The Frick Collection members' magazine (Fall 2009)

2009·22.3 MB·English

by  The Frick Collection

The Frick Collection Letter from the Director
Board of Trustees
It has long been my desire to make the Frick's
decorative arts collection better known to the
Margot Bogert, Chairman
public through improved displays, temporary
Walter A.Eberstadt, Vice Chairman
exhibitions, publications, and educational pro-
Franklin W.Hobbs, Treasurer
grams. Tothis end, Iam delighted to announce
John P.Birkelund, Secretary
the appointment of Charlotte Vignon to the
Peter P.Blanchard III position ofAssociateCurator ofDecorativeArts,
1.Townsend Burden III the Frick's first curatorship dedicated to its impressive holdings in this area. The Frick
L. F.Boker Doyle has endowed this position with a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the
Jean-Marie Eveillard Humanities, matched by substantial gifts from The Iris Foundation and The Andrew
Barbara G. Fleischman W.Mellon Foundation, along with support from other generous donors. Forthe past two
Emily T.Frick years,Charlotte hasbeen anAndrew W.Mellon Curatorial Fellowatthe Frick.Beforethis,
Agnes Gund sheheld fellowships at The Metropolitan Museum ofArt and The Cleveland Museum of
Martha Loring Art. Sheisalsothe curator ofExuberant Grotesques: Renaissance Maiolica [rom theFontana
Anne L. Poulet, ex officia Workshop, which is currently on view in the Cabinet through Ianuary 17.It is my great
Juan Sabater pleasure to welcome her to this new post.
Stephen A.Schwarzman InIuly, work began on atwo-year conservation project totreat arare sixteenth-century
Melvin R. Seiden Herat carpet in our collection. The carpet, purchased in 1916by Henry ClayFrick, isthe
Aso O.Tavitian oldest and most significant of the museum's sixPersian carpets and the only one that is
George Wachter regularly on view.We are grateful to the Institute of Museum and Library Services for
underwriting this important project.
Helen Clay Chace
Beginning on October 6,we will present our major special exhibition of the season,
President Emerita
Watteau ta Degas: French Drawings Jrom the Frits Lugt Collection. Frits Lugt was aDutch
Walter Joseph Patrick Curley art historian and one of the twentieth century's most renowned drawings collectors. The
Paul G. Pennoyer Jr. exhibition willfeature more than sixtY eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French works
Howard Phipps Ir, on paper, many ofwhich havenever before been seen outside ofEurope.
Trustees Emeriti When you nextvisitthe Frick,youwilldoubtless notice sornechanges wehavemade to
the galleries.The East Gallery,which waslastrenovated inthe 1980s,hasbeen refurbished
Everett Fahy
and anew velvet mohair wall covering has been installed, thanks to a generous giftfrom
Charles Ryskamp
Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah M. Bogert. For the next two years, apair of superb, late fifteenth-
Samuel Sachs II
century Florentine panel paintings depicting scenes from the Argonautica will hang in
Directors Emeriti
the West Gallery.These compelling works,on loan from The Mari-Cha Collection, offer
afresh point of departure for appreciating many ofthe Frick's Renaissance masterpieces.
InAugust, Thomas Gainsborough's full-length portraits Mrs. Peter William Baker and The
Hon. Frances Duncombe were moved to the Dining Room, where they hung during Henry
Clay Frick's day.The portraits' grand scale and vivid colors complement the restrained
English interior, and, together with fiveother works byGainsborough, including The MaIl
in Saint [ames's Park, the room isnow the most concentrated presentation of his master-
pieces in NewYork.
Ihope that youwillmake time tovisitTheFrickCollection this falltoseethese changes
and to enjoyour two specialexhibitions. Ilook forward towelcoming you to our galleries.
The Members' Magazine is
Kind regards,
published three times a year by
The Frick Collection as a benefit
for its members.
