Month: March 2018

Album with earliest Harriet Tubman picture digitized

Modern(ish), Museums

The Library of Congress, ever on the ball, has completed the digitization of abolitionist Emily Howland’s carte-de-visite album. The 48 pictures date to the 1860s and include the earliest extant portrait of Harriet Tubman. The Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture pooled their resources and bought the album at auction a year ago for $162,500 (including fees).

Since then, the album has been thoroughly conserved by LoC experts. Its damaged cover was reattached, the leather was conditioned and treated and each picture was cleaned. Researchers have scoured records and identified all but three of the sitters. Digitization specialists from the Library and the Smithsonian, both of which have been at the forefont of efforts to digitize their collections, have scanned the portraits in high resolution and uploaded them to the LoC website.

There are a number of prominent abolitionists, both people she knew personally (Colonel Charles W. Folsom, Charles Sumner) and celebrities (Charles Dickens, Princess Dagmar, Empress of Russia). Harriet Tubman’s photograph depicts her as a stylish woman in her 40s just after the Civil War, not with the care-worn visage of her older years that is usually associated with her.

Also in the Howland album is the only known photograph of John Willis Menard, the first African American man elected to the United States House of Representatives. He was never seated because his opponent contested the election results even though Menard had won a clear majority of the vote and the House denied him his seat based solely on the color of his skin. Future president James Garfield, then a Representative from Ohio’s 19th district, and a strident abolitionist who was pro-Reconstruction and pro-universal male suffrage, stated so outright when he said “it was too early to admit a Person of Color to the U.S. Congress.” Menard delivered a speech advocating he be seated, making him the first African American to address Congress. Even though his opponent Caleb Hunt did not address the chamber, when it came time for the House to vote on which candidate to seat, neither one of them got close to the necessary majority.

Not all of Emily Howland’s friends and colleagues in the album were pioneers, heroes and icons. Poor Susie Bruce was one of her protéges, a student who lived with her for the school year and whom she arranged to send to Oberlin College to continue her education. Howland insisted that her mentees work to pay for their room and board, however, so that they wouldn’t be distracted by boys and pretty clothes, and Susan was sickly — she suffered from a chronic “side ache” — and neither a great student nor capable of accomplishing all the tasks set to her in her off-hours. Also she liked pretty clothes.

When Susie got sicker and Emily received reports from her host that she wasn’t working at all hard, Howland had her withdraw from college before her freshman year was over. She returned to Washington, now very seriously ill, and four months later she was dead, felled by an undiagnosed “disease in her bowels” that was had been the source of her mysterious side ache. Emily wrote this rather faint praise about Susie after her death: “So all is over, hopes, fears and plans, the grave ends all. I think she would not have disappointed me could she have lived.”

She was doubtless happier with another of her protéges pictured in the album, Sidney Taliaferro. She was the daughter of freedman Benjamin Taliaferro whose extended family Emily had settled on a large parcel of land she bought in Northumberland County, Virginia. This was her way of keeping the broken “40 acres and a mule” promises. If the government wouldn’t acquire land for freedmen, then she would. She had a school built there, the Howland Chapel School, to educate their children. (The building is still standing today largely unaltered and on the National Register of Historic Places.) Sidney did so well that Emily brought her up north to attend a secondary school run by a relative of hers in New York state and then onto college. She became a school teacher too, and after a few years in Maryland, returned to Virginia and taught at the Howland School. When Emily was in advanced age, she gave the teacher’s cottage she had built and 14 acres of land to Sidney and her husband Chester Boyer.

“Now people in our nation’s capital and around the world can see these important figures from American history and learn more about their lives,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “We are proud this historic collaboration with the Smithsonian has made these pictures of history available to the public online.”

The public will have a chance to view the rare album for the first time in person at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in a special exhibit later this year. The digital images also will be presented through the museum’s website.

“This photo album allows us to see Harriet Tubman in a riveting, new way; other iconic portraits present her as either stern or frail. This new photograph shows her relaxed and very stylish. Sitting with her arm casually draped across the back of a parlor chair, she’s wearing an elegant bodice and a full skirt with a fitted waist. Her posture and facial expression remind us that historical figures are far more complex than most people realize. This adds significantly to what we know about this fierce abolitionist. And that’s a good thing,” said Lonnie G. Bunch III, the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Bought for $20, little teapot with big history sells huge

Modern(ish)

The little white and blue porcelain teapot, just three inches high, was cracked, chipped, the handle had broken off and been glued back together in several places and it was missing its lid. Still, one man’s trash is another’s treasure, and one man (who has chosen to remain anonymous) thought there was something unusual about it. He figured what the hell, and submitted an online bid of £15 for it at a 2016 auction in Lincolnshire, England, making him 20 dollars poorer and one somewhat busted old teapot richer. The buyer consigned it to auctioneers Woolley & Wallis in Salisbury and their experts began to research in the hope of identifying the cracked, lidless teapot.

