The Art of the Timekeeper:
Masterpieces from the Winthrop Edey Bequest November 14, 2001 through February 24, 2002
 In 1999, Winthrop Kellogg Edey bequeathed to The Frick Collection a remarkable collection of twenty-five clocks, fourteen watches, and an extensive reference library relating to the history of time measurement. Over nearly five decades, Edey had purchased a large number of timepieces, many of which he later exchanged or sold to upgrade with artifacts of greater significance. This continual refinement enabled him to assemble a small but exceptionally fine collection, illustrating both the stylistic and the technical development of clocks and watches from about 1500 to 1830. The Art of the Timekeeper features thirteen clocks and eight watches that illustrate the breadth of Edey’s interest in what is arguably the most remarkable period in the history of chronometry. Beginning with some of the earliest spring-driven timekeepers, the exhibition will trace the history of clocks and watches through the scientific revolution into the early nineteenth century, showing the impact that the pendulum and the balance spring had not only on precision, but also on the appearance of clocks and watches.
The Art of the Timekeeper is organized by guest curator and museum consultant William J. H. Andrewes, formerly David P. Wheatland Curator, Harvard University, and co-author with Dava Sobel of the bestseller The Illustrated Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. Many of the featured clocks and watches have not been shown publicly in this country for several decades.
The presentation is made possible through a generous gift by Winthrop Edey; a challenge grant made in honor of William J. H. Andrewes, guest curator; Montres Breguet; Janine Luke; The Heimbold Foundation; The Thorne Foundation; Brooke Astor; Richard and Ronay Menschel; James S. Marcus; David Owsley; The Ridgefield Foundation; Stanley and Betty DeForest Scott; and the support of the Fellows of The Frick Collection.
Six Paintings from the Former Collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney on Loan from the Greentree Foundation
July 25, 2000 through April 21, 2002
The Greentree Foundation has generously lent to The Frick Collection for a period of one year six master paintings from the former collection of Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney. The group includes Corot’s Cottage and Mill by a Torrent (Morvan or Auvergne), 1831; Manet’s Racecourse at the Bois de Boulogne, 1872; Degas’ Before the Race, 1882-88, and Landscape with Mounted Horsemen, c. 1892; Picasso’s Boy with a Pipe, 1905; and Redon’s Flowers in a Green Vase, c. 1910. The selection reflects the Whitneys’ interest in art produced in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which formed the core of their renowned collection. The six paintings, displayed in the Garden Court, were accompanied by an illustrated brochure.
Mantegna’s Descent into Limbo, from the Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection
September 8, 2000 through July 2002
Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) painted this small panel during the height of the Italian Renaissance, using detailed, emotion-filled images to depict the moment when Christ appears to the souls in Limbo. The original work was created for Marchese Lodovico Gonzaga in June of 1468. Because it was so highly regarded, several other versions were made, including this smaller one, which was probably done for Ferdinando Carlo, the last Duke of Mantua, around 1470–75.Lent through the generosity of the Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection, it will be on view in the Enamel Room.
Two Rediscovered Tapestries
March 19, 2002
After an initial preview last summer, visitors can again enjoy two eighteenth-century tapestries woven by the Brussels workshop of Peter van den Hecke (c. 1752). On display in the Music Room, these rare hangings are important for their state of preservation, the significance of their design, their royal provenance, and the evidence regarding the identity of their maker and manufacture. They depict scenes from Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote de la Mancha, which proved to be an important literary source in the fields of fine and decorative arts for over two hundred years.
Each tapestry retains a separate linen rectangle sewn to its reverse and inscribed with an inventory number corresponding to the French royal registry. That registry reveals that these were two of several hangings of this subject belonging to Louis XV. Henry Clay Frick bought them in Spain in 1909 and later gave them to Childs Frick, his son, who bequeathed them in 1965 to The Frick Collection. The tapestries remained in storage at the Frick until 1999 when they were cleaned and treated at the Textile Conservation Laboratory of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.
Masterpieces by Gilbert Stuart and Anthony Van Dyck Return to the Galleries
Spring 2002 (Stuart's portrait of George Washington on view until April 25, 2002)
Gilbert Stuart was the foremost portrait painter of the newly formed United States. He painted many of the most prominent figures of his day, including the first five American presidents, but none of the thousand portraits he made attained such renown as the three he painted from life of George Washington and those he replicated to order throughout his later career. To most visitors to The Frick Collection, Stuart's George Washington is instantly recognizable; in a collection of mainly European masterpieces, it is the only painting of an American by an American. It will be on view in the Cabinet Room until the Spring.
