55 in the library: Henry James to Ariana Curtis, July 10, 1892, in James, Barbaro, 121.
56 “Venetian slave”: Henry James to ISG, September 3, 1892, ISGMA.
56 “splendid ceilings”: Henry James, The Wings of the Dove (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1977), 282.
57 “for household expenses”: ISG to BB, May 25, 1900, Letters, 217.
57 paid for the Vermeer: Samuels, Connoisseur, 207.
57 “of the fifteenth century”: Laurence Kanter in Chong et al., Eye, 69.
58 fellow students and friends: See Samuels, Connoisseur: “Wanting social position and wealth, he had only one resource, intellect, cerebral power, and he learned to flaunt it as others did their wealth,” 169.
58 reverence for beauty: Denys Sutton makes a similar observation, in a review of The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1887–1924, Burlington Magazine, 130, no. 1026 (September 1988), 710.
58 “I wish you to buy”: BB to ISG, August 1, 1895, Letters, 42.
58 “for the Guardi”: ISG to BB, February 2, 1896, ibid., 48.
59 “invented tone”: BB to ISG, May 12, 1895, ibid., 41.
60 permitted to live: Samuels, Connoisseur, 2–3.
60 “life of the village”: Ibid., 3.
60 “you and your friends”: Ibid., 16.
61 “a Previtali”: Bernard Berenson, Sketch for a Self Portrait (New York: Pantheon, 1949), 60.
61 “tender melody”: BB to ISG, July 4, 1888, Letters, 24.
61 “next two years”: BB to ISG, March 11, 1894, ibid., 38.
62 “in fact many things”: ISG to BB, March 15, 1894, ibid., 38.
62 “is almost everything”: Bernhard Berenson, The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894), ix, x, 13, 61.
63 “all over Europe”: Berenson, Venetian Painters, xii–xiii.
63 “scientific connoisseurship”: Morelli introduced his theories in 1874 in a German journal, Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, under the pseudonym Ivan Lermolieff.
63 “air of infallibility”: Bode, The Fortnightly Review (October 1891), 119, in Jaynie Anderson, “The Political Power of Connoisseurship in Nineteenth-Century Europe,” Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1996), 118.
63 “national museums”: Anderson, Connoisseurship, 107.
63 fluid and controversial: David Alan Brown, Bernard Berenson and the Connoisseurship of Italian Painting (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1979), 15. “While many of Berenson’s attributions have been overturned, many others were perceptive, given what was known about the artist at the time.”
64 “an Eliot”: BB to Senda Berenson, 1889, in Samuels, Connoisseur, 91.
64 “an honest penny”: BB to ISG, April 28, 1889, Letters, 31.
64 buying and selling of art: Brown, Berenson, 17. “Scholarship always went together with collecting and dealing until the relatively recent time when art history became a well-established academic discipline.”
64 glamorous expatriate: Meyer Schapiro called him “an aristocratic preeminence as an arbiter of taste” in, “Mr. Berenson’s Values,” Theory and Philosophy of Art: Style, Artist and Society (New York: George Braziller, 1994), 214.
65 “in classifying plants”: “The New Art Criticism,” Atlantic (August 1895), in Samuels, Connoisseur, 214.
65 coauthor: Samuels, Connoisseur, 169.
67 “Giorgione”: Bernhard Berenson, February 7, 1895, Venetian Painting Chiefly Before Titian at the Exhibition of Venetian Art, The New Gallery, 1895, 2, 35.
67 Otto Gutekunst: See Nicholas H. J. Hall, “Old Masters in a New World: Colnaghi and Collecting in America, 1860–1940,” in Colnaghi in America (New York: Colnaghi USA, 1992), 9–18; Donald Garstang, “Colnaghi” in Art, Commerce, Scholarship: A Window into the Art World—Colnaghi 1760 to 1984 (London: P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., 1984), 21.
67 extraordinary European pictures: Patricia Rubin notes that Otto Gutekunst “was responsible for finding many of the important paintings Berenson proposed to Mrs. Gardner’A fact that remained largely or totally unknown to her” in, “Portrait of a Lady: Isabella Stewart Gardner, Bernard Berenson and the Market for Renaissance Art in America,” Apollo, 152, no. 463 (September 2000), 37–44.
68 “feathery trees”: BB to ISG, October 25, 1900, in Letters, 231.
68 “little gem!”: OG to BB, November 1, 1900, Colnaghi. Hall observes that “frequently Berenson’s letters of recommendation follow, almost word for word, Gutekunst’s own letters to Berenson” in “Old Masters,” 13.
68 “self-indulgence and credulity”: Colin Simpson, Artful Partners, Bernard Berenson and Joseph Duveen (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1986), 74.
