoclassicism. But, for contemporaries, Canova’s interpretations of the antique works were often at odds with predominant theories. We explore major works by Canova and how they were received by his critics, for better and worse.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Salvator Mundi (c. 1500) Oil on walnut panel. Private collection.
Next month, the National Gallery of London will display a “previously-unknown work by Leonardo da Vinci.” Called Salvator Mundi (i.e. “Savior of the World”), the painting has been compared to surviving, fragmented preparatory drawings and undisputed paintings by da Vinci. As a result, many scholars believe it should be counted among a handful of paintings by the artist. Others doubt. The portrait of Christ will be on display in the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, opening on November 9 in London, for everyone to compare and opine.
Anticipating certain and divisive scrutiny, Nicholas Penny, the Director of the National Gallery, says he is “pretty sure” it is by da Vinci. He was interviewed by The Sunday Times(London) for a feature in the paper’s magazine titled “Leonardo? Convince Me.”:
“It is a very weird picture.” . . . It shares something, he says, with Leonardo’s portraits The Lady with the Ermine and the Mona Lisa. “They respond, but hold something back. You can’t think about them except in relationship to the viewer. They imply a narrative of which you are a part. That was not true of portraiture before Leonardo. The Salvator Mundi radiates intense presence. But because it’s Leonardo you do wonder if you’re going mad–and you certainly want people whose opinions you respect to look at it.” He pauses. “People can judge for themselves.” (Sunday Times Magazine. 9 OCT 2011.)
Before becoming Director, Mr. Penny was the Clore Curator of Renaissance Art at the National Gallery for ten years. He is a serious scholar; an expert. But, his advice here is nonsense. We may never be able to decisively attribute the painting to da Vinci–it has been over 500 years. But, we can certainly do better than stand in front of it to experience “radiated presence”–whatever that means–or take comfort in an “implied narrative.” It is the kind of non-methodical, relativistic drivel that has made art history and art historians completely irrelevant to public debate in our evidence-based era.
I don’t think Mr. Penny’s advice in this interview is the basis for his opinions; but, he has been trained by a hundred years of art historical practice to talk to the public about art in an imprecise and unhelpful way. The Salvator Mundi painting has been through a host of scientific tests, including carbon dating and comparative chemical testing of pigments used in undisputed da Vinci paintings; and, a series of comparative stylistic studies, such as analysis of stroke and process. These are not the kind of tools available to average museum-goers who Mr. Penny invites to “judge for themselves.” If he were a lawyer, we would expect him to say “Here is the compelling evidence for and against . . . therefore I am pretty sure it is attributable to da Vinci.” not: “I’m pretty sure . . . It’s weird . . . ask someone else.” It is a sign of our times that a trained scholar and Director of one of the world’s great museums would tell people to look at and interpret a Renaissance painting as though it were a 1960s drip painting. It is evidence of the public death of a way of talking about art called the “Morellian Method.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Lady with an Ermine (1485) Oil on wood panel. 54 by 39 cm. Czartoryski Museum, Kraków.
Giovanni Morelli (1816-1891) was a trained doctor who had a love of art. During his lifetime, royal and national museums sprung up throughout Europe. Many Old-Master works were placed on public display for the first time, leading to an international public dialogue on art not seen before or since. Competing for attention, these collections–sometimes of dubious origins– were often overzealous and sloppy in attributing works of art to marquee names. Paintings labelled “da Vinci” have since been downgraded to “School of da Vinci” or “Unknown Florentine Artist.” At the time, art historians, critics and collectors were anxious to divide up painters into similar Schools (e.g. Spanish, French, Neopolitan) by observations of subject, palette and, even, size. Morelli had a different approach. He suggested that the same rigorous scientific methods used in medicine (e.g. dissection and observation) be applied to the observation of paintings. In particular, Morelli believed that an artist was best known by the minute and inconsequential parts of a painting: leaves on trees, fingernails, dirt. Artists didn’t reveal themselves in the big things; but, in the mundane areas of their art that were not subject to constant reinvention. He wrote detailed treatises on the varied hand gestures of particular painters, contrasting them with others. Over time, he was considered a kind of Sherlock Holmes of painting.Though some of his attributions were incorrect, Morelli’s object-based method pre-dated many scientific tools that his nineteenth-century philosophy would have embraced.
