The aesthetic movement in Newport

Magazine Antiques, April, 1995 by Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen

The decorative arts objects presented here were all produced under the influence of the aesthetic movement in America, between about 1872 and 1892, and they touch on some of the major figures of the time. Among them are the American artists Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John La Farge, and Louis Comfort Tiffany; the English designers Christopher Dresser and William Morris; and the English ceramics firm Minton and Company. Collectors and art patrons elude David Maitland who was also a lawyer, diplomat, gentleman farmer, artist, and designer and maker of stained glass(1); Senator George Peabody Wetmore, whose curiosity about art led him to many of the avant-garde designers of Great Britain; and Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843-1899), a financier and art collector in his own right who built The Breakers, arguably Newport's grandest "cottage."

Many of the objects illustrated were not collected for the Newport houses in which they are now displayed. An example is Armstrong's Chimney Corner of 1878 (Pl. II), which is set in the artist's farmhouse Danskammer, near Newburgh, New York, overlooking the Hudson River. The painting was brought to Kingscote by his daughter-in-law, Maud Gwendolen King Armstrong (1876-1968).(2) In many ways it sums up the tenets of the aesthetic movement in America, particularly the tremendous enthusiasm during the late 1870's and 1880's for works of art from all periods and cultures. As exemplified in the painting, ceramics were the most avidly collected objects during the aesthetic movement. They had been well represented at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876 in Philadelphia, which was an important stimulus to collecting in America. The painting portrays a veritable museum of pottery and porcelain - presumably part of Armstrong's collection - that includes a Meissen porcelain tureen, a seventeenth-century Italian albarello, two examples of luster-decorated majolica ware hanging on the wall, Imari and polychrome Chinese export porcelain, and what resembles a Rieti earthenware pitcher possibly made by the New England Pottery Company (1876-1914) of East Boston, Massachusetts.

Perhaps influenced by the popularity of Doulton wares at the Centennial Exhibition, the Englishman John Bennett, who had initiated underglaze-painted earthen-wares at Doulton's Lambeth factory, immigrated to New York City in 1877 and established a pottery studio. Typical of the English design reform movement promoted by William Morris (1834-1896), Bennett's work was dominated by stylized floral subjects on a mottled background (see Pl. VIII). The result is a flat, two-dimensional pattern reminiscent of wallpaper of the period.[3]

The unusual, angular terra-cotta pitchers and teapots made by the Watcombe Terracotta Company in Torquay, England, in the early 1870's were called "a triumph of the potter's art" by one American critic.[4] Although as yet undocumented, many of the Watcombe designs have been attributed to Christopher Dresser, including the pitcher shown in Plate V, originally owned by Armstrong.

Dresser's intensely stylized animal and fish motifs recall the decoration on tiles that frame the fireplace in the hall at Chateau-sur-Mer, the quintessential aesthetic movement house in Newport (Pl. VI). These tiles evoke the designs of William Burges (1827-1881) and are attributed to Minton and Company of Stoke-on-Trent, England. They may have been designed and painted at Minton's Art Pottery Studio (1871-1875) in London, staffed by students of ceramic painting, particularly women, from the National Art Training School and the Lambeth School of Art.[5] The encaustic tiles inside the fireplace are documented to the Minton firm.[6] In spirit and design, all the tiles complement other decorative elements in Chateau-sur-Mer, most notably the exotic wallpapers of Burges and Morris (see Pl. XI) chosen by George and Edith Malvina Keteltas Wetmore (1851-1927), the owners of the house, during their extended visits to England.

The fantastic walnut woodwork in the library and dining room at Chateau-sur-Mer was carved in Florence, Italy, by the sculptor Luigi Frullini and shipped to Newport for installation. The dining room chimney piece (see Pl. XIII) is en suite with a built-in sideboard and the dining table[7] and chairs. As was typical for dining rooms as early as the 1850's, the carved motifs on the chimney piece are appropriate: grapes ready to be harvested, Bacchus and allied figures, wine jugs, a goblet, and a wine cask. The painted tiles around the dining room fireplace are a complete departure from the stylized, linear designs on the tiles that embellish the simple, architectural hall fireplace. Both the tiles around the dining room fireplace and the plaque (Pl. X) in the sideboard depict scenes of the hunt and were executed by Eugene Gluck, probably at the noted ceramics studio of Joseph Theodore Deck in Paris.[8] Deck's work was praised at the time for its artistic elegance and rich and varied palette, which was notable for brilliant shades of turquoise, green, brown, and yellow.[9]