100 Top Treasures
November 2007
38 Interior View
When the famous French silhouettist Auguste Edouart visited Boston in 1841, he had his wife posed with Samuel Appleton and two other visitors in the Appleton home on Beacon Hill. "The resulting silhouette he rendered is so important because so few scenes of Boston interiors of the period exist," says Richard Nylander, senior curator of Boston-based Historic New England, which purchased the work from a private dealer in April. "What we’re seeing is a Boston interior of the 1820s, since the family had been living there since then," adds Nylander, who would not reveal the purchase price, though he did cite the sale of an Edouart silhouette at a Sotheby’s New York auction in 2006 for $90,000. Appleton’s connections with Historic New England are through his brother Nathan, whose grandson, William Sumner Appleton, founded the organization in 1910. —D.M.
39 National Treasure
Since 1847, visitors to the U.S. Capitol have been able to look up into the Rotunda and see John Vanderlyn’s depiction of Christopher Columbus landing in the Americas, one of many iconic scenes painted there. In April, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama acquired Vanderlyn’s circa-1840 "Study for Landing of Columbus," a chalk-and-pencil-on-paper drawing for the later painting, which has twice been reproduced on American postage stamps—one issued in 1869 and the other in 1893 to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival. "The opportunity to own an important original work by John Vanderlyn is exceedingly rare," says Graham Boettcher, curator of American art at the museum, who oversaw the purchase from the Childs Gallery in Boston. "Since the mid-1980s, fewer than 25 original works by Vanderlyn have come up at auction." Some of them have sold, according to auction records, for prices ranging from the low to mid-five figures. —D.M.
40 Bill of Receipt
Good contractors always write up detailed bills of receipt, indicating materials used, costs incurred, procedures followed. When Michelangelo Buonarroti assumed the role of contractor, he was particularly conscientious, especially for the repair of one of his own most important sculptures, "Risen Christ," the masterpiece he completed in 1520 for Rome’s Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Even the best sculptures sometimes need repair, as was recorded by the artist in a document that he wrote and signed on October 26, 1521, and that sold to an anonymous buyer at a December 2006 Sotheby’s, New York auction for $576,000 (the sale included two additional documents, written in Latin, from two of his patrons, popes Clement VII and Julius III). Michelangelo employed two fellow sculptors to finish decorative details on the work and build a tabernacle for it, as well as to make repairs to some of the "folds" in the marble. In the letter, Michelangelo names his banker, agent and fees paid to the workers: 4 gold ducats to one and 3 to the other. —D.M.
41 Love Story
In the beginning, there was the drawing of "Adam and Eve" by Albrecht Dürer that the Morgan Library has long considered to be among its most important and valuable works on paper. Then, as of September 2006, there was the Dürer print of the primordial couple that the library purchased from the dealer Robert M. Light for an undisclosed sum, likely in the high six figures, at least. This new acquisition is what is known as an early impression of the second state of the print—a printing that was made after the artist had reworked the original plate in 1504. Upon announcing the purchase, the Morgan’s director, Charles E. Pierce Jr., commented, "We had to buy this print of ‘Adam and Eve’ because we had the original drawing and because it was unlikely that such a pristine impression would appear on the art market again anytime soon. Together, they make an extraordinary statement about Dürer’s creative genius." —D.M.
42 Wildlife Observed
Rembrandt Bugatti was a member of an illustrious family: His father Carlo was an Art Nouveau furniture designer, and his brother Ettore was renowned for designing race cars. Rembrandt became a master of animal sculpture, studying his subjects in the Paris and Antwerp zoos, often actually working in the animals’ cages (not the dangerous ones). In December 2006 Sotheby’s New York sold "Babouin Sacre Hamadryas" (c. 1909–10), one of Bugatti’s most important works for $2.2 million. "The baboon is one of Bugatti’s great iconic masterworks, brilliantly displaying the artist’s unique talent of capturing the psychological depth and power of his animalier subjects," says Jodi Pollack, a specialist in Sotheby’s 20th-century design department. The work, which had been consigned by the Genesee Country Village & Museum in Mumford, New York, was purchased by New York dealer French & Company. It is numbered six of only 11 bronze casts known to exist of this model. Others in this series are in the collections of the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. —D.G.
43 Brief Encounter
Auction prices for paintings by the 19th-century French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau have ranged upward of $1 million recently, so it was welcome news when hedge fund manager Steven Cohen and his wife, Alexandra, donated the artist’s "Faun and Bacchante" (1860) to the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, last December. The academically trained painter, who exhibited the work at the Paris Salon in 1861, is best-known for his paintings of mythological and biblical subjects and sentimental genre scenes. The two figures in classical poses are meticulously detailed, in contrast to the landscape and foreground, which are rendered more freely. Peter Sutton, the museum’s executive director, says, "We are pleased to receive this picture at a time when Bouguereau’s reputation has benefited from a dramatic revival and there is more appreciation of 19th-century art." The work has an unusual provenance. It was purchased in 1958 by William and Frances Haussner, who displayed it in their Baltimore restaurant for many years. —D.G.
