Museum accessions

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 2005 by Eleanor H. Gustafson

From its founding in 1804, the New-York Historical Society has acquired objects that document the past and the present, creating an ever-changing kaleidoscopic view of life and art in New York. As the recent accessions illustrated here demonstrate, the society continues to find innovative and amusing ways to tell New York's ongoing story.

The society's most recent acquisition is the elaborate silver humidor illustrated below, a fortuitous blend of art and history. It was commissioned from Tiffany and Company of New York City for presentation to Alfred E. Smith, a controversial but beloved political figure, who was often photographed with a cigar in hand. To many Americans, Smith exemplified the rags-to-riches promise of the United States, for he was born in the tenements of Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1873 and rose to be elected four times governor of New York State and the Democratic presidential candidate in 1928. Although he won a majority of votes in only eight states and did not even carry his own, he had many admirers in New York City. Inside the humidor is a dedicatory plaque inscribed with a passage that appeared in an editorial in the Brooklyn Standard-Union of November 2, 1928, welcoming him home from the campaign. It reads, in part, "If the people of the United States knew you as we know you, they would know the Al Smith whose career is an inspiration to every true American.... They would know the boy who encountered but overcame many hardships, and they would know the man who later dedicated his every effort to alleviate the hardships of others." The humidor, which is finely worked to represent a medieval strap-work treasure chest, contains more than 150 troy ounces of silver.

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Equally lavish in its own way is the doll illustrated above, whose wardrobe reflects the latest New York fashions of about 1870. Helen, as she was named, and her owner, Mary Augusta Colson, are shown together in their finery in the carte de visite photograph also illustrated above, which accompanied the doll as a gift from a descendant. Before setting off on one of his last journeys as captain of the sailing ship Zouave, Gilman Colson of Massachusetts promised to buy Mary Augusta, his only child, a doll when he returned to port in New York. After the voyage, the ship's owner, Vernon H. Brown, encouraged Colson to return straightaway to his family, promising that he and his wife would attend to buying the doll. Mrs. Brown and her dressmaker spent the next few weeks designing and sewing a complete wardrobe, including necessary undergarments and sleeping attire for the doll, with an eye on current New York fashions. Helen arrived in Massachusetts with her own steamer trunk filled with stylish ensembles, including matching leather boots and gloves, suitable for every occasion.

At the society contemporary works live together with their forebears. For example, a recent acquisition consists of several ceramic figures by Ann Agee, including the one illustrated below. Inspired by a lecture given by the late Clare Le Corbeiller at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, Agee has brought the eighteenth-century porcelain figures modeled at the Meissen factory in Germany and elsewhere in Europe into the twenty-first century. While many of the eighteenth-century figures represented players in the commedia dell'arte, Agee draws hers from her own commedia--the streets and subways of New York.

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Michelle M. Erickson is another contemporary ceramic artist who has looked to the past to create objects that reflect the present. Illustrated below is her Garniture (3 bowling pins), a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, which forms a fascinating counterpoint to the traditional garnitures that adorned the mantelpieces of the Beekmans, Livingstons, and other early New Yorkers whose possessions reside at the historical society. Moreover, the blue-and-white scheme clearly evokes the early Chinese porcelains in the collection.

The society's department of prints, photographs, and architectural collections also has some wonderful new additions, ranging from a broadside of 1805 (illustrated above left) to the salted-paper photograph of the Crystal Palace and the Latting Observatory in New York City of the 1850s illustrated below. The woodcut broadside, advertising the services of the Arabian stallion Grand Seignior, is one of the earliest known illustrated American stud posters. Issued by Jacob Shute, an innkeeper on the Bloomingdale Road, three miles north of what was then New York City, it proclaims that "Grand Seignior ... was a present ... to his Majesty [George III] ... and by his son the Duke of Kent was brought to the Provinces of Nova-Scotia ... and imported into New-York.... Gentlemen ... will do well to make early application, as the owners are not disposed to let him cover as many mares, as is customary with many other horses." The lively depiction of the stallion and jockey is signed by S. Burnet, who also signed a similar rendering of a horse and jockey on another early stud poster (in the Zinman Collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia), but nothing further is known about him.