Volume 9,Number 3
ISSN: 1534-6412 Anne L. Poulet
Editor: Rebecca Brooke Director
THE FRICK COLLECTION
MEMBERS' MAGAZINE FALL 2009
2 SPECIAL EXHIBITION
Exuberant Grotesques: Renaissance Maiolica
[rom the Fontana Workshop
4 SPECIAL EXHIBITION
Watteau ta Degas: French Drawings [rom
the Frits Lugt Collection
10 SPECIAL LOAN
The Voyageof the Argonauts:
From Florence to Fifth Avenue
14 PERMANENT COLLECTION
Laurana's Diva Beatrix Aragonia Returns to the Galleries
16 LIBRARY
Frits Lugt:Scholar and Art Historian
18 COMMUNITY
Donors and Friends Show Support:
Spring Party, International FineArt Fair,
Director's Circle Dinner, Garden Party
20 FALL CALENDAR
Lectures, Concerts, Gallery Talks,and Museum Shop
LEFT:
The LivingHallofThe Frick Collection with ElGreco's St. Jerome, 1590-1600
ON OUR CaVER:
Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), Studies ofSeven Heads, c.1717-18,
graphite with red,black, and white chalk; Fondation Custodia, Paris
SPECIAL EXHIBITION
Exuberant Grotesques
Renaissance Maiolica [rom the Fontana Workshop
September 15,2009, through Ianuary 17,2010
Currently on display in the Cabinet demonstrating aproficiency not achieved by
are six outstanding examples of even the Greeks or the Romans. With these
sixteenth-century ltalian maiolica made by works, Italian Renaissance potters realized
or under the direction of the acclaimed the ultimate goalofeveryRenaissance crafts-
Renaissance potter Orazio Fontana (1510- man and artist: not onlyto rivalthe ancients,
1571). The exhibition includes objects from but to surpass them.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Orazio Fontana trained with his father,
Philadelphia Museum ofArt, and the Frick's Guido Durantino, who owned an important
permanent collection. workshop in Urbino, Italy,that attracted the
During the late fifteenth and early six- era'smost talented maiolica painters. In 1565,
teenth centuries, Italian potters developed Orazio opened hisownworkshop and imme-
the techniques that transformed maiolica diately achieved widespread renown. A con-
from simple piecesoftin-glazed earthenware temporary writer from Urbino, Bernardino
into elaborate works ofart that attracted the Baldi (1553-1617), lauded hirn as"the noblest
attention ofthe most discriminating patrons. among those who make vases in terracotta."
Maiolicawasprized not forthematerial from After Orazio's death, in 1571, his nephew
which itwasmade, but rather forthe techni- Flaminio took over the business, continuing
calachievement demonstrated initscreation for several years to produce maiolica in the
and decoration. Pieces had complex shapes, Fontana workshop tradition.
were surprisingly light, and were white in Orazio Fontana's most important contri-
color,properties that made them comparable bution to the production of maiolica came istoriati, which were then the most fashion-
to Chinese porcelain, which had long been around 1560 with the development of anew able maiolica decoration. With the growing
valued by European collectors. lt was, how- kind of decoration that combined fantastic popularity of the grotesques, however, nar-
ever, the detailed narrative scenes painted creatures, playful satyrs, and winged figures rative scenesbecame gradually smaller until,
on the finest pieces that charmed the most painted in bright colors on a white ground. over time, they were supplanted by the tiny
eminent princes, dukes, and cardinalsof the These motifs, commonly called"grotesques;' imaginative figures.