44 Color Identity
Their goal, according to one news report, was to "find works of singular quality that moves them." Kenneth C. Griffin, managing director and CEO of the Citadel Investment Group, and his wife, Anne, must have been very moved the day that Paul Gray, a director of the Richard Gray Gallery, which has branches in both Chicago and New York, took the Windy City couple to Los Angeles to see the Jasper Johns painting "False Start" (1959). The Griffins were struck by the exuberant canvas, considered one of the artist’s seminal works, and bought it from deaccessioning collector David Geffen for $80 million, which well may be the highest price for a painting by a living artist. The painting also had an extraordinary provenance, having belonged over the years to noted collectors, such as New York taxi-fleet owner Robert Scull and his wife, Ethel; architect François de Menil, heir to an oil-drilling fortune; and media billionaire Samuel I. Newhouse Jr. The painting, with its pyrotechnical bursts of bright blue, red, orange and yellow, is stenciled with the names of the colors on a background of spirited brushwork. Often the colors are falsely identified, with the word "white," for example, superimposed in red paint on a splash of yellow. In style it has elements of both Abstract Expressionism and Pop. —D.K.
45 Acting Beastly
Men are animals—or at least that was the thinking in medieval Europe when the art of making bestiaries (illuminated manuscripts using the characteristics of animals to comment on human behavior) was at its height. Among the supreme examples of such texts is the Northumberland Bestiary, a 13th-century volume that the J. Paul Getty Museum purchased in June from a private dealer for an undisclosed sum. An article in The New York Times quoted experts saying that the price might have been as high as $20 million. "As one of the finest manuscripts of any kind to have been in private hands, the Northumberland Bestiary is a truly rare and special acquisition," remarks Getty manuscripts curator Thomas Kren. "The vigor and spontaneity of the drawings are a hallmark of the period style." Illuminated bestiaries are recognized as some of the most important products of English medieval art, and the Northumberland Bestiary is one of the three prime examples still in existence; the others reside in the Morgan Library and the British Library. —D.M.
When the famous French silhouettist Auguste Edouart visited Boston in 1841, he had his wife posed with Samuel Appleton and two other visitors in the Appleton home on Beacon Hill. "The resulting silhouette he rendered is so important because so few scenes of Boston interiors of the period exist," says Richard Nylander, senior curator of Boston-based Historic New England, which purchased the work from a private dealer in April. "What we’re seeing is a Boston interior of the 1820s, since the family had been living there since then," adds Nylander, who would not reveal the purchase price, though he did cite the sale of an Edouart silhouette at a Sotheby’s New York auction in 2006 for $90,000. Appleton’s connections with Historic New England are through his brother Nathan, whose grandson, William Sumner Appleton, founded the organization in 1910. —D.M.
39 National Treasure
Since 1847, visitors to the U.S. Capitol have been able to look up into the Rotunda and see John Vanderlyn’s depiction of Christopher Columbus landing in the Americas, one of many iconic scenes painted there. In April, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama acquired Vanderlyn’s circa-1840 "Study for Landing of Columbus," a chalk-and-pencil-on-paper drawing for the later painting, which has twice been reproduced on American postage stamps—one issued in 1869 and the other in 1893 to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival. "The opportunity to own an important original work by John Vanderlyn is exceedingly rare," says Graham Boettcher, curator of American art at the museum, who oversaw the purchase from the Childs Gallery in Boston. "Since the mid-1980s, fewer than 25 original works by Vanderlyn have come up at auction." Some of them have sold, according to auction records, for prices ranging from the low to mid-five figures. —D.M.
40 Bill of Receipt
Good contractors always write up detailed bills of receipt, indicating materials used, costs incurred, procedures followed. When Michelangelo Buonarroti assumed the role of contractor, he was particularly conscientious, especially for the repair of one of his own most important sculptures, "Risen Christ," the masterpiece he completed in 1520 for Rome’s Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Even the best sculptures sometimes need repair, as was recorded by the artist in a document that he wrote and signed on October 26, 1521, and that sold to an anonymous buyer at a December 2006 Sotheby’s, New York auction for $576,000 (the sale included two additional documents, written in Latin, from two of his patrons, popes Clement VII and Julius III). Michelangelo employed two fellow sculptors to finish decorative details on the work and build a tabernacle for it, as well as to make repairs to some of the "folds" in the marble. In the letter, Michelangelo names his banker, agent and fees paid to the workers: 4 gold ducats to one and 3 to the other. —D.M.
