PREFACE
It is noteworthy that the first book to be published in any country and in any language treating of Old Masters in private Collections should be devoted exclusively to treasures in America.
Old World Masters in New World Collections may be called a permanent loan exhibition of the greatest and most renowned examples of Art in America, which cannot be seen anywhere but in this volume.
It is owing to the gracious response and courtesy of the most distinguished American Collectors that I am able to present between these covers a selection of a hundred and ten of the choicest paintings in the country, representing portraits, religious and mythological subjects, and genre from the Thirteenth through the Eighteenth Centuries.
One of the principal factors in the formation of many of these magnificent Collections has been the outstanding influence of Sir Joseph Duveen, Bart., under whose guidance the foremost American Collections have been raised to a dominating position in the world of art.
It is significant that among the paintings reproduced here, the greater number have been brought to this country by Sir Joseph Duveen; and I am happy to express my thanks to Sir Joseph for his enthusiastic interest and encouragement to me throughout the entire preparation of this volume.
A very interesting feature in this book is the distinguished ownership of these paintings: Frederick the Great, for instance, owned Lancret’s La Camargo, the celebrated French dancer; Queen Christina of Sweden, Raphael’s Agony in the Garden; Madame de Pompadour, Chardin’s La Serinette and Boucher’s Les Deux Confidentes; Sir Joshua Reynolds, Rembrandt’s Standard-Bearer; Sir Horace Walpole, Rembrandt’s Simeon and Mary; and Charles Le Brun, Poussin’s Jupiter and Calisto. Fra Filippo Lippi’s Madonna della Stella came directly to the present owner from the Monastery of the Carmine (Florence) for which it was painted; Raphael’s Niccolini Madonna, from the Niccolini Palace; Titian’s Caterina Cornaro, from the Riccardi Palace, Florence; Bartolommeo Veneto’s Maximilian Sforza, from the Sforza Palace, Milan; Rubens’s Louis XIII, King of France, from the ex-Emperor of Germany’s Palace of Charlottenburg; and Van Dyck’s Dædalus and Icarus, from the famous Collection of Earl Spencer at Althorp and was consequently in the home of the Duchess of Devonshire, whose beautiful eyes must have frequently looked upon it. Holbein’s Prince Edward of England was painted for King Henry VIII; and with the portrait of Sir Thomas More, Holbein’s great reputation began. Of all Sir Joshua Reynolds’s portraits Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse is considered the greatest; and Gainsborough’s Blue Boy and the Duchess of Devonshire rank among the world’s most famous pictures. Surpassing the Blue Boy in beauty and charm (though not so famous) and depicting withal a far lovelier personality, is Romney’s John Walter Tempest; and Romney’s Lady Derby and the Hon. Mrs. Davenport will stand forever among the loveliest presentations of charming womanhood. On a par with these are La Marquise de Villemomble, by Drouais; La Marquise de la Fare, by Fragonard; and La Marquise de Baglion by Nattier. Many critics call the last named work the greatest French portrait of the Eighteenth Century.
We read with amazement of European Collectors and Collections of the past: of the treasures owned by the wealthy Dukes of Burgundy; by Lorenzo the Magnificent and by other members of the Medici family; by the Sforzas, Gonzagas, d’Estes, and other Italian princes; by the Fuggers, those wealthy bankers of Augsburg; by noble Austrian and German barons; by the great merchant-princes and lords of England from Queen Elizabeth’s day to the present; by Cardinal Richelieu, Cardinal Mazarin and Cardinal de Rohan; and by the Rothschilds and other notable bankers. Yet, in some respects—particularly in the high quality of their Collections and the velocity with which these Collections have been made—our American Collectors surpass them all. On this point Sir Joseph Duveen remarks:
“The particular thing that makes American Collections so unique and so priceless is that their pictures are all masterpieces. In Europe you will find much larger Collections and these will have, like the Bridgewater for instance, a large number of very mediocre paintings and a few of supreme excellence—gems—magnificent! Many Collections in England and also on the Continent go into hundreds with just a few fine things. In America, on the contrary, every Collector wants the best. He may have only thirty pictures, but they will all be fine. Americans make Collections of masterpieces. That is why they are different. That is why Americans are a new race of Collectors. American Collections are Collections of Masterpieces.”
The Blue Boy purchased from the Duke of Westminster by Sir Joseph Duveen for the late Mr. Henry E. Huntington at the then unheard of sum of $800,000 set the imagination of the American public aflame. When exhibited at the National Gallery, London, and afterwards at the Duveen Galleries, New York, for charity in 1922, the whole world flocked to see it. The Blue Boy proved to be a “sensation.” Within a few months Gainsborough’s masterpiece was followed by Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse, also purchased from the Duke of Westminster by Sir Joseph Duveen for the late Mr. Henry E. Huntington for $500,000. Mrs. Siddons was, in her turn, followed by eighteen superb examples of Gainsborough, Romney, Reynolds, and Lawrence, several of which appear in this book. It was, therefore, the English School that started the ball rolling for a new type of Collector, who sought gems of the first water only.
