To help find your perfect gift for the love of your life . . .
So many treasures lie within
Seating for moments together, cabinets for treasures collected, and paintings for moments created.
Rubies for every success in love, health, and wealth.
Sapphires for wisdom, kindness, and divinity.
Tourmaline for compassion and friendship.
Tanzanite for intuition and perception.
Gold for generosity and compassion.
Pearls for purity and innocence.
Diamonds for strength, love, and health.
12 Days of Christmas at Anthony's
The Twelve Days of Christmas traditionally span from December 25th, Christmas Day (or the 26th in some traditions), to January 5th, also known as Twelfth Night (or January 6th, referred to as Epiphany). This period holds deep roots in Christian tradition and serves as a commemoration of the nativity story. Each day within this timeframe signifies a unique facet of the Christmas narrative.
In the beloved Christmas carol, "The Twelve Days of Christmas," individual days are linked to specific gifts, each symbolizing a particular element of the Nativity. We invite you to join us in celebrating each day by spotlighting a piece of art or an object from our gallery, offering a rich exploration of the diverse aspects of the Christmas story.
12 Drummers Drumming
The Good Shepherd Tiffany Stained-Glass Window
The 12 drummers drumming stand for the 12 doctrinal points of the Apostles' Creed, which are: believe in God, believe in Jesus Christ, we was conceived by the Spirit, he was crucified and died, he descended into hell and rose again, he ascended into heaven and sits next to God, he will come again to judge, believe in the Holy Spirit, believe in the communion, forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
Eleven Pipers Piping
Tiffany Bas-Relief Sculpture of the Angels of the Liturgy
Here we see eleven angels carrying the instruments of the Catholic Mass. The eleven pipers piping are the eleven faithful apostles, the followers of God, Judas Iscariot is not counted. They were the primary teachers of His word and were those that put into practice His teachings, like the angels are carrying the instruments of the Mass, they had what was needed to live the Gospel of Christ fully.
Ten Lords A-Leaping
The Rabbi
Ten lords a-leaping are thought to be the Ten Commandments. When Moses was leading the Israelites out of the wilderness, he went atop Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments from God. The commandments are principles relating to ethics and worship to help the pious live more faithful lives.
Nine Ladies Dancing
Light by Gabriel Cornelius von Max 28x22
Nine Ladies dancing are representative of the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit. “Paul's writing about the fruit of the Spirit is found in Galatians 5: 22-23. In the Bible these verses read: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
Eight Maids A-Milking
The Milk Girl (La Laitiére), (c. January 1900) by Julien Dupré 28.5x18.5
Eight maids a-milking is to symbolize all of us. Christ came to save everyone, even the most common of men. No matter if one is milking cows or king, everyone has the opportunity to be saved.
Seven Swans A-Swimming
Seven swans are thought to be the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit which are: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. Isaiah foretold that the Holy Spirit would rest upon the promised Messiah, Emmanuel, and that he would possess wisdom and understanding, counsel and fortitude, knowledge, fear of the Lord (Is 11:2), and piety. As Jesus was blessed with these gifts by his Father, every believer is blessed with the same gifts by the Holy Spirit.
Six Geese A-Laying
Gathering Eggs by Isaac Henzell 38x51
The six geese represents the six days of creation. God created light, atmosphere, sun and moon, the landscape and plants, land creatures, and man. These are the six working days, which is why the geese are laying their eggs, as stated.
Five Golden Rings
The Pentateuch includes the first five books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The literary category of the Pentateuch reflects the traditional Jewish grouping of these books together as the Torah.
Four Calling Birds
Early 20th Century Mosaic of Christ and Angels
Four Calling Birds reminds us of the four Gospels or the four Evangelists, Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John where we find the stories of Christ's life.
Three French Hens
Hay Season by Louis Robbe 56x89
Three French Hens often symbolizing the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Two Turtle Doves
A Partridge in a Pear Tree
Adoration of the Shepherds by 19th Century Dutch School, 60x32
The Partridge in a Pear tree represents Christ in the Nativity. Christ is like the mother partridge who is known to have sacrificed herself for the good of her young.
Harriet Amelia Folsom Young was the daughter of architect William Folsom, who helped design and build the Salt Lake Tabernacle; Salt Lake Theater; and the St. George, Manti, and Salt Lake Temples. Amelia married Brigham Young in 1863, becoming his favorite wite.
Amelia, known for her wit and intelligence, often entertained Brigham's guests. In 1873, Brigham commissioned a separate residence for entertaining dignitaries. The home cost $80,000 and was completed in
1881. The name of the home was Gardo House. No one knows how the name came about. Some believe it came from a Spanish novel Brigham especially liked. Others believe people saw the towering home as a sentinel on guard over the valley, thus calling it Gardo. The home had a full basement, a beautiful main floor with a sweeping spiral staircase, and two upper levels; in all 46 rooms. To furnish the home, another $25,000 was spent.
After Young's death, Amelia was able to live in it for a short while before it changed hands and names, facing ridicule for opulence. Eventually taken by the government and eventually sold to the Federal Reserve Bank, it was demolished in 1926. The Eagle Gate Plaza and Tower now stand in its place.
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From Vanderbilt Estate
Signed Miller on verso
Gouache on board
40 x 30 in.
This is a portrait of the artist’s mother, Barbara Whitney Headley. Painted by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s granddaughter: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Conner b. 1925 - d. 2009.
Woman is sitting at a wood table with puzzle pieces in front of her. She is working on an embroidery project while looking off to her left.
]]>Eugene Alexis Girardet (French, 1853-1907)
Eugene Alexis Girardet hailed from a Swiss Huguenot family, with an artist father, Paul Girardet, and artistic siblings. After learning engraving from his father, he studied at École des Beaux-arts and under Jean-Léon Gérôme, who inspired a trip to North Africa in 1874. He later explored Spain and embarked on eight journeys to Algeria, often with his brothers, focusing on regions like Biskra, El Kantara, and Bou Saâda. He collaborated with Étienne Dinet and depicted desert nomads in Egypt and Palestine during his 1898 visit. Unlike his peers, he avoided harem themes. Returning to France, he taught at Académie Julian and exhibited widely, including at the Salon and Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français. His acclaim includes a gold medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle and recognition at the 1906 Exposition Coloniale de Marseille. His works are displayed in various museums in Switzerland; French, Algiers' National Museum of Fine Arts; the Musée d'Orsay, Paris France; the Dahesh Museum of Art, New York City; and The Manhattan New York Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
]]>This monumental window depicting Christ is one of the finest and earliest examples of Tiffany Studios stained glass to ever come available. It was originally donated to and installed in the Jackson Sanatorium, a health spa in Dansville, NY, as a memorial to Dr. James Caleb Jackson, inventor of the first breakfast cereal, “Granula.” His views influenced the health reforms of turn- of-the-century America and, especially, the Seventh-day Adventist Church. (This window was later donated to and installed in the Dansville Presbyterian Church.)
The image of Christ owes much to Heinrich Hofmann's work, widely reproduced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
This work was painted at the height of Mahonri’s career, at time when he had become world famous for his passionate and realistic depictions of boxers — works that were collected by Cole Porter, Joseph Pulitzer, and JD Rockfeller, and now found in the Smithsonian and Metropolitan Museums.
Mahonri Young’s biography is remarkable. He was born in Salt Lake City, eleven days before the death of his grandfather, Brigham Young, Prophet and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mahonri was a member of a new generation growing up on the Western Frontier. Rather than homesteading in log cabins and living off the land, Young walked electrically-lit streets and took lessons from European-trained artists. He eventually studied at the Art Students’ League in New York, then in Paris at the prestigious Académie Julian. Young returned to the States, and, after the death of his first wife, returned to Paris then settled in New York.
It was in Paris that Young created his first series of internationally-acclaimed works capturing the drama of boxers, including Da Winnah! (Figure 1), Right to the Jaw, The Knockdown, and Two Bantams. Young worked with the Valsuani Foundry in Paris, who also cast sculptures for Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, Aime-Jules Dalou, and Aristide Maillol. For the series, Young regularly attended boxing matches, even consulting with the French middleweight boxing champion René Devos. The works were an immediate success, launching Young into rarified post-war circles that included Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and the Fitzgeralds. He gave painting lessons to Gertrude and Leo Stein, and dined with Ernest Hemingway. In a 1926 letter to a friend, Young describes a visit from Linda Lee Thomas Porter, wife of the composer, Cole Porter, who came with a group of women from the “loftiest circles of international society” to see his art. He was delighted to learn that Porter and her friends knew a great deal about boxing, having attending many matches themselves.
Young was one of several prominent American artists to become famous for his boxing images. George Bellows (1882-1925) and George Luks (1867-1923) also rose to prominence with their depictions of amateur and prize fights. All three had a similar lineage as students of Robert Henri (1865-1929) at the Arts Students’ League in New York. Henri was a founding member of the Ashcan School philosophy, which aspired to apply academic skills to paint prosaic, even dirty, subjects. According to the art critic Robert Hughes, Henri “wanted art to be akin to journalism . . paint to be as real as mud, as the clods of horse-dung and snow that froze on Broadway in winter.” As a result, Luks’ and Bellows’ images of boxing often wallowed in the violence and gore of their subjects, albeit with occasional humor, as in a self-portrait Luks did of himself as a failed boxer with a black eye and prominent cut on his left cheek titled Chicago Whitey. This contrasted with Mahonri’s images which tended to focus on color and movement. Despite these differences, critics often grouped and compared the three.