School of Leonardo da Vinci. Bacchus (c. 1510) Oil on walnut panel transferred to canvas. 177 by 115 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
By the early twentieth century, paintings were interpreted differently. Art was considered mostly through philosophical arguments alone, not craftsmanship combined with philosophy. Morelli was not relevant to Dadaists or Pop Artists. But, it was my belief that thos, like Mr. Penny, who continued to study art in the Classical Tradition, would retain the rigor and language of a scientific method in order to understand, preserve and teach the public about these works. I think Mr. Penny has a deep understanding–many years beyond technical possibilities of Morelli’s era–but his comments appear to indicate his lack of belief public capacity or interest to see paintings in a rigorous way. Maybe that is just my implied narrative.
Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Woman Reading (n.d.) 24 1/4 X 17 1/8 in. Oil on canvas. Private collection.
With art historians earnestly looking for prominent female artists, it is surprising that so little is written about Fanny Fleury (French, 1848-1920). With the exception of Rosa Bonheur (French, 1822-1899), Fleury was perhaps the most successful female exhibitor in the history of the Paris Salon, having works accepted consistently from 1869 to 1882, and in many afterwards. She also exhibited at the Salons of Saint-Etienne and Dijon, and received an honorable mention at the Exposition Universelle of 1889.
Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Les Enfents de Jean-Marie (n.d.) Oil on canvas. Unknown Collection. Lithograph reproduction of original.
Fleury’s academic credentials are impeccable. She studied with Jean-Jacques Henner (French, 1829-1905) and was later accepted to the École des Beaux-Arts as a student of Carolus-Duran (French, 1837-1917), where she was a classmate of John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925). (Speaking of her work at the 1884 Salon, one critic said Fleury had “equalled her masters,” Henner and Duran.) Highly regarded by her peers, Fluery was elected an Officer of the Academie and an associate of the Société des artistes français.
Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Portrait of an Unknown Woman (n.d.) 32 X 25 3/4 in. Oil on canvas. Private Collection.
Yet, for all her accomplishments in well-documented institutions and events, there is surprisingly little information currently available about the life and work of Fleury. (This is another instance where I am writing about an artists in hopes that it encourages others to contact me with additional information.)
Fleury was born outside Paris in either 1843 or 1848–most sources agree on the latter. It is possible–I stress “possible” for lack of form documentation, yet a great deal of circumstancial evidence–she is the daughter of Joseph Nicolas Robert-Fleury (French, 1797-1890), a successful history painter and on-time director of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and Rome; and, his son, the painter Tony Robert-Fleury (French, 1837-1912), who was also successful painter and who replaced Bougeureau as the Director of the Société des artistes français (If anyone can shed additional light, it would be greatly appreciated.) When she married, Fanny Fluery became Fanny Laurent Fleury; but, never included “Laurent” in her signature. So, whether or not there is an actual genetic connection between the three Fluerys, they must have come into contact with one another through the Acadamie.
It has been difficult to piece together a continuum of Fleury’s production with the few works and accounts left to us. It appears that for a time–presumably early in her career–she created a number of still lives.
Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Still Life with Flowers (n.d.) 20 1/2 X 17 1/2 in. Oil on canvas. Private Collection
Under Carolus-Duran, Fleury distinguished herself as a portraitist. Her large-scale work Bebe dort (1884) exhibited in the Salon of 1884 along with Madame X by her classmate John Singer Sargent. Both pieces belie the the influence Corolus-Duran, who often combined monumental human figures in contemporary settings.
Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Bebe dort (1884) 83 X 57 in. Oil on canvas. Anthony’s Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT
In Bebe dort (1884), a mother–perhaps a self-portrait of the artist–cradles her child, sitting together next to a cradle. Behind the figures, on the wall Fluery places a print of a business being ransacked by a mob. No one would imagine that scene actually being hung in a child’s room. It is a clever use of a picture-within-a-picture, used often by Netherlandish painters in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, to create greater or multiple meanings within a work. The juxtaposition of the two scenes contrasts security and comfort of home with a threatening world.
