The Smithsonian Art Museum has a video lecture on its site giving a superb illustrated overview of American Portrait Miniatures. The short piece is narrated by Carol Aiken, a specialist conservator of miniatures, historian and writer. The link is: http://americanart.si.edu/luce/media.cfm?key=372&artistmedia=0&object=2610&subkey=350 .

Contemporary artist Elizabeth Berdann, based in New York City, has a solo show entitled “Marvels, Curiosities & Conundrums” at the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu. It will include a survey of her work from the last 20 years, and also some new work, such as her current installation, “String of Pearls,” which was inspired by the Thomas Seir Cummings necklace of miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The show opened on February 11, 2010, and will run through mid-May. For further information on the artist, please see her website, www.elizabethberdann.com, and for further information on the show, please see the Contemporary Museum’s website: http://www.tcmhi.org/cal.htm .

October 15, 2009 – January 3, 2010

NEW HAVEN, CT.- “I am going to build a little Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill,” declared Horace Walpole in January 1750. An influential antiquarian and man of letters, Walpole (1717-1797) was one of the most important English collectors of the eighteenth century. In 1747 he leased a modest house along the Thames in Twickenham, outside London. Over the next fifty years Walpole expanded the grounds from five to forty-six acres and, with the help of his “Strawberry Committee,” transformed the cottage into the first celebrated building designed in the Gothic Revival style. He added towers and battlements and filled the house with a collection of treasures that reflected his personal fascination with history, art, and architecture. Today Walpole’s villa remains standing, but most of its former contents are scattered throughout other collections around the globe, having been sold off at auction in 1842 by Walpole’s heir, George Edward Waldegrave, the seventh Earl Waldegrave.

In spite of its importance, Horace Walpole’s vast collection as it was formed and arranged at Strawberry Hill has never been the subject of a comprehensive critical study. This fall, the Yale Center for British Art will present the first major exhibition to evoke the breadth and significance of Walpole’s efforts by reassembling an astonishing variety of nearly three hundred objects once owned by him, including rare books and manuscripts, antiquities, paintings, prints, drawings, furniture, ceramics, arms and armor, and curiosities. Entitled Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill, the exhibition will analyze the history and reception of Walpole’s collection and the ways in which he described and catalogued it in numerous publications and manuscripts. Walpole was the first person in England to assemble systematically the visual evidence of English history and the first to recognize the importance of the portrait miniature in the history of British art. More than simply reassembling and documenting individual objects, this groundbreaking exhibition will explore the range of the collection, the meaning of Walpole’s pursuits, and the broader cultural contexts in which he operated. In particular, the exhibition will look at the ways in which Walpole used his house and collection to construct different histories: political, national, dynastic, cultural, and imaginary.

The exhibition, which will travel to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in the spring of 2010, is timed at a critical moment in the history of Strawberry Hill. In 2004, the house was included in the World Monuments Fund (WMF) Watch List of 100 Most Endangered Sites. The WMF and the Strawberry Hill Trust, together with the Friends of Strawberry Hill, are in the midst of a campaign to conserve the structure and interiors, a project to which the UK Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage, and the WMF have awarded substantial grants. At present, the house is scheduled to open to the general public in late summer 2010. Special behind-the-scenes tours will be arranged from September 2010 onward.

That Strawberry Hill still stands today is nothing short of miraculous. Walpole himself fretted that “my buildings are paper, like my writings, and both will blow away in ten years after I am dead.” Many of the house’s architectural details, including the vaulting and tracery, were fashioned in wood, stucco, and papier-mâché instead of carved stone, and are now in a precarious condition. During his lifetime, Walpole spent £21,000 creating Strawberry Hill—a vast fortune in the eighteenth century. The Strawberry Committee included Richard Bentley (d. 1782), an artist and draughtsman, and the architect John Chute (1701–1776), who designed much of the exterior of the house and many of its interiors. Walpole took his inspiration from details of Gothic buildings and adapted them to his own purposes. His approach, and that of the Committee, was not a scholarly one; in 1794 Walpole owned in a letter that the rooms at Strawberry Hill were “more the works of fancy than of imitation.” The library’s Gothic arched bookcases are modeled on a choir screen seen in an engraving of London’s Old St. Paul’s Cathedral; the Long Gallery’s fan-vaulted ceiling is copied from one in the Henry VII chapel in Westminster Abbey; and the Tribune, where Walpole kept his valuable collection of miniatures, sculpture, cabinet paintings, and Roman, medieval, and Renaissance antiquities, is named after the room in Florence’s Uffizi Palace in which the Medici family displayed their most precious possessions. Fortunately, Walpole assiduously preserved the history and meaning of his collections for posterity. In particular, he published a detailed description of the house and its contents, copies of which he and others annotated and extra-illustrated. He commissioned artists to record the interior and exterior of the building with meticulous detail and even annotated some of the objects himself.