Young, long-accustomed but demonstrably weary of the comparison, later wrote in his autobiography:
So, I got a lot of work done [in Paris] and then when I came home I had a show of these things at Frank Glynn’s and they made quite a hit. They even said, ‘Why, this man almost is George Bellows.” The Truth of the matter is, I’d done prize-fights long before George Bellows had, but they [Bellows’ works] were paintings. I’d made studies and drawings, an infinite number of drawings.
In 1934, Mahonri was living in New York. He had just closed two critically-acclaimed shows in private galleries, and was working with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to create the This is the Place Monument (Salt Lake City, UT) and a statue of his Grandfather, Brigham Young, which was installed in the United State Capitol Building.
Mahonri Young (Salt Lake City, UT 1877 - Norwalk, CT 1957)
The Artist at Ringside, 1934
Oil on canvas
30 x 25 in.
Signed lower center, “Mahonri Young 1934”
]]>Teichert's mother and sisters encouraged and supported her throughout her time at the Art Students League in New York City. They would send letters of encouragement and praise for her art, as well as, monetary help for her tuition. Her younger sister Sara was especially keen to send her any extra employment earnings while Minerva was at school. Sara commissioned Minerva to paint this portrait, the first to be completed after returning home from New York. As seen in the lower right-hand corner, she has signed it Minerva Kohlhepp, as she had not yet married Herman Teichert at the time of this portrait.
]]>This bronze was made after Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ 1886 monumental statue, The Puritan. The original work was commissioned for Stearns Square in Springfield, Massachusetts, by Chester W. Chapin to pay homage to his ancestor, Deacon Samuel Chapin, a founding member of the city. As there was no record on which to base Deacon Chapin’s appearance, his descendants worked closely with Saint-Gaudens to ensure accuracy in the figure’s dress, utilizing seventeenth-century woodblock prints for research. The stalwart figure, who confidently strides forward with walking stick in hand and a Bible held firmly under his left arm, was unveiled on Thanksgiving Day in 1887. Representing more than just the singular man on which it was based, The Puritan stands for qualities of resilience, courage and moral fortitude—the all-important makings of an early American settler. While most editions are inscribed with the title, "THE PVRITAN," the inscription on the present edition identifies the subject, Samuel Chapin. This differentiating element supports that this was probably a private commission for the Chapin family, ancestors of the present owner.
The Puritan statue in Springfield, Massachusetts. Originally designed to be part of Stearns Square, since 1899 the statue has stood at the corner of Chestnut and State Street next to The Quadrangle.
]]>“Truly all if remarkable and a wellspring of amazement and wonder. Man is so fortunate to dwell in this American Garden of Eden.”
Albert Bierstadt
Albert Bierstadt’s painting, “Mt. Timpanogos at Sunset,” was shown at the Corcoran Gallery — now part of the Smithsonian Museum — in 1971. At the time, it was known simply known as “The Mountain Top at Sunset, Western Landscape.”
It is a view of Timpanogos’s western face from a southernly perspective. Bierstadt’s paintings of the Rocky Mountains, Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Sierra Nevada defined the American vision of the West and led to the establishment of national parks in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and California. They can be found in the Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum, Getty Center, and De Young collections; and reproduced en masse for over 100 years as stamps, posters, and puzzles.
Bierstadt’s love of Utah and the Wasatch are well documented. He came here numerous times between the 1870 and 1900, making some of Utah’s natural wonders iconic landmarks in the American imagination. He also made many friends along the way, reportedly frequently staying at the home of George Q. Cannon — then a member of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — and taking painting expeditions with local artists.
Separately, Anthony’s recently acquired a guestbook from the Silver Lake Villa, then located in present-day Brighton, Utah in Big Cottonwood Canyon, where artists Albert Bierstadt and Alfred Lambourne both stayed on August 22, 1881.
The specific date for this painting of Timpanogos is not known. Its perspective suggests Bierstadt was likely standing on or near South Timpanogos peak, which comes to a height of 11,719.
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Lorus Pratt (Tooele, UT 1855 - 1923, Salt Lake City, UT)
with Albert-Gabriel Rigolot (French, 1862 - 1932)
Landscape with Pond (c. 1890)
25 1/4 x 18 1/4 in., Oil on canvas.
Anthony’s Fine Art, Salt Lake City
Lorus Pratt was one of five Utahans sent by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to study in Paris in order to complete the grand design of the Salt Lake Temple. In Paris, Pratt studied with the Albert-Gabriel Rigolot (French, 1862 - 1932). Rigolot was a prestigious landscape artists, whose works had won multiple awards at the Paris Salon and various Universal Expositions (a.k.a. World’s Fairs). Today his works are found in the collections of the Musée d’Orsay, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Petite Palais, and Musée du Luxembourg, among many others.
Rigolot was admired by contemporaries for his ability to paint in plein air, working quickly from start to finish out of doors while maintaining the complexity of color, composition, and painterly brushstrokes of an artist that otherwise would have taken weeks to complete in a studio. For Pratt, who had been sent to learn to painting landscapes quickly and in large scale, Rigolot’s mentorship was instrumental.
Albert-Gabriel Rigolot (French, 1862 - 1932)
Landscape with pond (n.d.) Oil on canvas. 24 2/5 x 18 1/8 in.
Private French collection
The painting is signed twice in Pratt’s own hand, once with the name of “A. Rigolot” and then “L. Pratt.” It strongly resembles in composition, subject, and size of a painting by Rigolot, Landscape with pond. The script and execution of the piece suggest the work was done mostly by Pratt. But, given that the painting by Rigolot has remained in a French collections, the most likely scenario is that Rigolot either painted his work alongside Pratt, in order to teach his student the process of making a work; or, Pratt was shown the finished work by Rigolot, who encouraged the younger artist to make a study. In both cases, it was common practice for a teacher to be directly involved in the making of the work, painting on the student’s own canvas to show technique and help develop the work.
Whatever the case, works by Pratt are rare. Of the four surviving Utahan’s sent to Paris (i.e. Herman Haag dies shortly after) Pratt is the least prolific, thereafter dedicating himself to farming and teaching English at the University of Utah.
Winter Ranch by John Hafen, 12 x 18 inches, oil on canvas
After spending a year studying in Paris, John Hafen was the first artist to get started on painting the murals in the Salt Lake Temple. Edwin Evans followed soon after in 1892, and also painted the murals in the Cardston, Alberta, Canadian temple.
Edwin Evans partnered with fellow artists, J.T. Harwood and John Hafen, to start the Academy of Art in Salt Lake City. He later became the head of the art department at the University of Utah, which cemented his status as a foundational pioneer era painter.
Southern Utah by Edwin Evans, 15 x 18 inches, oil on canvas
"Armstrong Farm at Mountain Dell" by Dan Weggeland, 22 x 34 inches, oil on canvas
This painting by Minerva Teichert of the explorer Captain Benjamin Bonneville, who paved the way for the Mormon pioneers, represents the fulfillment of a mission the artist undertook to paint the "story of her people." Made at the height of her artistic powers and with tremendous ambition, Teichert considered this work to be one of her most important. The painting represents the story of Captain Bonneville and his influence on the Mormon Pioneers and native peoples, as well as Minerva's ambition.
Captain Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville is one of six prominent figures – including Brigham Young and Jim Bridger – memorialized on the This is the Place Monument in Salt Lake City. He is also the namesake of dozens of schools, civic buildings, and the pre- historic inland body of water, Lake Bonneville. Yet, today little is know of the western explorer, diplomat, and entrepreneur.
Bonneville was born in France, where his family hosted the American revolutionary Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense. Paine developed a close bond to the family, becoming Bonneville's godfather and giving the Bonneville family land in New York, where they eventually settled. Bonneville went on to study at West Point, graduating at a time of little wartime activity, so he decided to dedicate himself to exploration.
Bonneville traveled west, a region known only to Native Americans and some Spanish explorers, whose maps were unreliable and based solely on a patchwork of descriptions by trappers. Sponsored by a conglomerate of wealthy fur traders, including John Jacob Astor, Bonneville set out from Arkansas with a group of mapmakers and trappers into what was largely considered hostile territory.
According to all accounts, Bonneville was a benevolent figure. After contact with him, Native American tribes considered the Franco-American explorer a friend. During his three-year travels west of the Mississippi, he wore his military uniform and acted as an unofficial representative of the United States government, becoming a highly sought- after arbiter who settled disputes between Native Americans and trappers, and between warring Native American nations.
