BGuthrie Photos: NY -- NYC -- Metropolitan Museum of Art -- American Sculpture and Decorative Arts

NY -- NYC -- Metropolitan Museum of Art -- American Sculpture and Decorative Arts:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. METAAD_110529_067.JPG: Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii Randolph Rogers, ca 1853-54 Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii was the most popular American sculpture of the nineteenth century. According to Rogers, it was replicated 167 times in two sizes. The subject was drawn from "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), a widely read novel by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton, which ends with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Rogers's evocative portrayal of Nydia highlights her heroic attempt to lead two companions out of the burning, ash-covered city. Her closed eyes and staff allude to her blindness, while the hand raised to her ear refers to her acute sense of hearing. The destruction of Pompeii is symbolized by the broken Corinthian capital beside her right foot.
2. METAAD_110529_081.JPG: Mexican Girl Dying, 1846 Thomas Crawford The Rome-based Crawford drew his inspiration for this work from the History of the Conquest of Mexico, published in 1843 by the American historian William H Prescott. Although the young woman's identify is unknown, her dramatic position, as well as the gaping wound beneath her right breast, suggests that she had fallen in battle. Crawford may have wished to demonstrate in visual form Prescott's central thesis that she has fallen in battle. Crawford may have wished to demonstrate in visual form Prescott's central thesis that the Spaniards conquered Mexico in order to convert native peoples in Christianity. The cross beside the young woman's left hand would consoled nineteenth-century viewers by implying that she had embraced the religion and found eternal salvation as she lay dying. The marble pedestal is original to the sculpture.
3. METAAD_110529_095.JPG: The Libyan Sibyl, 1860 William Wetmore Story The Libyan Sibyl, which Story described as "my anti-slavery sermon in stone," was inspired by events leading up to the Civil War. Oracle in hand, the Libyan Sibyl, eldest of the legendary prophetesses of antiquity, foresees the terrible fate of the African people. This premonition is suggested by the heroic figure's state of brooding cogitation. Her costume includes an ammonite-shell (so named for the Egyptian god Amun) headdress, its crest decorated with the tetragrammaton, the four Hebrew consonants that denote the Supreme Being. The seal of Solomon, with its interlocking triangles indicating the interrelationship of the natural and spiritual worlds, hangs from her beaded necklace.
4. METAAD_110529_107.JPG: Urn from the facade of the Imperial Hotel, 1916-22 Frank Lloyd Wright Wright designed the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo in 1915, not long after completing the Francis W. Little House in Minnesota, the living room of which is exhibited nearby. Although one of the architect's most famous and respected buildings, the hotel was demolished in 1968. Some portions were preserved, including this monumental urn, one of ten that originally punctuated the building's complex, horizontal facade. The form of the urn -- a circle defined by interlocking squares is consistent with Wright's decorative use of primary geometric shapes throughout the hotel.
5. METAAD_110529_114.JPG: Sprite, ca 1914 Alfonso Ianelli and Frank Lloyd Wright Sprite was originally part of a large sculpture program for Wright's Midway Gardens in Chicago. Built for Edward C Walker Jr. and Oscar Friedman in 1914, the Gardens was designed as an entertainment center. Interior and exterior areas provided for dining, dancing, and concerts, but the complex declined into a common beer garden within two years of its opening. With the advent of Prohibition in 1920, it was converted for other uses; in 1929, it was demolished. Iannelli was noted for his posted designs as well as for his architectural and decorative sculpture. Strongly tectonic, the figure is composed of motifs commonly found in Wright's architectural ornament. The faceting of the face is closely tied to Cubism, a movement that had gained international influence by 1914.
6. METAAD_110529_125.JPG: Living room from the Little House, Wayzata, Minnesota, 1912–14 Frank Lloyd Wright (American, 1867–1959) The Frank Lloyd Wright Room was originally the living room of the summer residence of Frances W. Little, designed and built between 1912 and 1914 in Wayzata, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. The room epitomizes Wright's concept of "organic architecture," in which the building, setting, interior, and furnishings are inextricably related. The house is composed of a group of low pavilions interspersed with gardens and terraces, which, in plan, radiate from a central symbolic hearth. The Frank Lloyd Wright Room also exemplifies one of Wright's most important contributions to modern architecture: the idea of spatial continuity. Low overhanging roofs and geometric window "grilles" with stylized plant motifs once linked the interior visually and spatially to the wooded site overlooking Lake Minnetonka. The living room itself is not merely a single, enclosed volume but a series of horizontal levels surrounded by glass, which allows the interplay of natural light and the rich, earthy tones that Wright employed throughout the room. This room achieves tonal harmony through the combination of ocher plaster walls, natural oak trim and flooring, the use of the exterior reddish brown bricks for the fireplace, and leaded windows with an electroplated copper finish. The bold forms of the oak furniture were likewise conceived as an integral part of the composition. The center of the room is empty and furniture groupings enliven the peripheral space. Many of the accessories are similar to those original to the room, and others recall objects that appear in period photographs. The use of Japanese prints and natural flower arrangements are characteristic Wright touches. The Museum's installation has sought to preserve the continuity between interior and exterior by reconstructing the exterior facades in the side passageways and providing a view of Central Park.
