Buried Treasure

I am fascinated by stories of works of art, objects, and literature discovered in unlikely places and works sold for a few dollars because the owner did not recognize them for what they were. They have been discovered in kitchens, barns, and basements, but buried in a garden is something else again!

This story seems unique in that the object was found in the ground and came from another country. You may have already read about the couple in New Orleans who were clearing the underbrush in their backyard when they came upon a gravestone. What was most unusual was that its inscription was in Latin. It began “To the spirits of the dead from Sextus Congenius Versus” and continued to say that he had served in the military for 22 years and died at age 42.

The couple were naturally curious and consulted with a professor at Tulane University, who contacted other scholars in Louisiana and abroad to solve the mystery. They were able to figure out part of the puzzle and learned that the gravestone had been laid some 1,900 years ago in Civitavecchia, a port about 100 miles north of Rome. They knew it was discovered in the 1860s, and in 1910 was in a municipal library. Then, in 1918, it was recorded in the Museo Civico in Civitavecchia, which was destroyed during the bombing in World War II.

How did it get to New Orleans, of all places? This is where modern technology can help in historical research. The story went viral, and a couple who read it remembered that the woman’s grandfather had brought it back after the war and had it on display in a case in his home. It was passed on through the family, and the granddaughter and her husband put it in their backyard, planted a tree behind it, but forgot about it when they moved. It will eventually be returned to Italy. Obviously, I have shortened this story, but for all the details, just Google it!

The above seems to be a unique story in the sense that the object was found in the ground and from a foreign country. But there are many stories more closely related to the United States that are exciting to read about, and we might even learn history from these discoveries.

For instance, just last year at the Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico, civil engineers discovered under over 6 feet of sand about 70 items, including skeletal remains, an early ground stone, and a series of community campsites with remnants of mesquite charcoal dating from over 8,000 years ago.

A manuscript of an unpublished short story called “Temperature” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, written in 1939, was found in plain sight in the rare book archive at Princeton University. Have you ever had a document you felt should be kept, but just did not know where to file it? I imagine the owner, in this case, thought leaving it in the library made it more likely to be discovered when the time was right.

Sunken cargo ships and World War II planes that crashed have been found in the Great Lakes. The most unusual discovery in those cold waters is probably the two-story house that a moving company in Minnesota attempted to transport across the ice of Lake Superior, but the ice did not hold, and the truck and house sank! When the ice melted, a salvage team brought them up from the water. Imagine reporting that one to your insurance company!

The strange life of objects is always worth following.

What Goes Round Comes Around

I love following how taste changes, how the younger generation looks at things differently than we did. No matter what age you are, you look at the younger people and don’t understand. I can give you an analogy that pertains to many areas of life: My mother took some medicine that had been declared bad for her at one time, and then later was told to take it. She said, “If I live long enough, what was bad for me is good for me again”!

Which brings me to this headline that I so enjoyed reading in an article by Vivienne Chow in the October 6 issue of Artnet, “Why are Young Collectors Buying Old Art?”. Needless to say, young people usually like the art of their day. Young collectors are dazzled by the hype that accompanies record prices; that same press attention is one reason some mega millionaires and billionaires compete to set records and bask in the publicity.

This article focuses on the Frieze Masters Fair for art before the 21st century. Started in 2012 by the organizers of the annual Frieze fair for contemporary art, which has been a fixture in the London art scene since 2003, the “Masters” Fair is now run by Emanuela Tarizzo. She was formerly director of the Tomasso Gallery in London, which sold European sculpture, old master paintings, and ancient art, with a specialty in Renaissance bronzes. Ms. Tarizzo speaks of the common language of art, how it can bring together various cultures and tell “the broader story of humanity”. The 2009 graduate of the Courtauld Institute looks forward to a “dialogue with contemporary audiences”. 

Tarizzo is hoping to bring knowledge and rigour to strengthen the fair's position as a bridge between the past and present.

Photo by Elaine YJ Zheng

The article points out that auction sales of Old Masters have grown by 24% globally during the first half of this year. What do you know, it says this is partly due to the material that is being offered! This is not to say that now the younger generation of collectors will suddenly abandon the contemporary and focus on collecting the old, but, as they are being introduced to it they are open to mixing older work in with their contemporary acquisitions.

In this respect, art fairs are so valuable as they present a broad range of available works without the pressure. If you visit an art gallery, you will see what the dealer specializes in. Auctions are organized around special areas of art. You have to understand what you are looking at, the context and condition of the work, whether the estimate is in line with similar work, and finally, what you are willing to pay for it. Here are illustrations of a gallery, which was once mine, an auction, and a Frieze fair.