After three years of travel from Arkansas to Oregon and back, Bonneville met with his patron, John Jacob Astor, in New York. Astor would go on to make a fortune in the fur trade, eventually cashing in the continent-long network of trappers Bonneville helped him establish for Manhattan real estate. Coincidentally, Washington Irving, author of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle, was a guest of the Astors during Bonneville's visit. Irving was so captivated by the explorer, he purchased the publishing rights to the entire venture. Irving's The Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837) was published in three
volumes that included journals, notes from months of personal interviews, and detailed maps of the expedition.
These maps from Irving's book were consulted by Joseph Smith, Jr, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and used by Brigham Young to plan the migration of Mormon Pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley.
Born in Ogden to a father of German (or possibly Jewish) descent and the daughter of Mormon pioneers, Minerva Teichert (1888–1976) had an inauspicious beginning for someone who would become a monumental painter of religious scenes and Western history.
Her family was poor, scraping by through subsistence farming and animal husbandry. When Teichert was four, elderly neighbor gifted her a watercolor kit, which the young girl used until her teens, painting while tending animals. Teichert accompanied a local family to San Francisco, working as a nanny, where she visited the city's museums and opera house. She used her wages to study at the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago. From there, Teichert was accepted at the Art Students' League of New York, a school founded on principles of painting figurative works with an aesthetic that emphasized naturalism over idealism. Teichert's mastery of the figure and ambition quickly gained the admiration of Robert Henri, the school's founder and the country's foremost portraitist.
At a crossroads between establishing herself in the cosmopolitan East as a portraitist and an uncertain artistic future on the American frontier, Teichert recorded an influential conversation she had with her teacher. Robert Henri asked her, shortly before she left New York, whether any artist had ever told the “great Mormon story.”
“‘Not to suit me,’ I answered. ‘Good Heavens, girl, what a chance. You do it. You’re the one. Oh, to be a Mormon.’ I said to him, ‘You could be.’ He paused almost reverently for a moment, then answered, ‘That’s your birthright. You feel it. You’ll do it well.’ I felt that I had been commissioned.” (Unpublished ms., 1947.)
Teichert returned to the West, first to Idaho then to Cokeville, Wyoming, where together with her husband, she established a farm. For many years, Teichert did not have sufficient time to paint, unable to step away from the overwhelming responsibilities that came with farm work, hosting boarders, and raising a family. In the early 1930s, she took steps to paint the "story" of her people. Teichert began by visiting the only library in Cokeville – then with a population of around 450 – which was located in the town's elementary school. When asked for a book on local history, the school's principal suggested Teichert read The Adventures of Captain Bonneville. Teichert borrowed it so often that the principal eventually gave her the school's copy.
Using the book as her inspiration, Teichert planned two monumental paintings depicting Bonneville in the West, each about 6 x 10 feet.
The painting Captain Bonneville Explores the West (1933) does not depict any particular moment. Rather, it captures the character of Bonneville's expedition and team. Bonneville sits astride his horse in customary brass-buttoned military kit at the center, flanked by trappers, who prepare game in a copse of trees. It is spring, with new leaves on the Aspen trees and a still snow-topped mountain peak in the background. There are four horses in the painting, which would seem ordinary to our modern eyes; but, at the time, there was a significant distinction between the competency of ordinary trappers and those who on horseback.
The men themselves are diverse. Some are dressed in colorful machine-made clothing made in the East, while others are dressed in the customary deerskin of mountain men. Two of the men are Native Americans, one has the red hair of an Irishmen, another the fair skin and hair of a Scandinavian, and still another with the facial hair typical of Bavaria. Combined with Boneville's French origin, this multi-national group was typical of the early American frontier, where people had to speak multiple known languages and converse in what was then called “Indian Sign Language” to get directions, make trades, and negotiate through hostile territory.
Teichert painted this monumental work at the height of her powers, without a studio, in the depths of the Great Depression, and with no particular destination for the painting. The artist would pin canvases to the exterior of her home, working between jobs, while weather permitted; then untacked and rolled up the canvas. According to at least one family friend, Teichert kept stacks of canvas rolls throughout the house and barn, waiting to be stretched and framed. There were no art galleries in Wyoming, nor were there building projects that then planned to incorporate her works.
With the Depression affecting Teichert and her family, the artist reached out to Alice Merrill Horne. Like Teichert, Horne was educated, independent, and ambitious. She founded and directed the Utah Department of Arts & Museums, along with some 35 other institutions and art collections. In the absence of a commercial art market (i.e. galleries and established collectors), Horne held exhibitions, wrangled collectors together, and collaborated with public building programs to ensure new buildings contained work by regional artists. She was key in the careers of dozens of regional artists, including LeConte Stewart, Mabel Frazer, John Hafen, J.T. Harwood, and H.L.A. Culmer.
Horne arranged for Teichert's Bonneville paintings to be purchased for South High School in Salt Lake City:
The reason that Grandma decided to go to see Alice Merrill Horne about selling her art and about painting more murals was because in the 1930s they were in danger of losing the ranch during the Great Depression. So she went down and unrolled some of these large canvases on Alice Merrill Horne's floor. Alice Merrill Horne was the dealer of all important Utah artists at the time. And Horne immediately became her dealer and started marketing her works. So in the 1930's alone Alice Merrill Horne placed 60 of grandma's murals in public buildings in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho she painted. South High School in Salt Lake bought 12 of her murals and they were western themed and native peoples. (Source: https://www.thisisherplace.org/episodes/episode-03)
Seeing her works hanging in South High, Teichert called the building her “jewel box."
Horne's placement of the Bonneville paintings in South High was not coincidental. The painting shows Bonneville surrounded by a diverse group of trappers of Native American, French, Irish, English, and German origins. From its inception, South High was Salt Lake City's most diverse school. It then drew on working class families, mostly of Latin American descent, and would go on to see the State's largest population of German, Polynesian, and Vietnamese students – some 66,000 students overall. The school was also a training ground for civic and Church leaders. LDS Church presidents Harold B. Lee and Gordon B. Hinckley both taught Seminary at South High; and Barbara Smith, former LDS Relief Society general president, and Ted Wilson, former mayor of Salt Lake City, were graduates.
Captain Bonneville Explores the West (1933) captures the ambition of both early Western exploration and of Minerva Teichert, as she set out to depict the history of her heritage through a monumental painting that had no specific destination besides her own need to create it. Through the efforts of Alice Merrill Horne, the work illustrated the cooperation and diversity of American life to the State's most diverse study body at South High, and is an excellent example of the work of perhaps the region's greatest painter at the height of her abilities.
Anthony's is celebrating Bastille Day - la féte nationale honoring the birth of France as we know it.
To show our love for French art, furniture, music, and food gained over four decades of travels through the Pays de France. We will flaunt objets d'art and give une baguette fraîche to everyone wearing a beret or who can sing La Marseillaise.
Come in on July 14th and join us for a celebration and a treat!
]]>Prague, Czcechia, 1840 — 1915, Munich, Germany
Licht, Blinde Öllampenverkäuferin in römischen Katakomben zur Zeit der Christenverfolgung.
(Light, Blind oil lamp seller in Roman catacombs at the time of the persecution of Christians)
c. 1872.
Oil on canvas. 28 x 22 1/2 in.
Private Collection
Pasadena Museum of Fine Arts (Norton Simon Museum)
Collection of Alex Trebek
A blind Roman slave girl sits quietly at the entrance to the catacombs, dispensing oil lamps to Christians hiding from Roman authorities. On the left, a woman of high birth risks her life by worshiping secretly with the lower classes. The artist Gabriel von Max painted this work, simply titled Light (1873), for the Vienna International Exposition (i.e. World’s Fair).
Gabriel von Max, c. 1873
The son of the sculptors Josef Max and Anna Schuman, Gabriel von Max showed a precocious talent for art, winning a place at the prestigious Prague Academy of Fine Arts at the age of 15. From Prague, Max continued studies at the Munich Academy of Art, where artists like James McNiel Whistler, Emmanuel Leutze, Albert Bierstadt, and Eastman Johnson were also drawn to learn from some of the best figural painters in Europe. Throughout his career Max was drawn to spiritual subjects, often working with archeologists to depict the stories of early Christian martyrs and saints in the context of new archeological discoveries, such as the catacombs of Rome. After distinguishing himself with gold medals from the World Fairs in Berlin, Munich, and Vienna — along with dozens of other contests such as the Paris Salon — Max was made Professor of Historical Painting at the Munich Academy.
His painting Licht (1873) was shown at the Vienna World’s Fair (aka Universal Exposition) of 1873, where it was highly regarded and widely reproduced in photogravures, lithographs and publications — both religious and historical — on the plight of early Christians throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The work even became a popular subject for nineteenth century tableaux vivant — live recreations of paintings with people and costumes — that were held in public celebrations during last quarter of the nineteenth century among art enthusiasts and during Christian festivals.
Unknown photographer. Tableau vivant of Licht by Gabriel von Max, held at Villa Todesco, February - March 1893, 23.8 x 16.2 cm. Tate Museum, London.
