Return to Celebrating The American Wing
Celebrating The American Wing: Notable Acquisitions 1980–1999
Facade of the Branch Bank of the United States, 1822–24
Martin E. Thompson (1786–1877)
Originally located at 15 1/2 Wall Street, New York City
Tuckahoe (Westchester County, New York) marble; 43 x 62 ft. (13.1 x 18.9 m)
Gift of Robert W. de Forest, 1924
Diana, 1892–93; this cast 1928
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907)
Bronze, gilt; H. 101 3/4 in., W. 53 1/2 in., D. 14 1/8 in. (H. 258.5 cm, W. 135.9 cm, D. 35.9 cm)
Rogers Fund, 1928 (28.101)
Tall Clock, 1808–12
Thomas Seymour (1771–1848)
Mahogany veneer, mahogany and curly maple, maple inlay (secondary wood: white pine); H. 111 3/4 in., W. 21 1/4 in., D. 9 3/4 in. (H. 283.8 cm, W. 54 cm, D. 24.8 cm)
Purchase, Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Gift, 1998 (1998.12) With all due respect to the horologists whose mechanical genius gave rise to the evolution of the tall case clock, the Museum nonetheless has collected this form primarily for its importance as furniture. Over the past twenty years two of the most outstanding examples of the Federal cabinetmaker's art applied to the tall-clock form—this one and an equally impressive example from Reading, Pennsylvania, displayed on the opposite wall of the gallery of Federal masterpieces in The American Wing—have entered the collection to stand proudly among their peers. Each clock embodies the distinctive features of the style center where it was produced.
Standing over nine feet tall, this majestic clock case may come from the shop of John (ca. 1738–ca.1818) and Thomas Seymour (1771–1848) of Boston. Characteristic of this shop's brilliant work are the lunette inlays of shaded maple that border the door and the lower part of the case, and they are used again to face the plinths below the finials and the richly carved, engaged quarter columns of curled maple on the central shaft. The clockmaker's name is painted on the appropriately oversized thirteen-inch dial, probably the work of one of several local decorative painters. These men found employment in the burgeoning clockmaking industry in and around Boston in the early nineteenth century, which was led by Aaron and Simon Willard of nearby Roxbury and Grafton. Depicted on the clockface are charmingly naive versions of the personifications of the four seasons—standard motifs on imported English dials of the period—and a portrait in the tympanum of an apple-cheeked young girl and her dogs.
Card Table, 1817
Charles-Honoré Lannuier (1779–1819)
Mahogany veneer, white pine, yellow poplar and gilded gesso, vert antique, gilded brass; H. 31 1/8 in., W. 36 in., D. 17 3/4 in. (H. 76.2 cm, W. 91.4 cm, D. 45.1 cm)
Gift of Justine VR Milliken, 1995 (1995.377.1) When a pair of stunningly beautiful card tables were given to the Museum in 1995 by a direct descendant of their original owner, Stephen Van Rensselaer IV of Albany, it was not known that concealed in one of them was the most extraordinary documentation of when, where, and by whom they were made. Since the 1960s the tables had been stored in the attic of a shingle-style summer house in Northeast Harbor, Maine. As a consequence of this environment the old glued joints where the back pillars and gilded caryatid figures joined the upper section and lower sections had dried out and loosened over time. The first order of business in conserving the tables was to disassemble and reglue the joints. To accomplish this the tops, which pivot ninety degrees and fold-open, had to be removed.
When the securing nut on the iron pivot was removed and the top was lifted off of this table, the following inscription, written in a flowing hand, came into view: Fait a New-York/ Le I May 1817/ HL (conjoined) [Made in New-York/ I May 1817/ HL (conjoined)]. Written in French in the hand of Honoré Lannuier, the master cabinetmaker, the inscription personalized this masterpiece and elevated it to another category altogether, distinguishing it as the most remarkable example of a signature series of gilded sculptural tables made in the shop of Federal New York's resident ébéniste de Paris.
Presentation Vase, 1843
New England Glass Company (1818–1888)
Blown glass; H. 13 in. (33 cm)
Purchase, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Hernstadt Gift and Robert G. Goelet Gift, 1980 (1980.69) The engraving on this important presentation vase shows the New England Glass Company with the chimneys of its furnaces—two for glass and one for lead. The earliest known view of the factory, it is identical to the engraving by B. F. Nutting that appeared as the heading on the company's stock certificates. Engraved on the opposite side of the vase is the inscription: "from / Henry Whitney / to / Thomas Leighton / East Cambridge / August 1843 / A token of grateful remembrance." Henry Whitney served as agent or manager of the glassworks from 1825 until about 1845, and Thomas Leighton became its chief gaffer and superintendent in 1826. Both men were notable figures not only in the New England Glass Company but in the history of American glassmaking as well. This vase, which presumably was presented to Leighton on his retirement from the firm in 1843, has descended in his family.
