Learning to See : Renaissance and Baroque Masterworks from the Phoebe Dent Weil and Mark S. Weil Collection

2017·826.9 MB·english-handwritten

by  Judith W. Mann, Elizabeth Wyckoff

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Learning to See:
Renaissance and Baroque Masterworks
from the Phoebe Dent Weil and
Mark S. Weil Collection
Judith W. Mann
Elizabeth Wyckoff
SAINT LOUIS ART MUSEUM
This book is published in conjunction with the exhibition
Learning to See: Renaissance and Baroque Masterworks
from the Phoebe Dent Weil and Mark S. Weil Collection,
presented at the Saint Louis Art Museum from
March 3~July 30, 2017.
Copyright © 2.017 Saint Louis Art Museum.
All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without prior permission in writing from the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Saint Louis Art Museum
One Fine Arts Drive
St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
www.slam.org
Edited by Kelli Rae Patton
Art direction and design by Jon Cournoyer
Production by Lauri Kramer
Principal photography by Jean Paul Torno
Proofread and indexed by Christine Frank
Printing by Stolze Printing
The book is typset in Sabon Oldstyle. The paper is Utopia Premium Blue White Silk 150$ cover and
Utopia iX Blue White silk ioo# text.
Cover illustrations: (front) Albrecht Diirer, Adam and Eve, detail, cat. 46;
(back) Italian, i6th century, Florence, Seated Saint John the Baptist, detail, cat. 73;
(inside cover) Master of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, Allegorical Theme:
Combat of the Animals, detail, cat. 8.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: St. Louis Art Museum, author. | Mann, Judith Walker, 1950- | Wyckoff,
Elizabeth.
Title: Learning to see : Renaissance and baroque masterworks from the Phoebe
Dent Weil and Mark S. Weil collection /Judith W. Mann and Elizabeth
Wyckoff.
Description: St. Louis, MO : Saint Louis Art Museum, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016054135 | ISBN 9780891780014 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Art, Renaissance—Exhibitions. | Art, Baroque—Exhibitons. |
Prints-Exhibitions. | Sculpture-Exhibitions. | Weil, Phoebe Dent-Art
collections-Exhibitions. | Weil, Mark S.-Art collections-Exhibitions. |
Art—Private collections—Missouri—Saint Louis—Exhibitions. | St. Louis
Art Museum—Exhibitions.
Classification: LCC N637O .8655 2017 | DDC 709.02/4-^23
LC record available at https://lccn.Ioc.gov/2oi6o54135
ISBN 978-0-89178-001-4
Contents
Director's Foreword 4
Curators' Acknowledgments 6
Essays 8
Memoir of a Collector by Mark S. Weil
A Conservator's Reflection on Collecting by Phoebe Dent Weil
Connoisseurship and Erudition as a Rule for Collecting Prints and Drawings by Elizabeth Wyckoff
Reshaping the Collection Through the Addition of the Weil Sculptures by Judith W. Mann
Curators' Introduction to the Catalogue 37
Catalogue
Entries by Andrew Butterfield, Leah Marie Chizek, Paola D'Agostino, Judith W. Mann,
Lisa Pon, Tom Rassieur, Elizabeth Wyckoff, and Abigail Yoder, and the students of Lisa Pon:
Julie Thompson Borger, Danya Epstein, Tommy Jacobi, Shien Hauh Leu, Lucy McGuigan,
Katelyn McWilliams, Carol Mach Barreto Pino, and Asiel Sepulveda
Section I: Introduction 39
Section II: Allegory and Myth 47
Section III: Devotion and Theatricality 87
Section IV: Print Culture 131
Section V: Master Printmakers: Andrea Mantegna, Albrecht Diirer,
and Rembrandt van Rijn 145
Section VI: The Body 195
Section VII: Bronze and Clay 227
Notes to Catalogue Entries 250
Bibliography 157
Checklist of the Mark S. Weil Artwork zon Irrevocable Trust 2.69
Photo credits 173
Index 2.74
Director's Foreword
The dedication and generosity of generations of donors are the fundamental building
blocks upon which the Saint Louis Art Museum's comprehensive collection has been built.
This rich and varied collecting history is visible to anyone walking through our galleries.
The collection of Phoebe Dent Weil and Mark S. Weil, comprising extraordinary European
sculpture and superb prints and drawings thoughtfully assembled over thirty years, is one
of the most recent, and certainly among the most magnificent, of these benefactions.
The Weil collection will not be completely unknown to our regular visitors. The 1997
exhibition Men, Women, and God: German Renaissance Prints from St. Louis Collections
included many Weil prints. The 2,006 exhibition Rembrandt: Master Etchings from St. Louis
Collections again demonstrated the extent and strength of the Weils' holdings. Weil sculptures
have also graced our galleries several times over the past twenty years. Mark and Phoebe's
support of the purchase of the Museum's luminous second-state impression of Rembrandt's
Christ Presented to the People (The Ecce Homo), and of many other acquisitions, goes well
beyond their generous financial contributions, and includes their enthusiasm for and
encouragement of such major initiatives, as well as their many years of active participation
on the Museum's boards and committees.
