Herter Brothers piece
The Wigmore Gift at the Met ‘Aesthetic Splendors: Highlights from the Gift of Barrie and Deedee Wigmore’ is on view in the Metropolitan Museum’s American Wing beginning December 2, 2019, in a gallery named for Mrs. Wigmore and devoted to decorative arts of the Aesthetic Movement of the 1870s and 1880s.]]>
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met’s temporary installation evokes the scrupulously restored interiors of the Wigmores’ home (which was constructed in the same period), with reproduction wallpapers of the same era as their collection. While a few of the works have been included in major exhibitions, most of those on display have never been seen by the public.
The focus of the Wigmores’ collection is art dating from the 1860s to the early 1890s, a period that coincides with many significant cultural achievements in New York, including the founding of The Met in 1870. The enormous wealth earned by post–Civil War industrialists and financiers gave rise to what is known as the Gilded Age—a period when highly skilled craftspeople, mainly immigrants, produced sumptuous objects for a discerning clientele.
The Wigmores’ holdings are a testament to their commitment to collecting works of the highest quality. Assembled over four decades, the collection features outstanding works by luminaries of American art. Their early focus in American painting was on members of the second generation of the Hudson River School, including multiple works by Albert Bierstadt, Sanford R. Gifford, John Kensett, Alfred Thompson Bricher, and Jervis McEntee. Because the Wigmores began collecting at an early date, they were able to acquire some of the finest examples by these leading artists. Among the highlights of their collection are the many masterful plein air (on the spot) oil sketches of the American wilderness, which they purchased at a time when these vibrant, quickly executed works were overlooked; today, they are much sought after and highly valued. These sketches provide a window into the artists’ thought processes and served as inspiration for their large-scale paintings. Of particular note are the plein air study and the much larger finished canvas for Gifford’s 1877–79 work “An Indian Summer Day on Claverack Creek”. The collection of paintings are in gilded, 19th-century frames that the artists of the Hudson River School regarded as critical to the aesthetic presentation of their work.
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