A Private Passion 19th-century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L.Winthrop Collection, Harvard University

562 Pages·2003·107.87 MB·English

by  Stephan Wolohojian

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PRIVATE PASSION
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i$)th- Century Paintings and Drawingsfrom the .1\
Granville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University
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Boston Public Library
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Boston, 02116
A PRIVATE PASSION

A PRIVATE PASSION
19th- Century Paintings and Drawingsfrom the
Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University
Edited by Stephan Wolohojian,
with the assistance of Anna Tahinci
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
— — —
FOLIO
100$
Thiscatalogueispublishedinconjunctionwiththeexhibition "APrivatePassion: 19th-centuryPaintingsandDrawingsfromthe
GrenvilleL.WinthropCollection,Harvard University," MuseedesBeaux-Arts,Lyon,March 15—May26,2003;TheNational
Gallery,London,June25-September14,2003;TheMetropolitanMuseumofArt,NewYork,October23,2003—January25,2004.
TheexhibitionwasorganizedbytheFoggAnMuseum,Harvard University, Cambridge,Massachusetts,incollaboration
withVilledeLyon,MuseedesBeaux-ArtsandReuniondesMuseesNationaux;TheNationalGallery,London;and
TheMetropolitanMuseumofArt,NewYork.
TheexhibitioncatalogueismadepossiblebytheSamuelI. NewhouseFoundationInc.andtheDorisDukeFundforPublications.
PublishedbyTheMetropolitanMuseumofArt,NewYork
JohnP. O'Neill,EditorinChief
MargaretAspinwall,SeniorEditor
JeanWagner,Bibliographer
BruceCampbell,Designer
GwenRoginskyandElisaFrohlich,Production
RobertWeisbergandMinjeeCho,DesktopPublishing
TypesetinFoumierbyTinaThompson
SeparationsbyProfessional GraphicsInc.,Rockford,Illinois
PrintedandboundbyMondadoriPrinting,S.p.A.,Verona, Italy
Jacket/cover:Jean-Auguste-DominiqueIngres,RaphaelandtheFornarina, 1814(cat.no. 53)
Frontispiece:VincentvanGogh, TheBlue Cart(HarvestatLa Crau), 1888(cat. no.46)
Copyright©2003byTheMetropolitanMuseumofArt,NewYork,and Presidentand Fellowsof Harvard College
Allrightsreserved. Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproducedortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronicor
mechanical,includingphotocopying,recording,oranyinformationstorageandretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwriting
fromthepublishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Aprivatepassion: 19th-centurypaintingsanddrawingsfromtheGrenvilleL.WinthropCollection,Harvard University/ edited
byStephanWolohojian,withtheassistanceofAnnaTahinci
p.cm.
CatalogofanexhibitionheldattheMetropolitanMuseumofAn,NewYork,N.Y , Oct. 23,2003-Jan. 25,2004.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
isbn 1-58839-076-4(he.) isbn 1-58839-077-2 (pbk.) isbn0-300-09884-7(YaleUniversityPress)
— — —
1.Art,Modern 19thcentury Exhibitions.2.Winthrop,GrenvilleLindall, 1864-1943 Artcollections
— — — — —
Exhibitions. 3.Art Privatecollections Massachusetts Cambridge Exhibitions.4. FoggArtMuseum Exhibitions.
I. Wolohojian,Stephan.II.Tahinci,Anna.III. MetropolitanMuseumofArt(NewYork,N.Y.)
N6450.P75 2003
—
759'.05'o747444 dc2i 2003046331
Contents
Directors' Foreword v
ii
Organiiers ofthe Exhibition \
1
Contributors to the Catalogue x
Acknowledgments
xii
A PRIVATE PASSION
by Stephan Wolohojian
3
FRENCH SCHOOL
Catalogue numbers 1—133 48
GERMAN SCHOOL
Catalogue numbers 134-138 318
BRITISH SCHOOL
Catalogue numbers 139—196 328
AMERICAN SCHOOL
Catalogue numbers 19J—219 440
Concordance ofFoggArtMuseum InventoryNumbers and Catalogue Numbers 479
Bibliography 481
Index ofFormer Owners 2
<j 3
GeneralIndex 527