Fanny Fluery (French, 1848-1920) Bebe dort (1884) 83 X 57 in. Oil on canvas. Anthony’s Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT DETAIL
At some point, Fleury set aside society portraits and dedicated herself to Breton scenes. In 1892, The American Magazine wrote:
Realism has likewise tempted another artists of great talent, Mme. Fanny Fleury. It is to the desolate lands of Lower Brittany that Mmde. Fleury goes for her subjects. She has painted som admirable marine scenes, but excels in depicting types of peasantry . . . every summer she goes to the seacoast, and in some retired cornes, unfrequentd by the tourist, prepares her picture for the next Salon. (The American Magazine, Vol. 34. New York: Frank Leslie Publishing House, 1892; p, 430.)
Fanny Fleury (French, 1848-1920) Pour la Chapelle (n.d.) Oil on canvas. Private Collection. Black and white, photograph from Paris-Salon by Louis Enau
The quality of her work combined with her credentials certainly raise questions about the current dearth of readily-available information on Fleury’s life and the location of her works. All signs point to a productive career. From contemporary records, we know that her works were regularly purchased from Salon galleries, and that her works were found in various French and American museum collections–none of which currently list those works in their public inventories.
Whatever the reason for Fanny Fleury’s undeserved, forgotten status, she will only gain prominence as her works are rediscovered.
As those of you who follow my tweets (apologies for the shameless Twitter plug) know, I have been traveling for the past three weeks. I was in Spain for eleven days, France for one, and another five in California. To some it might sound like glamorous, Indiana-Jonesing; but, in reality, I spent most days underground in dusty archives looking for undiscovered, art-historical morsels and nights transcribing nineteenth-century handwriting. Along the way, I came across a number of remarkable works of art, some not seen for more than a hundred years. I plan to share some of them.
I begin with A Scene from Pompeii (1868), a previously unpublished and little-known work by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch and British, 1836-1912).
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch & British, 1836-1912) A Scene from Pompeii (1868) Oil on canvas. 130 X 360 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
This morning, I spoke with Vern Swanson, a mentor of mine and author of Alma-Tadema’s catalogue raisonné. Dr. Swanson did not include an illustration of the painting in his book–the most definitive on the subject–because A Scene from Pompeii was unavailable until recently. As one of Alma-Tadema’s most ambitious early paintings, it has been in storage at the Museo Nacional del Prado for nearly 100 years. This year A Scene from Pompeii was hung for the first time in the Prado’s new, permanent wing dedicated nineteenth-century painting and sculpture.
Alma-Tadema’s works, famous for Olympian themes that idealized a bygone empire, may seem more at place in France or Great Britain than in Spain. At the Prado, A Scene from Pompeii makes strange bedfellows with a generation of nineteenth-century Spanish artists who sometimes trained in France, but nonetheless venerated classical realists like Diego Velázquez and José de Ribera.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch & British, 1836-1912) A Scene from Pompeii (1868) Oil on canvas. 130 X 360 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Detail.
This painting is one of only a handful of foreign nineteenth-century works in the Prado’s collection. It was donated to the short-lived, Spanish Museo de Arte Moderno in 1887 by Ernesto Gambart, then Spanish Consul to Nice (France). When the Museo de Arte Moderno was absorbed into the Prado a few years later, nearly all of the its collections, including this work by Alma-Tadema, were placed in storage where they have been ever since. Only now, under the leadership of Javier Barón, Director of Nineteenth-Century Painting at the Prado, are these works being fully restored and finally displayed.
A Scene from Pompeii (1868) dates to a happy and prolific period in Alma-Tadema’s life. Five years earlier, he married his first wife, Marie-Pauline Gressin, in Antwerp. Their honeymoon was spent in Florence, Rome, Naples and Pompeii. For the next several years, he absorbed and transmuted his personal experience with the classical tradition into a series of paintings that quoted Greco-Roman architecture and artworks, such as a bronze reproduction of Aphrodite by the Greek sculptor Praxiteles (4th-century BC), in this work.
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch & British, 1836-1912) A Scene from Pompeii (1868) Oil on canvas. 130 X 360 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Detail.
Alma-Tadema is often remembered for his British works created after the death of his wife in 1869. These exquisitely detailed scenes sometimes feature dozens of figures painted in jewel-like colors. However, before 1869, his works regularly exhibited the same restricted, earth-tone palette of A Scene of Pompeii. While this painting shares the trademark precision Alma-Tadema’s larger oeuvre, its composition is unusual. I am not an expert on Alma-Tadema; but, I am surprised by the Baroque proportions of the figures which, unlike other works by Alma-Tadema, fill the canvas to near capacity.
