The Frick Collection opens New Portico Gallery for Decorative Art & Sculpture

Written by Constance Thorogood Wednesday, 26 October 2011 22:03

New York City.- From October 25th, visitors to The Frick Collection will be able to enjoy a new gallery—the first major addition to the museum’s display spaces in nearly thirty-five years. The inspiration for this initiative, which involves the enclosure of the portico in the Fifth Avenue Garden, comes from the intention of museum founder Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) to build an addition to his 1914 mansion for his growing collection of sculpture. The project was postponed in 1917 following the United States entry into World War I and Mr. Frick died before it could be resumed. When talks began with renowned porcelain collector Henry H. Arnhold about a promised gift, the idea to create a gallery both for sculpture and the decorative arts was revisited. The architecture firm Aedas developed a plan to integrate the outdoor garden portico into the fabric of the museum, and groundbreaking occurred last winter. The Portico Gallery for Decorative Arts and Sculpture opens in late October with an inaugural exhibition of works drawn from Henry Arnhold’s promised gift of 131 examples of Meissen porcelain from the early years of this Royal Manufactory’s production. On view through April 29th 2012, "White Gold: Highlights from the Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain" will feature approximately seventy of these objects, presented along with a group of eighteenth-century sculptures by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1740–1828). Among the latter works is the full-length terracotta Diana the Huntress, a signature work at the Frick that returns to view having been recently cleaned and treated.  It finds a permanent home in the new portico gallery, while the ongoing display of other sculptures and ceramics will rotate periodically.

The museum founded in Frick’s name opened in 1935, after the death of his wife, Adelaide. Initially, many of the institution’s artworks were crowded in the long West Gallery, where paintings were double-hung and where portrait busts filled the corners of the room. Within a couple of years several sculptures were moved into the Garden Court for better viewing. Over the years, the Frick’s sculptures were further dispersed throughout the galleries, some in deference to new installations and more favorable viewing conditions, while others moved in response to the need for special exhibition space. Some works ended up in internal hallways where they cannot always be seen to best advantage. Indeed, as the Oval Room took on the more frequent function of serving as a special exhibitions space, Houdon’s "Diana the Huntress" was moved from this space to the East Gallery and later placed off view. With the creation of the new Portico Gallery for Decorative Arts and Sculpture, the Frick’s curators have for the first time the opportunity to display porcelain and sculpture in bronze, marble, and terracotta in a truly appropriate and wellilluminated space.  When the new gallery opens, it will become a permanent home to Houdon’s Diana, which has undergone technical studies and its first cleaning since its acquisition more than seventy years ago. Returning to view after a five-year absence, Houdon’s masterpiece will be situated in the western-most bay of the new portico. It will be illuminated at night and pleasingly visible from the outside of the institution, in the tradition of European sculptures in the galleries visible along the Rue de Rivoli side of the Louvre Museum. It will be shown with three other works by this artist: the life-sized bust of Armand-Thomas Hue, fourth Marquis de Miromesnil (purchased under the guidance of Helen Clay Frick in 1935); The Dead Thrush, a marble relief on long-term loan from The Horvitz Collection, Boston; and the remarkable marble portrait of Madame His, Eugene Thaw’s generous gift to The Frick Collection in 2006.


With a gift of porcelain pledged by Henry Arnhold, the institution furthers its engagement with the decorative arts, adding substantially to its ceramic holdings.  The group of 131 objects—seventy of which are part of the fall exhibition—has been selected from one of the greatest private collections of early Meissen assembled during the twentieth century.  Beautiful objects long-admired for their masterfully modeled shapes, compositions, and gemlike glazes, they offer a window into the early years of manufacturing porcelain in the West and celebrate a fascinating chapter in the history of the ceramic medium.  Indeed, although the formula for manufacturing true porcelain was developed in China by the sixth century, it remained a consuming mystery in the West until its discovery in 1708 under the patronage of August II (1670–1733), elector of Saxony and king of Poland.  In 1710, the king established a royal manufactory outside of Dresden in the town of Meissen, and the porcelain created there has been known by that name ever since. Early Meissen porcelain was at the forefront of the European ceramic industry until the ascendency of the French Royal Sèvres Manufactory in the 1750s. Examples of Meissen porcelain from this period are particularly rare and have always been highly sought after. Such works captured the attention of Lisa and Heinrich Arnhold, who established their collection in Dresden between 1926 and 1935 with a focus on tablewares and vases and objects of royal or noteworthy provenance. Lisa Arnhold immigrated to the United States, and the collection was brought over in 1940, making it a unique grouping to have survived together. Lisa and Heinrich’s son, Henry Arnhold, has continued to build the collection according to his parents’ tastes, while also expanding it in scope over the decades to reflect a broader range of objects produced by this important Royal manufactory in its early years. These works are well known to specialists, but they drew appreciation from a much wider public in 2008 through their presentation at the Frick in the critically acclaimed exhibition The Arnhold Collection of Meissen Porcelain, 1710–50. Among the objects selected for the 2011 exhibition is one already on long-term loan in the Frick’s Garden Court, the Great Bustard, at right, a sculptural tour de force that was part of a commission of several hundred lifesize animals and birds conceived for August II as interior decoration for his small pleasure palace on the Elbe, the Japanisches Palais or Japanese Palace. This fall, the Great Bustard will move to the portico gallery, joining several large-scale objects on pedestals along the south wall, among them a pair of trumpet-shaped vases with elephant-head handles and a base surrounded by a wire cage that once contained porcelain birds on the modeled rock outcroppings and branches. Twenty-one of these Meissen vases (one of which is illustrated at left on the previous page) were ready for firing in 1731, although it is not known how many were made altogether.  The pair acquired by Henry Arnhold in 2000 are extremely rare survivors of this extraordinary series and come from the collection of the kings of Italy. In specially designed wall cases on the north side of the new gallery there will be four groups of objects from the Arnhold Collection, each representing a collecting focus and strength. In the first wall case on the right, visitors will find sixteen examples of the earliest wares in production at the Meissen manufactory, stoneware, also known as “red porcelain.” The formula was developed sometime in 1707 or 1708 and marks an important step towards discovering the secret of making true white porcelain. Fired at a very high temperature, these objects—mostly tablewares—were hard enough to be engraved, cut, and polished.  The handsome coffee pot and cover at right has a European form but is decorated in relief with Asian prunus blossoms. Nearby, a standing cup with cover features intricate gold ornamentation, a highly polished surface, and a silver-gilt knob. In the adjacent wall vitrine will be fifteen examples of hard-paste white porcelain, the formula for which was perfected by the 1720s.