Writing in 1890, the critic and art historian EP Evans wrote about Max’s “blind girl in the catacombs” that “no one knows better than Max how to infuse a profound and peculiar pathos of spiritualism . . . into modern life.” (Source: EP Evans, “Artists and Art Life in Munich” The Cosmopolitan, Vol IX, No. 1, May 1890, 10.)
The painting was quickly acquired by the newly established Museum of the City of Regensburg, Germany (a few miles northeast of Munich then home to many artists). As was the custom of the time, Max was commissioned by prominent collectors to make two more versions of the painting. One is now in the Ukrainian National Museum of Odessa, and this version was given to the Pasadena Museum of Art, now known at the Norton Simon Museum. (It was later de-accessed and purchased by the TV host Alex Trebek, a devoted Christian, who displayed the work prominently in his home.)
In 1909, representatives from Oberlin College and the Brooklyn Museum of Art travelled to Munich to interview Max, both to acquire works and learn how to establish their own schools of art using his teachings. They reported:
For many years [Max] has been deeply interested in spiritualism, and it has been his chief aim to portray in his art the spiritual element in life, as distinct from the merely psychological. The material for this he has found in the introspective faces of nuns, in the devoted nurses of great hospitals, and in all the self sacrifice and devotion to duty which brings great spiritual insight. In so far as his art does not teach the fundamental spiritual meaning of life, he feels that it has failed of its purpose. (Source: Mary H. Wright “Interview with Herr Gabriel von Maxx,” Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Oberlin College for 1908 - 1909. Oberlin Ohio: College Press, 1909, 136-137.)
The full title for Max’s painting is “Light, Blind oil lamp seller in Roman catacombs at the time of the persecution of Christians.” Although no specific person or time for the subject is given, from his personal writings, it is well known that Max was enamored with the book Fabiola, of the Church of the Catacombs (1854) by Nicholas Wiseman (Irish, 1802 - 1865), the first Catholic Cardinal of England and Wales appointed after the re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy. In his book, Cardinal Wiseman combines contemporary excavations of early Christian religious sites in Rome with the stories of Saints during the first two hundred years of Christianity.
At that time, the Roman Empire was officially polytheist public sacrifices to the Gods and, often, Roman rulers, compulsory. While they represent less than .5 percent of the Empire, Christian refusal to participate in ritual sacrifices made the small community an existential threat to the ruling class. During the rule of four emperors — Nero (54 - 68 AD), Marcus Aurelius (161 - 180 AD), Decius (249 _ 251) and Teronianus Gallus (251 - 253) — Christians were jailed, enslaved, deprived of property, and publicly killed. But, with Roman rulers often seen as deities with their religion deemed illegal, anyone caught openly taking Christian sacraments or professing the faith were persecuted by the pagan rulers of Rome, unable to worship openly in Rome.
In his novel, Wiseman tells the story of a blind Christian slave girl, named Cecælia, who knew by memory the passage of the miles of labyrinthine passages where the faithful met. Cecælia was captured by Roman soldiers after the girl guided the Emperor’s wife, a secret Christian, to a meeting of the faithful.
Max shows the girl in pure white and holding a lamp, conjuring the parable of the faithful virgins awaiting the bridegroom.
The palm leaves, reminiscent of Christ’s triumphal entry before the Crucifixion, at the girl’s feet prefigure her own triumphal entry to heaven, along with red flowers representing the martyr’s blood.
Henry Lavender Adolphus Culmer (Kent, England, 1856 - 1914, Salt Lake City) Grand Canyon of the Colorado (1903) Watercolor. 30 x 40 in. Anthony’s Fine Art & Antiques, Salt Lake City, UT.
Provenance
1904 World’s Fair
Collection of Colonel Edwin F. and Suzie Holmes (a.k.a. Amelia’s Palace) Salt Lake City, Utah
Private Collection
Culmer was the first artist to see and paint Utah’s southern regions. An explorer, civic leader, writer, and entrepreneur, he used art to promote knowledge and development of Utah. Preceding the establishment of the United States National Parks Department in 1905, this painting, Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, was made by Culmer as a result of his exploration of Southern Utah and subsequently displayed at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904. The work led to commissions from National Geographic Society to further explore and depict Utah’s natural wonders.
In 1903, Culmer was invited to join an expedition to Southern Utah, sponsored by the Utah Commercial Club. At the time, the region was largely unmapped; but, rumors of land bridges and deep canyons led local leaders to sponsor a trip that would “make “accurate measurements, photographs, and descriptions, of Utah’s scenic beauties.” (Source: Uncredited. ”New President of Commercial Club has Closely Studied Public Problems,” Salt Lake Herald, 18 January 1903.) Culmer was the trip’s visual recorder, taking photographs and making sketches along the way.
H.L.A. Culmer (Kent, England - 1856 - 1914, Salt Lake City) Grand Canyon of the Colorado (c. 1904) 9 3/4 x 15 3/4 in. Watercolor. Springville Museum of Art, Springville.
Culmer made a smaller version of the same subject from a different angle, presumably in preparation for the grander work, which is held by the Springville Museum of Art. Both the study, and the final work, it seems Culmer was influenced by the large-scale watercolors of another artist explorer: Thomas Moran. Although the exact date is unknown, several contemporary sources suggest that Moran and Culmer met in 1879, while both artists were exploring mountainous regions of Utah. Both shared an affinity for dramatic views and painting in the unforgiving medium of watercolor, which allows for subtle transitions between values and temperatures that are difficult to communicate in oil.
Two principal paintings came from the expedition: Grand Canyon of the Colorado and Caroline Bridge, now located in the chambers of the Utah Supreme Court.
H.L.A. Culmer (1856 - 1914) Caroline Bridge (1905) Oil on canvas. 60 x 90 in. State of Utah Fine Art Collection, Supreme Court Chamber, State Capitol.
Of the two works, Grand Canyon of the Colorado was the more famous. It was first shown at the newly formed Utah Art Institute’s art show — the State’s foremost professional art competition — of 1903. Out of 500 submissions — including works by Edwin Evans, John Hafen, LA Ramsay, and John Fairbanks — Culmer’s work won first prize. As a result, it was then chosen to officially represent the State at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Called the “Louisiana Purchase Exposition,” the World’s Fair celebrated the centennial of the expansion of the United States and displayed works, like “Grand Canyon of the Colorado” to showcase the natural wonders of the West. It was visited by more than 20 million people, equivalent to 1/4 of the population of the United States.
On April 30, 1904—the opening day of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Credit. The Atlantic Magazine.
Following the World’s Fair, the work was acquired from the State by Col. Edwin F. Holmes, President of the Commercial Club, and displayed in his home on the corner of South Temple and State street, then known as Amelia’s Palace.
National Geographic Magazine, No. 18, March 1907.
Largely due to his success at the World’s Fair, Culmer’s paintings and writings on Utah became the cover story of the March 1907 edition of the National Geographic Society. Titled “The Great Natural Bridges of Utah,” the article ends with the following “National Park Suggestion”:
“From all that is learned of this wonderful country, it is believed that its preservation and care should be undertaken by the United States Government, as in the case of Yellowstone National Park, so that roads may be opened and these greatest of the world’s natural bridges can be made accessible for the tourists from our own country and from all over the world . . .” (Source: National Geographic Magazine, No. 18, March 1907, 204)
Three years later, Rainbow Bridge National Park (later known as Canyon Lands) was created, followed by Bryce Canyon (1928), Arches (1929), and Capitol Reef (1937).
]]>"Uncle Gene at Work," Cokeville, Wyoming, 1959
27 x 37 inches
Oil on Canvas
Signed lower left
]]>Louis Comfort Tiffany's glass was groundbreaking in all areas of color, texture, and design...
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Palmyra 1830
Excellent Condition from Private Collection
]]>On July 9, 1873, Thomas Moran wrote to his wife Mary from Salt Lake City: "In the afternoon Powell and I went to Brigham Young's house and I was introduced to all the leading Mormons. There was Brig[ham] Young. Geo. A. Smith second man in power. Bishop Nusser [Musser]. Bishop Cannon. The editor of the Mormon paper and delegate to Congress. Bishop Hooper and some other Mormon high priests. They are very much like the rest of mankind and all smart fellows." Moran came to Salt Lake via the Union Pacific Railroad to meet John Wesley Powell of Colorado River fame. It had been less than four years since Major Powell started his first trip down the Green to the Colorado and through the Grand Canyon of Arizona. Powell was on good terms with the Mormons, and as the Indian commissioner, he was charged with investigating the welfare of the Indians in Utah. Brigham Young and Powell shared this common interest in further exploration of the Utah Territory, Powell for the sake of science and personal curiosity and Brigham Young for the sake of extending Mormon colonization. Moran, Powell, J. E. Colburn, a writer for the New York Times, and James C. Pilling, Powell's secretary, were headed south to the Grand Canyon. All had interests in the unknown and the scenic. Moran had commissions for illustrations from eastern publishers, and Colburn was on assignment for the New York Times. For some reason, Colburn preferred not to meet Brigham Young and stayed in his room at the Walker House.
