Johnson Collection Research Articles

The Burke Collection of Italian Manuscript Paintings ed. by Sandra Hindman and Federica Toniolo

Reviewed by: The Burke Collection of Italian Manuscript Paintings ed. by Sandra Hindman and Federica Toniolo Andrew H. Chen Sandra Hindman and Federica Toniolo, eds. The Burke Collection of Italian Manuscript Paintings. London: Ad Ilissum, 2021. 472 pages, 300 color illustrations. £80. ISBN: 978-1-912168-20-0. The volume under review is a catalogue of forty-three objects from the collection of T. Robert Burke and Katherine States Burke. It opens with a foreword by the Burkes briefly explaining the story of the collection, followed by some remarks by editors Sandra Hindman and Federica Toniolo and a characteristically thoughtful essay by Christopher de Hamel. The authors of individual entries are the world experts on their respective topics, and one will find the same names in other catalogues of a similar caliber, such as that of the Fondazione Cini, as well as in the indispensable Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani of 2005. The catalogue proceeds by region, beginning with Umbria and Tuscany. As signaled in the foreword, the Burke collection is especially strong in its Tuscan holdings. One finds Florentine miniatures by the usual suspects: Pacino di Bonaguida, the Master of the Dominican Effigies, the Santa Maria degli Angeli school, and Francesco di Antonio del Chierico. Siena is represented by Lippo Vanni, Andrea di Bartolo, Giovanni di Paolo, Sano di Pietro, and Pellegrino di Mariano Rossini. We then pass to Lombardy via Emilia-Romagna, and from there to the Veneto, from which come paintings by Cristoforo Cortese and the Master of the Murano Gradual. The catalogue concludes with a painting from mid-fifteenth-century Rome, catalogued by Francesca Manzari, and a Michelangelesque early seventeenth-century miniature whose style would seem to connect it, according to Elena Calvillo, to Giovanni Battista Castello (1547–1639). The attribution has been rejected by Castello specialist Elena De Laurentiis, however, and so the work is listed in the Burke catalogue as Anonymous. Anyone who has worked on manuscript illumination will recognize that the Burke collection is an important one. For the most part the artworks [End Page 225] are extremely fine, with a few exceptions (the cutting by the Master of the Dominican Effigies [entry 9], for example, is hardly his best work). The quality of the catalogue is generally very high. Where enough is known about the person in question, entries are preceded by a biography “situating them in a history of Italian manuscript painting” (13). In this respect the volume follows the model of Carl Strehlke’s monumental Italian Paintings in the John G. Johnson Collection of 2004. Many of the entries have lists of related leaves and volumes, synthesizing decades of research, and these will be vital for future scholarship on any of these artists. As the editors emphasize in their preface, authors were encouraged to include as many images as reasonable of comparative material, encompassing altar-pieces and wall paintings as well as other miniatures. Paul Holberton Publishing deserves to be complimented for having delivered a handsome book with (for the most part) splendid illustrations of such parallels and marvelous details of the Burke miniatures themselves. The division of works by region and, within the Tuscany section, between the Sienese and Florentine cultural milieus is convenient, but of course does not reflect the complexity of real situations. Don Simone was born in Siena but is known for his work in Florence, and Don Silvestro was a Florentine whose work was heavily influenced by Sienese painting. Andrea di Bartolo spent significant time working in the Veneto, and his work there was certainly known to Cortese. Of the works in the Burke collection, the one that I found the most intriguing, because stylistically the most unfamiliar, was the beautiful, if slightly disconcerting, miniature of John the Baptist and the Messiah, catalogued as Umbrian (entry 3). No doubt Tiziana Franco is right about the style of the subsidiary decoration, but the figure style is unmistakably northern Italian. As observed in Franco’s entry, Pia Palladino already suggested as much back in 2000 but was wrong in suggesting an affinity between the Burke painting, which is clearly from the first half of the fifteenth century, and the Verona choir books of the 1360s–70s...