day. These scenes, called in Italian istoriati, were derived from the painted ornaments Maiolica painters often based their most
were applied in a rich and varied palette, found on the walls of ancient houses that elaborate compositions on existing models,
had been excavated in Rome at the begin- and the delicate grotesques developed in the
ning of the sixteenth century. Around 1519, Fontana workshop are no exception. Sorne
ABOVE R1GHT:
Raphael and hisstudents painted theVatican are derived from a set of etchings known as
Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau (1510-]584), panel from
LesPetites Grotesques, 1550,etching; TheMetropolitan loggias with similar colorful grotesques on Les Petites Grotesques (above) by the French
Museum ofArt,NewYork
a white ground, initiating a decades-long architect, designer, and engraver Jacques
OPPOSTTE PAGE, LEFT TO RIGHT: trend in interior decoration. In the early Androuet Du Cerceau. These diminutive
Bernard Salomon (1506-1561), TheFirstPlague (detail), 1560S, grotesques began appearing on objects etchings were published in two editions in
woodcut reproduced inFigure deiVecchioTestamento,
1554;Bibliothèque nationale deFrance,Paris from the Fontana workshop in Urbino, 1550 and 1562, in Orléans and Paris, respec-
Raphael's native city.Àtthis time, grotesques tively.In most cases,maiolica painters freely
Vasedepicting Biblical ScenesJrom the Old Testament,
were used-as they are on the six pieces interpreted Du Cerceau's black-and-white
c.1565-7°, maiolica, workshop ofOrazio Fontana,
Urbino; Philadelphia Museum ofArt presented in the exhibition-to surround motifs, adding ornaments and accessories
2 The Prick Collection
SPECIAL EXHIBITION
or slightly modifying a figure's of the most ambitious maiolica
pose. In sorne cases, however, Du services made during the six-
Cerceau's originals were copied teenth century. Each of the ser-
exactly,as seen in several figures on vice's many dozens of pieces was
a maiolica vase from the collection decorated with subjects from Julius
of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Caesar's Gallic and Civil wars, after
(right). The same vase isdecorated drawings by the mannerist paint-
with a central medallion repre- ers Taddeo Zuccaro and Federigo
senting a religious scene, this Zuccaro. Research undertaken in
time inspired by an illustrated preparation for the exhibition
Bible,another source commonly reveals that the scene on the
employed by maiolica painters wine cooler depicting soldiers
working inthe Fontana workshop. and elephants locked in com-
The scene on the vase,executed in bat represents Caesar's Battle
black on a yellow ground, isbased of Thapsus, which took place in
46 B.e. in modern Tunisia.
The finest maiolica pieces pro-
duced during the sixteenth century-
including the six pieces presented in
the exhibition-were rarely, if ever, used.
These dishes, vases, and basins, which we
admire today as individual objects, were
intended tobeseenaspart ofalarger service.
Displayed together on credenze, or side-
boards, they created an impressive display
of taste and wealth. The current exhibition
provides a rare opportunity to view the
richness and diversity of this beautiful art
form.-Charlotte Vignon, Associate Curator
ofDecorative Arts
on a woodcut (above) from the Figure dei
Vecchio Testamenta, which was published in
1554 in Lyon,France. The exhibition was organized by Charlotte
Only on rare occasions did maiolica Vignon, Associate Curator of Decorative Arts,
painters base their compositions on draw- (1514-1574), the duke of Urbino, as a gift and was made possible by The Andrew W
ings made specifically to be reproduced on to Philip II of Spain. A wine cooler from Mellon Foundation and The Gladys Krieble
their wares. Such was the case with the The Metropolitan Museum of Art that is Delmas Foundation. The accompanying cata-
"Spanish Service,"which was commissioned included in the Frick's exhibition is most logue was generously underwritten by the
around 1560 by Guidobaldo Della Rovere likely part of this ensemble, certainly one Robert H. Smith Family Foundation.
Members' Magazine Fall 2009 3
SPECIAL EXHIBITION
Watteau ta Degas
French Drawings [rom the Frits Lugt Collection
October 6, 2009, to Ianuary 10, 2010
F
ew people who are familiar with the prints and drawings, and the Répertoire des later he began work on a catalogue of this
term Köchel-which appears, abbre- catalogues de ventes publiques intéressant l'art collection, with sorne955entries ta hiscredit.