68 Correggio: OG to BB, July 11, 1900, Colnaghi.
68 Amberger: OG to BB, March 15, 1901, Colnaghi.
68 “fancy & longing”: OG to BB, December 15, 1897, Colnaghi.
69 “common life”: William Hazlitt, Picture Galleries of England, 1824, in Art, Commerce, P. & D. Colnaghi, 16.
69 “credit could supply”: William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (New York: Random House, 2001), 506.
69 pieces he wanted: See Stephanie M. Dieckvoss, Wilhelm von Bode and the English Art World, M.A. Thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1995.
70 “schemes and plans of battle”: OG to BB, March 29, 1897, Colnaghi.
70 “at least interest them”: OG to BB, May 6, 1896, Colnaghi.
70 “scarcely write”: OG to BB, March 7, 1901, Colnaghi.
70 “beast & a liar”: Ibid.
70 “not touch it”: OG to BB, February 20, 1901, Colnaghi.
71 “into trouble”: OG to BB, May 5, 1896, Colnaghi.
71 “Mssrs. P. & D. Colnaghi”: C. J. Holmes, Pictures and Picture Collecting in Art, Commerce, P. & D. Colnaghi, 16.
71 “masterpieces only”: BB to ISG, December 18, 1895, Letters, 45.
71 “fun with my Museum”: ISG to BB, July 19, 1896, ibid., 59.
71 “last time”: OG to BB, December 30, 1895, Colnaghi.
72 “National Gallery”: BB to ISG, January 19, 1896, Letters, 47.
72 bought both: Ibid.; ISG to BB, February 2, 1896, ibid., 48.
72 “delicious music”: ISG to BB, April 25, 1896, ibid., 52.
72 “Mrs. Siddons as Tragic Muse”: OG to BB, March 7, 1896, Colnaghi.
72 stormy sky: For The Blue Boy, see Robyn Asleson and Shelley M. Bennett, British Paintings at the Huntington (The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens; New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 104–11.
72 “YEBB”: BB to ISG, April 14, 1896, Letters, 51–52; BB to ISG, April 26, 1896, ibid., 53; ISG to BB, May 7, 1896, ibid., 54.
72 “Crime—as the result”: Ibid.
73 “quietly treated”: OG to BB, February 19, 1896, Colnaghi.
73 “mien peaceful”: Ovid, Metamorphoses, II, 871, in David Carrier, “Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Titian,” Source 20, no. 2 (Winter 2001), 21.
73 “self-preservation”: Erwin Panofsky, Problems in Titian, Mostly Iconographic (New York: New York University Press), 166.
73 “I send to you”: Titian to Philip II, 1562, quoted in Chong et al., Eye, 103.
74 “masters of to-day”: Berenson, Venetian Painters, 47.
74 “1st water”: OG to BB, February 19, 1896, Colnaghi.
74 “whole Orleans gallery”: Francis Haskell, Rediscoveries in Art (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1976), 46–47.
74 Bode had turned the painting down: On June 1, 1895, William McKay wrote Bode, “I think I ought to let you know that Lord Darnley has approached me through a relation with a view to sell his famous picture of Europa by Titian. I understand that you have had the picture under consideration at some time. Before proceeding, I have no doubt, I could buy much cheaper than you.” June 1, 1895, Colnaghi.
74 $100,000: OG to BB, Februa
ry 18, 1896, Colnaghi. “The price is £18,000 but we ought to get £20,000.”
75 “£18,000”: OG to BB, February 19, 1896, Colnaghi.
75 “offer would be entertained”: Lord Bristol to Colnaghi, April 30, 1901, Colnaghi.
75 “1/3 shares”: OG to BB, October 23, 1895, Colnaghi.
76 “able to see it!?”: OG to BB, April 11, 1896, Colnaghi.
76 “hear of the offer, etc.”: OG to BB, May 5, 1896, Colnaghi.
76 “like a good margin”: OG to BB, April 22, 1896, Colnaghi.
76 “landscape, wonderful”: OG to BB, April 28, 1896, Colnaghi.
76 only one English picture: Hadley, Letters, 56n3.
76 “at the same time”: ISG to BB, December 2, 1895, ibid., 43.
77 “again to be sold”: BB to ISG, May 10, 1896, ibid., 55.
77 “Damned B. B. [Blue Boy]”: OG to BB, May 5, 1896, Colnaghi.
77 cost was 20,000 pounds: BB to ISG, May 10, 1896, ibid., 55.
77 20,000 pounds: Alan Chong, “The Afterlife of Cellini’s Bust of Bindo Altoviti,” Raphael, Cellini & A Renaissance Banker: The Patronage of Bindo Altoviti (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2003), 250.
77 “2,000 [pounds] a side”: OG to BB, May 5, 1896, Colnaghi.
77 2,000 pounds: Colnaghi Private Ledger, 1894–1903, Berenson account.
