Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Rome and Hiawatha

"Hiawatha"
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

"The fascination of Rome as I stepped into the street the first time that morning can only be appreciated by those who have lived there. Coming so soon after the misery of the gray, bleak weather of France and the war and its disaster, it seemed all the more exalting. It was as if a door had been thrown wide open to the eternal beauty of the classical.  

To fall back once more upon the prosaic things in life, however; through my friend, I immediately obtained cameos to do for a dealer, Rossi by name, a man with a big red beard. He paid what seemed to me large prices, and I set about to find a studio in which to model my first statue, which was to astonish the world. Another of my Paris friends who had come to escape the war, Soares, and I took a studio together. A big sheet hung across the studio, separating us. On his side, he began one, which represented 'The Exile,' the hero of a poem by Camoens. On my side, I began the statue of Hiawatha 'pondering, musing in the forest, on the welfare of his people,' and so on. This accorded with the profound state of my mind. 

The time came when I had nearly completed the statue. I was in much distress of mind as to how I could get the money to cast the figure in plaster. However, by a lucky chance I made the acquaintance of a young theologian who, with his wife and two daughters, both young and attractive, lived opposite the lovely spot where we had our studio. Upon inquiry into the condition of my exchequer and my prospects generally, he told Soares that he thought he would advance me the money to cast my figure of Hiawatha, and that in return I might model the portraits of his two daughters. I remember distinctly the bright afternoon when Soares rushed out to tell me of a rich American who had been to the studio, who wished to see me, and who proposed helping me. This was one of the happiest moments in my life, for I had been certain that if I could ever get my wonderful production before the American public, I would amaze the world and settle my future. Here was the opportunity in my grasp.

I immediately began my busts of the young ladies, and, to add to my delight, also received my first commission for copies of the busts of Demosthenes and Cicero, which it was then the fashion for tourists to have made by the sculptors in Rome. Then a Mr. Evarts consented to pose for his head on his return to America. Those were days of great joy..." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.) 

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: The Franco-Prussian War

"Ceres" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Carved from mahogany and holly wood with
ivory, mother-of-pearl, marble and bronze inlay

The gathering clouds of the Franco-Prussian struggle closed over Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his friends in Paris, one of whom described the beginning of the war in 1871:

'Gus and I were at the opera at the time that war was declared. Near the end of the performance, the principal actor came before the audience with a flag in his hand to call on them to sing the National Hymn. Then everyone went crazy and we no less than the others, so crazy that soon we found ourselves, with Bastien-Lepage and one of his friends, on the Boulevard des Italiens, where we hammered with fists and canes a number of idiots who were crying 'To Berlin!'

The question of whether or not to follow the example of almost all his friends and enlist, gave Saint-Gaudens infinite distress: and his ultimate leaving of Paris for quieter parts was only at the cost of much pride, sacrificed to the wishes of his mother, [who expressed her deep concern for him in an eight-page letter], and for whom he held the greatest affection. 

Saint-Gaudens shared what happened next in a letter dated September 21, 1870: 

"Fortunately I had been given a stone-cameo portrait to do for which I was to be paid one hundred dollars, an enormous sum to me at that time. The lady who ordered it, a widow from Canada, departed suddenly for America when the war broke out, and I sent the cameo to her by her father. Knowing therefore that I was to have this money, I left Paris on the fourth of September for Limoges, where my brother, Andrew worked in the employ of one of the New York Porcelain firms. 

After remaining in Limoges for three or four months I borrowed one hundred francs from my brother and started for Rome, as I knew that there I would find an Italian friend and, very probably, work. I arrived there at night and called immediately on my friend. I slept in his room, and the following morning I awoke to the blessed charm of Rome."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.) 

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Studies with Jouffroy

"The Secret of Venus"
by François Jouffroy

Augustus Saint-Gaudens' teacher at the Ecole des Beaux Arts was "François Jouffroy, a tall, thin, dark, wiry man with little, intelligent black eyes and a strange face in profile, his forehead and nose descending in a straight line from the roots of his hair to within an inch of the end of the nose, which suddenly became round and red. He made his criticism in a low, drawling tone, nine-tenths of the time in a perfunctory way, looking in an entirely different direction from the model and from the study. He was very much in vogue at the Tuileries at that time, although he had achieved his distinction some ten or fifteen years before my arrival by one of the masterpieces of French sculpture - and that is saying a good deal - called 'The Secret of Venus.'