They discovered that it is one of only seven known extant pieces of porcelain produced by John Bartlam of Cain Hoy, South Carolina, in the late 1760s. All six of the other Bartlam porcelains were also found and sold in England. They are believed to be part of a complete set that was sent to England for promotional purposes shortly after its manufacture. The teapot is Chinoiserie, employing Chinese motifs like two men in a sampan, cranes standing beneath trees, the Man on the Bridge pattern, and islands with pagodas.

The two cranes vignette proved key to the identification. They are Sandhill Cranes, native not to China but to South Carolina, and they stand alongside Salbas Palmetto trees, not the traditional pine trees of Chinese design. The Salbas Palmetto is the state tree of South Carolina. It seems that the printmaker was inspired by a Chinese design but then replaced the far eastern species with native flora and fauna. John Bartlam, who was born in England and trained as a potter in Staffordshire, moved to South Carolina in the 1760s to set up shop taking advantage of its plentiful supply of kaolin clay and its wealthy, fashionable clientele willing to spend big money on porcelain, at this point all of it imported.

In the past 10 years or so, following archaeological excavations at the site of his factory, scholars have recognized that Bartlam’s porcelain was the first to be produced in America, predating the better-known Bonnin and Morris wares made in Philadelphia from 1770 to 1772. This Salisbury auction house was therefore offering what is thought to be the oldest known American porcelain teapot.

“It’s extraordinarily important for many, many reasons,” said Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, the Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang curator of American decorative arts in the American Wing of the Met. The teapot’s use of local clays “represents the entrepreneurial spirit of 18th-century America,” Ms. Frelinghuysen said.

“It proclaims Bartlam’s success in mastering the medium,” she added. “Porcelain was the holy grail of ceramics.”

And so what may well be the oldest porcelain teapot made in America went up for auction in Salisbury, England, with a modest pre-sale estimate of £10,000 to £20,000 (ca. $14,000-28,000). Interest in this exceptionally rare piece was high and after the last two bidders duked it out, the teapot sold for a hammer price of £460,000 (about $637,000). Once you add the fees, the $20 find cost the new owner £575,000, about $806,000. The winning bid was made by London art dealer Rod Jellicoe, beating out an American private collector for the coveted prize. The film of the lot being sold is downright gripping, the way the bids skyrocket while the auctioneer tries to keep a handle on her own excitement.

Jellicoe turns out to have been representing the Metropolitan Museum of Art, so the piece is homeward bound, assuming there are no contretemps securing an export license. It would be an interesting argument for the Culture Minister to make, that the teapot made in what was then a British colony is of national significance and British museums should be given the chance to acquire it even though that would prevent its return to its native land. I doubt it would happen. Britain is lousy with historic teapots. This one’s significance is specific to its origin in what is now the US.

Girl with a Pearl Earring and a macro-XRF scan

Modern(ish), Museums

Johannes Vermeer’s 1665 masterpiece Girl with a Pearl Earring will be introduced to the latest and greatest technologies in a new study that will take place in the glorious Golden Room of the Mauritshuis in full view of the public. The Girl in the Spotlight project will examine Vermeer’s iconic bejeweled maiden using state-of-the-art scientific tools and methodologies. It’s the first time the painting has been examined since it was last conserved in 1994, and while no new conservation needs have developed in the 25 years since then, researchers want to take advantage of the great leaps forward in technology to learn more about how Vermeer painted the work and the materials he used.

The project began on February 26th and runs through March 11th. The research team includes experts from the Rijksmuseum, the Delft University of Technology, the University of Antwerp and Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) as well other international institutions and the Mauritshuis’ own researchers. The first step is an intensively detailed scan over the course of several days with a macro-X-ray fluorescence scanner. The MA-XRF machine scans the painting one millimeter at a time creating a detailed map beyond anything that could have been conceived in 1994.

Because Girl will not be in her usual place in the gallery during the two weeks of the study, the Mauritshuis created a glass-walled studio within its Golden Room so that visitors could still catch a glimpse of her. She will be difficult to see at times, depending on what analysis she’s being subjected to, so museum staff put a 3D reproduction of the painting up in her regular spot to give visitors something interesting to view up close and capture in pictures even as they enjoy the unique opportunity to see the real Girl with a Pearl Earring undergoing examination with all kinds of bells and whistles. The company that created the repro, Océ, used a proprietary system they call “elevated printing” which layers ink on the surface to create a dead-on accurate impression of the impasto, texture and brushstrokes, not just a flattened image of the original.

The Girl with a Pearl Earring will go back on display in Room 15 on March 12th. Two days before then, on March 10th, the museum will offer public lectures by conservator and head researcher Abbie Vandivere and curator Lea van der Vinde that will explain everything we know about the painting and the study taking place in the Golden Room.

The information they’ll be able to convey is limited because it’s going to take a while to analyze all the data. The final results will be published when the analysis is complete. Meanwhile, you can follow along with the research, which will be taking place 24 hours a day, not just during museum hours, on Abbie Vandivere’s outstanding blog. She posts daily updates on the work they’re doing, the tech they’re using, sharing her conservator’s eye view with fascinating photos of what she sees in the microscope, the painting’s history at the museum from acquisition through multiple restorations and tons more. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the job of painting conservator at one of the greatest museums in the world entails, then this blog will kick raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens right off the list and be your new favorite thing.

