Sometimes it takes outsiders to make people aware of treasures in their own city.
Even longtime Baltimore museum-goers may not have known that 17 works of art by French painter Eugene Delacroix reside here. But four of them, three from the Walters Art Gallery and one from the Baltimore Museum of Art, are in the superb show "Delacroix: The Late Work" now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The show, celebrating the bicentennial of the artist's birth, contains more than 100 paintings and works on paper by Delacroix (1798-1863), one of the greatest artists of the 19th century.
Of American cities, only New York has lent more to this show. Baltimore's contributions outnumber those of Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia itself. Two of the Walters works are considered the best of their kind that Delacroix created. The Baltimore Museum's painting surprisingly comes from the Cone Collection, known for 20th-century art.
Two of the Walters' paintings are religious, "Christ on the Sea of Galilee" (1854) and "Christ on the Cross" (1846). They are among the gallery's six Delacroix works, and William Walters bought them together. "They were in a show of 'The World's 100 Masterpieces,' put together by French critic and dealer Edwin Wolf in 1883," says William R. Johnston, Walters curator of 18th- and 19th-century art.
Between 1840 and 1854, Delacroix created at least six paintings on the subject of "Christ on the Sea of Galilee." They depict the New Testament episode in which Christ, having embarked on the sea with his disciples, was asleep when a fierce storm arose. In a panic, the disciples awoke him; he calmed the storm and rebuked them for lack of faith.
The Walters' is the latest and best Galilee painting. It has the most natural looking arrangement of disciples battling the storm, and the sea and rocky landscape behind are the most beautifully achieved. "The drama of the subject and the drama of the technique reinforce one another," says Johnston. "The painterly technique, with the short, staccato brush strokes, adds to the movement of the whole thing."
Leading Delacroix scholar Lee Johnson, in his critical catalog of Delacroix's paintings, calls this work "the glorious culmination of a singularly beautiful series." He also quotes 19th-century French critic Paul de Saint-Victor, who termed it "the most beautiful seascape of the French school."
Similarly, the Walters' "Christ on the Cross" (1846) is one of a series of late Delacroix works on the Crucifixion subject, of which five are in the Philadelphia show. Johnson calls the Walters painting "the finest of the several versions of the subject painted by Delacroix between 1846 and the end of his life." And he quotes 19th-century art historian Charles Ponsonailhe, who called this work "incontestably one of the most beautiful religious paintings of our time."
The composition of this work is especially well achieved. Groups of figures to left and right form diagonals that meet in the Christ figure, and reds in each of these groups echo the blood of the dying man. And, Johnston remarks, "The way he dissolved forms in light was one of the reasons the moderns revered him so."
The other Walters painting at Philadelphia is "Marfisa and Pinabello's Lady' (1850-1852), one of Delacroix's literary subjects. Taken from the narrative poem "Orlando Furioso" by Italian writer Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533), it depicts an episode in the life of the female warrior Marfisa.
Having given a ride to an old crone, Marfisa encounters another warrior, Pinabello, traveling with a beautiful but insolent young woman who jeers at the crone. Marfisa challenges and unseats Pinabello, then forces the younger woman to disrobe and give the older one her beautiful clothes. Delacroix depicts the moment when the crone snatches the clothes away from the nude young woman.
The nude figure, shown from the back, has interested scholars for its references to earlier works. In the show's catalog, art historian Vincent Pomarede notes its similarity to ancient sculptures, to the figure of Minerva in Raphael's "Judgment of Paris" and to two adaptations of the Raphael by Rubens. "In fact," Pomarede writes, "the figure of Hera (the goddess on the far right) in the later [Rubens] version is similar in both technique and composition - even the hairstyle - to Delacroix's figure of Pinabello's lady."
The BMA painting in Philadelphia (among 11 BMA Delacroix works including seven prints) is "Perseus and Andromeda" (1849-1853). It's a preparatory oil for a later version now owned by the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany, and also in the Philadelphia show. They depict the moment when the Greek hero Perseus flies through the sky to rescue the beautiful Andromeda from a sea monster about to devour her.
Although the Baltimore version is unfinished, BMA curator of painting and sculpture before 1900 Sona Johnston says it has more life than the Stuttgart one. "Ours is a much freer, looser work than the other one," she says. "It's more expressionistic, more dramatic. The other is more resolved, but not as interesting."
The Baltimore painting was bought by Etta Cone in 1937 (her sister and fellow collector Claribel had died in 1929). That was long after the Cone sisters began their collection, early in the century, of modern artists such as Matisse and Picasso. "Maybe Etta thought Delacroix should be represented in the collection because of his importance to later 19th century art," Johnston speculates.
She also notes that the painting came from the collection of Leo Stein. Leo and his sister Gertrude introduced the Cones to a number of the artists they collected. "Etta liked the Steins," says Johnston. "They had cachet for her."
The Walters Delacroix paintings will not go on view here when they return from Philadelphia, due to the current renovation of the Walters' 1974 building. They will be reinstalled with the rest of the 19th-century collection shortly after the building's expected reopening in 2001. The BMA Delacroix, which has been shown from time to time, may or may not go on view when it returns.
If you go ...
What: "Delacroix: The Late Work"
When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, through Jan. 3.
Where: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th Street at Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia.
Admission: Timed ticket: Tuesdays, $9 adults, $6 seniors, children and students; Wednesdays through Sundays, $10 adults, $7 seniors, children and students. Tickets are available at the museum or by calling 215-235-SHOW. A service charge of $2.75 per ticket is added to phone orders.
Call: 215-684-7500.
The art of lending art
Museums are frequently asked to lend their works of art to exhibitions elsewhere. For the Delacroix show, the request for paintings went to Baltimore Museum of Art curator Sona Johnston and Walters Art Gallery curator William R. Johnston (who are husband and wife).
The main considerations for lending, they say, are the importance of the show, whether the requesting institution has the proper facilities, and whether the work's condition is good enough to allow travel.
"In this case it was a major scholarly undertaking, involving some top scholars in the field, there has not really been a major Delacroix show in a long time, and it was focused on the late works," says William Johnston.
At both institutions, each request gets consideration from the department curator, the curatorial staff in general, the conservation department (sometimes a show's organizers will offer to pay for conservation work), the director and the board of trustees. Requests must come at least a year in advance.
Museums are particularly reluctant to lend their most famous works. "We are mindful of certain works that we feel people come to this city and this museum to see, and would be sorely disappointed if they were not here," says Sona Johnston. "Such as Matisse's 'Blue Nude' or Van Dyck's 'Rinaldo and Armida.' It would have to be a pretty special show."
Pub date 10/18/98