Ingalls Library & Museum Archives

The East Wing’s decorative arts gallery glitters with silver and gold, glass and porcelain. Without a doubt, the star is the vase Bertin, a magnificent Sèvres porcelain likely to have been exhibited at the 1855 Exposition Universelle (Paris).  Léopold-Jules Gély, sculptor-modeler and decorator at the Sèvres Porcelain Factory, applied pâte-sur-pâte technique, an incredibly labor intensive decoration.

Look closely — an aquatic world carved in white enameled slip is caught in fishing nets and ropes. A fierce-looking lobster and a skate hang with ropes of mussels and an array of crabs and cockle shells, all surrounded by floating ribbons of seaweed.  Oddly, there is a frog hanging by his front foot – what is the artist thinking here, putting this fresh-water fellow into the salty sea? The delicate celadon color of the vase echoes that of sea foam, a color that helped win the manufactory a gold medal at the Exposition.

Curator Stephen Harrison reminds me that the Museum also owns an 1855 Louis-Rémy Robert photograph of the companion piece to the vase, this one decorated with land creatures.  And surprise!  Published in London’s 1855 volume of Art Journal is an engraving based on that photograph.  Go team!

The latest handbook from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s family of publications is Henry Adams’ What’s American about American Art? Excellent color illustrations enhance objects and paintings. Some newly published Cleveland Museum of Art paintings include Fitz Henry Lane’s Harbor of Boston, with the City in the Distance, John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Lisa Colt Curtis, and Grant Wood’s January.

Curator Mark Cole introduces the galleries with a history of collecting American art at CMA, highlighting each museum director’s particular agenda.  He’s included some great stories in these few pages, such as the shockingly low price of Thomas Cole’s View of Schroon Mountain (I’m not telling).  Five ages of American art history are delightfully embellished by Thomas Hart Benton sketches, a poke to one’s funny bone.

Eye-popping canvases by American masters do not disappoint.  Check out Copley’s Portrait of Nathaniel Hurd — did you know that the volume of heraldry before him can be found in the library?  And imagine my surprise when the Massachusetts desk and bookcase doors open to reveal gilded inset niches — like rays of the sun.  Finally, this reader is so very pleased to see Native American art included in this welcome new handbook.

In conjunction with the current exhibition, Streams and Mountains without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art, (June 27 – August 23, 2009) the Ingalls Library and Archives staff has organized a display of photographs, documents and objects from the Museum Archive which provide a glimpse into the many facets of Sherman Lee and his contributions to the museum during his long tenure (1952-1983).

Among the items included in the display is a photograph of Lee placing a time capsule in the façade on the Breuer Building. The trowel accompanying the photograph was used at the cornerstone laying in 1969. A certificate from the French Ordre National de La Légion D’Honneur awarded to Lee in 1966 is displayed along with a “Free Lee” bumper sticker. The bumper sticker was produced by the museum in response to the French government’s international arrest warrant issued for Lee and claiming that the museum’s Poussin painting, Holy Family on the Steps, lacked an export permit.

Other items include a portrait photograph of Charles Lindburgh inscribed to Lee as well as Lee’s college yearbook from American University, 1938. Perhaps the most interesting (and humorous) object on display is a plaster head of Lee. This imitation of the Eleven-headed Guanyin in the museum’s collection was given to Sherman Lee by museum benefactor Katherine White. The 13 heads atop the portrait head of Lee represent the museum trustees. The earplug is a facetious reminder that the museum director did not always listen to the squawkings of his board!

Visitors to the Museum are welcome to view the exhibit during regular library business hours (Tuesday-Friday, 10:00-5:00)

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing, Bonhams is offering this collection of objects related to space exploration.  With over 50 lots related to the Apollo 11 mission, this inaugural auction is certain to draw the interest of both avid and casual fans of space memorabilia.  Browsers of the catalog will be treated to everything from flight plans, ship models, module controllers, a lunar life raft, and even a painting by Astronaut Thomas Patten Stafford.  While a premium is placed on objects which spent time in space, the juxtaposition between object and estimate can be jarring, even comical.  A pocket comb for $2000?  Certainly if it parted astronaut hair in space!  The catalog for the Space Sale is available on the recent acquisitions shelf.  Catalogs of sales related to the Russian space program are also available in the Ingalls Library, from 1996 as well as 1993.

Hidden in the stacks of the Ingalls Library is a real gem, a complete run of the original exhibition catalogues of London’s Royal Academy of Arts.  Founded in 1768 under the patronage of George III to promote arts and design, the Academy produced printed salon catalogues beginning in 1769.  Our twelve volume set once belonged to Lord Joseph Duveen, art dealer to American industrialists. Open the now leather-bound pages and the names of British masters leap out — T. Gainsborough, Sir J. Reynolds,  J. Zoffany, and B. West.  This is contemporary art!  Room-by-room the art is arranged for the viewer, and followed by a list of the “exhibitors, with their places of Abode.”  The Cosways reside in chic Berkeley Square but H(enry) Fuseli is found in St. Martin’s Lane, most likely hanging out with the other artists at Old Slaughter’s Coffee House.

This year, in June 2009, the 241st Royal Academy Exhibition opened with the theme, “Making Space,” the goal to embrace as many different art forms as possible.  Check out wild Damien Hirst’s gleaming silver statue of St. Bartholomew, Cy Twombly’s epic painting of three roses, and for the first time in Academy history an entire gallery devoted to film.  It may seem a leap from 1769, but not really. N5054 .R69 1769-1900

In a tiny jewel of a publication lies a concept developed by curator Willem van Zoetendaal — “to confront period frames with modern photography.”  Frames  revisited: masterpieces of Dutch portrait photography shown in antique frames from the Frits Lugt Collection is an “Exposition-dossier VII” project undertaken by the Neerlandaise Fondation in collaboration with Fondation Custodia in Paris.  The contemporary portraits, identified from A to Z and followed by catalog entries, are captured within Frits Lugt’s wonderfully intricate antique frames.  It is a startling contrast. But the thrill for this reader is the brief history of Dutch frames and prints, “the liason between Picture and Frame.” We’ve had a lot of program discussion in the library about how prints were collected and framed, and many of my questions are answered in this delightful dossier.  My last point — go see Picasso’s Bottle, Glass and Fork in the East Wing.  Our curator William Robinson recently pointed out that a number of paintings were cleaned and reframed, including this one.  And it works beautifully.  Available at TR680 .F715 2005.