41 Love Story
In the beginning, there was the drawing of "Adam and Eve" by Albrecht Dürer that the Morgan Library has long considered to be among its most important and valuable works on paper. Then, as of September 2006, there was the Dürer print of the primordial couple that the library purchased from the dealer Robert M. Light for an undisclosed sum, likely in the high six figures, at least. This new acquisition is what is known as an early impression of the second state of the print—a printing that was made after the artist had reworked the original plate in 1504. Upon announcing the purchase, the Morgan’s director, Charles E. Pierce Jr., commented, "We had to buy this print of ‘Adam and Eve’ because we had the original drawing and because it was unlikely that such a pristine impression would appear on the art market again anytime soon. Together, they make an extraordinary statement about Dürer’s creative genius." —D.M.
42 Wildlife Observed
Rembrandt Bugatti was a member of an illustrious family: His father Carlo was an Art Nouveau furniture designer, and his brother Ettore was renowned for designing race cars. Rembrandt became a master of animal sculpture, studying his subjects in the Paris and Antwerp zoos, often actually working in the animals’ cages (not the dangerous ones). In December 2006 Sotheby’s New York sold "Babouin Sacre Hamadryas" (c. 1909–10), one of Bugatti’s most important works for $2.2 million. "The baboon is one of Bugatti’s great iconic masterworks, brilliantly displaying the artist’s unique talent of capturing the psychological depth and power of his animalier subjects," says Jodi Pollack, a specialist in Sotheby’s 20th-century design department. The work, which had been consigned by the Genesee Country Village & Museum in Mumford, New York, was purchased by New York dealer French & Company. It is numbered six of only 11 bronze casts known to exist of this model. Others in this series are in the collections of the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. —D.G.
43 Brief Encounter
Auction prices for paintings by the 19th-century French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau have ranged upward of $1 million recently, so it was welcome news when hedge fund manager Steven Cohen and his wife, Alexandra, donated the artist’s "Faun and Bacchante" (1860) to the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, last December. The academically trained painter, who exhibited the work at the Paris Salon in 1861, is best-known for his paintings of mythological and biblical subjects and sentimental genre scenes. The two figures in classical poses are meticulously detailed, in contrast to the landscape and foreground, which are rendered more freely. Peter Sutton, the museum’s executive director, says, "We are pleased to receive this picture at a time when Bouguereau’s reputation has benefited from a dramatic revival and there is more appreciation of 19th-century art." The work has an unusual provenance. It was purchased in 1958 by William and Frances Haussner, who displayed it in their Baltimore restaurant for many years. —D.G.
44 Color Identity
Their goal, according to one news report, was to "find works of singular quality that moves them." Kenneth C. Griffin, managing director and CEO of the Citadel Investment Group, and his wife, Anne, must have been very moved the day that Paul Gray, a director of the Richard Gray Gallery, which has branches in both Chicago and New York, took the Windy City couple to Los Angeles to see the Jasper Johns painting "False Start" (1959). The Griffins were struck by the exuberant canvas, considered one of the artist’s seminal works, and bought it from deaccessioning collector David Geffen for $80 million, which well may be the highest price for a painting by a living artist. The painting also had an extraordinary provenance, having belonged over the years to noted collectors, such as New York taxi-fleet owner Robert Scull and his wife, Ethel; architect François de Menil, heir to an oil-drilling fortune; and media billionaire Samuel I. Newhouse Jr. The painting, with its pyrotechnical bursts of bright blue, red, orange and yellow, is stenciled with the names of the colors on a background of spirited brushwork. Often the colors are falsely identified, with the word "white," for example, superimposed in red paint on a splash of yellow. In style it has elements of both Abstract Expressionism and Pop. —D.K.
45 Acting Beastly
Men are animals—or at least that was the thinking in medieval Europe when the art of making bestiaries (illuminated manuscripts using the characteristics of animals to comment on human behavior) was at its height. Among the supreme examples of such texts is the Northumberland Bestiary, a 13th-century volume that the J. Paul Getty Museum purchased in June from a private dealer for an undisclosed sum. An article in The New York Times quoted experts saying that the price might have been as high as $20 million. "As one of the finest manuscripts of any kind to have been in private hands, the Northumberland Bestiary is a truly rare and special acquisition," remarks Getty manuscripts curator Thomas Kren. "The vigor and spontaneity of the drawings are a hallmark of the period style." Illuminated bestiaries are recognized as some of the most important products of English medieval art, and the Northumberland Bestiary is one of the three prime examples still in existence; the others reside in the Morgan Library and the British Library. —D.M.
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