This commitment to service is generational, as Mark's essay in this catalogue describes in
detail, and builds on the legacy of generosity to St. Louis and its arts community fostered
by Mark's grandparents and parents before him. Etta Steinberg, Mark's grandmother,
provided funds for such extraordinary impressionist and postimpressionist works as
Vincent van Gogh's Vineyards at Auvers, Edgar Degas's Little Dancer of Fourteen Years,
and Paul Gauguin's Madame Roulin. Richard and Florence Weil, Mark's parents, continued
this tradition by giving such important paintings and sculpture as Edouard Vuillard's
The Art Dealers, Henri Matisse's Decorative Figure, and Henry Moore's Standing Figure.
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Mark and Phoebe's taste for old masters is attributable at least in part to their individual
career paths—Phoebe as a conservator who developed a particular focus on sculpture, and
Mark as a professor of art history at Washington University, with expertise in the work
of sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini. Their professional interests have deeply informed their
collecting habits: their sculpture is primarily Italian, but also includes French, German, and
Flemish examples, while their prints encompass early Italian engravings, as well as numerous
examples by Albrecht Diirer, Rembrandt, and the Haarlem mannerists, among others.
This exhibition has been titled Learning to See, a testament to the quest that the Weils
undertook in learning how to examine and think about works of art. Their decision to
share this experience with the Museum and its public audience is emblematic of their
commitment to the arts and to the St. Louis community. Their gift presents an exemplary
model, and will impact the experience of many future generations of St. Louisans.
Brent R. Benjamin
The Barbara B. Taylor Director
Saint Louis Art Museum
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Curators Acknowledgments
Our thanks must go first and foremost to Mark and Phoebe for their clarity of vision,
extraordinary taste, and prescient wisdom in assembling the group of objects that are at the
heart of this exhibition. It has been an honor and a privilege to work with them, not only
in the organization of the exhibition and its catalogue, but also in the years spent developing
the show during which they generously shared the collection and their knowledge in so
many ways. When Mark first announced his intention to donate the collection to the Museum,
we were delighted at the prospect of working with these incredible pieces and hope we have
sufficiently honored them, and both of the Weils, in this undertaking.
We wish to thank the outside authors who agreed to write entries for the catalogue.
Andrew Butterfield, Paola D'Agostino, Lisa Pon, and Tom Rassieur are not only outstanding
scholars in their respective fields, they each have a special personal and art historical relationship
with the Weils. Lisa Pon cowrote her entries with the eight students in her Spring 2016
seminar, "Print, Identity, and the Im/Material Image," at Southern Methodist University,
putting into practice one of the most basic tenets of the Weils' collecting: the importance
of teaching with works of art. At the Saint Louis Art Museum, young scholars Leah Marie
Chizek and Abigail Yoder wrote a selection of entries that matched their areas of interest.
Leading up to the publication of the catalogue, we both attempted to fill in some of the
lacunae within our knowledge of the wide-ranging scope of the Weil collection. We are grateful
for the patience and generosity extended to us by museum staff in the United States and
abroad—in Berlin: Volker Krahn at the Bode-Museum; Bologna: Elena Rossoni, Pinacoteca
Nazionale, and Clara Maldini at the Biblioteca Comunale delPArchiginnasio; Boston:
Cliff Ackley, Benjamin Weiss, and Patrick Murphy at the Museum of Fine Arts; Braunschweig,
Germany: Regine Marth and Ulrike Stelzer at the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum; Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Danielle Carrabino, Elizabeth Rudy, and Mary Lister at the Harvard
Art Museums; Cleveland: Kory Corkow, June De Phillips, and Heather Lemonedes at the
Cleveland Museum of Art; Dresden: Kordelia Knoll at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen;
Diisseldorf: Gunda Luyken and Regina Abels at the Kunstpalast; Florence: Ilaria Cisari at
the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Marzia Faietti, Giorgio Marini, and their colleagues at
the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Micaela Sambucco Hamoud at the Biblioteca
Nazionale Centrale, and Marta Carnovale at the Biblioteca Marucelliana; Frankfurt:
Bastian Eclercy at the Stadel Museum; Liverpool: Xanthe Brooke and Alex Patterson at the
Walker Art Gallery; London: Hugo Chapman and An Van Camp at the British Museum,
Bruce Boucher at Sir John Soane's Museum, Peta Motture and Lois Salter at the Victoria
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and Albert Museum; New York: Denise Allen, Peter Bell, James Draper, Nadine Orenstein, and
Freyda Spira at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Xavier Salomon at The Frick Collection;
Rome: Guido Cornini, Arnold Nesselrath, and Paola Spalvieri at the Vatican Museums,
Barbara Jatta and Simona De Crescenzo at the Biblioteca Vaticana, Francesca Orobi and
Danila Rizza at the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Gabinetto Nazionale. Judith Mann
further wishes to thank the American Academy in Rome, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation,
and the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC), for support and stimulation provided
during her time in October 2015 as the Kress/AAMC Affiliated Fellow for the 1015-16
academic year. Additional thanks go to Elizabeth Bartman, Suzanne Boorsch, Molly Bourne,
David Bull, Andrew Butterfield, Stefano Deda, C. D. Dickerson III, Jamie Gabbarelli,
Charles Hack, Riccardo Lattuada, Evelyn Lincoln, Estelle Lingo, Stuart Lochhead,
Fernando Loffredo, Jennifer Montagu, Irina Oryshkevich, Lisa Pon, and Pat Wengraf.
