USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > New Haven, a book recording the varied activities of the author in his efforts over many years to promote the welfare of the city of his adoption since 1883, together with some researches into its storied past and many illustrations > Part 42
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and to his charming and hospitable home on Trumbull Street. In the early days of the Graduates Club, I arranged an exhibi- tion of his paintings in the club house, then on Chapel Street, as well as an exhibition of the etchings of his brother, the late Julian Alden Weir, also a valued friend, and one of the most gifted of all American artists. It was in his studio, while he was at work on his seated figure of President Woolsey, now in the "College Yard" (as the "Campus" was called down to about 1870), that I was first initiated into the mysteries of modeling.
Professor Weir was greatly interested in my City Planning project. He had the vision to see the value of it to New Haven, if adopted, and as soon as possible after the launching of the campaign, he arranged a course of lectures bearing on the subject. The lectures were given in the Art School in December, 1908, and January, 1909, and my belief is that, up to that time, no course of lectures on the subject, with speakers of anything like the prominence of those secured by Professor Weir, had been given in this country. The names of the lecturers, with the subjects and dates of their lectures, were as follows :
December 3, 1908, Mr. Frank Miles Day, President of the American Institute of Architects, "Civic Improvement in the United States";
December 10, 1908, Mr. Cass Gilbert, A. I. A., S. A. R., "Grouping of Public Buildings";
December 17, 1908, Mr. John M. Carrère, A. I. A. (of Carrère & Hast- ings), "Civic Improvement as to Parks, Streets and Buildings";
January 21, 1909, Mr. Walter Cook, Trustee of the American Institute of Architects, "Some Considerations in Civic Improvement";
January 28, 1909, Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., landscape architect, "Parks and Civic Improvements";
February 4, 1909, Mr. Charles Howard Walker, A. I. A., "Embellish- ment of Cities."
The public had to be told who these lecturers were, what they stood for and how the gospel they preached bore upon my campaign, then under way for the adoption by New Haven of city planning. It fell to me not only to prepare "copy" to herald them, to see that their lectures were reported, but also
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to extend hospitality to them while here. How I found the time for all these activities is more than I can now understand.
Further reference to these lectures will be found on pages 51-52 of this book. The lectures were well attended and it certainly was no fault of Professor Weir that the community was not more deeply aroused by them to the meaning of City Planning.
My obligations to Professor Weir and my personal feeling toward him naturally led me to desire that some suitable memo- rial of him should be placed in the Art School, on his retire- ment as its head. The subject was considerably on my mind, and so it happened that one morning-it must have been in the forepart of 1912-I awoke with a project which I seemed to have worked out in my sleep. It was none other than to have a portrait of Professor Weir painted by John W. Alexander, then President of the National Academy of Design, to be presented to the Art School at the time of Pro- fessor Weir's retirement as its director. It was an ambitious project, but I determined to make an effort to put it through. That very morning, as I remember, I called upon Mrs. Hadley and laid the project before her, winning her warm approval of it at once. I then laid the project before Mrs. Weir, who was likewise delighted with it, and it was agreed between us that nothing more should be said about it. It was to be kept a secret from Professor Weir until Mr. Alexander had been seen and commissioned and his honorarium provided for.
The next step, then, was to enlist the interest of Mr. Alex- ander and get him to agree to paint the portrait. Fortunately, an opportunity of laying the matter before him soon presented itself. I was in the way of meeting him from time to time in the Century House in New York and at the meetings of the American Federation of Arts, of which we were fellow directors, and he had invited me on one occasion or another to his studio. As it happened, we both attended a meeting of the directors of the Federation on June 3, 1912, and after the meeting I laid my project before him. He made me
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happy by falling in with it at once, although he was at this time at the very height of his great reputation, and had more orders for portraits than he could possibly execute,-was, in fact, receiving eight thousand dollars for such a portrait as I had in mind. I told him that in a college community like that of New Haven, we could not well raise more than twenty-five hundred dollars for the portrait, especially as, to my mind at least, it would not be fair to Professor Weir himself to accept any contributions to the painting that were not gladly made. I should rather, I said, abandon the enterprise than have it go forward on any basis requiring pressure on anyone. Mr. Alexander accepted my point of view and said that, on account of his own friendship for Professor Weir and his respect for him as a painter and an educator, he would be delighted to undertake the picture. He even agreed to undertake it con amore, for any sum I could raise in my own way, but said that his time was already so much taken up with commissions on hand that he would be obliged to make the painting of the portrait contingent upon Mr. Weir's coming to sit for him at Onteora, where he spent his summers and where he had recently built a large studio.