To Jouffroy, therefore, I brought my drawings. In two days I was admitted and immediately plunged into work, being the only American in the class, though Olin Warner followed me some six months later. It subsequently became the atelier where most of the Americans studied. I was by no means a brilliant pupil, though the steadiness of Jouffroy's compliments consoled me for my inevitable failures in direct competition. These failures did not for a moment discourage me, however, or create any doubts in my mind as to my assured superiority. Doubts have come later in life, and in such full measure that I have abundantly atoned for my youthful presumption and vanity."

Years later a long-time friend, Alfred Garnier, wrote a letter describing those times to Saint-Gaudens' son, Homer:

"I was chiefly impressed by Gus' possessing so strongly the qualities of a man who was bound to succeed. I often went to see him in his room where he engraved cameos to earn his livelihood, as you know. For though in the mornings he came to the class room of the school, his afternoons had to be consecrated to earning his living. At this period Augustus was the gayest of young men, though that did not prevent his undertone of seriousness and reflection. I remember how much he was moved when he received a few dollars which his parents sent to him. He thought probably of the privations which he imposed on them for the sake of his success, and he used to ask himself if the time would ever come when he would be able to help them in turn. But I repeat that then he was the most joyous creature that one could see." 

But this formative time in Paris would abruptly, and unexpectedly, come to an end. 

To be continued
(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son, Homer Saint-Gaudens.) 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Arrival in Paris

"Gertrude Vanderbilt at the Age of Seven"
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

"My arrival in Paris in February 1867 was extraordinarily impressive. I walked with my heavy carpet bag, the weight of which increased, as I made my way up the interminable Avenue des Champs Elysees to my uncle François'. A day or two after my arrival I went about in search of employment at cameo cutting and of admission to the School of Fine Arts. The cameo cutting I obtained at once from an Italian, Lupi, supporting myself on what I earned by the cameos  and attending a modeling school in the mornings and nights.

However I found my entrance into the Beaux Arts a formidable business. After much running around, I saw at last M. Guillaume, the Director of the School, who, to my thinking, received me with unusual affability for so wonderful a man. I recall his smile as I told him that I expected to learn sculpture during the nine months I proposed to remain in Paris, the limit to which I had expected my money would extend. From him I gathered that I could enter only through the formal application of the American Minister. I thereupon called on Mr. Washburne, then occupying that post. He also seemed kind, smiled as I related my little story, and said that I would be informed when the application had been accepted. This notification I received exactly nine months after handing it in.

In the meantime, fortunately, I not only earned a good living by cutting cameos, but also entered a smaller school, though an excellent one, and began my Parisian studies, probably in March or April, 1868. We worked in a stuffy, overcrowded, absolutely unventilated theater, with two rows of students, perhaps twenty-five in each row, seated in a semicircle before the model who stood against the wall. Behind those who drew were about fifteen sculptors, and I look back with admiration upon the powers of youth to live, work, and be joyful in an atmosphere that must have been almost asphyxiating. Here I modeled my first figures from the nude, and laid an excellent foundation for the future." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son Homer Saint-Gaudens.)  

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: La Petite École

"Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Kenyon Cox

"My time at the little 'École de Médicine,' as they called the school, was enlivened by many amusing incidents, the result of the radical difference in the characters of the two professors who taught, one on Wednesdays and the other on Saturdays. 

Georges Jacquot, a short, loud-spoken, good-natured professor - and sculptor - came on Wednesday. He was entirely democratic, saying the most amusing things to the pupils. Although merry and good-hearted, he was a terror, from the fact that he indicated our errors with a very thick charcoal; so to those of us who had learned to work rather delicately and firmly his marks were only bearable because of the jollity with which he made them. While he taught, the boys raised as much noise as the uniformed and ill-natured 'gardien' at the doorway would permit.

On Saturdays Alexandre Laemlein criticized, a man of a totally different type. When he appeared, the class remained silent. He was austere, taking the greatest care to apply his suggestions with light touches, always certain and correct. Jacquot talked with a strange kind of mixed-up lisp as if he had a marble in his mouth, whereas Laemlein spoke with a deliberate nasal tone. Jacquot maintained that you must draw freely and with no fear of the paper, while Laemlein's advice was to the effect that you should draw lightly, carefully, and firmly, and not with sloppiness as do those who pretend to work with vigor. The result of this weekly divergence of views upon the boys can be imagined. In these surroundings, then, I prospered until at last I was awarded the first prize, and, subsequently, with a lot of other successful youths, received, with the medal, a crown of laurel. 

