Pairs of sculptures collected by James Ricau

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 1997 by H. Nichols B. Clark

The nineteenth-century American sculpture collection assembled by James Henri Ricau Jr. (1916-1993) was unparalleled for a private collection in scope, depth, and quality.[1] The bulk of the collection came to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, through a combination of gift and purchase in 1986 and is finally being installed in its own gallery, which will open in February 1998.

The Chrysler Museum's sixty-eight marbles and two bronzes from the collection made it in a single stroke a repository of American neoclassical sculpture in a league with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city, the Museum of fine arts, Boston, and the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jimmy Ricau, as he was known to his friends, in June 1990 and of visiting him on three subsequent occasions in order to fathom his collecting strategies. To be sure, much of what he bought was dictated by its affordability, but he did reveal a certain predilection for pairs of sculptures. Coincidentally, his first and last documented purchases were companion pieces: Thomas Crawford's Dancing Girl and Broken Tambourine (Pls. I, IV), and Joseph Mozier's Truth and Silence (Pls. II, III), respectively.

Pairs of sculptures seem to have enjoyed a certain vogue by the middle of the nineteenth century. Sometimes works were envisioned as pairs from the outset, such as the Crawfords or Hero (Pl, VI) and Leander (Pl. V) by William Henry Rinehart. Other pairs are less obvious, such as Harriet Hosmer's Puck (Pl. V) by William Henry Rinehart. Other pairs are less obvious, such as Harriet Hosmer's Puck (Pl. VII) and Will-o-the-Wisp (Pl. VIII) and Mozier's Pocahontas (Pl. XI) and Wept of Wish-ton-Wish (Pl. X). Was it the sculptor who engineered these pairings, or did the patron play an active role to suit his interior decoration? Unquestionably, the sculptors did not require a client to buy the pair. Rinehart's Hero, for example, found at least eight buyers, while for Leander there was only one firm order. It was not until the middle of this century that the two existing pairs of marble lovers were brought together.

Ricau bought the sculptures in Plates I and IV from Louis Joseph, a Boston dealer, in 1954.[2] Statues of children go back to classical antiquity, and the them held great appeal for Victorian audiences, which emphasized the innocence of youth. Crawford is called by some the most prolific interpreter of children among American sculptors.[3] It is likely that he recognized statues of children as a marketable antidote to his serious work. Perhaps his personal life played a role as well, since his family was rapidly expanding in the late 1840s.[4] The Dancing Girl was modeled in 1849 and first carved in marble by 1850, and about 1853 Crawford began alluding to the work as Dancing Jennie, when his second daughter, Jennie, at age five, had grown to the size of the girl in the sculpture.

A lady visitor to Crawford's Roman studio in 1854 saw The Dancing Girl and the Broken Tambourine and called them "the Happy and the Unhappy Child."[5] She considered these childhood subjects to be particularly successful and admired the natural treatment of the dancer's hair to suggest the wind passing though it. In addition to celebrating the innocence of childhood the dancing girl evokes the power of music, which is almost audible as we gaze at the determined dancer.

This pair of statues represents the moment when Crawford's work became more naturalistic, and his portrayals of contemporary children in dress evocative of antiquity show his ability to blend elements from past and present. This goal of American neoclassical sculptors was confirmed in Crawford's case by George S. Hillard, a lawyer and art enthusiast, who observed that Crawford's statues

remind us, by their life and animation, of the best productions of Grecian art.... [T]he marble or bronze is not merely a correct transcript of the human form and face, but it is penetrated and informed with the soul of humanity.(6)

Historically, The Broken Tambourine has been linked to The Dancing Girl as its pendant.(7) The earliest known reference to The Broken Tambourine, in a letter Crawford wrote his wife in August 1853, cites the statue on its own.(8) Thereafter he always considered the two statues in connection with each other, although he never associated the model for The Broken Tambourine with a member of his family as he associated Jennie with The Dancing Girl. The statues were usually exhibited together, but The Broken Tambourine received little attention in the press. In his account of Crawford in the Book of the Artists (1867) Henry Tuckerman failed to include The Broken Tambourine in a substantial list of the sculptors works.(9) This is surprising since the depiction of a poignant childhood mishap suited Victorian tastes, and the statue exhibits a remarkably skillful rendering of the broken tambourine skin. As an initial purchase, the pair boded well for Ricau's taste in sculpture.