The next chapter in the story is told in the following letter :
July 3, 1912.
Dear Mr. Alexander :
Just a month ago today I spoke to you about painting a portrait of Pro- fessor Weir to commemorate his long connection with the Yale Art School, of which he was the first director and which he organized and developed upon the Titus Street Foundation. You said that you would accept the commission with pleasure and paint the portrait con amore, and suggested that the best time for you to do it would be in July or August at Onteora, where I understand you have a large studio. We could make no plans for your honorarium until we learned whether or not you could undertake the work, and since I saw you our plans have ripened but slowly on account of the annual Commencement upheaval, now happily over. Last night Mr. Burton Mansfield telephoned me to "go ahead"-that he had done his part. Accordingly, I went, after dinner, over to see Professor Weir who lives very near to where I do. He was at home, and was quite overwhelmed when I disclosed the plan. Mrs. Weir had known of it for months, but had not breathed a word of it to him, and he was completely surprised and more pleased and touched than I can say. I told him how cordially you
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received my proposition and he replied that nothing was more like you, and that nothing would please him more than to have "Alexander paint the portrait." Mrs. Weir was fairly beaming with pleasure as we talked it over. She agreed with me in claiming that it should be a large canvas, portraying Mr. Weir in cap and gown, while he modestly said that it should be small. As I told you, we want a large canvas showing Mr. Weir in cap and gown-an official portrait of Mr. Weir as Founder and Director of the Art School.
Mrs. Weir said that they could come to Onteora at any time now, depen- dent on your convenience, and I said I would write you and ask you to write him at once, stating your wishes. You may wish to run up here before you begin, to see the gallery where the finished canvas will hang, and perhaps to look at possible accessories, background, etc. If you decide to come, I hope I may see you, and should be glad to have you at luncheon, or to "dine and sleep."
Sincerely yours,
(Signed) GEORGE DUDLEY SEYMOUR.
Mr. John W. Alexander,
120 East 63d Street, New York City.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Weir soon went to Onteora, where the portrait was painted during the next few weeks, though not entirely finished until sometime in the fall.
On December 3d-six months to a day from the date when I first approached Mr. Alexander on the subject-he invited me to his studio to see the finished portrait. No painter of the Italian Renaissance could have received me with more grace and charm than did Mr. Alexander, though, as I remember it, his studio was as bare as theirs were crowded with "proper- ties." While viewing the portrait which I had come to see, a delegation of gentlemen arrived from Cleveland, Ohio, and seemed hardly able to understand Mr. Alexander's refusal to accept a ten thousand dollar commission to paint a portrait of a president of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. About the room were several large canvases in progress, and I was interested in all of them, as well as in Mr. Alexander's recommendations to the Cleveland delegation, but my chief interest, of course, was centered upon the portrait of Professor Weir, which I had come from New Haven to see. As much
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as I admired it, I confess that I was somewhat disappointed in it, and I fear that he saw I was not wholly satisfied. My disappointment, of course, was not in the handling or in the likeness, but in the pose. My own visualization had been of a standing portrait of Mr. Weir, placed at the foot of the main staircase of the Art School, where he would continue to receive guest and student with the same distinguished and gracious air that I had so often witnessed, always with the feeling that I was being treated to an exhibition of the manners of an age that was past. Some people we visualize as sitting, some as standing. Mr. Weir I could only think of as stand- ing. His fine figure, noble and gracious carriage, always reminded me of those wonderful soldier-gentlemen in the "Peace of Breda." Mr. Weir seemed to me at his best when on his feet, and most of his friends will remember him so. He preferred to stand, I think, and even always wrote at a high schoolmaster's desk by the window in his studio, crowded with studio properties,-dim canvases, casts, rich furniture,- all wrapped in a sort of magic atmosphere which made the visitor feel that he had been transported into the very heart of the great classical tradition of the Fine Arts. Had Mr. Alexander seen him, year after year, in the familiar setting of the Art School, I still think that we should have there now a standing portrait of Professor Weir; but to this I must add, in justice to Mr. Alexander, that the portrait he painted pleases me more and more every time I see it.