At this time also, at the end of these nine months of the Petite École, I felt much impressed by the receipt of a large envelope with the United States seal on it, notifying me of my admission to the Beaux Arts. This was a great joy. My first step was to obtain the authorization from the Master whose atelier I wished to enter, and selected sculptor François Jouffroy because at that time Jouffroy's atelier was the triumphant one of the Beaux Arts, his class capturing, as a rule, most of the prizes."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son Homer Saint-Gaudens.)  

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Turning Points

"Jules Bastien Lepage" by
Augustus Saint-Gaudens

"My firing by Avet opened the second by-road in my career which led to my being a sculptor. At this time there lived in New York a man entirely the reverse of my first employer, Mr. Jules LeBrethon, a shell-cameo cutter, who earned his living by making the large shell-cameo portraits in vogue during this period of big hoop skirts. I had learned very easily with Avet the cutting of shell-cameos, this being a far simpler affair. To my delight, I discovered that he had a stone-cameo lathe, which he could not use. I began work at once, and the three years of so with him were as day is to night in comparison with my previous experience. The only thing that he had in common with Avet was that he also sang from morning to night. He, however, never scolded or showed anything but consideration in my affairs. Indeed, because of this interest, he even allowed me an extra hour every day, beside my dinner period, in which to model, and gave me instruction at that time.

My first trip to Europe, which was another turning point in my life, came about when, at the beginning of the year 1867, Father asked me if I would like to see the coming Paris Exposition. To my enthusiastic assent he said, 'We will arrange that,' since I had, of course, been giving my wages, which were ample for a boy of that age at that time, help the running of the family.

Between that date and the moment upon which my steamer sailed, three incidents alone hold their place in my memory. The first of them concerns one of the large and hilarious dinners interspersed through out lives, which on this occasion, father planned in honor of my departure. The second deals with another banquet furnished by good-hearted LeBrethon the night before I left, at which, as I picked up my napkin, I found under the plate one hundred francs in gold, 'To pay for a trip to father's village in France.' But most of all I recall how, during those last nights and Sunday, I made a bust of father and a drawing of mother. The latter, being perhaps the possession I treasured most in the world, was destroyed in the fire that a year ago burnt down my studio."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son Homer Saint-Gaudens.)  

 

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Apprenticed

Cameo of "Hannah Rohr Tuffs"
by Augustus Saint-Gaudens

"Up to this time, after school, my free hours had been occupied in carrying the shoes, first to father's workmen to have them made, and later to the customers by whom they were ordered. Then, when I was just thirteen, my father said to me one day: 'My boy, you must go to work. What would you like to do?' 'I don't care,' I replied, 'but I should like it if I could do something which would help me to be an artist.'

Consequently father apprenticed me to a man named Avet, a Savoyard, dark, with a mustache which extended down along the side of the cheek and jaw. When he was not scolding me, he sang continuously. I believe that I am not wrong in stating that he was the first stone cameo-cutter in America, though stone seal-engravers there were already in New York, as well as shell cameo-engravers. For it was the fashion at that time for men to wear stone scarf-pins with heads of dogs, horses and lions, cut in amethyst, malachite and other stones.

I was Avet's first apprentice, and the stones which I prepared for him he would finish, occasionally allowing me to complete one myself. He was employed principally by Messrs. Ball, Black & Company, who had their store on the corner of Spring Street and Broadway, and now and then by Tiffany, to both of which shops I took the cameos when completed, always with a profound impression of the extraordinary splendor of those places.

Avet was certainly an old-time, hard taskmaster, so I can only describe my years with him as composing a miserable slavery. To this training, nevertheless, I attribute a habit of work which, although it has been of the greatest benefit, has at the same time contributed to my struggle for health as well as limited my vision to what was immediately in my surroundings, and made me oblivious to what lay beyond the four walls of my studio. 