78 “so be careful”: OG to BB, May 2, 1896, Colnaghi.
78 it remained in London: BB to ISG, June 18, 1896, Letters, 57.
78 “in her new shrine’ ”: ISG to BB, July 19, 1896, ibid., 59.
78 “heart of yours”: Ibid.
78 “proposition”: BB to ISG, August 2, 1896, ibid., 61.
78 “supreme genius”: Ibid., 62.
79 “liked so well”: Ibid., 61.
79 “it does cost”: ISG to BB, August 18, 1896, ibid., 63.
79 “too excited to talk”: ISG to BB, August 25, 1896, ibid., 64.
79 “men of course”: ISG to BB, September 11, 1896, ibid., 65.
79 “picture seems full of joy”: ISG to BB, September 19, 1896, ibid., 66.
79 “Art and Joy go together”: Mr. Whistler’s “Ten O’Clock Lecture,” Correspondence. See Linda J. Docherty, abstract of Transatlantic Correspondence: James McNeill Whistler and Isabella Stewart Gardner, Whistler Centenary Conference, University of Glasgow, September 3–6, 2003, ibid.
79 “ ‘I told you so’ ”: ISG to BB, September 19, 1896, Letters, 66.
79 “Daughter of Titian”: Henry James to ISG, April 3, 1898, ISGMA.
80 “made an impression”: ISG to BB, September 19, 1896, Letters, 66.
80 “I fear”: ISG to BB, September 11, 1896, ibid., 65.
80 “rooms of the Vatican”: Henry James to ISG, April 3, 1898, ISGMA.
80 Turenne on Horseback: OG to BB, December 5, 1896, Colnaghi.
80 menacing sky: OG to BB, February 11, 1897, Colnaghi.
80 “Do you agree or not”: OG to BB, April 6, 1897, Colnaghi.
80 “her comfortable”: MB to Alys Berenson, December 1896, in Samuels, Connoisseur, 275.
81 “all these questions”: ISG to BB, February 25, 1897, Letters, 79.
81 Edward Huth: BB to ISG, June 9, 1897, Letters, 87. Holbein’s Sir Thomas More is in The Frick Collection, New York.
81 “pictures of the world”: BB to ISG, June 6, 1897, Letters, 86.
81 “gold and lacquer”: BB, 1916, in Chong, et al., Eye, 57.
81 “while the sun shines, eh?”: OG to BB, March 29, 1897, Colnaghi.
81 “too-willing Eve”: ISG to BB, January 12, 1898, Letters, 116.
81 Tommaso Inghirami : ISG to BB, March 3, 1898, ibid., 127.
82 Old Master pictures: Orcutt, “Buy American,” 83.
82 “almost suicidal”: MB, diary entry, June 23, 1898, Strachey and Samuels, Mary Berenson, 76.
82 Clinton-Hope: About 121,200 pounds. OG to Bode, July 21, 1898, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Zentralarchiv, NL, Bode 2268, Letters from Otto Gutekunst, 1898; Wilhelm von Bode: Mein Leben, eds. Thomas W. Gaethgens and Barbara Paul (Berlin: Nicolai, 1997), 284–5.
82 entire collection: BB to ISG, August 15, 1898, Letters, 149–50.
82 “clever and strong”: ISG to BB, September 25, 1898, ibid., 154.
83 “into operation”: MB to BB, October 12, 1898, Strachey and Samuels, Mary Berenson, 78.
83 “that is the important thing”: MB, October 17, 1898, Berenson Archives, Villa I Tatti, Florence, in Rubin, “Portrait of a Lady,” 41.
83 “soon enough”: OG to BB, November 10, 1898, ibid., 41–42.
83 public record: BB to ISG, January 22, 1899, Letters, 166.
84 “your shrewdness”: OG to BB, March 21, 1899, Colnaghi.
84 “Alas, alas”: ISG to BB, February 11, 1899, Letters, 167.
84 “the end has come”: ISG to BB, May 31, 1899, ibid., 177.
84 “part with it and so on:” MB to BB, June 9, 1899, Strachey and Samuels, Mary Berenson, 82, 304.
84 “that Holbein business”: BB to ISG, June 13, 1899, in Samuels, Connoisseur, 306.
84 “babe compared to them”: ISG to BB, June 27, 1899, Letters, 181.
85 “take such risks”: OG to BB, June 16, 1899, Hall, “Old Masters,” 14.
85 “mellowed by life”: BB to MB, in Samuels, Connoisseur, 307.
85 “meat and drink”: ISG to BB, May 25, 1900, Letters, 217–18.
86 “Mrs. G. shines”: OG to BB, March 14, 1901, in Samuels, Connoisseur, 308–09.
86 “more than she paid for them”: OG to BB, March 26, 1901, Colnaghi.