Signature Quilt, begun 1856
Adeline Harris (Sears) (1839–1931)
Silk; 77 x 80 in. (195.6 x 203.2 cm)
Purchase, William Cullen Bryant Fellows Gift, 1996 (1996.4) In 1856, seventeen-year-old Adeline Harris, the daughter of a well-to-do Rhode Island mill owner, conceived of a unique quilt-making project. She sent small diamond-shaped pieces of white silk worldwide to people she esteemed as the most important figures of her day, asking each to sign the silk and return it to her. By the time that, many years later, the signatures were all returned and ready to be stitched into a "tumbling-blocks" quilt, Adeline had amassed a truly astounding collection of autographs. She had the signatures of eight American presidents; luminaries from the worlds of science, religion, and education; heroes of the Civil War; authors such as Charles Dickens and Ralph Waldo Emerson; and an array of artists. Today, the choice of signatures included in this immaculately constructed quilt provides us with an intriguing glimpse into the way an educated New England woman of the mid-nineteenth-century viewed the world.
Dogwood, ca. 1900–1915
Tiffany Studios (1900–1932)
Leaded favrile glass; 100 x 56 in. (254 x 142.2 cm)
Gift of Frank Stanton, in memory of Ruth Stephenson Stanton, 1995 (1995.204) This window demonstrates Tiffany's true genius in glass. Its asymmetrical composition acknowledges his admiration for Japanese art, but nature was Tiffany's primary inspiration. The window convincingly conveys the appearance of a dogwood tree—the branches and blossoms seen behind a trellis—with a generalized spring landscape beyond. It incorporates a rich assemblage of specially textured and shaded glasses perfected by Tiffany's studios, from fractured, or "confetti," glass to the rippled glass that simulates the texture of the dogwood blossoms. Bicolored, mottled opalescent glass conveys modeling and shadow. To achieve further depth of color, glass plating occurs on the back, sometimes several layers thick.
The Contest for the Bouquet: The Family of Robert Gordon in their New York Dining Room, 1866
Seymour Joseph Guy (1824–1910)
Oil on canvas; 24 5/8 x 29 1/2 in. (62.5 x 74.9 cm)
Purchase, Gift of William E. Dodge, By Exchange, and Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1992 (1992.128) Born and trained in England, Guy settled in New York in 1854. Typical of his command of lucid form is this charming "conversation piece," or portrait with narrative elements. The painting was commissioned by Robert Gordon, a founding trustee of the Museum who collected American paintings, some of which were displayed in the Renaissance-revival dining room of the Gordon home on West Thirty-third Street, New York. (An actual Renaissance-revival dining room is on view in The American Wing's Gallery 121.) This ambitious, multifigured canvas is rare in Guy's oeuvre.
Mrs. Hugh Hammersley, 1892
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925)
Oil on canvas; 81 x 45 1/2 in. (205.7 x 115.6 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Douglass Campbell, in memory of Mrs. Richard E. Danielson, 1998 (1998.365) Mrs. Hammersley, the twenty-nine-year-old fashionable London hostess and wife of a banker, is lightly poised on an elegant French sofa. This painting verified Sargent's skills among potential (but reluctant) English patrons when it appeared in London in 1893. The positive reviews it received there and in an exhibition in Paris in 1894 finally quashed the misgivings that his Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau) (16.53; see the online collection) had aroused in 1884. Financial reverses compelled the sitter's widowed husband to sell the painting in 1923. It was purchased at Sargent's suggestion by Charles Deering, an American friend of the artist, in whose family it descended. Its arrival at the Museum permitted a far more complete account of Sargent's accomplishments as a portraitist.
The Water Garden, 1909 (this work on view through March 2000)
Childe Hassam (1859–1935)
Oil on canvas; 24 x 36 in. (61 x 91.4 cm)
Partial and Promised Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Dillon, 1994 (1994.450) This intimate landscape, with its strong rhythmic composition, flattened space, and tapestrylike application of paint, illustrates the modification of Hassam's style at the turn of the century, when he began absorbing Post-Impressionist influences. The painting is thought to have been executed on a friend's East Hampton property. Hassam would later buy his own home in East Hampton, where he spent much of the last sixteen years of his life. The donor of this work, Douglas Dillon, is a longtime trustee who has served the Metropolitan as both president and chairman.