Research assistants Leah Marie Chizek, Abigail Yoder, and Andrea Miller handled the
minutiae of research files, paperwork, chasing down obscure references, cataloguing, and data
entry. Very special thanks are owed to Teresa Kilmer and Heather Smith for their admirable
work ethic and research skills. Finally, a number of highly qualified interns tracked down all
manner of information. These include Melissa Baroff, Morgan Dowty, Brigid Gerstenecker,
Anna Isbell, Caroline Koncz, Sara Ory, Byron Otis, Shawn Piland, and Katie Rouw.
Fundamental to any project at the Saint Louis Art Museum are the talented colleagues whose
collaborative efforts make all things happen and help us to be better curators. First among
them is Brent Benjamin, whose leadership and support have sustained this exhibition and
its catalogue from the inception. The logistical details for the exhibition have been managed
brilliantly by Jeanette Fausz, Diane Mallow, Courtney McCarty, and Ella Rothgangel.
The book is beautiful due to the talents of Jon Cournoyer and Lauri Kramer. The schedule
and often trying details of readying the manuscript were overseen with grace and good
cheer by Rachel Swiston; the photographs were assembled and produced by Jessica Slawski,
Rachel Aubuchon, and Cathryn Gowan; institutional fact-checking was done by Norma
Sindelar, Bobby Sanderson, and Gina Adderley; and Kelli Rae Patton took on the enormous
challenge of editing our texts covering such a broad swath of European art history. We are
further indebted to our conservation colleagues Hugh Shockey, Raina Chao, Brian Koelz,
and former colleague Nancy Heugh who all, along with Dawn Heller, undertook the task of
preparing the objects for the show. Finally, the marvelously efficient efforts of Bryan Young
and Clare Vasquez in our library have contributed significantly to the project.
Lastly, we offer thanks and love to David and Gabriel who bore the brunt of the long hours,
disgruntled helpmates, and preoccupations that come with complicated undertakings.
Judith W. Mann Elizabeth Wyckoff
Curator of European Art to 1800 Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs
Saint Louis Art Museum Saint Louis Art Museum
7
Memoir of a Collector
Mark S. Weil
I was fortunate to have been raised in a family that was fascinated by the arts. My parents,
Richard and Florence Weil, and my grandparents, Mark and Etta Steinberg, loved the
theater, classical music, and fine arts. From the time I entered junior high school, visits
to our home by major figures in the arts became a normal part of life. As a teenager
I met the two most celebrated collectors in St. Louis, Morton D. "Buster" May and
Joseph Pulitzer Jr., whom I listened to, and whose collections I came to know. I remember a
reception in our house during which I eavesdropped as Alfred Barr, director of the Museum
of Modern Art in New York, and David Thompson, a major collector of works by Paul Klee
and other artists, discussed the strengths of two paintings by Joan Miro in my parents'
collection. Barr and Thompson were in St. Louis to attend the opening of an exhibition of
Morton May's collection of German Expressionist paintings that was held in the new Pius XII
Memorial Library at Saint Louis University. Regular visitors also included Perry Rathbone,
William Eisendrath, Kenneth Hudson, Dean of the School of Art at Washington University,
and George Mylonas, Frederick Hartt, and Norris Kelly Smith, all members of the faculty of
Art History and Archaeology at the university.
My grandmother and parents were instrumental in the establishment of what is now the
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University, but which was then housed
in Steinberg Hall and was affectionately known throughout the community as the Steinberg
Gallery. In his will, my grandfather established the Mark C. Steinberg Charitable Trust, of
which my grandmother, my father, and Eliot Stein (a former associate of Mark Steinberg's
who remained a close friend of the family) were trustees. The establishment of the trust was
a continuation of my family's long tradition of public service. Both of my grandfathers were
philanthropists who supported numerous organizations. Maurice Weil's philanthropy was
quite personal. He helped many individuals and religious organizations of all denominations.
Mark Steinberg was a great sports fan, a partial owner of the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis
Browns at different times. He was also a benefactor of the St. Louis YMHA (now known
as the Jewish Community Center Association) and St. Louis Jewish Hospital (now part of
Barnes-Jewish Hospital). Not surprisingly, the trusts made major gifts to establish the
Mark C. Steinberg Memorial Skating Rink in Forest Park and the Mark C. Steinberg Hospital
as a wing of Jewish Hospital. My parents continued the tradition. My mother volunteered
as a nurses' aid at the veterans' hospital during the war and served as a volunteer and board
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