Between Avet's fits of rage, he would take me to the country on shooting excursions. During these trips my keen appreciation of the beauty and wonders of the landscape was so intense that no subsequent experience has ever come up to it. The memory of the first lying on the grass under the trees and the first looking through the branches at the flying clouds, will stay by me if I live to be as old as ten Methuselahs." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son Homer Saint-Gaudens.)  

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Fired

Augustus Saint-Gaudens 
at his cameo lathe

"It was during the opening two or three years of my apprenticeship to Avet that my earliest definite aspirations and ambitions had made themselves felt. For I applied for admission to the drawing school of the Cooper Institute. There every evening, upon my return from work at six o'clock and my hasty tea I went. And there my artistic education began. The feeling of profound gratitude for the help which I have had from that school abides with me to this day. 

With such an incentive I became a terrific worker, toiling every night until eleven o'clock after the class was over, in the conviction that in me another heaven-born genius had been given to the world. Indeed I became so exhausted with the confining work of cameo-cutting by day and drawing at night that, in the morning, mother literally dragged me out of bed, pushed me over to the washstand, where I gave myself a cat's lick somehow or other, drove me to the seat at the table, administered my breakfast, which consisted of tea and large quantities of long French loaves of bread with butter, and tumbled me down stairs out into the street, where I awoke.

My appreciation of the antique [plaster casts] and my earliest attempt to draw from the nude came at the Institute with the advice of Mr. Huntington and Mr. Leutze, the latter being the painter of the popular 'Washington Crossing the Delaware.' Two other lasting aesthetic impressions of the time I received upon seeing Ward's 'Indian Hunter' in plaster in the back of some picture store on Broadway, and Gérome's painting of 'The Death of Caesar,' exhibited in the window of Goupil's, then on the northeast corner of Tenth Street and Broadway.

I have spoken before of Avet's scoldings. At last one day, on coming into the shop in an exceptionally violent state of anger, he suddenly discharged me because I had forgotten to sweep up the crumbs I had dropped on the floor while lunching. I took off my overalls, wrapped them up, went to father's store, and explained the story to my parents, feeling that the end of the world had arrived. Within half an hour Avet appeared. I was sent on some errand, and on returning was told that he wanted me back at an advance of five dollars a week on my wages. However I replied that I would not return under any condition. This was no doubt the most heroic act of my existence. Nevertheless the incident, as will appear, opened the second by-road in my career which led to my being a sculptor."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son Homer Saint-Gaudens.)

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Background

"My father's full name was Bernard Paul Ernest Saint-Gaudens. 'Bernard Paul Honeste, if you please,' he called it later in life. It sounded nicer. He was born in the little village of Aspet, five miles south of the town of Saint-Gaudens, in the arrondissement of Saint-Gaudens, in the department of the Haute-Garonne, a most beautiful country. He learned his trade of shoemaker in the employment of his elder brother who had quite a large establishment of thirty or forty workmen. When through with his apprenticeship, he moved northward from his native village as a journeyman shoemaker, a member of the 'Compagnons du Tour de France,' a popular organization which facilitated the traveling of workmen from town to town, the members being pledged to procure employment for one another as they arrived.  They each had some affectionate sobriquet; my father's was 'Saint-Gaudens la Constance,' of which he was very proud. 

My father passed three years in London, and later, seven years in Dublin, Ireland, where he met my mother in the shoe store for which he made shoes and where she did the binding of slippers. Father told me that an overcrowded passenger list prevented his leaving Dublin with my mother, with me at her breast, in a ship named 'Star of the West' that burned at sea during the trip. 

They landed at Boston town, probably in September, 1848, then found work in New York, where we went to a house on the west side of Forsyth Street, where now is the bronze foundry in which the statue of Peter Cooper that I modeled was cast forty-five years later. And it was there I made the beginnings of my conscious life." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens" by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his son Homer Saint-Gaudens.)

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Faithful

"Isabella Brandt" by Peter Paul Rubens

"Franz Xaver Winterhalter sought respite from the pressures of a busy portrait practice in holidays abroad, In Italy, Switzerland and above all, in Germany. He remained firmly attached to his native country by past ties and deep family affections. He and his brother Hermann travelled regularly to Karlsruhe, Baden-Baden and the Black Forest. They remained in constant touch with their father, and they continued to support him and their sisters on a generous scale. In the autumn of 1851, for example, Winterhalter sent a remittance of 3,000 francs to his father (5,000 the year before), and 6,000 francs to each sister; to Theresia for the education of her sons; to Justina for a new kitchen at the Adler Inn.