86 “as a friend should”: OG to BB, March 26, 1901, Colnaghi.
86 $750,000: Garstang, “Colnaghi and Berenson,” 21.
87 Piermatteo d’Amelia: Chong et al., Eye, 63. Of Gardner’s major Old Masters, only two came from sources other than Colnaghi: Giotto’s Presentation in the Temple (from J. P. Richter in 1900), and Piero della Francesca’s Hercules (from the artist Joseph Linden Smith). Several pictures that Berenson bought from dealers other than Gutekunst turned out to be problematic. Most scholars think that Tommaso Inghirami is a Raphael workshop version of a portrait in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence.
88 “worth the money”: ISG, undated note, ISGMA.
88 extraordinary pictures: Chong asserts that “the overpriced mediocrities were a small price to pay for the great things.” Chong et al., Eye, xii.
88 “my mistakes myself”: OG to BB, December 30, 1934, Berenson Archive, Villa I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, Italy.
89 “conquering intellects”: Samuels, Connoisseur, 401–31; BB to ISG, August 9, 1902, Letters, 297.
89 “loathed than liked”: MB, December 31, 1903, in Samuels, Connoisseur, 409.
89 “rottenest we have yet seen”: MB, January 28, 1904, ibid., 427.
89 “Rosalina point lace”: ISG to BB, March 11, 1901, Letters, 251.
89 “Is the Botticini one”: ISG to BB, July 22, 1901, ibid., 260.
90 “fountains, balconies”: BB to MB, September 1897, in Samuels, Connoisseur, 287.
90 courtyard in the Palazzo Barbaro: Anne Hawley observes the same, “Forward,” Gondola Days (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2004), vii.
90 “haphazard fashion”: Rollin van N. Hadley, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Woodbine Books, 1981), 6.
92 “a peculiar new one”: Wilhelm von Bode, “Die amerikanische Konkurrenz im Kunsthandel und ihre Gefahr für Europa,” Kunst und Künstler, 1902–3, in Frances Weitzenhoffer, The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1986), 63.
92 Rembrandts genuine: Bode, “Die amerikanischen Gemäldesammlungen in ihrer neueren Entwicklung,” Kunst und Künstler (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1903–4), 387, 388, 389.
92 “fine old disinterested tradition”: Henry James, The American Scene, ed. with introduction by John F. Sears (New York: Penguin, 1994), 188–89.
92 her
brilliance and her eccentricities: See Anne Higonnet, “Museum Sight,” in Art and Its Publics, ed. Andrew McClellan (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 135; Linda J. Docherty, “Collection as Creation: Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Fenway Court,” eds. W. Reinink and J. Stumpel, Memory & Oblivion (1999), 217–21.
92 “in the United States”: Hilliard T. Goldfarb, in Higonnet, “Museum Sight,” 139.
CHAPTER III. “MR. MORGAN STILL SEEMS TO BE GOING ON HIS DEVOURING WAY”
93 “Devouring Way”: John G. Johnson to BB, December 29, 1909, John G. Johnson Collection Archive, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
93 succeeded in buying one: Jean Strouse, Morgan, American Financier (New York: Random House, 1999), observes the same, 413.
93 esteem for centuries: Haskell, Rediscoveries, 4.
93 $1 billion: Strouse, Morgan, 404.
94 “greatest collector”: Burlington Magazine, 1913, in David Alan Brown, Raphael and America (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1983), 63.
95 to the museum: Strouse, Morgan, 494.
95 $60 million on art: Strouse, “J. Pierpont Morgan, Financier and Collector,” MMA Bulletin, 57, no. 3 (Winter 2000), 6.
97 thirty years: See Linda Wolk-Simon, “Raphael at the Metropolitan, The Colonna Altarpiece,” MMA Bulletin, 63, no. 4 (Spring 2006).
97 “synonym of painting itself”: Ibid., 50.
98 “autograph work by Raphael”: BB to ISG, November 9, 1897, Letters, 97.
98 “dreary Colonna Raphael”: ISG to BB, November 14, 1897, in Brown, Raphael, 66.
98 “hated to haggle”: Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990), 117.
98 “buying Raphaels”: Clinton Dawkins, December 10, 1901, and July 19, 1902, in Strouse, Morgan, 7, 415.
98 “pretensions and price”: BB to ISG, January 14, 1902, Letters, 281.
98 “rarity, and provenance”: Strouse, Morgan, 414.
99 history of European art: Brown, Raphael, 72.
99 “to acquire the painting”: Ibid., 68.
99 Raphael Madonnas: Brown, Raphael, 69.
99 Chigi: Ibid., 34.
100“conception of beauty”: Herbert L. Satterlee, J. Pierpont Morgan: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Macmillan Company, 1940), 562.
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