In producing wares that imitated such Chinese forms as low, wide bowls and pairs of long-necked vases, the Meissen manufactory strove to satisfy the European taste for Eastern porcelain. Chinoiserie wares by Meissen, however, tend to exhibit a marked European approach, exemplified by a mounted figural group located in the center of this case (at left). Although the model for the group is not known, it is thought to have been inspired by a Chinese sculpture in the collection of August II that features a bearded man accompanied by a disproportionately large exotic bird, lemons, berries, and a flower. The fact that the porcelain group is mounted on a French gilt-bronze base—not typical of wares made in and for the Asian market—suggests that it was executed for export to the French market. By 1719, August II had amassed more than twenty thousand pieces of authentic Chinese and Japanese porcelain to be used as prototype models at the manufactory and for display in the aforementioned Japanese Palace. Acquisition of such pieces has been a collecting interest for Henry Arnhold, and three examples of these wares will be on view in the third case along with Meissen production in the Japanese style.  A rare fluted Japanese dish, illustrated on the previous page, will be juxtaposed with a Meissen copy, the pairing underscoring the refinement achieved by the royal manufactory only twenty years after its establishment. Additionally, promised to the Frick, and to be shown in the fourth wall case are thirteen wares decorated by noted independent artists known today as Hausmaler (or house painters) who worked outside the factory. The Arnhold Collection is particularly rich in examples of their work. Eventually, when Henry Arnhold’s gift of Meissen porcelain becomes a permanent part of the Frick’s holdings, it will be on constant view in the portico gallery. Until that time, the Frick plans to continue using the gallery space for other exhibitions of sculpture and ceramics.

The Frick Collection is a not-for-profit educational institution originally founded by Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), the Pittsburgh coke and steel industrialist. In 1913, construction began on Henry Frick’s New York mansion at Seventieth Street and Fifth Avenue, designed by Carrère and Hastings to accommodate Mr. Frick’s paintings and other art objects. The house cost $5,000,000, but from its inception, took into account Mr. Frick’s intention to leave his house and his art collection to the public. Mr. Frick died in 1919 and in his will, left the house and all of the works of art in it together with the furnishings (“subject to occupancy by Mrs. Frick during her lifetime”) to become a gallery called The Frick Collection. He provided an endowment of $15,000,000 to be used for the maintenance of the Collection and for improvements and additions. After Mrs. Frick's death in 1931, family and trustees of The Frick Collection began the transformation of the Fifth Avenue residence into a museum and commissioned John Russell Pope to make additions to the original house, including two galleries (the Oval Room and East Gallery), a combination lecture hall and music room, and the enclosed courtyard. In December 1935 The Frick Collection opened to the public. In 1977, a garden on Seventieth Street to the east of the Collection was designed by Russell Page, to be seen from the street and from the pavilion added at the same time to accommodate increasing attendance at the museum. This new Reception Hall was designed by Harry van Dyke, John Barrington Bayley, and G. Frederick Poehler. Two additional galleries were opened on the lower level of the pavilion to house temporary exhibitions. The nearby Frick Art Reference Library was founded in 1920 to serve “adults with a serious interest in art,” among them scholars, art professionals, collectors, and students.The paintings in the Frick Collection include works by Hans Holbein, Rembrandt van Rijn, Giovanni Bellini, El Greco, Titian, Diego Velazquez, Frans Hals, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Johannes Vermeer, Francois Boucher, Thomas Gainsborough, Anthony van Dyck, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Claude Lorrain, Francisco Goya, Joseph Mallord William Turner, James McNeill Whistler, Francesco Laurana, Jean-Antoine Houdon, John Constable, Edgar Degas, and Severo Calzetta da Ravenna. Vermeer's “Mistress and Maid”, the last painting Mr. Frick bought, is one of three pictures by that artist in the Collection, while Piero della Francesca's image of St. John the Evangelist, dominating the Enamel Room, is the only large painting by Piero in the United States. Most of the sculpture purchased by Mr. Frick for the Collection was from the Italian Renaissance. Notable in the Collection are works by Vecchietta, Laurana, Francesco da Sangallo, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Riccio, and Severo da Ravenna. French sculpture includes the Lemoyne Garden Vase for the interior courtyard and remarkable works by Coysevox, Houdon, and Clodion. A number of splendid early North European sculptures are also in the Collection, above all the bust of the Duke of Alba by Jonghelinck, the Multscher reliquary bust, and bronzes traditionally ascribed to Adriaen de Vries and Hubert Gerhard. Visit the museum’s website at … www.frick.org

---

Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~