As the Second Empire approached its zenith, Winterhalter's world contracted. The reminiscences of the art critic, Friedrich Pecht, provide an invaluable insight into his life at this time:

'Formerly he had had a small pale head with black hair its chief attraction, now the locks were silver-grey. He had withdrawn from French society and associated almost exclusively with Germans. They formed a small circle round him, which met at his table for the excellent cooking of Mère Morel, to whom he introduced me. I later spent most of my evenings there.

Winterhalter was always high spirited, and when we left the restaurant we went to the Grand Café to enjoy our demi-tasse, after which we would stroll along the boulevards till late at night. He would tell comic stories about his own youth, and his time in Italy, the very last thing he would do would be to boast about his high acquaintances and sitters, as so many others did. His criticisms of works of art were individual, never depreciative.

Though depreciatively nicknamed 'the Frenchman' he remained always a German, for all his love of French manners and Paris. Yes, it was touching to see how he could not suppress his German nature.'

Pecht's impression is confirmed by another contemporary, W. Landgraf:

'I made Winterhalter's personal acquaintance in Paris in 1853. Never did a royal portrait painter correspond less to the conception one has of such a favourite of rulers. He had remained completely simple, natural and without mannerisms, and even retained something of the southern German rural population about him. His lifestyle, his needs were extremely modest. His correspondingly simple studio contained only on ornament, naturally the most exquisite and costly: a wonderful large portrait of a woman (lifesize half-portrait) by P.P. Rubens that probably represents his first wife with a fur wrapper over her shoulders.'" 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Retirement 02 04

"

"Olga von Grunelius" by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Franx Xaver Winterhalter was in Switzerland taking a cure, when news came of the outbreak of war between France and Prussia, the early disastrous battles, and finally of Napoleon's capitulation at Sedan (2 September 1870). The Second Empire was swept away. Instead of returning to Paris, at the end of the holiday, he and his brother Hermann headed for Karlsruhe instead. The transition was smooth and without trauma, a natural culmination of Winterhalter's growing preference for Germany over France, an enforced early retirement. He was still officially credited to the Baden Court; all the orders and honours he had received had always been formally approved at Karlsruhe before acceptance. He and Hermann fitted back into provincial court life, taking an apartment at no. 4 Friedrichsplatz, the elegant and spacious circle designed by Berckmüller. 'We are quite happy here,' he told a friend, 'though naturally we miss many things.'  

Occasional interruptions to their quiet regime served to remind them of the world of high fashion they had left behind. In 1871, they were guests of the Tsar and Tsarina at Bad Petersthal, a popular spa, with a glittering company of European Royals. Winterhalter's later letters, however, reveal little sign of nostalgia or regret for the past. Workhorse though he was, he seems content to have hung up his brushes and mahl-stick, and to have accepted retirement naturally.

During his last two years of life, Winterhalter found a limited circle of patrons in the banking community of Frankfourt. Among his sitters of this time were Olga von Grunelius and Emma von Passavant."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: His Death

Franz Winterhalter's Grave, Frankfurt

"During a visit to the Frankfurt in the summer of 1873, Franz Xaver Winterhalter contracted typhus, as a result of an epidemic that eventually claimed sixty lives. The speed with which he succumbed to the disease suggests that years of travel and concentrated work had taken their toll of his health. He was rushed from the house of his banking friends, the von Metzlers, to the Diakonissen Krankenhaus, a hospital run by Protestant nuns, but all efforts to save him were in vain. He died on 8 July 1873. His disconsolate brother, Hermann, sent brief details in a letter to a family member: 

'He had not been feeling well for some time but he didn't go to bed till Friday when he had a burning fever, which brought his life to an end. It is a comfort for me to know that he was unconscious and I think without pain. I ask you to tell all our relatives of this so irreplaceable loss in my name, as I am at present quite unable to do it. I have to stay here to attend the funeral.'

Winterhalter lies buried in the cemetery in Frankfurt under an imposing tomb topped by an angel. Funds for the maintenance of the tomb have long since evaporated and the tomb is now maintained by the city authorities. By the terms of Winterhalter's will, his fortune of 4 million francs was divided equally between his brother and the children of his two sisters. One notable benefaction of 50,000 francs established a foundation for the support of youth of Menzenschwand, his birthplace, and two neighbouring villages 'who wish to learn useful trades, arts and sciences.'