It is always a pleasure to find new works by an artist as well-known and respected as Sir Alma-Tadema. I am sure that the Prado will have more insightful and important things to say about the painting as the new nineteenth-century wing becomes more public.
(Dear Readers, I am currently on vacation and will be back and posting regularly at the end of September. Have a great summer!)
Jean Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904) Les Rameaux (Christ Entering Jerusalem) 82 by 64 cm. Bronze patinated with polychrome. Private colletion.
(Note: The following was written for the private collector who owns these two bronzes. I enjoyed my research so much, that I thought I would share it here, with his permission.)
At a time when Paris was the center of the art world Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) was one of France’s most decorated artists. Principally remembered as a painter, his greatest contribution may well be his work as a sculptor. The works La Fuite en Egypte and Les Rameaux were both made in 1897, near the end of Gérôme’s career and at the height of his ability.
Born on France’s east coast, Gérôme received the reluctant permission of his father, an accomplished goldsmith, to study at the country’s most prestigious art academy, the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. There he excelled under the direction of Paul Delaroche (1797-1856) and Charles Gleyre (1806-1874). Gleyre’s studio, which placed emphasis on the revival of Greek forms in art, had a lasting affect on his student’s interest in classical subjects and models. Gérôme’s own work would span Classicism, Orientalism and Realism; traces of all three can be found in his later works.
When Gleyre was appointed Director of the French Academie in Rome in 1844, Gérôme followed. There he completed his academic education through close study of Old Master and Greco-Roman works. (Gérôme traveled throughout his career to Greece, Egypt and the Holy Land.) As a result of his studies, his works bore the technical virtuosity of an academic artist combined with personal first-hand knowledge of monuments, foreign landscapes and exotic peoples. La Fuite en Egypte and Les Rameaux directly reflect his study of bedouin costume and animals observed during a visit to the Holy Land.
Jean Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904) La Fuit en Egypte (Flight into Egypt) 78 by 63 cm. Bronze patinated with polychrome. Private collection.
Returning to France in 1847, Gérôme enjoyed his first of many successes at the highly competitive Salon de la Société des Artistes Français. That year, the eminent French critic Theophile Gautier wrote: “Let us mark with white this lucky year, unto us a painter is born. He is called Gérôme. I tell you his name today, and tomorrow it will be celebrated.” Works by Gérôme were accepted nearly every year from 1847 to 1903. There they inspired popular novels and music. By the end of his life, Gérôme had been made a member of the Institute de France (1865), a knight in the Légion d’honneur (1867), and awarded the Order of the Red Eagle by King Wilhelm I of Prussia.
Such success merited prominent commissions from the state, as a well as a bevy of patrons, including the Empress Eugenie, who became a close friend. Today, his paintings and sculptures are found in many world’s finest museums including the Musée d’Orsay (Paris), National Gallery of Art (London), National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), Hermitage (St. Petersburg), Art Institute of Chicago, and Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).
Géróme’s high profile had academic currency. He was hired as one of three studio teachers at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts. There Gérôme fathered a dynasty of academic painters in France and America, among them Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928), Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Pascal Dagnan Bourveret (1852-1929), William M. Paxton (1869-1941) and Julian A. Weir (1852-1919). A lifelong tutor to many, he maintained a close relationship with his students beyond their studies.
In 1889, Gérôme travelled to Florence and Padua with two students: Edouard Detaille (1848-1912) and François Flameng (1856-1923) There he studied the equestrian works of Italian Renaissance masters, including Donatello and Verrocchio. The trip was a book end to the studies he began as a young artist and had first seen the works. He later wrote to a friend about the journey:
I went to Florence . . . I had stayed there as a youth and had not returned since. What a deception! What an eye-opener! I saw crumble–I won’t say all–but almost all my youthful heroes.
Rather than arrogance, here Gérôme displayed a genuine sense of disappointment and the honest assessment that then–in his late sixties–he may have moved beyond youthful lessons and on a level with the masters. It is possible this insight led Gérôme to look beyond standard models.
Late-nineteenth-century archeologists discovered color residues on Roman and Greek works, proving that the austere white marble we see today was, in fact, covered in bright blues, reds, greens and precious metals. Gérôme learned of the use of polychrome and incorporated them in his own works, including Les Rameaux and La Fuite en Egypte, which both bear the subtle but unmistakable use of polychrome unique to Gérôme.