Directors Foreword
'
R
esponding to a request that Grenville L. Winthrop consider leaving his collection to a
museum in Washington, D.C.. he v. rote in 1938:
I admit that more people of the "general public" will visit Washington than Cambridge, but I am
not so much interested in the general public as I am in the Younger Generation whom I want to
teach in their impressionable years and to prove to them that true art is founded on traditions and is
not the product of any one country orcentury and that Beauty may be found in all countries and in
all periods, provided the eye canbe trained to find it.
In 1943, Winthrop bequeathed his entire collection, some four thousand objects, to Harvard
College and its museums, for the benefit of its students in perpetuity. This act, unparalleled in
Harvard's history, would instantly make the Fogg Art Museum a place of international impor-
tance to scholars and lovers of art. It would also make the Winthrop collection one of the least
familiar to the general public.
There is no Winthrop Museum, no wing, no gallery that heralds the gift to the Fogg.
Winthrop's modesty was such that few visitors to Harvard's Art Museums today are aware that
its incomparable collection of early Chinese jades and archaic bronzes, Buddhist sculpture, and
extraordinary holdings of nineteenth-century French art and Pre-Raphaelite masters are due. in
large part, to his munificence. But generations of Harvard students have understood the singular
experience of studying works of art in the original, rather than in reproduction. It is an experi-
ence made richer by repeated contact with and unlimited access to the objects, whether through
group discussions guided by an instructor or solitary visits to the museum's galleries and study
rooms. It is also an experience that has nurtured successive classes of museum curators and
directors over the past sixty years. Without doubt. Winthrop's gift to Harvard has shaped the
development of museums across the United States.
Winthrop's enterprise distinguishes itself in the two-fold interest that motivated it. On the
one hand, it is encyclopedic and represents a good four thousand years of artistic production.
Winthrop's pursuits brought Neolithic Chinese jades and Mesoamerican sculpture together with
work by Auguste Rodin and Aristide Maillol, Paul Manship and Eric Gill. His acti\e eje led him
to early Italian panel painting and to drawings of then-modern masters, such as Henri Matisse
and George Bellows. On the other hand, his collection is not just an assemblage of a broad spec-
trum of extraordinary objects. In the field of nineteenth-century Western painting, it is unique:
it is the only collection, anywhere, to represent, at a uniformly high level of quality, the com-
plete history of American, British, and French painting and drawing.
Harvard has always respected Winthrop's wish that his collection be available tor stuck at
the university. Therefore, for more than sixty years it has not loaned a single object from his
VII
exhibition, now matter how important. However, an impending closing of the
architectural renovation created a new opportunity, and we are grateful to James
rmer directorof the Harvard UniversityArt Museums, for proposing that this legendary
collection be made available for a unique exhibition of nineteenth-century drawings and paintings
to be shared with museum visitors in Lyon, London, and New York.
For his sterlingwork as the guiding intelligence of the exhibition and author of the introduc-
tory essay, we thank Stephan Wolohojian, curator in the Fogg's Department of Paintings,
Sculpture and Decorative Arts, as well as William W. Robinson, Maida and George Abrams
We
Curator of Drawings, and Miriam Stewart, assistant curator in that department. are also grate-
ful to the curators of the participating institutions: Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator of 19th-
century European Painting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, assisted by Rebecca A. Rabinow;
Christopher Riopelle, Curator of 19th-century Paintings at The National Gallery, London; and
the curators in France who assisted in various ways throughout the gestation of the project: Jean-
Pierre Cuzin, Anne Distel, and Henri Loyrette.
The organization of the exhibition has involved many staffmembers at all our museums. For
theirassistance in organizing the exhibition, we acknowledge Rebecca Wright, Managerof Grants
and TravelingExhibitions, and Maureen Donovan, Registrar, at the Harvard University Art
Museums. At The National Gallery, London, we thank Michael Wilson, Head of Exhibitions; Mary
Hersov and Joanna Kent in the Exhibitions Department; and Rosalie Cass, Registrar; and at The
Metropolitan Museum ofArt, Linda M. Sylling, Manager for Special Exhibitions and Gallery
Installations; Martha Deese, SeniorAssistant forExhibitions; Herbert M. Moskowitz, Chief Registrar;
and Kathryn Calley Galitz, Research Associate in the Department of European Paintings.
It is out of respect for Grenville Winthrop's regard forbeauty and its dissemination through
educating the eye to find it that Harvard chose to share this collection, which has never been fully
published, with a wider audience. Hence, a primary goal of this project has been to produce a pub-
lication worthy of the collection. Thanks to some sixty-three authors and to John O'Neill and the
Editorial Department of the Metropolitan Museum, that goal was amply accomplished. Thus,
when the objects return to Cambridge, Harvard students will be able to study them with new
knowledge about Winthrop and the extraordinary works he collected.
Marjorie B. Cohn Vincent Pomarede
ActingDirector Director
Harvard UniversityArtMuseums, Muse'e desBeaux-Arts, Lyon
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Charles Saumarez Smith
Francine Mariani-Ducray Director
President The National Gallery, London
Direction desMuse'esde France
Philippe de Montebello
Director
TheMetropolitanMuseum ofArt, New York
vin