Anthony Van Dyck's Marchesa Giovanna Cattaneo has been installed in the East Gallery following a cleaning by Hubert von Sonnenburg, Chairman of Paintings Conservation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The removal of old, discolored varnish has revealed a luminous, richly colored canvas in which the rosy flush of the figure's cheeks, the resplendent shimmer of her satin garments, and the dazzling gold adornments emerge in poetic contrast to the velvety brownish-black background.
Greuze: The Draftsman
May 14, 2002 through August 4, 2002
 This exhibition is the first devoted exclusively to the drawings of Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725 - 1805), the remarkable French eighteenth-century painter and draftsman. Organized by Edgar Munhall, Curator of The Frick Collection from 1965 to 1999, this unprecedented exhibition brings together at each of its two venues approximately sixty works on paper culled from international collections such as the Musée du Louvre, Paris; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon; the Historisch Museum, Amsterdam; the Albertina, Vienna; the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; and others. Among Greuze's many admirers was Catherine the Great, whose agent purchased a number of works directly from the artist, which are now in the State Hermitage Museum. Munhall has selected for inclusion in the exhibition twenty of these drawings, which have seldom left St. Petersburg. A fully illustrated catalogue will feature a historical overview of the artist's work, and the exhibition itself will convey to viewers what a unique and remarkably modern artist Greuze was. Greuze The Draftsman traveled to Los Angeles and will be on view from September 10 through December 1, 2002 at The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Greuze the Draftsman was organized by The Frick Collection, in association with the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Greuze the Draftsman has been made possible through the generosity of Michel David-Weill, The Florence Gould Foundation, the Isaacson-Draper Foundation, Joseph Koerner, Melvin R. Seiden, Diane A. Nixon, Jean A. Bonna, Mrs. Russell B. Aitken, W. Mark Brady, the Strong-Cuevas Foundation, James Fairfax, The Helen Clay Frick Foundation, Stephen K. Scher, and The Honorable W. J. P. Curley with the Achelis and Bodman Foundations, with additional support from the Fellows of The Frick Collection.
Martin Carlin’s Mechanical Table
April 30 through August 18, 2002
A vogue for furniture featuring secret compartments and complex mechanical devices swept France during the eighteenth century. Featured in the Cabinet will be a mechanical reading and writing table with Sèvres porcelain plaques, attributed to Martin Carlin (c. 1730–85), a German-born cabinetmaker who worked in Paris and created furniture for such notables as Madame Du Barry and the daughters of Louis XV. Normally exhibited in the Fragonard Room in closed position, the table will be displayed partially open, and photographs will reveal the mechanisms that make possible its moving parts.
Poussin, Claude, and Their World: Seventeenth-Century French Drawings from the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris
September 18, 2002 through December 1, 2003
 Featuring approximately seventy drawings, Poussin, Claude, and Their World: Seventeenth-Century French Drawings from the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, includes outstanding masterpieces by Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, as well as lesser-known masters such as Sébastien Bourdon, Simon Vouet, Noël Coypel, Charles Le Brun, Eustache Le Sueur, and others. Selected by Emmanuelle Brugerolles, Curator of Drawings at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and Colin B. Bailey, Chief Curator, The Frick Collection, this exhibition provides an in-depth survey of French drawing of the period.
This body of drawings includes a wide variety of artistic genres, among them allegory, religion, portraiture, and landscape. Included are preparatory studies for paintings, painted décors, tapestries, decorative ornaments, and engravings. The selection is also reflective of the École’s own collecting patterns; most of its works come from the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture and from donations made by private collectors in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Frick Collection was the exhibition’s only North American venue.
This exhibition has been made possible through a generous grant from the Robert Lehman Foundation and through the support of the Fellows of The Frick Collection.
Masterpieces of European Painting from the Toledo Museum of Art
October 29, 2002 through January 5, 2003
 To mark its recent centenary, the Toledo Museum of Art has lent twelve of its greatest European paintings. Masterpieces of European Painting from the Toledo Museum of Art includes exceptional works by artists such as Piero di Cosimo (1462-1521), Jacopo Bassano (about 1510-1592), El Greco (1541-1614), Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), James Tissot (1836-1902), and Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), many of whom are not represented in the Collection’s own holdings. The presentation of these treasures illuminates another chapter in American collecting. The Toledo Museum of Art was founded in 1901 according to the vision of glass magnate Edward Drummond Libbey and his wife, Florence Scott Libbey. Originally a one-room rented space, over the past 100 years the museum has grown to become one of America’s finest art collections housed in a building of exceptional beauty. A full-color twenty-page booklet written by the curatorial and education staffs at The Frick colection will accompany the exhibition.
This exhibition was made possible by a generous grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and through the support of the Fellows of The Frick Collection. |