The sculptures were produced during the last decade of his life, when Gérôme dramatically increased the amount of time and resources spent on his sculptures. In 1890, Gérôme hired Emile Décorchement to work as a full-time sculpting assistant. He also teamed up with the foundry of Siot-Decauville.
Established in the 1890’s, Siot-Decauville’s innovative ability to scale down large bronze models made their foundry especially attractive to Gérôme, who prided himself on fidelity to reality. The remarkable precision visible in Les Rameaux and La Fuite en Egypte were accomplished by Gérôme working with models twice the size of the finished bronzes. In this way, he was able to add details-the animals’ fur, the wilting leaves of Christ’s palm branch, and the gauzy folds of Mary’s bedouin clothing–with larger tools that would have been ineffective in smaller-scale versions.
In the late-nineteenth-century, table-top bronzes were an popular feature of tasteful interior decor. This pair of Les Rameaux and La Fuite en Egypte were cast in the same year as Gérôme’s painting, La Fuite en Egypte, was submitted to the Salon. According to his standard studio practice, Gérôme’s sculptures, sometimes in unfinished stages, were the inspiration for paintings and vice versa. In this case, it is unknown which work was first.
Jean Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904) Les Rameaux (Christ Entering Jerusalem) 82 by 64 cm. Bronze patinated with polychrome. Private colletion.
Les Rameaux captures the moment Christ enters Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:7-10; Luke 19:28-44; John 12:12-19), on what is traditionally known as Palm Sunday, hence the branch in Christ’s left hand:
5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them,
7 And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.
8 And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way.
9 And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.
10 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?
11 And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.
Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week, which ends with Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. Gérôme indicates the journey ahead by placing Christ on a slight incline. As he enters the gate, Christ raises his hand in a sign of blessing, often attributed to Christianity, yet believed to be derived from a bircas kohanim (Jewish priestly blessing).
The juxtaposition of Les Rameaux with La Fuite en Egypte brings attention to details otherwise imperceptible. Christ sits on a femial donkey and Mary on a mael. Christ is on an incline, Mary on unvaried, steady ground.
Jean Léon Gérôme (French, 1824-1904) La Fuit en Egypte (Flight into Egypt) 78 by 63 cm. Bronze patinated with polychrome. Private collection.
La Fuite en Egypte depicts a pensive Mary, uprooted from her home and traveling to Egypt with family in tow. According to St. Matthew:
And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.
Despite the tumult inherent in the narratives, Gérôme shows Mary and Christ unfazed by their circumstances. These are not the contorted, pained figures of works often used for public ritual. They are works of private reflection.
When Gérôme created Les Rameaux and La Fuite en Egypte, he was 73. His last seven years were a flurry of activity. On the morning of January 10, 1904, Gérôme was found dead in his studio before a self-portrait of Rembrandt and his own painting Truth. He left a studio full of partially finished and un-cast plasters. Les Rameaux and La Fuite en Egypte were among his last finished works.
According to Ackerman there are at least three sizes of each statue known to have been cast. These were the first and largest versions and, therefore, their production, from start to finish, would have been overseen by Gérôme himself. In addition to their authenticity, Ackerman believed that they were created as a pair and not separate works. These two bronzes have been in the same family for three generations and are believed to have been purchased directly from Siot-Decauville. If true, these represent a rare combination. There is no similar pair known to exist in any public or private collection.
SOURCES
Gerald Ackerman. The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme with a Catalogue Raisonné (New York: Sotheby’s Publications, 1986
Gerald Ackerman, telephone interview with author, June 29, 2009
Mark Bradley. “The Importance of Colour on Ancient Marble Sculpture.” Oxford Art Journal. Vol. 32. (June, 2009)
Antonia Boström, ed. The Encyclopedia of Sculpture. Vol. 2 (London: Fitzroy Dearborn)
Lorinda Munson Bryant. French Pictures and their Painters. (New York: Mead and Company, 1922)
Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Catalogue Illustré des Ouvrages de Peinture, Sculpture et Gravure. Paris: A. Lemercier et Cie, years 1847-1903
Helena Wright. Gérôme and Goupil: Art and Enterprise. (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1999)
H. Barbara Weinberg. The American Pupils of Jean-Leon Gérôme (Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum, 1984), 10-20)
Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) La canal de Mancorbo en los Picos de Europa (1876) Oil on canvas. 168 x 123 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
While not forgotten in Spain, Carlos de Haes’ work has been little recognized elsewhere. As a teacher and award-winning artists, Haes is perhaps Spain’s greatest landscape painter.