7. METAAD_110529_282.JPG: All Angels' Church pulpit and choir rail, 1909 Karl Bitter The Australian-born Bitter was one of the foremost architectural sculptors working in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. This pulpit and choir rail from New York's All Angels' Church (demolished 1978) were commissioned by Sarah R. Cornell in memory of her husband and two sons and unveiled on All Saints' Day (November 1), 1900. Angels carved in high relief, playing musical instruments or carrying appropriate attributes, dramatically twist and turn as they move across the balustrade. Above the pulpit, in an apotheosis of the joyous processional theme below, a large trumpeting angel appears. Supporting the column is a partial figure of Moses holding the tablets of the law.
8. METAAD_110529_308.JPG: Memory, 1886-7 Daniel Chester French For nearly fifty years, French included the allegorical female form in both his private and his public commissions. His involvement with Memory spanned over three decades, from his initial clay sketch of 1886 to the exhibition of this enlarged marble in 1919. The sculptor focused on conveying life's transience through symbolism: the motif of the mirror as well as the work's title suggests that the figure (and, by analogy, the viewer) is ruminating on the ephemeral nature of beauty, youth, and life. Memory was translated into Carrara marble by Piccirilli Brothers, the Bronx, New York, family firm responsible for carving many of French's sculptures.
9. METAAD_110529_317.JPG: Mourning Victory from the Melvin Memorial, 1906-8 Daniel Chester French By 1897, the Boston businessman James C Melvin had commissioned a funerary monument from French to honor his three brothers, who had died in the Civil War. The original marble memorial was erected in 1908 at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. Four years later, Melvin presented the Metropolitan with the funds to have this replica carved. The massive figure of Mourning Victory emerges from the block of stone projecting tow moods: melancholy, in her downcast eyes and somber expression, and triumph, in the American flag and laurel she holds high. French captured the sense of calm after the storm of battle, which must have referred to the pride, after the sorrow of grieving, felt by the surviving brother.
10. METAAD_110529_357.JPG: Truth and Research, 1896-98 Olin Levi Warner and Herbert Adams Truth and Research are plaster models for two bronze panels in the southernmost of three doorways at the west entrance of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. They were designed by Warner and completed after his death by Adams, with the aid of preliminary sketches. The theme of this doorway's decorative program is Written History, while the other two doorways represent Tradition and Printing. Truth, on the left, holds a mirror (symbol of accurate observation) and a serpent (emblem of wisdom). Research, on the right, bears a lit torch of knowledge. For many years, these plaster panels were installed in the library of Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn
11. METAAD_110529_382.JPG: Garden landscape and fountain, ca 1915 Louis Tiffany and Tiffany Studios Tiffany's work in mosaic, inspired by Byzantine examples he had seen abroad, dates to the 1880s, when he began experimenting with iridescent glass and transparent tesserae backed with metal leaf. Mosaic decoration graced countless interiors by him, from churches to department stores. The culmination of his interest was the vast Dream Garden mosaic, created in 1915, after designs by Maxfield Parrish, for Edward Bok at the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia. Tiffany may have made this shimmering garden landscape as a preliminary study for the Curtis commission. It was among the decorations that graced the Tiffany showrooms until their contents were auctioned in 1938.
12. METAAD_110529_390.JPG: Elevator enclosure grille from Chicago Stock Exchange Building, 1893-94 Dankmar Adler and Louis H Sullivan Sullivan believed that all architectural ornament should be derived from nature and thus express the geometry underlying all natural forms. As his design work matured, he employed natural motifs in a more abstract and symbolic manner. Sullivan associated ovals with seeds -- symbols of life. His powerful use of this form in the ornamentation of the Chicago Stock Exchange Building can be seen on this elevator grille and on the building's staircases, which were installed in the American Wing in 1980.
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