State of the Discipline: Throwaway History: Towards a Historiography of Ephemera

State of the DisciplineThrowaway History: Towards a Historiography of Ephemera Anne Garner (bio) The papyrologist, Oxford University Press printer, and collector John Johnson (1882–1956) once described his collection—one of the earliest of ephemera ever acquired by a major library—as "everything which a museum or library would not ordinarily accept if it were offered as a gift." Johnson's collection,1 which contained thousands of examples of printed, non-book material, including bus tickets, calling cards, cigar bands, broadsides, and campaign pamphlets, was acquired by the Bodleian Library at Oxford University in 1968. Johnson was not underestimating the attitudes of cultural institutions at the time. In a foreword to a catalog published in conjunction with a 1971 exhibition of Johnson's collection, Robert Shackleton, former Librarian of the Bodleian Library, wrote that "it was often thought below the dignity of a learned library to acquire or to retain the casual and sub-literary products of the printing press." The acquisition of the Johnson Collection represented a sea change in attitudes towards printed non-book materials, which, by 1971, Shackleton could confidently write, "were now accepted as valuable evidence for the historian."2 The continued safekeeping of the Bodleian's John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera embodies a move to embrace ephemera as part of the historical record in cultural institutions that first occurred in the 1960s, and has continued since. Today, the Johnson Collection stands as one of the most historically significant collections of materials assembled with one common feature—a tendency to be thrown away. Johnson's example is useful in understanding the challenges of writing a historiography of ephemera and illuminates two of the greatest difficulties therein. The first of these challenges is definitional. Ephemera is a synthetic term applied inconsistently over time by historians and collection stewards. The literature produced by cultural historians over the last seventy years points to the ambiguity of the term, which has meant different things to [End Page 244] collectors, librarians, and historians. The second major challenge is categorical. Ephemera includes a wide range of materials, and within the larger category, ephemera's subgenres have their own historiographic trajectories. The recognition that early printed broadsides might be enlightening for historians of political history and printing history came much earlier than, for example, the realization that a dance token might also be read as a primary source. The Johnson anecdote also illustrates the institutional shift in attitudes towards collecting non-book printed material. The charge to preserve and describe ephemeral material was led by collectors, who organized and published on their collections in the 1960s and 1970s. Their work drew notice from historians and cultural institutions, who saw potential in the collection of non-book printed artifacts to answer historical questions. The move to include ephemera in a body of primary source materials worthy of closer examination first occurred in the separate but history-adjacent field of library and collection management, driven in part by a recognition of the needs of historical researchers. As libraries acquired, described, and promoted access to ephemeral materials, the work of historians on non-print book material has grown exponentially. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, consideration of ephemeral materials has been more fully integrated into social, cultural, and political histories. This essay will track twentieth-century approaches to the study of ephemera by historians and collection stewards, charting the transition to a more inclusive valuation of ephemera and an increased recognition of its relevance for historical researchers over time. But first, an understanding of the definitional and categorical slipperiness of the term ephemera over time is crucial to this study. Ephemera, the noun, is a twentieth-century term used by collection stewards and historians to describe a range of non-print book material that was not built to last. The original use of the word, however, dates much earlier, and comes from the Greek epi, around, and hemera, day. From the beginning, ephemera's etymology pointed to the low expectations for its survival. Samuel Johnson is frequently cited as the originator of the use of ephemerae in 1751 in a print context to mean "the papers of the day" in reference to...

Scenic Impressions: Southern Interpretations from the Johnson Collection by Estill Curtis Pennington and Martha R. Severens