In its day, Walpole’s Strawberry Hill was a significant tourist destination. Visiting the house was an extraordinary experience and the public flocked to see it. Important visitors were taken round by Walpole, while others would receive various (and sometimes questionable) tours from Walpole’s housekeeper, Margaret, who profited from the takings. Enthusiasts no doubt count the days until Strawberry Hill is once again open to the public. Until then, the Yale Center for British Art, as the only U.S. venue for the exhibition, will offer a unique opportunity to experience Walpole’s Strawberry Hill first hand.

An exhibition entitled  Dearly Departed: Women and Mourning 1680 – 1918 will be presented August 15th – October 31st at the Tioga County Historical Society in historic Owego, New York. The exhibition outlines the history of mourning,  told through over 600 pieces of jewelry and other commemorative artifacts.

Many of the pieces on display can be found in the book Mourning Art & Jewelry and in the book Georgian Jewelery 1714-1830. A very rare ring for Napoleon, possibly one of a kind, will be on display. In addition, a Charles the first miniature and two commemorative rings will be displayed. Other highlights include the following items of the popular Princess Charlotte: a ring, medals, cups and saucers, and a teapot.

Over a dozen original lithographs depicting death bed scenes of George Washington, Andrew Jackson and the New York funeral of O’ Connell are a part of the exhibit. Currier and Ives and other lithographers contributed to making it possible for the common person to have a colored memorial for their family depicting a commemorative stone which could be personalized. Examples will be on display.

A locally made Cruciform Casket patented design 1884 will be displayed along with stereo cards of the historic Evergreen Cemetery now on the national register.

A full color 48 page catalog is available for this exhibit from Tioga County Historical Society for $18.00 plus postage $3.25. (NY state must add tax $1.44 ). To order a copy:

Send a check or money order to:
TIOGA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY
110 Front Street, Owego , New York 13827

Or visit the website and order via PayPal:  http://www.tiogahistory.org/dearly%20departed.html .

The show was covered on Fox News: http://www.wicz.com/news/video.asp?video=09+10+09+wom%2Ewmv%2Eflv&zone=News

The Columbus Museum in Columbus, Georgia has  acquired a new portrait miniature, c. 1790, attributed to Ebenezer Mack (1765-1833).  One miniature by Ebenezer Mack is held in the Smithsonian collection, one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one in the New York Historical Society, and one in the Cheekwood Museum of Art.  Portrait miniatures by Mack are extremely rare, and little is known about him. 

Curator Kristen Zohn says: “A portrait at the New York Historical Society (NYHS) is used to make attributions to Mack. The NYHS piece came into that collection with an attribution to Mack, and it corresponds to a group of miniatures painted by a very distinctive hand. None of the miniatures that have been attributed to him have been signed, and so experts rely on easily recognizable “stylistic fingerprints.” Portrait miniature expert Edward Sheppard has stated that these include: the use of an unusually heavy stipple, both in the features and the background; the “woolly” look to the hair; the lack of strong modeling in the facial features; and a rather distinctive palette including the use of a brown and slightly grey stipple in the facial highlights.”  The initial attribution to Ebenezer Mack was made by long-time collector Don Shelton, when shown an image of the piece by the curator, and that attribution was then confirmed by several other experts.

Mack’s newspaper advertisements placed him in Philadelphia in 1785 and 1788, and in New York 1791 through 1808. 1  Brief mention of him is made in John Smibert: Colonial America’s First Portrait Painter:  “Trumbull rented [Smibert's Boston] studio in 1779 and made use of whatever remained of Smibert’s library…[and]…over the course of the next sixteen years at least six more artists–Mather Brown (1780), Ebenezer Mack (1780), Joseph Dunkerly [sic] (1780), Samuel King (c 1780-1785), John Mason Furnass (1785) and John Johnston (1795) held sway in the studio.” 2  This would also place Mack in Boston in 1780.