The group left Salt Lake on the Utah Southern Railroad and rode it all the way to Lehi, a grand total of 30 of the almost 400 miles ahead of them. In describing Salt Lake City's extraordinary setting, including Mount Olympus...
By the time Moran was thirty years old, he was a recognized and accomplished artist. In 1861, he was in London studying the works of Joseph Mallord William Turner and Claude Lorraine. He was in Europe again in 1866 and with his wife Mary spent a year studying and painting. Moran developed a taste for the works of Turner but said he cared nothing for Turner's later works. Despite this, Moran seemed to follow Turner's use of color is his more abstract later works. So great was Moran's admiration for Turner that he spent much time making firsthand copies.
]]>Glory to them the toilers of the art
Who wrought with knotted hands in wood, glass, and stone
Dreams their unlettered minds could not give birth
And symmetries their should had never known.
Glory to them the artisans, who spread
Cathedrals like brown lace before the sun
Who could not build a rhyme, but reared instead
The Doric grander of the Parthenon,
I never cross a marble Portico
Or lift my eyes where stained glass windows steal
From Virgin sunlight moods of deeper glow
Or walk down peopled streets, except to feel
A hush of reverence for that vast dead,
Who gave us beauty for a crust of bread.
]]>
Trained at the Royal Academy of Art in Düssseldorf, Cronau became a respected landscapist and portrait artists, first in Düsseldorf, then Leipzig. In 1880, he was hired by the illustrated magazine Die Gartenlaube, to be their “American Corespondent;” traveling from the East to West Coast and documenting important people and places along the way. He landed in New York in 1881. From there he travelled to Fort Randall (Dakota Territory) where he met, painted, and developed a life-long relationship with Sitting Bull. Over eighteen months, Cronau made some 50 collotypes (dichromatic-based photographs) and drawings that were first published in Die Gartenlaube then the book Von Wunderland zu Wunderland. There are several small oil studies made by Cronau — now located in the Gilcrease Museum (Tulsa, OK) and two large oil paintings: The Green River Utah (1885, Gilcrease Museum) and Salt Lake City (Anthony’s Fine Art).
Returning to Germany, Cronau gave a lecture tour, extolling the virtues of American democracy, the plight of the Native Americans, and his positive experience with Mormons. He published his experiences in the book Im wilden Westen: Eine Künstlerfahrt durch die prairien und Felsengenbirge (1890), then returned to the United States, where he raised his family and became a citizen.
In his 1890 book Im wilden Westen: Eine Künstlerfahrt durch die prairien und Felsengenbirge, Cronau made a detailed account of his trip to Salt Lake City. Reading his words, it is clear that the painting is more than a landscape. His description of the city, includes comparisons between the landscapes of Germany and discussion of the accomplishments and values that that buildings in Salt Lake represent. Below are excepts from Cronau’s account:
Across my vision, stretched the great Salt Lake with its extensive islands, towered above it were distant mountain ranges. Around noon we reached Salt Lake City, the Jerusalem of the Mormon State. We saw the temple, the tabernacle, the houses of the prophet tower above the trees, and soon drove into the inconspicuous train station, from where a carriage trotted us at a fast paced\ to the famous Townsend Hotel. I stayed there for a full week to study the life and goings-on of the Mormon people, firsthand, and to witness peculiarities that the city has to offer from in a time of splendor. Getting into closer contact with some Mormon families, I thought I ought to get a clear picture of Mormon teachings and life. A better country could not easily be found on the vast earth…
. . . [After the martyrdom of Joseph Smith Jr.] the prophet's mantle fell on the shoulders of Brigham Young, who joined the sect in 1832 and had was given the honorific of "the Lion of the Lord" from a fellow believer. In the midst of the unbelievers, among an ever more powerful cultural development, it was impossible for the Saints to continue [in Ohio]. And when the persecutions began all over again in 1845, Brigham Young decided to found a Mormon state in a remote area where such a people could grow. With great care and energy, Brigham made preparations for the Mormon emigration. The famous exodus of the Mormons, began in the Winter of 1846 — an exodus which has only one counterpart in world history: the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The Mormons left their belongings, their cornfields, their gardens, their beautiful houses with books, carpets, pianos, in short, everything that they contained.”
“The narrative of the Exodus of the Mormons has a story that touches the hearts of all noble people. The way of the Mormons went through prairies, which were teeming with bloodthirsty Indian hordes and wild animals, over torrential rivers and through horrific mountain deserts, over inescapable treeless plains and over sky-high alpine chains, through a wilderness that so far only a few whites had entered. Hundreds of miles these modern crusaders wandered over the prairies in the last winter, living in tent huts or in holes in the ground that they dug to shelter against the icy wind. They suffered untold hardships: typhoid fever, scurvy, and deadly fevers raged among the wandering crowd. Many hands and feet froze, and some of the strongest and persevering became helpless cripples. There were no oasis. The mirage often mocked them with prospects of water, and when they really got to streams and rivers, they more often found them bitter of taste and dangerous to health. Numerous graves marked the way for the stragglers. Every day brought new burials, every night new mourning in the camp. But the Saints remained firm in their faith, and they chanted hymns on their wanderings and around their night fires. Among the few objects they brought with them from Nauvoo, was a printing press and newspaper. They printed and published during the journey words of good advice to every part of the camp. Brigham Young leadership soothed the weeping and inflamed the faint-hearted to new hope with burning prophecies.
“This is how they came to the foot of the mighty Alpine chains, which together are known as the ‘Wasatch.’ Over the high ramparts there was no path, and the gorges that led through the high mountains were buried in snow. How the saints struggled up the mountains, dragging their oxen and cart, hauling food, baking their bread, and their weave brings tears to eyes. The young and courageous stepped ahead, drove the bears and wolves away, removed rattlesnakes, hunted the stags and mountain goats, and paved a path for those who followed. And when they reached the top of a mountain, they looked down upon arid, treeless plains onto dry river beds, hills without green, on pools of bitter water, on narrow steep canyons and wide deserts covered with springs. Day after day, week after week, the tormented hikers [climbed] over the rough sierras, through the valleys. The food ran out, the game was poor, when finally, in the greatest need, on the 24th of July 1847 a picture beamed at them which could rightly be said to be one of the few perfect landscapes that the earth has to open up.”
“There they looked out at the foot of majestic, snow-covered Alpine flats, vast plains that join a silver mirror of a mighty lake 75 English miles long and 35 miles wide. And, from this shining lake arises mountainous, purple-colored islands. Beyond, in the far distance, the picturesque sierras of Utah and Nevada. And all this appeared through the effect of a tropical sunshine as if filled with a golden mist of smoky shine. And when the ‘Saints of the Last Days’ descended the hills under the guidance of their prophet, that prophet recognized the plain that an angel had announced to him in the dream of the night and where the new temple was to be built. Then it was decided to stay here, to found new homes here on this plain, albeit a beautiful one, but deserted and without vegetation.”
“Although the newcomers had nothing but a few oxen and wagons, nothing but a sack full of seeds and roots, the sight of the valley soon began to change under the hands of the ‘believers.’ Streams were diverted from the hills into new paths. Fields were created and tilled, apartments prepared, roads laid. Fruit trees planted and gardens marked out. A new Jerusalem came into being, and as the Jewish people in the land of Canaan stepped up to build the temple, the Mormons began to build their ‘tabernacle.’ What the temple was to ancient Zion is the ‘tabernacle’ of the Mormon city. From whatever point you can overlook the city: the enormous vaulted roof of the tabernacle, like the back of a gigantic turtle, catches the eye and fill the vision.”
“. . . With 12-14,000 people, the inner space of this ‘tabernacle’ should be able to capture and the acoustics must be preserved in such an admirable whiteness that one can gently whisper, even drop a pin from one end of the 233-foot-long and 133-foot-wide room until the other can clearly hear. The giant building was not yet completed when the Mormons started building a new, even more magnificent temple. The workers have been at the effort for more than thirty years, and the building, made of huge whitish granite blocks, is approaching completion, only to be called the to display the largest religious building that the New World has to offer. In the vicinity of these two Mormon sanctuaries, the ‘Endowment House’ was built, where the ordination and the ‘sealings’ (i.e. the marriages) take place. In the ‘prophet's block,’ which is only separated from the ‘temple block’ by a street, several buildings serving the common good were also created: a school, the tithe office, a newspaper printer and others. This is where they also raised the “beehive house”, so named after the many beehive models that are attached to it. On the flat roof of the cube-shaped building there is an observatory, also in the form of a beehive, which plays a major role for the Mormons as a symbol of their state. After the honeybee called “deseret” in their dictionary, they named their country Deseret, ‘the land of the honeybee.’ In the prophet's block there is also the former residence of Prophet Young and the ‘lion house,’ read more by an elongated, two-story, carved stone lion on the façade character. Wooden building with many piked gable windows, of which the people claims that each marked the apartment of a wife of the Prophet.”