Reviewed by: Scenic Impressions: Southern Interpretations from the Johnson Collection by Estill Curtis Pennington and Martha R. Severens Carolyn Porter Phinizy Scenic Impressions: Southern Interpretations from the Johnson Collection. By Estill Curtis Pennington and Martha R. Severens. ( Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2015. Pp 215. $49.95, ISBN 978-1-61117-675-9.) The catalog Scenic Impressions: Southern Interpretations from the Johnson Collection accompanies an exhibition of the same title and features paintings from the Johnson Collection, a diverse body of works by southern artists housed permanently in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Traveling exhibition venues included the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis and the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia. The catalog includes an essay each by curators Estill Curtis Pennington and Martha R. Severens, detailed catalog entries for each work exhibited, artists' biographies, and selected notes and bibliography. Without a doubt, this handsomely illustrated volume will be of great interest to enthusiasts of southern art and history. The curators made a wise decision to focus on Impressionist works in the Johnson Collection. These works will have broad appeal to those acquainted already with the European and American permutations of Impressionist style, which favors loose brushwork, pastel colors, and picturesque subjects. While Impressionism will be familiar to most readers, many of the artists included in the catalog are considerably less well known. Scenic Impressions offers a refreshingly new direction down the hackneyed art-historical path of Impressionism. In his essay "The Larger World of Scenic Impressions," Pennington contextualizes the development of Impressionism from its initial emergence in Paris [End Page 442] during the 1870s, at which time the movement was considered thoroughly revolutionary. As Pennington explains, the style quickly spread across the Atlantic to the United States through such expatriate artists as James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, and William Merritt Chase. These seminal figures popularized the style among American artists, many of whom subsequently traveled to France in search of training at alternative art schools such as the Académie Julian. Severens's essay offers a more specific narrative of how Impressionism flourished in the South during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As she explains, artists and patrons alike appreciated Impressionism as a style that epitomized the American spirit: it was unfettered by tradition, it emphasized freedom and spontaneity, and there were no strict rules. Southern cities like Charleston and Savannah beckoned to American artists as beacons of beauty and escape. The attraction of artists to the American South offers a fascinating parallel to how French artists of the late nineteenth century traveled to Brittany, Provence, and Polynesia in search of an ever-elusive primitive paradise. Undoubtedly, this correlation will offer a fruitful avenue for future research and discussion. Scenic Impressions effectively fills a significant gap in the literature on American Impressionism, itself a fairly recent area of study. Although art historians have long considered American Impressionism to be a belated imitation of the French movement, scholars including William H. Gerdts have successfully demonstrated the unique character of the American movement. In the United States, Impressionism was not a divisive, avant-garde style of painting but rather a quintessentially American mode of visual expression. While valuable in mobilizing greater scholarly appreciation for American Impressionism, Gerdts's work follows the tendency of much Americanist art history by favoring artists active primarily in the Northeast and offering little consideration to artists of southern descent or those working actively in the southern states. The problem with this approach, of course, is that one is left with an extraordinarily narrow view of American art and, particularly, of American Impressionism. Pennington and Severens, who have spent their scholarly and curatorial careers focused on southern art, augment Gerdts's history of American Impressionism. As Pennington and Severens show using the works from the Johnson Collection, Impressionism offered a visual language that was uniquely suited to the landscape and artists of the South. Carolyn Porter Phinizy Virginia Commonwealth University Copyright © 2017 The Southern Historical Association

Revision of the Jesse Harlan JOHNSON Collection. Part 1. Some fossil Dasycladales from Guatemala

This first report is a revision of fossil calcareous green algae (Dasycladales) described from the Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene series of Guatemala. Among other things in their 1965 paper J.H. Johnson and H.V. Kaska introduced three new species originally referred to the genera Acroporella, Cylindroporella, and Cymopolia. One species, which has previously been referred to the genus Cylindroporella, is a foraminifer.

Brain collections at the National Museum of Health and Medicine

Owing in large part to the foresight and efforts of Wally Welker, the National Museum of Health and Medicine has become a major repository for collections of brain specimens vital to the study of neurobehavioral evolution. From its origins in the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, with the collection of largely pathological specimens assembled by Paul Yakovlev, the museum has added to its resources four additional extensive collections, largely consisting of specimens acquired specifically for comparative and evolutionary studies: Welker's collection from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, John I. Johnson's collection from Michigan State University, the Adolf Meyer Collection from the Johns Hopkins University, and the Elizabeth Crosby collections from the University of Michigan. We describe here the history and contents of each of these five collections, to inform the scientific field of the extent and details of these remarkable resources.

Jan van der Heyden's urban prose*

Jan van der Heyden's urban prose*

Frederick Johnson's “River Desert Algonquin” Materials at the University of Pennsylvania Museum: A Collection History

AbstractThis paper is a collection history of a relatively unknown assemblage of Algonquin ethnographic materials from the “River Desert” community in Maniwaki, Quebec, Canada—a people now known as the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg. The objects were collected by Frederick Johnson, a student of Frank Speck at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1929. My objective is to analyze the Johnson collection within the historical context of Algonquin research during the early 20th century—a time of intensive ethnological field work with Canadian aboriginal communities, of accumulation and sale of objects to finance fieldwork, and of ambitious acquisitions by museums.

Carolyn C. Wilson. Review of "Italian Paintings, 1250–1450, in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art" by Carl Brandon Strehlke.

Carolyn C. Wilson. Review of "Italian Paintings, 1250–1450, in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art" by Carl Brandon Strehlke.

:Italian Paintings, 1250-1450, in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art

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Italian paintings, 1250-1450 in the John G. Johnson Collection and the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Carl Brandon Strehlke, Adjunct Curator has prepared a scholarly examination of the Johnson Collection. His discussion of such art historical questions as dating and attribution combines extensive archival research with technical study of the paintings.