Rome Metro construction reveals centurion’s villa

Ancient

Archaeologists have unearthed the large, luxuriously appointed 2nd century domus of a Hadrianic military commander at the Amba Aradam station on Rome’s future Metro C line. This is the same site where the military barracks were discovered in 2016, and in fact the villa is connected to the barracks dormitory via a corridor with a staircase. The villa was found 12 meters (40 feet) below the surface, three meters beneath the barracks. This is the first villa of a military commander ever discovered in Rome.

The domus is an imposing 300 square meters (3,230 square feet) in area over least 14 rooms. They are lavishly decorated with black and white mosaic floors with floral motifs, animals (a very smart-faced owl among them) and a scene of a satyr and a winged Cupid either fighting or frolicking. The villa also boasts marble tiles in contrasting colors and frescoed walls. One of the rooms was heated, likely a private bath, as evidenced by the telltale piles of bricks under the flooring that allowed the heated air to circulate. As was typical of the Roman villa, the rooms were arranged around the atrium, a square courtyard in the middle of the house in which archaeologists found the remains of a fountain.

On the other side of the barracks is another structure built later than the barracks and commander’s house. Replete with brick pavements, water conduits and tubs, the building appears to have been a service area where supplies were stored and kept as cool as possible. There archaeologists also discovered surviving wood objects, mainly construction tools like the forms used to build the foundations and discarded carpenter’s beams. The team has also found everyday use objects, gold rings, the carved ivory handle of a dagger, amulets and bullae that have helped archaeologists create a timeline of the remains and identify numerous reconstructions of the compound over the years.

Like the barracks, the domus and service area were abandoned and, the second half of the 3rd century, they were destroyed, their walls cut down to four-foot stumps. This likely took place in 271 A.D. when the Aurelian Walls were being fortified and anything outside of the perimeter that could provide refuge and access to the enemy was demolished.

The black and white mosaics, marble floors, fountain and frescoed walls that remain are too fragile to be left in situ while the new station is built underneath it. Therefore the entire site be dismantled, moved to a temporary location and then returned to their original location.

You can see some excellent footage of the excavators at work and of the villa in this video:

Slavery Museum acquires painting of abolition icon

Modern(ish), Museums

You’d think paintings of an enchained slave asking “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” would be plentiful. The image of a kneeling enslaved African appealing to our shared humanity appeared on everything from jewelry to snuff boxes to broadsides since its inception as the seal of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in England in 1787. Potter and member Josiah Wedgwood had the idea of making jasperware cameos of that image and slogan as medallions to promote the Society’s goal of abolishing the slave the trade. He manufactured hundreds of them and gave them to his fellow members to distribute. They had an immediate impact, creating one of the first wildly successful political logos and slogans with worldwide reach.

Society co-founder Thomas Clarkson wrote in the second volume of his History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (published in 1807):

“Wedgwood took the seal of the committee, … for his model; and he produced a beautiful cameo, of a less size, of which the ground was a most delicate white, but the Negro, who was seen imploring compassion in the middle of it, was in his own native colour. Mr. Wedgwood made a liberal donation of these, when finished, among his friends. I received from him no less than five hundred of them myself. They, to whom they were sent, did not lay them up in their cabinets, but gave them away likewise. They were soon, like The Negro’s Complaint, in different parts of the kingdom. Some had them inlaid in gold on the lid of their snuff-boxes. Of the ladies, several wore them in bracelets, and others had them fitted up in an ornamental manner as pins for their hair. At length, the taste for wearing them became general; and thus fashion, which usually confines itself to worthless things, was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity, and freedom.”

Even after the trade and slavery itself were abolished in Britain, the abolitionist icon continued to thrive in countries like the US where ending slavery was still a distant prospect. And yet, the symbol was converted into an actual painted subject surprisingly seldom. In the UK, there are only two known. One is in the Wilberforce House Museum in Hull. The other was in a private collection but has now been acquired by the National Museums Liverpool for the International Slavery Museum.

Am Not I A Man and A Brother was painted around 1800 and depicts the enslaved man kneeling against a background of a Caribbean sugar plantation. It was purchased for £50,000 funded by grants from the Art Fund and the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Collecting Cultures program.

Stephen Carl-Lokko, Curator, International Slavery Museum said:

“This acquisition represents the first painting ever to be acquired by National Museums Liverpool to depict the powerful and resonant iconography of abolition and we are very pleased to add it to our collection.

“Resistance is a key part of the history we bring to life in the International Slavery Museum and abolition is a very important part of this wider narrative.

“The painting is a remarkable surviving product of the early phase of the British movement to abolish the Transatlantic Slave Trade during the 18th and 19th century.”

The work is not going on display yet. It needs to undergo conservation first. Conservators expect it will be cleaned up and ready for exhibition by the end of the year.