After an hour or so in the studio, I went home with Mr. Alexander to luncheon-from a large, bare, light studio to a large, handsome, dark house, filled with treasures of paint- ings. I remember sitting, during luncheon, facing his beau- tiful portrait of Mrs. Alexander, so often reproduced. At the table, he regaled me with delightful stories of his early days, in particular of his experiences connected with painting the portrait of Walt Whitman, now in the Metropolitan Museum. Mr. Alexander was a fastidious man, and he winced as he rehearsed the ordeal of Mr. Whitman's afternoon tea, when
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the diurnal and rimy teacups were prepared for re-use by nothing more than knocking out the tea-leaves of the day before. After luncheon we walked together in the park, and here again Mr. Alexander renewed his expressions of admira- tion for Professor Weir and his work.
Not long before this visit to Mr. Alexander's studio to see the finished portrait, I had drafted a circular letter, to be sent out by Mr. Mansfield to the group of "town and gown" friends of Mr. Weir whom we thought would be pleased to contribute to the undertaking. Of that phase of the matter I need say no more than that the money required was raised without any difficulty whatever. Two thousand dollars came from Mr. Weir's friends and the remaining five hundred were collected by Mr. John I. H. Downes and Mr. George H. Langzettel, from Mr. Weir's students past and present in the Art School.
The canvas was formally presented on June 3d at the annual Commencement of the Art School, Mr. Mansfield making the presentation address. I was obliged to be in Washington at the time, but on my return I wrote, under date of June 6th, to Mr. Alexander, to let him know how cordially the picture had been received and how greatly it was admired. In con- clusion, I said :
"As the prime mover in this enterprise, I wish to tell you how pleased I am with its outcome, and how sensible I am of the obligations under which you have placed all of Mr. Weir's friends by your generosity in the matter, and by your mastery of your art."
A few days later I sent him Mr. Mansfield's check covering his honorarium.
The canvas, measuring 44 x 54, is thinly painted in tones of gray and black on the rough absorbent canvas which Mr. Alexander habitually used. Mr. Weir is represented in his academic gown, wearing a master's hood, with its lining of Yale blue. At the right, on the wall, hangs a print of Velas- quez's equestrian portrait of Philip the Fourth. Mr. Whistler introduced a picture in the same way in his famous portrait of his mother. The canvas is almost without color except in
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the head, which is not only solidly constructed but has fine qualities of likeness and character interpretation. The draw- ing of the head and figure is broad, serene and graceful, with that elevation of style characteristic of the great tradition of English portrait painting.
The other day I went up to the Art School to look again at the canvas, well placed and lighted at the foot of the main staircase of the Art School. I confess that I felt like con- gratulating myself upon having had such a happy inspiration that morning in the forepart of 1912 in my house on Bradley Street, and on having been able to bring at least this project to success.
LX.
THE MCLAUGHLIN MEMORIAL BOOKPLATE.
(First printed in "Ex Libris," Vol I, No. 2, October, 1896, and now revised.)
The Mclaughlin Memorial Bookplate was prepared for books given as prizes for excellence in English composition, under a fund raised as a memorial to the late Edward Tomp- kins McLaughlin, at the time of his death in 1893 Professor of Rhetoric and Belle Lettres in Yale University, from which he was graduated in 1883.