“These places, hidden by the bright red flowers of innumerable peach trees, are the houses of the believers, who, without urgent pomp, without overload, and wherever my gaze turns, friendly images greet the visitor everywhere. On the hikes through the city, nothing is more pleasantly noticeable than the constant cleanliness and attentiveness, peaceful calm and order, the evident well being of all houses and meals. There really is a Deseret, a swarm of bees, but without drones and without a military. Everyone works. Doing work is considered the highest duty and the highest pleasure. There are no idle people and the poor, there must not be, since the poor or unemployed are immediately provided by the Church with what is necessary. The order is more surprising when one considers the different elements from which they come. . . It consists of the English, Irish, Scots, Americans, Canadians, Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Germans, Swiss, French, Poles, Russians, Negroes, Hindus, Indians and Chinese, and all the colors, languages, customs and traditions of the same people together here in a peaceful community of great strength and energy. Elements and contradictions of all nations and zones live here in practical fraternization and harmony. They multiply daily by moving in from all parts of the world. Here in the heart of the American wilderness a cosmopolitan association has blossomed, which has grown independently, competently, and consistently from its own strength and frenetic energy. That is an achievement, a success that the bitter enemies of Mormonism cannot and must not conquer…”
“…The sun fell, and while the snow-drenched high mountains flamed in the glow of the setting sun, putting evening darkness over the cityscape at my feet. The buildings that are closely connected with the name Brigham Young protruded out of this darkness. A medieval looking wall enclosed the women's refuge with numerous, pitted oriel windows, the temple and the tabernacle. I felt as if I was surrounded by a dark dream, as if I were in the old Anabaptist city of Munster, with memories everywhere and the remnants of another, hardly understood time. And yet everything here is reality, living, tangible creation…”
“. . . Since my stay in Salt Lake City fell on a Sunday, I attended a Mormon service, which is held every Sunday at 2:00 p.m. in the Tabernacle. The followers of the Mormon faith came from near and far. The nave of the church quickly filled with women and children, while the men preferred to take seats in the spacious galleries. The crowd streamed unceasingly through the numerous side doors of the Tabernacle, which like a giant sponge, absorbed the population of the whole region. Of particular interest to me was the appearance of a large number of Navajo Indians, who had come over from the more southern parts of the territory or even from New Mexico. The same wore bright burgundy red shirts, brightly colored scarves wound around their heads like a turban, and colored leather gauntlets, and they formed a crazy counterpart to the diverse groups of European and American tourists who did not want to rush past. Little by little, the dignitaries of the church took up their retired seats: several apostles and bishoprics, and finally the president of the congregation, John Taylor, arrived with a very substantial appearance: over six feet tall, with regular, intelligent facial features. His movements showed good manners, and an inflammatory eloquence that emerged during the sermon he was giving did not fail to make a deep impression on the large crowd…”
Micah Christensen on Emmanuel Leutze, "Departure of the Israelites"
Shortly before painting the iconic Washington Crossing the Deleware (1851 | Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Westward Ho! (1851 | US Capitol) Emanuel Leutze made The Departure of the Israelites (1844). In execution, the monumental painting established his credentials as an academic artist. In theme, it was among the first in a series of paintings that celebrated freedom and became central to American identity.
Born in Germany and brought by his political-exile parents to the United States as a child, Emanuel Leutze was accepted to the Royal Academy of Art in Düsseldorf. Though among the best schools in the world, at Leutze’s arrival, the Düsseldorf Academy was deeply divided ideologically between the newly-appointed monarchists and progressives. Leutze, much like his father, was a dedicated Republican and left the academy in 1843 after only two years.
Leaving prematurely could have severely hampered Leutze’s development and career. Academically trained artists are expected to have mastered skills necessary for large-scale, multi-figural painting. Such training took years — sometimes decades — of classroom instruction, competition, and travel. Leutze would need to develop the skills independently; and, perhaps more importantly, establish a reputation without the imprimatur of the Academy.
Leutze undertook a one-year, self-guided Grand Tour, traveling through Switzerland and Italy in preparation for a work that would demonstrate his formidable arsenal of skills and artistic philosophy, which he described in a later interview:
“ . . . the romantic ruins of what were once free cities with their grey walls and frowning towers, in which a few hardy persevering burghers bade defiance to their noble oppressors, whose territories often extended to the walls and surrounded their towns, led me to think how glorious had been the course of freedom from those small isolated manifestations of the love of liberty to where it has unfolded all its splendor in the institutions of our own country. Nearly crushed and totally driven from the old world it could not be vanquished, and found a new world for its home. This course represented itself in pictures to my mind, forming a long cycle, from the first dawning of free institutions in the middle ages, to the reformation and the revolution in England, the causes of emigration, including the discovery and settlement of America, the early protestation against tyranny, of the Revolution and the Declaration of Independence.” (Emanuel Leuzte. Bulletin (September 1851, 95.)
Upon returning to Düsseldorf in 1844, in order to demonstrate his bona fides as equal to those who had actually graduated from a formal academy, Leutze painted his monumental The Departure of the Israelites (1844). The painting is an amplification of David Roberts’ 1829 work by the same title, something Leutze would have only seen as a small, black-and-white print.
Here, the viewer is given a lofty vision of Egypt at the height of its power. It is the day after Passover, the last of the Ten Plagues, in which the First Born of the Egyptians were killed, while those of the Israelites were spared.
And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day in the which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place . . . (Exodus 13:3)
The Pharaoh and his entourage stand to the left surrounded by mourners, as Moses and Aaron, on the right, guide a river of people and animals — some one million souls — past onlookers and armies. As they depart, the Israelites pass through the monuments they created as slaves and on to the wilderness.
The imposing architecture is a combination of actual places (e.g. the Pyramids at Giza) and the imagined grandeur of the ancient past. In scale and perspective, it required remarkable control of forced geometric perspective and control of color values in order to make a scene that gives what today we would consider cinematic. (Many of Leutze’s underlying sight lines can be seen as the paint has aged and thinned.)
For Leutze, the scene was both scriptural and a political manifesto. Having lived and traveled in Europe during the Age of Revolution, Leutze saw a Germany divided between various warring principalities and an idealistic group of reformers, to which he belonged.
Over the next six years, Leutze would paint various historical freedom fighters from Columbus to Cromwell to the Puritans, and John Knox, before painting his iconic Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851). The painting was first presented in Düsseldorf, Cologne, and Berlin — several years before his arrival in America. Leutze hoped the painting would both inspire German constitutionalists and rally the support of Americans for their cause.
As his fame grew on both sides of the Atlantic, Leutze was invited to create an enormous 36-by-56-foot canvas for the newly finished Capitol Building in Washington DC. Though popularly known as Westward Ho!, Leutze’s formal title for the work was Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way (1861).
Leutze would return to Germany and establish himself in Munich, where he became a professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Art. There he was an important corridor between aspiring American artists and Europe. Albert Bierstadt, Enoch Wood Perry Jr. , James McNeill Whistler, Eastman Johnson, and Frank Duveneck, were just a few of Leutze’s students who would go on to have a major influence — artistically and institutionally — on Europe and America.
John Coffey. Exodus and Liberation: Deliverance Politics from John Calvin to Martin Luther King Jr. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
David Hackett Fischer. Liberty and Freedom: A Visual History of America's Founding Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)
Karsten Fitz. "The Düsseldorf Academy of Art, Emanuel Leutze, and German-American Transatlantic Exchange in the Mid-Nineteenth Century," Amerikastudien/American Studies, Vol. 52, No. 1 (Transatlantic Perspectives of American Visual Culture, Universitätsverlag, Winter, 2007 (15 - 34.)
Barbara S. Groseclose. Emanuel Leutze, 1816-1868: Freedom is the Only King. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1975)
]]>"History of Spanish Vargueños" - Episode 7
When asked how to describe the contents of Anthony’s Fine Art & Antiques, Tony is fond of saying, “Anything made by God or man could walk through our door.” From a Ming Buddha carved from a meteorite, to personal effects of Marie Antoinette, an Egyptian sarcophagi, lost masterpieces of art, and relics of saints – we have seen a remarkable number of beautiful, historical, and wonderful things and had the pleasure of meeting the people who collect them. We convinced Tony to sit down and share some of his experiences with the extraordinary people and objects that have come through our door over the years.
"Veterans Day" - Episode 6
"America the Beautiful"- Episode 5
"Father's Day Thoughts"- Episode 4
"Treasure Hunting in France"- Episode 3
"French Cousins & Atlantic City"- Episode 2
"My Friend Debbie" - Episode 1
It is remarkable and appropriate that this sculpture should surface the same year we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ending of World War I. Titled “Captured But Not Conquered,” it depicts, Edgar M. Halyburton, the first American prisoner of War in the conflict. After his capture, German propagandists took and distributed Halyburton’s image in hopes to demoralize newly-arrived American troops. But the effort backfired fantastically. Within days, the photograph as re-appropriated by the allies and reproduced internationally: an American soldier standing tall with one hand in this pocked and the other clenched in a fist at the side was seen as a message of defiance against the odds. Although it is certain that this statue is one of the original three to five made by the sculptor Cyrus Dallin and cast by Gorham, we now believe it was the same sculpture given by Dallin to Halyburton’s family.
