After Hearst: Martin Chapman discusses acquisitions in European decorative arts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Apollo, March, 2004 by Martin Chapman

If it were not for William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) the Los Angeles County Museum of Art would not have a significant collection of European decorative arts. The publishing tycoon, who must now be recognised as one of the major collectors of the twentieth century, contributed the nucleus of LACMA's decorative arts between 1945 and 1951 when he was living out his final years in Los Angeles. (1) Acquired under the guidance of Dr. William Valentiner (1880-1958), these LACMA collections range from medieval stained glass to eighteenth-century porcelain, and include large holdings of renaissance maiolica, Limoges enamels and kunstkammer works of art. Valentiner, protege of the great Berlin museum director, Wilhelm von Bode, had already made his mark on American museums before arriving in Los Angeles in 1946. Acting as 'consultant director' for the Los Angeles County Museum, (2) Valentiner elicited a substantial number of objects and even cash from Hearst to build the art collections. For Valentiner, decorative arts were a way to entice the public's interest in art, (3) and photographs of the old museum galleries reveal that these objects were integrated with paintings and sculpture in a remarkably mature manner for such a young public art collection (Fig. 1).

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Since the 1940s, decorative arts have had a somewhat chequered career at LACMA. After the art collections of the Los Angeles County Museum moved to new premises on Wilshire Boulevard in 1965, the European decorative arts installed on the top floor were swept away to make way for Norton Simon's collections. (4) European decorative arts were to be kept in storage for some fifteen years. With the expansion of the museum's buildings in the early 1980s, the Hearst decorative arts were reinstalled. Some further acquisitions were made at this time, (5) but the most prominent re-emergence of decorative arts at LACMA occurred through the silver and mosaics from the Gilbert Collection, displayed in the Museum, on and off, from 1977. In the early 1990s, the Gilbert holdings, displayed in seven galleries of the Museum, made a strong statement about the role of decorative arts. The subsequent loss, therefore, of the Gilbert collections was a tragic blow to European art at LACMA. If decorative arts were to hold any sway in the future, an acquisition polio, needed to be implemented. This strategy would follow the traditional maxim of building on strengths and filling gaps, while also striking out into areas as yet uncharted by the museum's collections. Connected to this strategy was the method of display, which was to return to the ideals of Valentiner's day with decorative arts integrated more fully with the main collections of painting and sculpture (Fig. 2). This article will discuss the acquisitions made during the last thirteen years, many of which have been made through generosity of Los Angeles donors and the Decorative Arts Council. (6)

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"With these recent acquisitions LACMA now has a more expansive collection of European decorative arts. Broader and deeper than before, they now complement the founding Hearst donations, augment the existing eighteenth-century holdings and provide a core collection of the nineteenth-century pieces. Many of these new acquisitions are shown integrated with the main collections of European painting and sculpture, adding balance, variety and dimension to the galleries, while ensuring that the visitor can recognise that decorative arts are an essential part of the larger picture of Europe's artistic culture.

Of all the acquisitions the Pair of Tazze donated by Selim K. Zilkha, complement most handsomely Hearst's renaissance collections at LACMA (Fig. 3). These tazze are some of the finest examples of early French plate in an American museum. They are incredibly rare as little Parisian silver of the sixteenth century survives, most having been destroyed due to refashioning (the remaking of silver in a more contemporary taste) or economic necessity. (7) These tazze exist today because they were exported beyond France's borders, probably soon after they were made. (8) French silver was in demand throughout Europe in the sixteenth century because of its fine craftsmanship and its higher silver content (9) and sumptuous pieces were made for diplomatic gift. The Zilkha tazze, with marks probably of Parisian silversmiths Jean Delahaye (master 1579, d. 1611) and Nicolas de Villiers (master 1581, d. 1613), (10) were likely made for this purpose. Delahaye was a court goldsmith who is documented as having been paid six hundred ecus for two 'buffets' of plate destined for the English Ambassador in 1580, (11) and these objects could have been among them. (12)

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As they formed part of a grand service of plate, these tazze were intended for display on the sideboard rather than for use. Their purpose as a footed dish or drinking cup was subjugated in favour of making a statement about the owner's taste and wealth through the conspicuous display of workmanship in a precious material. As befits a renaissance work of art, they had an iconographic programme, which, in this case, shows two of the four continents--one with an elephant-hunt representing Africa and the other with a bird-hunt for Europe. (13) The refined finish of the scenes embossed and chased in the minutest detail shows off the skill of the silversmiths involved. The lush vegetation and foliage, the manes of the horses, and the distant towns chased in the panels are executed with remarkable delicacy. The dominant influence is Flemish both in style and facture; (14) even the craftsmen responsible for their making may have been Flemish. (15)