Photograph of Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-1898) c. 1870.
Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) was born in Belguim to Spanish parents. Due to financial troubles, the family was forced to return to Spain in 1835. There, Haes studied with Luis de la Cruz, a Court Painter to King Ferndinand VII and a member of the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.
In 1850, at the age of 24, Haes traveled back to Brussels to study Flemish landscapes. There he competed and regularly placed in Belgium’s annual Salons. Six years later, Haes returned to Spain.
Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) Tejares de la montaña del Príncipe Pío (c. 1872) Oil on canvas. 39.2 x 61 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
His international experience carried a great deal of currency in Spanish painting circles, and immediately set him apart from his peers who rarely studied beyond Spain and Italy. His dedication to landscape also changed the Spanish Academy’s attitude towards landscape painting.
Despite having been accepted as a major genre in other European countries, during the first half of the nineteenth century, Spain had not widely participated in Romantic and Sublime landscape painting. Instead, landscapes were considered a second-rate genre, a necessary part of an artist’s education insofar as it related to the composition of history painting.
Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) La vereda (1871) Oil on canva. 93.7 x 60.4 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
Haes’ work Cercanías del moasterio de Piedra (1858) was the first landscape painting to win a First Place medal at the Exposicion Nacional, Spain’s equivalent of the Paris Salon. The award represented a giant leap forward in the estimation of landscape painting as a stand-alone discipline. Shortly afterwards, Haes was made a member of the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the nation’s most prestigious art school. His appointment in 1860 to the Academia de San Fernandoand and subsequent teaching there effectively caught Spain up with other schools of landscape painting in Europe. As a teacher, Haes fathered a dynasty of Spanish landscape artists that continues today. Among Haes’s more prominent students are Martín Rico y Ortega (1833-1908), Jaime Morera (1854-1927).
Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) La Torre de Douarnenez (c. 1880) Oil on canvas. 39 by 59 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
It could be argued that Haes’ one of most important contributions to Spanish painting was with non-landscape painters. Through him, history painters, whose work enjoyed the widest attention at the Exposiciones Nacionales, developed a new appreciation and approach to landscapes, arguably bringing it on par with their figural work. Artists like Francisco Pradilla, José Casado del Alisal, Placenscia Maestro, were required to take Haes’ course at the Academia de San Fernando considered a serious part of their large history paintings, sometimes producing numerous studies devoid of figures.
In particular, Haes brought to Spain an increased emphasis on three aspects of landscape painting: luminosity, porportion and direct observation from nature.
Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-1898) Picos de Europa (c. 1875) Oil on panel. 37 x 59 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
Traditionally, Spanish artists favored the use of sandy-colored grounds for use in painting. This created a unifying effect in their works, but resulted in the overall dampening of light. While Haes continued to use sand-colored and reddish grounds in his works, he would incorporate large patches of lead white and subdue the quantity of sandy grounds.
Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) Cercanías de Villerville, Normandy (c. 1877) Oil on canvas. 26.2 x 39 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
Very few of Haes’ works exceed 150 by 200 centimeters. This was at a time when history paintings, often exceeding 6 by 10 meters, were competing for top prizes at Exposiciones Nacionales. Haes’ landscapes, though bold in composition and epic in subject matter, maintained comparatively modest proportions. This set a precedent in landscape painting throughout Spain, which more or less continued throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, even when history paintings became more ambitious in size.
Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) Un bardo naufragado (c. 1883) Oil on canvas. 59 by 101 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, Haes was a proponent of direct observation from nature and led several expeditions. This resulted to an almost nationalistic fervor for Spanish landscape painting, that featured Iberian natural wonders.
Carlos de Haes (Brussels, 1826-Madrid, 1898) Desfiladero, Jaraba de Aragón (c. 1872) Oil on canvas. 39 by 60 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.
Photograph of Jaraba de Aragón, Spain (2005) by Juan Devis (www.panoramio.com/photo/1599391)
Today, Carlos de Haes’ work can be found in nearly every major Spanish museum. However, the largest body and greatest works from his ouvre are held in the Prado Museum and not currently on display. A new wing of the Prado, dedicated to Spanish nineteenth-century art, is planned to open in 2012.