In late November 1917, seeing the photograph of the first American POW in a in a Boston paper, Cyrus Dallin immediately began working the image into a sculpture. Dallin had achieved national recognition for his statue of the Angel Moroni atop the Salt Lake Temple, a depiction of Isaac Newton at the Library of Congress and a monumental equestrian statue of the American Patriot Paul Revere. The latter was unveiled in Boston only two months before began work on “Captured But Not Conquered.”Dallin used his son, Arther — who would himself serve in World War I as an ambulance driver and later as a pilot in World War II — as a body double for the POW. The sculptor used the photograph to create the face and put the phrase “Captured But Not Captured.”
How Dallin’s project came to the attention of the Directors of the newly created Federal Liberty Loan — later known as Liberty Bonds — program, is unknown. Tasked with raising funds for the war effort, through government-backed, low interest loans, the program commissioned five original bronze statues from Dallin, which were cast by the Gotham Manufacturing Company. Hundreds more versions of the statue were cast in plaster by Caproni Brothers of Boston and distributed throughout the United States, at post offices and recruitment offices, along with posters of the Statue. It was not until the Liberty Loan program was well under way that Dallin received a letter from Charles O. Carrier, stating:
Mr. Dallin, Having seen a reproduction of your statuette "Captured But Not Conquered,” I wish to pay you a compliment, but am at a loss for words. With the original of the photograph, I am personally acquainted, and you have not only reproduced the features and expression, but his actual character is embodied in the same. I thought perhaps you would be pleased to learn his name which is Edgar M. Halyburton, son of Mrs. Prudence Halyburton of Stony Point, NC, to whom I have mailed a copy. (Reproduced in Edgar Halyburton and Ralph Goll, Edited and annotated by Jonathan Gawne. Shoot and Be Damned Framingham: Ballacourage Books, 2014.)
Upon receipt, Dallin immediately sent a copy of the letter to John K. Allen, Publicity Director of the Liberty Loans in New England, who had already reproduced and distributed plasters and posters of the statue as part of the Liberty Loans Second Campaign. Allen responded:
Our use of the statuette struck a high note in publicity, and those which were sent to various cities in New England have found their way either into public libraries or art museums, and the Liberty Loan Committee has received appreciative letters. (Reproduced in: Edgar Halyburton and Ralph Goll, Edited and annotated by Jonathan Gawne. Shoot and Be Damned Framingham: Ballacourage Books, 2014.)
For the Third Liberty Loan Campaign, Edgar Halyburton’s name was put alongside Dallin’s statue for the first time. And, putting a name to the already famous sculpture led to increased curiosity about this one-anonymous soldier’s experiences.
The capture of Sargent Edgar Halyburton came as a great show to Americans who had only recently and reluctantly entered the war. From the onset of the war in 1914 until April 6, 1917, the United States was official neutral in the European conflict. It was not until German forces had sunk a series of commercial and civilian sea vessels that public opinion shifted. And, even then, it would be another six months until American troops were sent to the front lines.
Sergeant Halyburton was a doughboy; a regular member of the army with no special education or training. As a member of North Carolina’s Company F, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Division, he was among the first hundred US soldiers to relieve French soldiers in the trenches. On November 17, 2017, they were stationed in Valhey, located in the disputed Lorraine region between France and Germany.
It was an unfortunate and eventful day. Years later, Frank Coffman, a member of Halyburton’s platoon: “Entering that sector but four hours previously as green troops, most of us having been in the service a short time prior to our leaving the State, daybreak brought to us all the reality of the horror and cruelty of the world we had to do, and changed us from callow youths to grim and silent men. . .”
He went on to give a detailed account of events the night Halyburton was taken captive:
The next morning we carried our three dead comrades back to the rear and buried them with simple military honors. The French General commanding our sector, in a short speech of beautiful sentiment, expressed the wish that the bodies of those three boys should forever remain in the soil of that country which they came so far to protect and for which they gave their lives; that their grades should always be a shrine of hallowed ground to which his people could go in a spirit of gratefulness and sorrow. (Frank Coffman. “And Then the War Began” American Legion Magazine ( 13 JAN 1922), 13.)
Once captured, Halyburton and his fellow American prisoners were put too hard labor. The German army was experiencing severe food shortages, had eaten all non-essential animals for survival. In their place, POWs were used as human pack animals, living off the scraps of starving German troops.
As the senior ranking member, Halyburton organized his men, a number that grew over the ensuing months from the initial eleven to more than 2,200. According to one report, Halyburton used his leadership not only to carry out German officer instructions for labor, but organized a resistance to German propaganda by smuggling out news of enemy failures, shortages, and movements to Allied newspapers. He oversaw the welfare of his men, created a behind-the-lines intelligence service, aided in the escape of many prisoners, and thwarted German collaborators. (Greg Eanes. “Remembering First World War POWs in a noble mission” Leigiontown USA, 19 SEP 2018.)
For his efforts Halyburton was the first enlisted man (i.e. non-officer) to receive the Distinguished Service Medal. In a letter accompanying the award, General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces on the Western Front, wrote:
Your loyalty and self-sacrificing spirit of devotion to the interest of American soldiers who were prisoners in Germany during the hostilities is worth of the highest tradition of American manhood and patriotism. Confronted with the difficult and serious problems of discovering and exterminating the enemy propaganda, made in endeavors to stifle the morale of the American, you did not waver for an instant, but remained steadfast to your purpose and accomplished a most commendable service to your nation.I have just learned with great pleasure of your magnificent and noble conduct while you were a prisoner of war in the hands of the enemy.
Halyburton was honorably discharged from duty at the end of the war and returned to the United States to find that he had become a celebrity, in large part owed to Dallin’s sculpture. In his autobiography, Shoot and be Damned (1932), he wrote:
I had heard of the sculpture after my repatriation, but not until now had I seen a copy of it. One stood in the living-room of our home. It had been sent to my mother by the sculptor, Dallen [sic.], of Boston, who used as a model a picture taken of me by the Germans the day of my capture. Replicas of the statue had been exhibited in Liberty Loan and Red Cross. (Edgar Halyburton and Ralph Goll, Edited and annotated by Jonathan Gawne. Shoot and Be Damned Framingham: Ballacourage Books, 2014.)
After the war, Halyburton lived a peripatetic existence, taking jobs and losing them due to nervous periods that, in retrospect, appear to be the clear results of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He married. But, never had children, and was buried in 1945 at the National Cemetery in Los Angeles with full military honors.
Halyburton’s service, first anonymous and then proven courageous, was the story of so many. In all, 4.7 million Americans served over 200 days in World War I, with 116,510 losing their lives.Cyrus Dallin’s work not only magnified the life of Halyburton, but the stories of every humble soldier — the doughboy — who had served and sacrificed in the War to end all wars.
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Though he was extremely prolific in his unidealized paintings of rural Utah, most of his works have been catalogued and are well known in the artists' oeuvre. However, recently, a small collection of works from LeConte's best era came to us from a private collection. We are lucky to have them and have been thrilled to see them come to life, out in the open for the first time.
These works and a number of others are available now at Anthony's. Stop in soon to see them before they disappear.
]]>Teare began his career as a noted woodcut artist in New York, regularly creating works for the New York Times. Traditional woodblock artists work in wood, carving out strong shapes that can be inked in a limited number of colors. The results are often stark and linear. Even as he changed to oil painting, a much more malleable medium, Teare begins with the structure of a woodblock. To show this clearly, Teare created a series of short videos detailing his process.
In the first video, we see Teare working on a large canvas, which he covers in black. Over the black surface, he draws the composition for his work — based on plein air studies — in white acrylic marker. The resulting black-and-white drawing looks like a large woodblock print.
In the second step, Brad paints a strong red over his work; an imprimatura, a ground layer of color, that, in the finished work, will be visible throughout the work in ways that create a sense of uniformity.
Finally, Brad applies the oil paint in large portions. Brad’s way of mixing paint is unusual. He drags the colors on his palette together in ways that allow them to mix and marble.
The resulting dried surface is remarkably sculptural; a thick impastoed surface where the colors maintain their integrity, yet work in harmony.
]]>No one could teach Mahonri Young to draw like this, for no one else knows just what Mahonri Young thinks about the world and feels impelled to record about it. To get this veracious record, hand and mind have been trained to work together to a final coherent expression.
Royal Cortissoz
New York Herald Tribune, 7 April 1929
In 1929, Mahonri Young was among the most sought-after and famous artists in the world. His boxing sculptures and paintings garnered critical and financial rewards on both sides of the Atlantic, and saw Young travel throughout Europe and the United States for collaborations with major museums, collectors, and movie studios. While many of Young’s works can now be found in major museums (e.g. Smithsonian, Metropolitan Museum, and the Brigham Young University Museum of Art, which acquired much of the artist’s estate), the whereabouts of several major works are still unknown. It was only this year that a large personal notebook belonging to Young and containing over two dozen drawings and watercolors, surfaced in a private, East Coast collection. These newly found works illuminate a hitherto-unrepresented episode. The artworks date to the summer of 1929, a few months after Young had returned from Europe and after a series of successful shows in the United States. Young was invited to the Twentieth Century Fox Studio to collaborate on the film Seven Faces (1929). Over six weeks in Los Angeles, Young worked by day at the film studio and by night sketching amateur and professional boxers at the famed Main Street Club, where Jack Dempsey, John Silver, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, Henry Huntington, and Douglas Fairbanks met to socialize and spar. These scenes capture Young’s enormous arsenal at the height of his career.