The plate at once suggests its memorial character. Within the main tablet, a superimposed smaller tablet contains the dedicatory inscription. The space in the lower portion of the main tablet provides for the autograph signature of the Presi- dent of the University holding the office at the time the prize is awarded, the name of the prize-winner, and the date. The Roman chalice in a rayed nimbus, above the dedicatory tablet, represents the Holy Grail, and stands both for Mr. McLaugh- lin's interest in the Arthurian Legends, and for the richly spiri- tual side of his own life. To friends, who knew of his feeling for the poetry of Robert Browning, it will recall the line he so loved to quote from "La Saisaiz,"-"Only grant my soul may carry high through death her cup unspilled." On either side of the chalice and nimbus, on a ribbon twined in and out through beautiful foliations, is the line "Think clear, feel deep, bear fruit well," from Matthew Arnold's poem "Progress," -- perhaps Mr. McLaughlin's favorite line of modern verse. He felt that it came nearer to expressing the heart of the best of modern thought than any line he knew; and he hoped some day to see it carved upon one of the College buildings. The Seal of the College, placed centrally below the dedicatory tablet, identifies the plate with the University.
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Mr. French's task in designing this plate was made a very difficult one by the necessity of giving prominence to two sepa- rate inscriptions, but he proved equal to it, and has produced a plate fresh, simple, direct and of almost classic elegance. In enrichment of foliation Mr. French is certainly not sur- passed by any one, unless it be by Sherborn,* the English Master of Ex Libris.
The two prizes given each year are paid in money, to be used in the purchase of books. The prize-winners draw from the custodian of the "copper" as many prints of the bookplate as they have bought books, which, after insertion in the books, are signed by the President of the University. The books thus become association books of life-long interest to the prize- winners, as well as memorials to a gifted teacher of Yale and a rare spirit.
NOTE-In a volume so plentifully besprinkled, as this one, with the per- sonal pronoun, apologies are superfluous, and I make none. But to explain my inclusion of this article and the illustration of the plate in question, I may state that I first proposed the fund as a memorial to my friend, helped to raise it, commissioned Mr. French to execute the plate, and supplied the data for its design. I think, therefore, that the plate may fairly be classed among my "miscellaneous works," and I feel that my "Friendship's Garland" would be incomplete without a tribute to my friend of "lost years."
The book-plate of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Connecticut, printed on the same page with the Mclaughlin Memorial plate, was executed in 1901 by Mr. French on my order when I held the office of Secretary of the Society. In this design Mr. French imposed the seal of the Society upon a mass of richest foliations. Mr. French himself thought highly of this plate as a specimen of his art.
* Charles William Sherborn, b. in London 14th June, 1831, d. there 12th Feb., 1912.
LXI.
SOME ALLEGED WASHINGTON SILVER EXHIB- ITED 1906 AT THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE: THE ADVENTURE OF A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN "COLD ROAST BOSTON."
"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again."
The following letter signed Veritas, written by the compiler, was published in the Boston Evening Transcript, July 24th, 1906 :
To the Editor of the Transcript:
On a recent trip to Boston I happened into the "Old South Meeting- House" and after admiring the interior, began an examination of the relics -hardly worthy, in my opinion, of their reliquary, but it was always so. The less the intrinsic value of the relic, the greater the value of the reliquary. In a case of plate glass I found a collection of Washington relics. These were ticketed as having been bought from Mrs. Fannie Washington Finch, a grandniece of General Washington. I knew Mrs. Fannie Washington Finch very well. She was a grand-daughter of Colonel Augustine Wash- ington, and therefore a great-grandniece of President Washington. In this respect the tickets are all incorrect. The most interesting and beautiful of the relics in the case is a silver bowl. The ticket reads-"Used in the christening of George Washington and the two preceding generations of his family. Bought from his grandniece, Mrs. Fannie Washington Finch." The design of the bowl, its surface texture, and a certain mechanical quality about its lines at once aroused my suspicions. As Washington was born in the forepart of the eighteenth century, the bowl would have to go back at least to the latter part of the seventeenth century to have been used in chris- tening two prior generations of Washington's family. The bowl has no hammer marks that I could see, but has a sort of mechanical regularity of form, as already mentioned, and I was unable to discover any maker's marks. I had no opportunity of examining the piece out of the case, but was told by a lady attendant that the bowl was not marked. My own conclusion was that the piece was an early nineteenth century piece, to which the tradi- tion of having been used as a christening bowl in the Washington family had been attached in good faith by Mrs. Finch. The Washington family was a large family, and did not, by any means, stop buying furniture and
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silver with the death of the illustrious first President, and hence much con- fusion. Later the same day I had an opportunity of inspecting the varied and remarkably beautiful collection of American silver just placed on exhi- bition in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In one case I found a bowl corresponding in form, in size, in decoration, and in surface texture, so far as I could see, to the purported christening bowl of the Washingtons in the Old South Meeting-House, with the single exception that the bowl on exhi- bition in the museum is furnished upon its upper edge with a sort of open- work border. This museum bowl was ticketed "Westphal, about 1810." I cannot resist the conclusion that the purported Washington bowl was made by the same maker. It is unlikely Washington's christening bowl should have been allowed to leave the city of Washington if its title could be read clear.