The Façade of Public Philanthropy: A Typological Study of the Tuscan Loggias of Charity

The Fa~ade of Public Philanthropy: A Typological Study of the Tuscan Loggias of Charity WILLIAM R. LEVIN An early-quattrocento Florentine painting now hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art stands as a harbinger ofRenaissance architectural developments in its startlingly sophisticated handling of an arcaded setting (fig. 1). Dominating the canvas, the building portrayed is an early and reasonably accurate perspectival rendering of the domed Cathedral of Florence as the Temple in Jerusalem. But this remarkable work, likely designed by Masaccio and executed by Francesco di Antonio, has received surprisingly little attention. 1 The foreground of this painting representing Christ healing the lunatic affords the viewer access to the interior of the building by the traditional device of eliminating intervening wall surfaces. But the elaborateness of the setting suggests that this open-walled depiction of the synagogue as a place for healing may be more than a conventional flight of artistic fancy, even more than a bravura demonstration of the then-new science of perspective pioneered by Masaccio and his contemporary Filippo Brunelleschi, architect of the actual Cathedral dome. Insofar as the temple backdrop for this scenethe left side-aisle of the building in particular-effectively has been turned into an open arcade, the Philadelphia canvas evokes another, far more famous paintFig . 1. Fmncesco di Antonio, Christ Healing a Lunatic and judas Receiving Thirty Pieces of Silver, Thejohn G. johnson Collection, Philadelphia i\!fuseum ofArt, ca. 1426. (Philadelphia Museum ofArt) 1 Fig. 2. Masaccio and Masolino, Saint Peter Heals a Cripple and Resurrects Tabitha, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, ca. 1425-27. (Scala/Art Resource, New York) ing of salutary events. This is a fresco in Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence also associated with Masaccio and his noted collaborator Masolino. It shows Saint Peter on the left as he cures a cripple before an open-arched structure, while on the right he raises Tabitha within a second exposed construction, in this case a flat-ceilinged space (fig. 2). The conjunction in both paintings of an open, arcuated setting and a story about restoring physical or mental health was not merely fortuitous. It reflects a notable, though localized, architectural development: the appearance of ground level exterior loggias across the fa~ades of major charitable institutions throughout Tuscany and elsewhere in central and northern Italy. The monumental loggia added just after 1600 to the great Florentine Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova, an institution with a continuous history dating back to the late dugento, is a well-known example, albeit one marking the end of that tradition (fig. 3) .2 It comprises a series of arcuated bays, the norm for what here shall be called loggias ofcharity. Exceptions to this pattern, such as the fourteenth-century trabeated structure attached to the hospital of the Confraternity of Santa Maria del Mercato in Gubbio, located in Umbria, survive (fig. 4).3 But most often, the charity loggia was a horizontal row of identical, adjoining arched canopies. 2 Aruus Once a significant feature of the architecturallandscape in Tuscany and neighboring regions, today the surviving loggias of all types built during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance are few. While such a construction might incorporate a small area of an upper story, or on the first or second floor level surround partially or fully an interior courtyard, most common was the highly adaptable sort of loggia at issue here: an arched, open-sided space on the ground floor directly accessible from the street; often attached or at least adjacent to the fa~ade of a second, principal edifice; and covered with a row of identical contiguous vaults resting upon regularly spaced vertical supports. Despite the prominence of such loggias, architectural historians have generally overlooked them.4 In his stimulating recent discussion of different architectural types, for instance, Carroll William Westfall described an arcade generically as a "building component," conventional in design, serving only vague, area-defining functions within the urban setting, and playing an ancillary , not a primary, architectural role. Westfall considered the importance and purpose of arcades on a par with building ornament and decoration; they were contributory rather than fundamental elements.5 As to the loggia, he described it simply as a...

