International studio (30.1906/1907(1907))

Museum Notes

in gold-powder. The remainder of the case is
stained in Nile-green, upon which have been painted
allegorical subjects. In the severer taste of the
Louis XVI period a dignified instrument has been
made of specially selected mahogany. This has a
raised panel of crotch veneer about the case. The
ornamentation is gilded with gold-powder of low
tone. Another splendid example in this style has
been made in dark red mahogany without other
ornamentation than the solid carving. French wal-
nut, with inlaid satinwood lines, has been used
effectively for the upright form in a Sheraton de-
sign. An Adams grand is also on view at Steinway
Hall of specially selected prima vera antiqued with
borders of delicate sage-green and painted decora-
tions in pure Adams style, and, between bands
of old ivory, a band of tulip wood. Equally inter-
esting is an instrument in English colonial style,
made after the design of harpsichords of the year
1800, or thereabouts. It is inlaid with satinwood
lines with old ivory keys, name-plate and key slip.

M

USEUM NOTES

The portrait by Whistler, repro-
duced on the page opposite, is to be
seen at the Museum of the Brooklyn
Institute of Arts and Sciences. It was purchased
partly with funds obtained from the Museum Col-
lection Fund of 1906; partly from the Loeser and
Hearn funds and with assistance from nine private
contributors. The size of the canvas is 74^ by 35
inches. The figure is in a grey gown seen against
a dark background. It was for Mr. F. R. Leyland,
the father of the subject, that Whistler designed and
decorated the famous “peacock room” in 1876-
1877. Whistler made an etching in dry point of the
same young lady in 1873, in which she is shown in
early girlhood and holding a hoop in her hand. He
also painted portraits of her father, her mother and
her two sisters. After the death of Mr. Leyland in
1892 the portrait became the property of Florence
Leyland, who had married Mr. Val Prinsep, the
painter and Royal Academician. After the death
of her husband in 1905, the picture passed into
the possession of Messrs. Obach and Company, of
London, of whom it was obtained in April last by
Mr. A. Augustus Healy, president of the Museum.
The portrait makes an interesting exemplification
of Whistler’s contention that the figure should not
stand out from the frame, nor in its plane, but
should recede behind to a distance equal to the dis-
tance at which the painter had viewed his model.

In speaking of the frame, too, it is to be noted that
this is the original frame designed by Whistler for
the painting, a detail of his work on which he habit-
ually bestowed conscientious care. The subject of
the portrait was also the original Blue Girl, or Baby
Leyland., a full-length three times attempted, and
once completed by the artist. This picture was cut
up by Whistler, but several studies for it have been
preserved. Its destruction is supposed to have been
one of the results of the artist’s famous quarrel with
Mr. Leyland, one feature of which was immortal-
ised by a supposed or real resemblance between Mr.
Leyland and an angry peacock, who was represented
as making an onslaught on a companion fowl on
one of the panels of the famous room. As one of
the results of this quarrel the Brooklyn portrait, in
company with other portraits by Whistler of the
Leyland family, was sequestered from observation
and subsequently ignored.
In connection with the above, it may not be out
of place to remind our New York readers that Fred-
erick Keppel and Company have on view an inter-
esting exhibition of etchings and dry points by
Whistler, which closes on February 6.
The painting by Winslow Homer, The Gulf
Stream (1899), reproduced on an earlier page in the
article on the exhibition of the National Academy,
has been purchased by the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York, out of the income of the Wolfe
Fund. The Museum already has two paintings by
Homer, Cannon Rock and Searchlight, Santiago
de Cuba, both given by Mr. Hearn in 1906. A por-
trait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, that of the Rev. W.
Pennicott, has been secured for the Museum by
Mr. Roger E. Fry, in London. Mr. and Mrs.
Frederick Scott Wait have added to their gifts of
medals eight relating to Washington, the best one
being by Scharff, the Vienna medalist. One medal
of Franklin, one of Gilbert Stuart and one of John
Paul Jones have also been presented by the same
donors. The celebrated Gibbs-Channing portrait
of Washington by Gilbert Stuart, bought by the
late Samuel P. Avery, has been loaned to the Mu-
seum and is hung in Gallery 13, next to the Carroll
portrait, painted by Stuart in 1803 and presented to
the Museum by Mr. H. O. Havemeyer in 1888.
The two pictures side by side show interesting
changes in details of the artist’s practise, that in the
method of treating the eyes being especially notice-
able. Additions are reported to the collections of
Greek terra cottas from Tanagra, Myrina and
elsewhere.

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