The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, July 1885, No. 10

by Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle; Chautauqua Institution

Although it is generally thought by those who hear of this school, and always in connection with the Museum, that it is a department of the institution, yet in fact it is only partially under the control of the trustees.

It will be remembered that the Museum was not made all at once, and out of whole cloth, so to speak, but was formed by bringing together certain collections already existing—the Athenæum casts and pictures, and the Gray collection of engravings, for instance, and by offering hospitality to certain projects connected with the study of the arts, which were in the air, but which could not take shape without some such help as an institution could give.

As my readers know, the Museum became a fact in 1876, but two years earlier, in 1874, there had been earnest talk about a school of drawing and painting, and though nothing was actually done, yet the ground was prepared by much discussion for establishing such a school on right principles of theory and practice when the time should come for doing something. The Museum once established, the trustees conferred with those of their fellow-citizens who had been urging the foundation of a school; the trustees offered rooms in the new building, the others raised the necessary funds to equip the school, and on Tuesday, January 2, 1877, the school was opened.

The school is under the control of a permanent committee, consisting of four painters, three architects, the three principal officers of the Museum, and two other gentlemen. The rooms occupied by the school are in the basement of the building; they are well lighted, warmed, and ventilated, and are furnished with all the necessary means and appliances for instruction, while the pupils have, in addition to the excellent teaching provided for them in the school itself, the advantage of free access to the permanent collections of the Museum, as well as to the special exhibitions that, from time to time, take place in the building. The school holds a high rank among similar institutions in the country; it is under the able and high minded management of Mr. Frederic Crowninshield, and it is sincerely to be hoped that before long it may find itself in quarters more ample, and better suited to the dignity of so important a factor in the culture of the community. At the same time the hope may be expressed, that the school and the Museum may never part company, but that their relations, on the contrary, may grow closer and stronger, and that in time the school may become an active part of the foundation, and be put under the complete control of the trustees. There could not be a better place for students than an institution like this, where daily seeing the finest forms of antique art, and constantly increasing opportunities for acquaintance with good modern work, illustrate and strengthen the lessons learned in the school itself.

Immediately in front of the visitor as he enters the Museum rises the ample staircase that leads to the upper rooms. The stairs mount in a broad flight in the middle of the hall, to the first landing, where they divide, and returning on themselves finish the ascent in two flights, one at the right hand and the other at the left. On this first landing was at one time placed a handsome original example of the carved settles or benches of the Italian Renaissance, but this has now been replaced by a cast of the reclining female figure called Cleopatra, but to which the name of Ariadne is now more commonly given. The original marble is in the Vatican. This cast is one of those purchased with the bequest of the late Charles Sumner. On the walls of the staircase and of the upper hall several pictures are hung, among them a few that have, at least for Americans, a historic interest. Here are the “Belshazzar’s Feast” of Washington Allston, a picture at one time much talked and written about, and which played an important part in the artist’s life; the “St. Peter delivered from Prison,” by the same painter; the “King Lear” of Benjamin West, and the “Sortie from Gibraltar” of Jonathan Trumbull. Of course these pictures are only placed here for a time, until the Museum building shall be enlarged, for when all deductions have been made on the score of artistic merit that sound criticism can demand, they will still remain as monuments in our development, and as such deserve to be hung where they can be better seen.

Lack of room crowds into the hall of this second story a number of small works, such as the collection of water-color copies from the pictures of Dutch and Italian masters made for the late Mr. Douse, and by him bequeathed to the Athenæum. They are of little value except as memoranda, and might as well be removed from their frames, mounted, and consigned to the custody of portfolios in the print-room.

Of far more value are the drawings in chalk, in pencil, and in pastel by the late J. F. Millet, belonging to Mr. Martin Brimmer; they were among the first things loaned to the Museum, and they still remain among the most valuable for delight and for instruction. At the same end of the hall, and so placed that the light from the large window is most advantageous to it, is placed a cast of the second of the Gates, made by Lorenzo Ghiberti for the Baptistery in Florence.

At the left hand, as we leave the stairs, is the entrance to the extensive loan-collections which fill all but one of the rooms on this side of the building. Although they are directly over the rooms on the first floor, the space they occupy is not so subdivided; we have only four rooms above the five below. The apartment we first enter is a large one, fifty-five feet long by thirty-two wide, and was formerly given up to the pictures which have since been transferred to the answering room on the opposite side of the building. The room opening out of this, at the western end, and of nearly the same size, is devoted to the same object, but it would be impossible within our narrow limits to give an adequate notion of their contents, particularly since, owing to want of space, no scientific arrangement is possible, and the dazed spectator moves about among objects of great value and interest, brought from every clime and belonging to every age, but deprived of much of their value because the key which order gives, is wanting.

The department of textiles, embroideries and laces is full, and of great value, and includes some Italian stuffs and embroideries purchased by the Museum under the direction of the late Alessandro Castellani. There are some fine Flemish tapestries which came from the Château de Neuilly, and a few other pieces of value, but the Museum is richest in that part of the loan collection which belongs to Japan. Dr. W. S. Bigelow has loaned to the Museum his magnificent collection of objects from that country, and it may be said of it that in the field of embroideries, lacquers, swords, sword-mounts, bronzes, ivories, and ceramics, it exhausts the subject. It is now greatly to be desired that some one should undertake the collection of the works of the Japanese artists in painting—a field of great importance, and strangely neglected.

The Museum is rich in specimens of pottery and porcelain of Oriental and European manufacture. In the latter field it is richer than the Metropolitan Museum of New York, but the Avery collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain in the New York Museum is finer in quality and more complete in its representative character than anything the Boston Museum has. It is also far more attractively displayed. The collection of Captain Brinckley, of Japan, of eight hundred and forty-two pieces of Chinese and Japanese porcelain, loaned to the Boston Museum since 1884 is, however, an acquisition of great value and artistic interest, and although not particularly well displayed is instructively arranged and classified.