From this period onward great paintings of all Schools—Italian, French, Dutch, Flemish, and Spanish, as well as English—have been coming across the Atlantic in amazing numbers, and with eagerly awaiting purchasers to greet them. The result is that America has become a great Repository of Art, in which the entire country is beginning to take a personal and justifiable pride.
On this question of Art-migration the noted critic and director of the Berlin Museum, Dr. Wilhelm von Bode, wrote not long ago:
“Any one who a decade ago had even hinted at the possibility of Gainsborough’s Blue Boy making its way across the Atlantic to become the central gem in the Huntington Collection would have been thought mad. He might as well have suggested the uprooting of England’s century old oaks, or the removal of the Rock of Gibraltar. And yet the impossible has happened; and not only the famous Blue Boy but many another of the world’s masterpieces has travelled the same route.
“This is the greatest transplantation of art-works the world has known since the Roman plundering of Grecian art and the rape of the churches and museums of Europe whereby Napoleon enriched the Louvre.
“No power on earth can turn back the pages of history to the first of August, 1914, on which day forces were set in motion that were to result in a complete reversal of all hitherto existing political, geographical, social, and economic values. No one could have foreseen at the time that the world’s accumulated art-treasures would also be affected by these sweeping changes.”
From the amazing wealth that has been so generously placed at my disposition, I have been guided by one principle of selection,—that of Beauty!
Art, according to my way of thinking, is something to be enjoyed, something to delight the senses, and something to refresh the mind; and I feel sure that many connoisseurs will agree with me and gladly welcome a book devoted to Old Masters in which not the slightest suggestion of suffering enters. Therefore, in this book there are no Crucifixions, Pietàs, martyrdoms, nor tragedies.
Nor in my definition of Beauty do I recognize any distortion of the word that might include the cant phrase—the “beauty of ugliness.” Beauty, when most subtle, is always obvious; and I agree heartily with Bernard Berenson’s dictum: “And not what man knows but what man feels concerns Art. All else is science.”
Fashions may come and fashions may go, but while these changing tides ebb and flow the great manifestations and expressions of genius shine with undimmed splendor as shine the stars of Heaven over a world racked with dissension and controversy and troubled with many shell-shocked minds. Shakespeare and Shelley and Keats and Tennyson will charm, inspire, and uplift generations to come when yawping vers libre has been thrown into the literary junk-heap; Beethoven and Chopin and Wagner will delight, astound, and refresh sensitive spirits when the scores of the Twentieth Century cacophonists will be unopened and coated with dust; and Raphael, Botticelli, Watteau, Fragonard, Chardin, Gainsborough, Reynolds, and Romney will fascinate, enthrall, and enrapture lovers of the beautiful when works of jostled planes and lurid color will have been hooted to extinction.
The Torch of Beauty burns brightly through all the confusion of tongues and wild ragings of Twentieth Century iconoclasts. In this belief and hope I have the support of the noted French critic, Robert de la Sizeranne, who says:
“Art never dies, even when all that has maintained it and served as the motive for its very existence—civilization, society, religious belief, social authority—has fallen into irremediable decay. For it has still another reason for existence, which is the powerful one of Beauty. Humanity is not rich enough to dispense with a vision of Beauty. The day comes when it will return to it gladly and acclaim it as if it were a living being.”
Some idea of the value of the paintings shown in this book will be had if I mention a few sums which were reached at the last sales, although the figures have risen considerably since those sales. Here are, for example, twelve paintings:
Gainsborough’s Harvest Waggon, $360,000; Lawrence’s Pinkie, $377,000; Gainsborough’s Blue Boy, $800,000; Reynolds’s Mrs. Siddons, $500,000; Raphael’s Small Cowper Madonna, $700,000; Raphael’s Niccolini Madonna, $875,000; Frans Hals’s Laughing Mandolin Player, $250,000; Botticelli’s Giuliano de’ Medici, $240,000; Raphael’s Agony in the Garden, $500,000; Gainsborough’s The Mall, $500,000; Romney’s The Hon. Mrs. Davenport, $304,700; and Romney’s Anne, Lady de la Pole, $206,850.
Hence it will be seen that these twelve paintings represent considerably more than $5,500,000.
With these figures in mind (and I have not attempted to estimate the Memlings, Holbeins, Bellinis, Crivellis, Titians, Rembrandts, Van Dycks, Fragonards, Nattiers, and others) it will be easily appreciated that the value of the paintings shown in this book soars beyond millions into the billion dollar class!
It gives me pleasure to offer my thanks to all the Collectors whose pictures are represented and very particularly to Mrs. Herbert L. Satterlee, Mr. J. P. Morgan, Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft, and Miss Helen C. Frick who permitted me to have photographs especially taken of the Duchess of Devonshire, and Lady Betty Delmé; Eliza Farren, Countess of Derby; Maria Walpole, Duchess of Gloucester and “The Jessamy Bride”; and Sir Thomas More.
I also wish to thank most cordially Mr. Felix Wildenstein for his valuable advice and approbation and for important material sent to me from Paris and to express my appreciation to Mr. C. R. Henschel of Messrs. Knoedler & Co., and to Mrs. Paul Reinhardt of the Reinhardt Galleries for their warm support and aid.
E. S.
New York
November 8, 1928.