viated as the letter "K,"after all of Mozart's ou la curiosité, a comprehensive listing and Adefining experience forthe young man was
compositions (The Magic Flute, for example, description of nearly 90,000 auction cata- the great exhibition devoted ta Rembrandt
is K. 620)-are aware that this was the sur- logues from sales occurring between 1600 organized in September 1898 ta celebrate
name ofthe nineteenth-century musicalogist and 1925,published in four volumes between Queen Wilhelmina's coronation, where more
Ludwigvon Köchel,a distinguished botanist 1938and 1987. than 120paintings and 350drawings wereon
who published a chronological catalogue of Itmight come assornething ofasurprise display. Not only did the exhibition inspire
Mozart's music in 1862. Similarly, a "Lugt ta learn that the author ofthese dense,schol- the fourteen-year-old ta write a biography
number," a term used by art historians ta arlyworkswasessentiallyself-taught, theonly of the artist, which he illustrated with his
identify a collector of Old Master drawings child of a civil engineer from Amsterdam, own drawings after Rembrandt's work, but
or a specifie auction from centuries past, who leftschool at sixteen ta pursue acareer it instilled in hirn a lifelong admiration for
may not necessarily be associated with the at the auction hause of Frederik Muller & Rembrandt, his favorite artist. (Lugt owned
man who created it, the Dutch art historian Company. Lugt, known as Frits, was a barn no fewer than thirty drawings attributed ta
and collector Frederik Johannes Lugt (1884- collector, who, by the age of eight, had sold Rembrandt, twenty of which are considered
1970). Lugt'sfarne in scholarly circlesderives his shell collection ta the natural history today as autograph, as well as a virtually
from two pioneering publications, stillin use department of Amsterdam's royal zoo. By complete setofhis etchings.)
today: LesMarques de collections de dessins & twelve,he had talked his way into the print In 1910 Lugt married Jacoba Klever
d'estampes, published in1921,which identifies room oftheRijksmuseum ta studytheDutch (1888-1969), the only daughter of Joseph
the collectors' marks found on Old Master seventeenth-century drawings. Three years Klever,one ofthe founders ofthe Steenkolen
Handels-Vereeniging, a consortium of coal
producers established in Utrecht in 1896
that had already diversified inta shipping
and retail. With the outbreak of the First
World War and the collapse of the art mar-
ket, Lugt left Muller's auction hause ta deal
on his own and ta pursue his scholar-
ship on Dutch and Flemish drawings. He
and his growing family-five children in
all-lived in an eighteenth-century country
hause in Maartensdijk, in the province of
Utrecht. Lugt and his wife traveled fre-
quently ta Paris,where hewould be engaged
over the next three decades in cataloging
and publishing the Northern drawings in
eachofthe city'sprincipal public collections:
the Petit Palais, the Musée du Louvre, the
Bibliothèque nationale de France, and the
ÉcoledesBeaux-Arts.
4 The Frick Collection
SPECIAL EXHIBITION
In his thirties, Lugt began to collect in a
more serious and systematicway,specializing
in Dutch and Flemish drawings and prints,
hischiefinterest.During the1920S, thedecade
in which Lugt made his most important
acquisitions, he alsobought fifteenth-century
Italian sheets and eighteenth-century French
drawings; in 1925, he acquired three draw-
ings by Watteau in one week! The death of
Lugt'sfather-in-law, in 1935, ensured that his
family's financial situation was secure and
allowed hirn to continue his research and
writing without the constraints ofholding an
officialposition. Lugtwas among the found-
ers and principal supporters of the Rijks-
bureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie
(RKD), the institute devoted to the study
of Netherlandish art and artists, established
in The Hague in 1930. With the onslaught
of World War II, Lugt sent his most impor-
tant prints and drawings in sixty registered
envelopes to Switzerland, where he and his
family resided between September 1939 and
May1940. They spent the remaining yearsof
the war in Ohio at Oberlin College,and Lugt
crisscrossed the country delivering lectures
at many institutions, including The Frick
Collection. Having returned to Europe in
1945, Lugtwaseagerto establishhiscollection
in an active,urban center,and he chose Paris
RIGHT:
François Boucher (1703-1770), Standing Waman Seen
[romBehind, c.1742,black, red,and white chalkwith
stumping; ailimages illustrated arefrom the Fondation
Custodia, Paris
OPPOSITE PAGE:
Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), Waman