Mahonri Young’s biography is remarkable. He was born in Salt Lake City, eleven days before the death of his grandfather, Brigham Young, Prophet and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mahonri was a member of a new generation growing up on the Western Frontier. Rather than homesteading in log cabins and living off the land, Young walked electrically-lit streets and took lessons from European-trained artists. He eventually studied at the Art Students’ League in New York, then in Paris at the prestigious Académie Julian. Young returned to the States, and, after the death of his first wife, returned to Paris.
It was in Paris that Young created his first series of internationally-acclaimed works capturing the drama of boxers, including Da Winnah! (Figure 1), Right to the Jaw, The Knockdown, and Two Bantams. Young worked with the Valsuani Foundry in Paris, who also cast sculptures for Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, Aime-Jules Dalou, and Aristide Maillol. For the series, Young regularly attended boxing matches, even consulting with the French middleweight boxing champion René Devos. The works were an immediate success, launching Young into rarified post-war circles that included Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, and the Fitzgeralds. He gave painting lessons to Gertrude and Leo Stein (Figure 2), and dined with Ernest Hemingway. In a 1926 letter to a friend, Young describes a visit from Linda Lee Thomas Porter, wife of the composer, Cole Porter, who came with a group of women from the “loftiest circles of international society” to see his art. He was delighted to learn that Porter and her friends knew a great deal about boxing, having attending many matches themselves.
In early 1928, Young returned to New York for his first solo exhibition at the prestigious Rehm Gallery. The critic at the New York Times wrote glowingly:
His prize-ring subjects, for instance, give the impression that they were done simply for the purpose of reproducing accurately the attitudes of the fighters. And, yet, because a boxing match is a balance of forces solidly rooted to the ground, there is in these subjects a sculptural feeling of balance, proportion and integrated mass. This sculptural quality seems somewhat adventitious because it is found to a much lesser degree in the other subjects.
Young was one of several prominent American artists to become famous for his boxing images. George Bellows (1882-1925) and George Luks (1867-1923) also rose to prominence with their depictions of amateur and prize fights. All three had a similar lineage as students of Robert Henri (1865-1929) at the Arts Students’ League in New York. Henri was a founding member of the Ashcan School philosophy, which aspired to apply academic skills to paint prosaic, even dirty, subjects. According to the art critic Robert Hughes, Henri “wanted art to be akin to journalism . . paint to be as real as mud, as the clods of horse-dung and snow that froze on Broadway in winter.” As a result, Luks’ and Bellows’ images of boxing often wallowed in the violence and gore of their subjects, albeit with occasional humor, as in a self-portrait Luks did of himself as a failed boxer with a black eye and prominent cut on his left cheek titled Chicago Whitey. This contrasted with Mahonri’s images which tended to focus on color and movement. Despite these differences, critics often grouped and compared the three.
Young, long-accustomed but demonstrably weary of the comparison, later wrote in his autobiography:
So, I got a lot of work done [in Paris] and then when I came home I had a show of these things at Frank Glynn’s and they made quite a hit. They even said, ‘Why, this man almost is George Bellows.” The Truth of the matter is, I’d done prize-fights long before George Bellows had, but they [Bellows’ works] were paintings. I’d made studies and drawings, an infinite number of drawings.
It was not just in early depiction or quantity that Young differed from his contemporaries. For all Young’s dedication to capture the energy and athleticism of his subjects, he was arguably the one who most completely broke free from Henri’s unforgiving observable reality. Perhaps it was the academically-minded training of the Academie Julian, where artists studied the Old Masters that led Mahonri to move away from bruises and towards a kind of idealized poetic vision of boxing. This is illustrated clearly in three drawings in the notebook, After Raphael, Leonardo and A Well Rounded Match (Figures 4 & 5).
There are two undated drawings, one from Raphael and the other after Leonardo. Mahonri approaches these quick copies, probably done from reproductions, with an interest in the lines of the figures, which were not natural. Rather, both Old Masters were known for their masterful contraposto positions that deliberately and subtly manipulated figures into unnatural positions that carefully drew a viewer’s gaze around an image. By doing so, they idealized the human form and brought geometric order to the chaos of natural observation. On the page after these Old-Master copies, Mahonri has a new, strikingly experimental boxing image. The images incorporate the full cast of two boxers, the referee, and audience members in a roundel format that would befit any tableaux of the Adoration of the Shepherds by a cinquecento artist.
Beyond artistic merit, Young was seen as someone who understood boxing on a practical level. In a period of six months, Vanity Fair reviewed his work twice, each time praising the artist for his ability to capture his subject: “Mahonri Young shows how unrivaled among American [artists] is his mastery over the problem of an athlete’s body and movement.” Within weeks of his New York solo exhibition, Mahonri was welcomed into the boxing community; he signed a contract to design boxing’s most prestigious award, the Muldoon-Tunney Trophy. The prize was unveiled with great fanfare on April 18, 1929 at Madison Square Garden (where it still resides) by William Muldoon, New York State’s boxing commissioner, the heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey, and Young. The trophy would eventually bear the names of the boxing greats James Corbett, Robert Fitzsimmons, James Jeffries, Jack Johnson, Jess Williard, and Mohammed Ali. Young knew all of them, and used many of them for later work, including a portrait of the World Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis (Figure 6), who became a personal friend.
The 1928 exhibition opened doors to the collecting elite. Young’s letters from the time are peppered with interactions with the railroad heiress Mrs. Jay Gould II, the publisher Nelson Doubleday, and a visit to the home of Ralph Pulitzer, the newspaper magnate, where Young was surprised to see his work “on turning pedestals in the living room, next to a cast of Rodin’s Thinker.”
It was during this frenzy of attention that Mahonri was contacted by a New York representative of the Twentieth Century Fox Film Company. The studio was producing an ambitious film, Seven Faces (1929) that would feature the famed stage actor Paul Muni, playing a caretaker in a nineteenth-century French wax museum. Muni was an impressionist. Young was to create nineteen full-sized plasters of historical figures (e.g. Napoleon, Schubert, Washington) for the fictional wax museum; and, in the film, the statues would magically transform into Muni acting as each one. Mahonri accepted an offer to work on the film for eight weeks, which included round-trip travel and lodging at the St. Francis Apartment Hotel in Los Angeles.
It was during these several weeks that Mahonri worked in earnest for the first time since Paris; by day on the Fox Studios lot, and spending his evenings in boxing clubs. “Los Angeles was,” according to the boxing historian and novelist J.H. Graham “a pugilistic paradise.” Mahonri spent his time primarily at the Main Street Athletic Club, located at 321 Main Street in Los Angeles. Although three years later matches for the Los Angeles Olympic Games of 1932 would be held at a much larger, newly built stadium, the Main Street Club had the reputation for drawing the best professional and amateur fighters from around the country. Fights were held every night but Sunday. Out-of-state boxers arriving for a match would be greeted by the Main Street Gym Band and paraded from the station to the ring (Figure 7). On any given day, a visitor could see international champions like Jack Dempsey training alongside local figures.
Young worked like a journalist-artist, capturing the full spectrum of life at the gym; from individuals at punching bags, duos sparring, medics hunching over a downed fighter, to epic panoramic views of the gym and all its contents. Some of the sketches are the product of lightning-fast observation.
In one small work (Figure 8), Mahonri used pen and ink in fluid short-hand notation to communicate the force of a punch given and received with energetic and short lines that belie years of practice.
In a few works, Young turned his observations to the club’s eccentric cast of characters. He did a sketch of John Silver (Figure 9), whose roughed-up face bore the remnants of years of punishment that made him the world’s third-ranked welterweight fighter. He would go on to be a legendary referee, and privately train celebrities like James Cagney and Ronald Reagan.
All of the works in this notebook were unknown until this year, with the exception of Main Street Gym (Figure 10), which was later turned by Young into an etching by the same title (Figure 11).
After six weeks, the head of Twentieth Century Fox, Winfield R. Sheehan, invited Young to a private dinner, where he worked hard to convince the artist to stay in California indefinitely as a member of the “studio family.” Six months later, the film Seven Faces was released nationwide, and received critical acclaim. Tragically, in 1931, there was a fire in the Studio’s California storage facility where Seven Faces, along with many other movies from the era, were destroyed. No known copies exist. Three of the plasters Young was commissioned to make for the movie were bronzed by the studio: Napoleon, Schubert, and the Gallic Cock. The fate of the others is unknown. It is only now, with the coming to light of this notebook, filled with artistic treasures, that we are able to see, study, and enjoy a window into Mahonri Young’s career as an artistic heavyweight.
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