Book Cover of "Figures du Corps" Philippe Comar, ed.
Occasionally, I come across a book that was made with me in mind. Figures du Corps: Une Leçon d’Anatomie à l’École des Beaux-Arts is the catalogue of the exhibition by the same name held from October 21, 2008 to January 4, 2009 at the l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. (Painfully, I first learned about the exhibition after seeing this book in a bookshop window in London, which is either a testament to my own ignorance of events like this or a sign that marketing efforts had limited reach.)
The catalogue is an ode to the bewildering and wonderful arsenal of contraptions, tools, plaster casts, photographs, and any other useful aid created to assist artists in the study of human and animal figures.
Skulls of humans and various animals from the Galerie Huguier. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 2008.
Resembling part medical research facility and part life-science museum, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts gathered human and animal anatomical examples–ideal, real and atypical–for use in training.
For artists at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, academic training meant mastering the human figure. As described in a previous post, this training took place over a series of graduated steps, beginning with isolating parts of the human figure, to studying idealized forms in Greco-Roman statues, and, finally, working with live models.
Jean Bosq (1812-1830?) Squelette du Gladiateur combattant from Anatomie du Gladiateur combattant, applicable aux beaux-arts, ou Traité des os, des muscles, du mécanisme des mouvements, des proportions et des caractères du corps humain, Paris, chez lAuteur, 1812. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
The catalogue includes several examples of classical forms that have been worked over to reveal underlying skeletal and muscular structure. It is evidence of a startling lack of superficiality in their approach to their craft and art. There are numerous accounts of dissections of both humans and animals, and visits from surgeons to discuss recent medical discoveries.
Fourteen hands, and seven human feet (Nineteenth Century) Éecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris
Looking at examples of plaster casts from the book, I was surprised at how many of them were obviously taken from human subjects and not from statues. The catalogue is unclear as to when many of these casts were made and used. Regardless, it is fascinating to see that they went to great lengths to articulate hands and feet in a wide range of challenging positions that were not always quoted from classical forms.
Mannequin d'atelier articulé, fin du XCIII siècle. Signed, "Guillois." École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
One of the greatest costs in training was the hiring of live models. As a result, contraptions of all kinds–mannequins, photographs, stereoscope images–were made to substitute, or perhaps more accurately, supplement, models.
Hermann Heid (Darmstadt, 1834-Vienna, 1891) Étude comparée de la forme d'un avant-bras en pronation et de son squelette (1880) 14 by 10.3; 13.8 by 10.3. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
One man at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paul Richer (Chartes, 1849-Paris, 1933) was particularly skilled both as a creator of artist aides and as a sculptor himself.
Paul Richer (Chartes, 1849-Paris, 1933) The Runner, phénakistiscope (1895) 70 by 45 by 15 cm. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
Paul Richer (Chartes, 1849-Paris, 1933) Tres in una (1910) 185 by 124 by 60 cm. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris
His work Tres in Una, above, is a terrific example of the late-nineteenth, early-twentieth century combinations realist and classical approaches to art. There is disappointingly little written about Richer in the catalogue, yet he is clearly one of a rare breed, simultaneaously gifted at educational innovation and a talented artist in his own right. For one, I would love to learn more about him, and hope to.
Bust of Decartes, with incorporated skull (1913) Plaster, in three parts. 44 by 27 by 28 cm. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
A great deal of the catalogue is dedicated to the anatomical models of animals, especially horses Just as in England, where George Stubbs (British , 1724-1806) led a generation of artists at the Royal Academy to explore and correctly understand the anatomy of horses, the French Academy invested a great deal in equine models.
Collection of various horse anotomical constructions and skulls. Galerie Huguier, École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
One stunning example of an artist using the models is a study of horse legs, below, by Théodore Géricault (Rouen, 1971-Paris, 1824).
Théodore Géricault (Rouen, 1971-Paris, 1824) Étude de membres postérieur et antérieur de cheval, écorchés. (1815) Pen, brown crayon and watercolor. 43.5 by 26.8 cm.
This catalogue makes it possible to comprehend the lengths to which artists would go to learn their craft. For me, it is both an inspiration and a reminder of how much we can learn from them.
François Sallé (France, 1839-1899) The anatomy class at the Ecole des Beaux Arts (1888) Oil on canvas. 218 by 299 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sidney.