I venture to suggest, also, that the Washington spoons exhibited in the Old South Meeting-House, were never used by Washington, but are of later date by twenty-five or thirty years. I think this will also appear by com- paring them with some spoons in the collection in the museum. New Eng- land calls on Boston for accuracy; the citizens of the Republic demand it. May I not hope that this matter will be taken up and investigated?
The next time Mr. Buck, the American authority on old silver, visits Boston, he should be invited to examine this so-called Washington silver in the Old South Meeting-House.
New Haven, Conn.
VERITAS.
The exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts was what had taken me to Boston. My visit to the "Old South" was only incidental, but when I saw exhibited there a silver bowl, apparently of early nineteenth century workmanship, ticketed as the christening bowl "of George Washington and the two preceeding generations of his family," I was moved to make inquiries. Bad manners are almost always attributed to the critic, and were in this case later attributed to me, but the obligation of public museums to make correct attributions is perfectly definite, and the duty of the public to call attention to incorrect ones seems to me equally definite. The attendant who showed me the silver was entirely courteous, but I rather thought she had "doubts and fears" of her own about it. At any rate she was most guarded in her talk, but perhaps that was only because the custodian of the particular silver in question was then absent on her vacation. I was told that my comments would be brought to her attention when she returned.
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SOME ALLEGED WASHINGTON SILVER EXHIBITS
At the Museum of Fine Arts I again raised the question of the bowl and spoons at the "Old South," and again met with reticent replies. Enough was said, however, to make it clear that the Museum experts shared my view that both bowl and spoons were of nineteenth century manufacture. I was to learn later that the bowl had for that reason been rejected for the Museum exhibition.
My letter to the Transcript was sent July 13th. Under date of the 16th the Editor wrote me as follows :
"DEAR SIR: As you see by the enclosed, we have set on foot an inquiry about the Old South silver. We shall take the matter up again on the 23d, and shall be glad to report results to you."
The enclosure was the following letter :
"20 Beacon St., July 14-My dear Miss -: I am very glad you submitted to me the letter from the hypercritical New Haven man. From an inquiry at the Old South I learn that when he made his rather fussy inspection there only four days ago he was told that the custodian of this particular Washington silver (Miss -) had just left for her fortnight's vacation, but that immediately upon her return he could have definite infor- mation from her on his points. In rushing to print, therefore, he shows great discourtesy to Miss - and the Old South Committee-By your leave I will retain his letter until Miss -'s return (July 23), and upon the basis of the information she will gladly supply, you can act according to your wisdom.
Yours truly, -
I suppress the proper names, and remark only that this letter was signed by a member of the Old South Committee.
Presumably "the custodian of this particular Washington silver," upon returning from her vacation, did supply the promised information and upon that basis the Editor, acting according to his wisdom, retrieved my letter and printed it next day. But neither the deeply affronted Committee man nor the Custodian of "this particular Washington silver," com- municated with "the hypercritical New Haven man."
My object in bringing the matter before the public by a letter to the Transcript, was to attract to the silver at the "Old South" the attention of unprejudiced outside experts who
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might be visiting Boston to see the collection of silver then on exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts. A magnificent col- lection it was, affording an unparalleled opportunity for com- parison,-a great aid in settling the question I had raised. On August 3d I received a letter, dated at Boston, from a recognized expert (whose name I still prefer to conceal), saying :
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