On the Provenance of Robert Campin's Christ and the Virgin

The painted panel depicting the heads of Christ and the Virgin Mary in the Johnson Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (fig. i) is a very unusual work within the oeuvre of Robert Campin and his workshop.1 Almost a pseudo-diptych, its iconic imagery of the two heads isolated against a golden ground is quite distinctive and apart from the mainstream of early fifteenth-century Netherlandish painting. As well known as the Christ and the Virgin is today, its early history and provenance have remained enigmatic. It was only a few years ago that Albert Châtelet identified the wax seal on the reverse side of the panel as being that of Willem 1 1 Frederick George Lodewijk, King of the Netherlands (1792 -1849). 2 Willem iťs collection was dispersed immediately after his death, but it has not been possible to trace the Campin painting in the upheaval and sales that followed.3 The subsequent wanderings of the Philadelphia panel, until now ignored in the literature, can be partially charted due to Lome Campbell's discovery of notes on the back of Max J. Friedlander's photograph of the painting, now in the files of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie.4 According to Friedlander, the painting had once belonged to the important, late nineteenth-century Cologne firm of the Bourgeois brothers, art dealers whose company was disbanded in the opening years of this century.5 The painting then was owned by the English art historian and dealer, R. Langton Douglas (18641951).6 Douglas was accustomed to consulting Friedlander on his purchases of Northern art. Friedlander, in turn, introduced Douglas and the Philadelphia lawyer and collector John G. Johnson while the latter was in London in 1907. Johnson bought his first painting from Douglas in New York later that same year, and this purchase was followed by a great many others. According to Friedlander, Johnson bought the painting in 1910. The purchase may have been made when Johnson visited Douglas in the British capital in the summer of that year, and this would help explain why there is no correspondence between the two men about its sale.7 In this light, the previous obscurity of the painting throughout most of the nineteenth century and its sudden emergence at the beginning of this century make sense. Equally important, if not more so, is the early provenance of this painting. Until now Campin's panel has not been linked with any documents of commission, nor has its original venue been identified. A chance discovery has revealed that in the late eighteenth century this work was in Paris, in the incredibly rich art collection formed by Paignon Dijonval (1708-1792). Dijonval is primarily remembered for his enormous and important holdings of drawings and engravings, but he also had a choice collection of paintings.8 These were from the Flemish, Dutch, and French schools, but none were by Italian masters. Most were from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a few were more contemporary but, most surprisingly,

Fra Angelico and Early Florentine Renaissance Painting in the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Fra Angelico and Early Florentine Renaissance Painting in the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Il fiume e il castello: precisazioni sul viaggio romano di Bernardo Bellotto

Assessing Bernardo Bellotto's early career in Italy has always been difficult because of his stylistic dependence in that period on his famous uncle, Canaletto. For a better understanding of Bellotto's Roman sojourn of 1742, this article examines the View of the Tiber and the Castel Sant'Angelo and its pendant, View of the Tiber with the Castel Sant'Angelo and San Giovanni dei Fiorentini (both in the Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection, Princeton, N.J.), which are smaller copies by the artist of his pendants now in Detroit and Toledo, Ohio. The twe landscapes demonstrate the artist's familiarity with the work of the Dutch-born Gaspar Adriaensz. van Wittel. The terminus ante quem for the painting with San Giovanni is established through the demolition of a group of buildings depicted on the left in June 1742. Venetian documents regarding Bellotto's marriage and the baptism of his children show that he left for Florence, Lucca, and Rome by January 1742 at the earliest. The use Canaletto made of his nephew's drawings of Rome suggests that the latter returned to Venice by the following autumn.

A Bust of "Sappho" by Antonio Canova

In the last decade of his life, Antonio Canova carved a series of idealized female marble busts, one of which was of the ancient Greek poet Sappho (Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection, Princeton, N.J.). This bust is more restrained than most of the others, but the severity of the form is belied by the gentle charm of the expression, which is animated by enigmatic smile with a hint of sadness. A few locks of hair escape from the smooth coiffure, showing that the sculptor's ideal of beauty, far from being purely cerebral and abstract, was humanized by naturalistic touches that lent an extraordinary softness to his work, in the words of a contemporary admirer.

Degas at the Museum: Works in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and John G. Johnson Collection

Degas at the Museum: Works in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and John G. Johnson Collection

Drawings by Millet and Lhermitte in the Johnson Collection

Drawings by Millet and Lhermitte in the Johnson Collection

Titian's Portrait of Filippo Archinto in the Johnson Collection

In the John G. Johnson Collection in Philadelphia there is a painting which never fails to excite the interest of visitors to the gallery (Fig. 1). It is a portrait of the sixteenth century Milanese prelate Filippo Archinto, which has long been attributed to Titian. With its mysterious veil, this painting would be unique in the work of Titian, and perhaps in the whole history of art. Another portrait of the same prelate, without a veil, hangs in the Altman Gallery of the Metropolitan Museum (Fig. 2), and it is so much like the painting in the Johnson Collection that one must be a copy of the other. We are thus confronted with an interesting problem of attribution as well as a fascinating iconographical riddle.

Titian's Portrait of Filippo Archinto in the Johnson Collection

Titian's Portrait of Filippo Archinto in the Johnson Collection

Francesco d'Antonio and Masaccio

A Painting in the J. G. Johnson Collection at Philadelphia (Fig. 1) has at times had the distinction of being considered a work by Masaccio.1 But later critics, judging it to be of lesser quality, have attributed the painting to an imitator of Masaccio, “possibly Andrea di Giusto.”2