RecliningonaChaiseLongue,c.1718,redand black
chalkwith stumping
Members' Magazine Fall 2009 5
SPECIAL EXHIBITION
over The Hague and Haarlem when he cre-
ated the Fondation Custodia in 1947.In 1953
Lugtacquired the Hôtel Turgot at 121,rue de
Lille,asahome for his collection, and it was
in this building that the Institut Néerlandais
was inaugurated by René Coty,the president
ofthe French Republic, and Prince Bernhard
ofthe Netherlands in Ianuary 1957.The insti-
tute wascreatedtoserveasthe cultural center
ofthe Netherlands in the French capital,and
for the next thirteen years, Lugt poured his
considerable energyinto organizing dozensof
exhibitions, writing catalogues, and arrang-
ing hundreds of concerts and lectures. After
his death, the activities of the Fondation
continued unabated, and its collections were
extended byhissuccessors,CarlosvanHasselt
(1929-2009),who served asdirector between
1970and 1994,and MàriavanBerge-Gerbaud,
the current director. artists established by Edmond and Jules red and black chalks effortlessly,and such is
The French drawings in the collection of de Goncourt in the 1860s:Watteau, Boucher, his fluency in alternating between the two
the Fondation Custodia number more than Saint-Aubin, and Fragonard. Nineteenth- colors that wedo not immediately grasp that
eight hundred, and the Frick's selection of century art held little attraction for Lugt, the "red" stripes at the top of the woman's
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century works and hisacquisition ofdrawings byDelacroix, skirt are rendered in black, asarethe creases
illuminates both Lugt's taste and that of his Degas, and Morisot was exceptional; most ofthe garment asitfallsbelow her waist.
successors. As someone who had received of the nineteenth-century drawings in the Although he pursued a successful
neither academie nor institutional train- Frick's selection were purchased by the career as a history painter in the Royal
ing, and who approached works of art as directors who succeeded hirn. Academy, François Boucher was, in many
a connoisseur-albeit a highly disciplined, Watteau wasLugt'sfavorite French artist, ways, Watteau's most gifted successor:
scholarly connoisseur-Lugt was drawn to and sixworks byhirn form the largestgroup in his twenties he had copied many of
the pantheon of eighteenth-century French inthe exhibition. The most intimate,Woman Watteau's drawings for an engraved com-
Reclining on a Chaise Longue (page 4), is pendium, and the motif of an elegant
one of a series of studies made around 1718 woman, seen from behind, is a figural
ABOVE:
from amodel hired to pose in rented rooms type that originated in Watteau's mature
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), View ofthe
Serapeum atHadrian's Villa, c.1760, red and black for the artist and a select number of his oeuvre. Standing Woman Seen from Behind
chalk overblack chalk underdrawing
art-loving friends. Qnly after we realize that (page 5) is one of Boucher's most vigor-
OPPOSITE PAGE: this day-dreaming young woman is shown ous and accomplished studies and relates
Esprit-Antoine Gibelin (1739-1814), Interior ofa with her nipples exposed areweawareofthe to the figure of a young woman, lace cap
Sculptor's Atelier with the Borghese Gladiator, c.1770,
pen and brown ink and wash overblack chalk eroticism ofthis sheet.Watteau integrates his in hand, who attends her seated mistress
6 The Prick Collection
SPECIAL EXHIBITION
in the genre painting Lady Fastening Her ruins of acomplex ofbuildings, which, dur- asthe villa'sdining area,or serapeum. Ithas
Garter ("La Toilette"), signed and dated ing the eighteenth century, were thought been well said that, despite his remarkable
1742, and today in the Museo Thyssen- to be Hadrian's re-creation of the Egyptian fidelity, Fragonard approached his Roman
Bornemisza, Madrid. Strictly speaking, the town and canal dedicated to the god Serapis. views more as a poet than as a surveyor:
Lugt drawing is not apreparatory study Modern scholarship has identified the site for all the accuracy of his depiction, he
for the figure in the painting-there are
too many variants between them-and
may have served as an autonomous sheet
intended to be matted, framed, and dis-
played in a collector's picture cabinet. The
young woman iswearing asackback jacket,
or casaquin, with two sleeve flounces at the
elbow, the latest fashion in the early 1740S.
Her backless, heeled slippers confirm that
her costume would have been appropriate
only for private, indoor wear. We glimpse
her, unawares, from behind: apotent privi-
lege of spectatorship that was Watteau's
gift to artists of the following generation.