In European capitals the news of his death was greeted with official expressions of regret, as of the passing of a court dignitary rather than a great artist. Obituaries were brief and few. Winterhalter belonged to an age that was rapidly fading from people's memories. The figures of the Second Empire whom he had chronicled had died or disappeared from public gaze. Few of those who had made him famous were there to remember or to mourn him. But the widowed Queen Victoria was one, and she poured out her feelings in a letter to her daughter:

'His death was terrible . . . quite irreparable . . . His works will in time rank with Van Dyck. There was not another portrait painter like him in the world . . . With all his peculiarities I liked him so much.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Tributes

"Portrait of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"In Karlsruhe, obsequies for Franz Xaver Winterhalter were elaborate and heartfelt. It was from this city that he had set out as an unknown young painter forty years before, and to which he had returned as a European celebrity. His beloved Baden honoured him with an exhibition in October 1873. Exhibits from local collections, those of the Grand Duke of Baden, the Prince of Fürstenberg, the King of Württemberg and various private individuals, were complemented by loans from further afield. Queen Victoria lent four pictures, the early portraits of 1842 of herself and Prince Albert, Duleep Singh, and 'The First of May.' No biographer came forward to chronicle the dead man's achievement. 

In 1894, Winterhalter's nephew Franz Wild published a brief memoir, with an invaluable checklist of portraits, but the artist had to wait a further forty years before a reawakening of interest in the Second Empire brought his work once more to prominence with exhibitions in London and Paris in 1936. His name had become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Little was known about him personally, and his art was not taken seriously. It will be only after a further lapse of time that his style can be set in context, his career documented, and the full range of his achievement fairly judged."

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Abbot Thayer: A Short Visit with the Thayers, Pt. 2

"The Sisters" by Abbott Thayer

"Uncle Abbott was a great talker because he was just bubbling over with ideas all the time, and his talk stimulated ideas in other people. He was the center of attraction for many interesting and unusual people. George De Forest Brush, another well-known painter of that time, was a friend of Uncle Abbott. They had studied in Paris together. The Brushes lived near Dublin, New Hampshire, too, at the time I used to go there. Mr. Brush had six children. Other interesting or famous people I met there were Alan Seeger, a poet; Percy McKaye, writer and playwright; Randolph Bourne, another writer; and Rockwell Kent, painter, writer, architect, carpenter, and fighter for human rights.

For several summers, Mark Twain was in Dublin. I always felt very thrilled that I had met and shaken hands with him. When Mr. James Bryce, the English historian and scholar, was Ambassador to the U.S., the summer Embassy was in Dublin, and Mr. Bryce was a frequent visitor of Uncle Abbott. By that time automobiles were in use and Mr. Bryce rather upset the 'high society' of Dublin by walking everywhere in true English style. There were a couple of young Lords in Mr. Bryce's entourage who rather thrilled me at the time.

Dr. Edward Emerson, son of Ralph Waldo Emerson, had a summer place in Peterboro and used often to ride over on his horse to see Uncle Abbott. He was a friend of long-standing. Louis Fuertes, the painter and naturalist, was a good friend of Uncle Abbott.

Before I entirely dismiss the Thayers from my story I must tell you a funny tale, connected only slightly with them, of an escapade of mine that dogged my footsteps like a ghost for years till after I graduated from college. One time when I was about 13, I think, Gra [Abbott Thayer's son, the author's cousin] was visiting us and told us that he had once caught grasshoppers, fried them and eaten them and found them very good! Well, he was persuasive. We got a sheet, went into a big field and ran along holding one edge of the sheet near the ground. The captured grasshoppers we fried, and then chopped up and put into sandwiches as a filling. These sandwiches we then brought home and offered to our two families as delicacies. The joke was, from one aspect, that without knowing what was in the sandwich both families liked them! But when the secret was out Papa's cousin was horrified at the thought. She was more horrified at me and considered me some kind of monster. That crime dogged me for years!"

(Excerpts from "My Berkshire: Childhood Recollections written for my children and grandchildren" by Eleanor F. Grose.)