It is interesting to note that Joseph Dunkerley and Ebenezer Mack were recorded as using Smibert’s studio in the same year, as the slight similarities in their style could lead one to conjecture that Mack may have studied informally with Dunkerley.

Additionally, another prominent miniaturist of the time, William Verstille, was active in Philadelphia and New York in the 1780s, and his work at times bears a resemblance to Mack’s work .  Mack could have well crossed paths with Verstille during this time, and studied with him. The Ebenezer Mack miniature of  Jasper Ely Cropsey, c. 1794, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [below], looks very like miniatures by Verstille [see example below.]  It is also interesting to note that the gold frame for the Cropsey miniature by Mack looks very similar to several frames on Verstille’s miniatures. Verstille was a goldsmith as well as a miniaturist, and may well have made some frames for Mack’s miniatures, much as Paul Revere did for Dunkerley’s miniatures.

A further detail of interest is that the yellow vest embroidered with red and blue worn by the sitter in this newly acquired museum piece is virtually a twin to the embroidered yellow vest of a male sitter in a miniature by Ebenezer Mack sold by dealer Elle Shushan several years ago.  Ed Sheppard has conjectured that perhaps Mack kept this vest in his studio for male sitters to wear, and I conjectured that perhaps the two sitters were from the same family (wearing vests embroidered by the same sister or mother). It appears that in general yellow vests with embroidery were in vogue at this time, since another appears on a Verstille sitter (below), and the  Mack of Cropsey (below).

Portrait of a Gentleman, attributed to Ebenezer Mack, c. 1790.

Watercolor on ivory. 2 ¾ x 2 ¼ inches. Active in New York and Philadelphia 1785-1808.
Collection of the Columbus Museum, Georgia. Museum purchase made possible by
the Art Acquisitions and Restoration Fund.

Jasper Ely Cropsey, by Ebenezer Mack, c. 1794, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gentleman, by William Verstille, c. 1790. Note similarity of this frame to the Mack miniature of Cropsey.

1. Dates for newspaper advertisements via a previous website listing for an Ebenezer Mack portrait miniature, catalogued by Elle Shushan.

2.  John Smibert: Colonial America’s First Portrait Painter, by Richard H. Saunders, Yale University Press, p. 125.

I received the following information from the curator of Liberty Hall Historic Site in Kentucky about two stolen miniatures, and am posting it here. Please contact the curator if you feel you’ve seen these miniatures:

Our site consists of two historic homes: Liberty Hall (1796) built by John Brown, one of Kentucky’s first United States Senators, and the Orlando Brown House (1835), owned by Senator Brown’s second son.

This weekend, two of our miniature portraits from Liberty Hall were stolen. Several museum professionals referenced you for your knowledge of portrait miniatures and suggested that I contact you with information regarding our missing miniatures. It is hard to guess where our miniatures have gone, but I would like to share details about our miniatures with you in case you are contacted about these pieces or happen to see them.

Miniature portrait of John Brown in a black coat and white ruffled shirt. Painted on ivory and framed in brass. Dimensions: 1.5” x 2.5”. Date: C.1800, attributed to Robert Field.

Miniature portrait of Margaretta Brown in an empire waist dress with a dark blue sash. Painted on ivory and framed in brass. Signed: PH 1800 in lower right. Dimensions: 2” x 3”. Date: C.1800, attributed to Pierre Henri.

Sincerely,

Beth Ann Caffery
Curator of Collections
Liberty Hall Historic Site
202 Wilkinson Street
Frankfort, KY 40601
502-227-2560
curator@libertyhall.org
www.libertyhall.org

The long-awaited volume on the Metropolitan Museum’s collection of American portrait miniatures will be released next January, and is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

American Portrait Miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This volume catalogues the world’s most comprehensive collection of American portrait miniatures, ranging in date from the early 18th to the 20th century and representing 155 artists. Jewel-like and intimate, the pieces portray spouses, children, and other loved ones and were usually created for personal use. The Museum’s collection is also significant for its self-portraits by artists and for portraits of notable public figures. Each of the nearly six hundred works is illustrated and described in detail, and a biography and bibliography are provided for each artist. An introductory essay conveys the history of the collection.

About the Author
Carrie Rebora Barratt is Curator, American Paintings and Sculpture, and Manager of The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art, and Lori Zabar is Research Associate, American Paintings and Sculpture, both at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
________________________________________

Product Details
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art (January 12, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030014895X
• ISBN-13: 978-0300148954