Boucher's greatest student was Jean-
Honoré Fragonard, who is represented by
four works in the current exhibition, all
acquired by Lugt himself. Ironically, the
greatest drawing in this group, View of the
Serapeum at Hadrian's Villa (opposite page),
entered the collection in 1922 as a work by
Hubert Robert. This magisterial red-chalk
landscape is one of a group that Fragonard
made in Tivoli and its environs during the
summer of1760. Asaprotégé of the abbé de
Saint-Non, who had rented the Villa d'Este
for three months, Fragonard was invited
to spend sixweeks sketching in the Roman
campagna. Although most of his drawings
were made on the Este property, a small
number-this sheet included-took astheir
subject views of the grounds of Hadrian's
Villa, four miles to the southwest of Tivoli.
In the Lugt drawing, Fragonard shows the
Members' Magazine Fall 2009 7
SPECIAL EXHIBITION
(left) is one of his most accomplished
watercolors. Granet spent more than twenty
years in Rome and established a thriving
practice as a painter of cloisters and mon-
asteries, which were exhibited to acclaim in
Paris in the Salons of the Restoration and
Iuly Monarchy. His fluent and luminous
watercolors, for which he is much admired
today, were done as a form of relaxation
and were never shown in public during his
lifetime. The sun-filled sheet in the Lugt
collection, acquired in 1995,wasmade prob-
ably around 1844 and depicts the view from
the terrace of Le Petit Malvalat, Granet's
country house outside Aix. In this care-
fully structured composition, the terracotta
communicates hispleasure inthe luxuriance leads us through the process of sculptural pot with its cascading orange and yellow
ofthe foliage,the burning heat ofthe noon- replication. Just right of the center of the flowers serves as the focal point, anchoring
daysun, and, aboveall,the immensity ofthe composition, an assistant is shown measur- the diagonal stone ledge that overlooks the
ruins that dwarf the three boysshown seated ing the dimensions of a full-scale plaster grounds below.The bands ofstrong sunlight
in the foreground. model of the Borghese Gladiator, which he and deep shadow add to the rigor and sense
One of the most intriguing drawings willcommunicate tothe sculptor, who stands of construction that are everywhere appar-
in our selection was done around 1770 by on aplatform to the leftwith hisback to us, ent in this seemingly informal view. In the
the little-known history painter, antiquar- holding a mallet in his hand. The wooden distant background isthe triangular peak of
ian, and museum administrator Esprit- frame suspended above the sculptor, with Mont Sainte-Victoire, represented in watery
Antoine Gibelin,anativeofAix-en-Provence. markings at regular intervals and plumb- strokes ofviolet and blue.
The wash study (page 7), acquired by the lines hanging down, would have been used Degas'sHead ofaSoldier (opposite page),
Fondation in 1978, shows the interior of a at an earlier stage in the carving, in tandem acquired by Lugt in 1938, appears as some-
sculptor's studio where the young master with a similar frame over the plaster model. thing of an anomaly among the works of
is carving a life-sizecopy of the Borghese (The weighted plumb-lines provided vari- the nineteenth-century French school. As
Gladiator from a block of marble. Gibelin ous points of reference on the marble block a student, Degas-like Manet and many of
for roughing out the final composition.) It the Impressionists-had copied works from
islikelythat this drawing was made early in the Renaissance and Baroque in the collec-
ABOVE:
Gibelin's career, during the years he spent as tions of the Louvre and the Bibliothèque
François-Marius Granet (1775-1849), View ofMont
Sainte- Victoire fram the Terrace ofMalvalat, 1844?, astudent in Rome'and where he befriended Nationale. During the time he spent in
watercolor partially heightened with gum arabie
the Swedishsculpter Johann TobiasSergel. Italy, between 1855 and 1859, he filled his
overgraphite
Another native of Aix-en-Provence was sketchbooks with hundreds of copies, in
OPPPOSITE PAGE: François-Marius Granet, whose View ofMont addition to making original drawings and
Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Head ofaSaldier, c.1859,
watercolor, gouache, and redchalkwash overgraphite Sainte- Victoire from the Terrace of Malvalat oil sketches. His Head of a Soldier is a
8 The Prick Collection