Abbott Thayer: A Short Visit with the Thayers, Pt. 1

Abbott Thayer, "Stevenson Memorial"

I was recently introduced to a delightful memoir, "My Berkshire" by Eleanor F. Grose, in which there is an account of the well-known artist Abbott Thayer, who was her uncle. I hope you enjoy it, too!

"Being with Uncle Abbott was like suddenly coming out into a new physical world of light and color because he made you see so much in everything around you. But the mental and moral world was even more thrilling and exciting. I always felt as if the dimensions of my life grew in every way while I was with him. With them, the Thayers, everything and everybody was treated on their own merits, nothing was done for show or because other people did it. They had no institutional religion and never went to church but had an exceptional love of things and people of beauty and value in the world. You can see from what I have said before about myself how greatly I was influenced by them.

Among the normal run of people they were a queer family. Uncle Abbott was, in his time, one of the well-known and distinguished painters of the country. They had lots of unusual and different ways of living. His first wife died of tuberculosis so he was very apprehensive that his children might have it; therefore he thought that if they lived outdoors all the time they wouldn't get it. So their house in Dublin, which was only built for a summer home, was not heated in the winter except by open fires and the kitchen stove and small stove in the bathroom to keep the pipes from freezing.

Each member of the family had a little hut in the woods, open on one side, and there they slept winter and summer, in sleeping bags in the winter with hot water bottles and all sorts of warm clothes. When I visited them, in the winter, I think when I was in college, I slept on a balcony and I can remember now how cold it was to get undressed and into that cold bed even with a hot water bottle."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "My Berkshire: Childhood Recollections written for my children and grandchildren" by Eleanor F. Grose.)

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Success 02 02

"Jadwiga Potocka, Countess Branicka"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"No portrait painter has ever enjoyed such extensive Royal patronage as Franz Xaver Winterhalter. One has to go back to the age of Rubens and Van Dyck to find court painters operating in a similar international network of contacts. In both periods, recognized masters could transcend the normal barriers of country and culture with a style that was recognized universally. The links through marriage and friendship between the Royal houses of Europe were very close in the nineteenth century. Queen Victoria's epithet as the grandmother of Europe was almost literally true. A painter who established himself successfully in one court had the possibility of recommendations to other courts at the highest and most personal level.

The secret of Winterhalter's success was not simply one of good connections. His portraits gained currency because they flattered the self-esteem and pretensions of his patrons. He breathed life into the tired and debased conventions of Royal imagery. His monarchs and consorts were staged in settings of princely magnificence, but they remained refined and elegant figures of their own time. Winterhalter's style was suave, cosmopolitan and above all plausible. 

One other important factor underlying the widespread recognition of Winterhalter's work was the fact that it originated in Paris. Though he remained incorrigibly German in his habits and temperament, his painting represented that quality of high style and elegance, peculiarly French, to which other countries had always aspired. French taste continued to be a touchstone of excellence. In architecture, painting and the decorative arts, people took their cue from developments in Paris. Among the highest classes in Germany, Poland and Russia, the passion for things French exercised a pervasive influence. With the prestige of French art behind him, Winterhalter came armed with impeccable credentials. 

The courts of Europe rewarded the artist for his services with appropriate marks of respect: The Order of St. Anne, third class, from the Russian court; the Royal Order of the Red Eagle, third class, from the Prussians; the Imperial Franz Josef Order from the Austrians; the Comenthur Cross from the Württembergs. The rank accorded to him was similar to that of a minor court official. Only in France was he given higher recognition, becoming a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1857." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: International Portraits 1 31

"Roza Portocka" by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Outside the Imperial Court, Franz Xaver Winterhalter continued to fulfill a wide range of international obligations. In 1852, he travelled to Spain with a friend to paint a flamboyant state portrait of Queen Isabella. In 1854 followed portraits of King Pedro of Portugal and his brother, the Duke of Oporto, the Belgian Prince de Chimay, Princesse Murat, Queen Victoria's Indian protétgé the Maharajah Duleep Singh, and her son, Prince Leopold, William I of Prussia, and the artist's old patron, the widowed Sophie of Baden, elegant and beautiful to the end. In 1856, he briefly visited England, executing a set of watercolours of the Queen and her family.

The most extensive journey of 1856, however, was much further afield, to Warsaw. His patronsin Paris had included many of the great Polish families, the Potockis, Krasinskis and Branickis, who were closely linked by ties of marriage and friendship. These Francophile families were well-established in Parisian society and noted for their beauty, earlth and taste. Winterhalter found them congenial spirits.

The year of the Poles was 1845, 1857 the year of the Russians. In the summer of that year, Winterhalter went to Bad Brückinau to paint the Tsar and Tsarina. Writing from Germany on 26 July 1857, the Tsarina's lady-in-waiting, Countess Tolstoi, acknowledged the arrival of these two works:

'I displayed them skillfully and in a good light, and only then did their Majesties enter. I wanted to see the first impression in order to report it to you, my dear Monsieur Winterhalter. Well, you must be satisfied, for both the Emperor and the Empress were delighted and did not know which of the two portraits to prefer, each being thrilled. But there was a still bigger exhibition and among the numerous guest was the King of Prussia, who greatly admired your work and told us that you painted him in two sittings. Opinions on the likeness of the two portraits were divided as is usual, but the enthusiasm for the beauty of the painting was universal and unanimous. As I looked at the beautiful pictures I myself thought I was once again in the beautiful Peterstal, where we have spent so many lovely days. I only wish that you will not forget them and that the memory of them may one day bring you to St. Petersburg, where you will find the same friends again.' 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Winterhalter: Court Painter to Napoleon III 1 30 2026

"Emperor Napoleon III"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"It may seem strange that the court painter of an overturned dynasty should be employed by the dynasty succeeding it, but the connection between art and politics is rarely straight-forward. Napoleon III set out to mobilize the best artistic talents of the time in the service of the state irrespective of past loyalties.

Artists were regularly invited to the famous series of week-long parties given four or five times a year at Compiègne, when the Emperor and Empress entertained a gathering of distinguished guests from all walks of life. Winterhalter was invited to Compiègne in 1853, before the séries élégantes had begun, the first artist to be so honoured. The invitation was no doubt a result of the commission he had received to paint the state portraits of the Imperial couple. These were finished in December 1853 at a cost of 24,000 francs.

So huge was the reproduction business that special request forms were printed to cope with the  demand. The portraits were engraved, transferred to Sèvres porcelain, woven into tapestry, made into miniatures, interpreted in sculpture, to become universal talismans of the Second Empire. It was as a painter extraordinary to the Empress that Winterhalter left his mark on the Second Empire. With unerring judgement she had selected him as the artist best able to do justice to herself and the ladies of the court, and she treated him generously. She gave orders for a studio to be constructed in the attics of the Tuileries: 'she decorated this with rich stuffs and objects of art. Here artists showed her their works and here Royalty sat for them.

In 1855, Winterhalter painted his masterpiece, 'The Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies-in-Waiting.' When the picture was finished, it was unveiled before the Emperor and Empress at the Tuileries. 'It enchangted their Majesties. The likeness and admirable conception were appreciated by all. The picture was subsequently exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in 1855 to a mixed critical reception where it was awarded a first-class medal."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Revolution 01 29

"Countess Eliza Krasinska, née Branicka"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 

"In a letter to a friend in Holland in 1846, Franz Xaver Winterhalter wrote: 'Soon I will have done with the entire royal family [of France], and then should end the period of portrait painting for me, and I shall be able to resume my way in the arts which derive their inspiration from the imagination, a pleasure which one cannot enjoy as a portrait painter.'

Two years later Winterhalter's wish was almost granted, but not in a way he could have foreseen. The Revolution of 1848 swept away the Orléanist monarchy, whose patronage had established him, and with it the world he knew and admired. The Revolution realized all the worst fears of this deeply conservative man, with his reverence for order and authority. The events which he was forced to witness in Paris, as the mob took control of the city, overturned the army and forced the abdication of the King, appalled him. He withdrew to Switzerland. 

The following March Winterhalter crossed to England, which seemed like a welcoming haven after the storms ravaging Europe. He confided his experiences to Queen Victoria, who wrote them in her journal: 

'We talked of France and Germany and the horrors of the past year; and he said that what he saw at Paris had made a terrible impression upon him, and that he had been unfortunate enough to come in for a revolution in almost every place! The fate of the French Royal Family and the behaviour of Germany is what distresses him most.'

Professional pride prevented him from giving up or giving way to despair. He had commitments to fulfill, portraits to paint. He was still in demand. Persistence saw him through from the fall of one dynasty to the rise of another."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")