I was trained that it was best to specialize, even in our private collection. When we bought our first Native American work of art by a Hopi Indian and I said to my wife, "Now we can start a collection of Indian art." She practically yelled at me, “NO”, we cannot learn about all Native American art. We need to focus on one of the many different cultures. We chose to stick with collecting Hopi, deepening our understanding by visiting the Reservation. Years later, we broke that rule but still concentrated on the Southwest Indians. Would it have been so bad to learn about the Indians of the Plains as well?

At an art fair such as TEFAF in Maastricht and FRIEZE in London, you can compare and contrast, seeing what the art dealers are showing and learn about various kinds of art. You will encounter serious collectors who have come to add to their collections. You will find that dealers are eager to talk to you, not just to sell but also to cultivate possibly a future client. One of my clients used to talk about being able to learn from dealers and getting an education in art and the market for free. The truth is that the best art dealers are passionate about what they deal in and love telling people why.

To be fair, it is intimidating to walk into a gallery if you are not well-versed in its specialty, and we never want to embarrass ourselves. But the dealers and auction houses now have a new ally, the internet. You can preview from home the offerings of auction sales and dealers’ stocks. Excellent images are available, and Google or Reddit may provide answers to questions. Today’s generation can go to a fair, a dealer, or an auction house with a new degree of confidence, better prepared to evaluate what they are looking at from eras and places that would previously have been foreign to them.

With 120 dealers from 26 countries, I will finish with three examples from a recent Frieze Masters Fair.

To The Holy Sepulcher

There is one advantage to writing every week ... getting Press privileges at various museums. On our recent trip to New York, I was able to take advantage of this perk for the press preview for “To The Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum” at the Frick Collection. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is Christianity’s most sacred building in that it is believed to be the site of Christ’s burial and resurrection. The title of the show starts with “To” in order to show that, quite naturally, the Holy Sepulcher has been a destination for pilgrims of several Christian denominations for over 2,000 years. Catholic rulers over centuries sent magnificent gifts, most in the form of liturgical objects, to this holy repository. They continue to be used in ceremonies, and, in that sense, they are part of a living museum where the collection is both permanent and itinerant.

In the first half of the 14th century, the Pope created the Custody of the Holy Land, an organization of Franciscan monks entrusted with the care of its religious sites and these holy objects. The Custodians miraculously succeeded in hiding the treasures, protecting them from centuries of regional conflicts and upheaval. They were only discovered by art historians through the research of Alvar Gonzales Palacios in the 1980s. Xavier Salomon, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Frick, worked with Fra Stéphane Milovitch, Chairman of the board of directors of the Terra Sancta Museum, Director of the Cultural Heritage Office, Custody of the Holy Land to organize this exhibition. The Custodian spoke at the press preview, explaining the plans for a new museum at the site, open to the public.

Most of the photographs here are mine, taken at the press event, the only time that photography is permitted at the Frick, because in the relatively small spaces, particularly on the newly opened second floor, where the art would be at risk with people backing up and jostling each other.

A miniature 18th-century model of the Church introduces the exhibition.

From that point on, I was overwhelmed by the monumentality of the works, in every sense of the word. Many of the objects are over life size and obviously created by the foremost artists of their day. Moreover, most of the gold and silver work of the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe was melted down, so many of these survivals are unique.

At the beginning of the show is an incredibly exciting object. This huge silver relief (67 5/16 X 78 9/16 inches) was created in 1736 in Naples and represents the essence of the site as Christ’s body rises between sleeping guards. The chased detail down to the mock wood frame becomes an integral part of the majestic whole. My second image, showing someone reading the label, is to give an idea of its scale.

Photo courtesy of the Frick

It was decided that the exhibition would focus on textiles and metalwork from the collection. Although I am concentrating on the metal work I cannot neglect examples of the textiles, that includes the set of vestments in the altar scene in front of you as you enter the show; one of the vestments with the Coat of Arms of Louis LXV, created in 1741 of Lampas, brocade liseré and satin ground; finally a detail of the coat of arms from a different vestment. All look as fresh and vibrant as when they were made, and the quality is incredible. (Images (3) Entry, Vestment and detail Coat)

Getting back to the metal work, this is one of a pair of Torchères made in Venice in 1762 from the Al San Lorenzo Giustinian Workshop. You can see how tall they are from the guard standing next to it. A detail shows the workmanship. Seeing them up close rather than from further back in a church or cathedral was incredibly exciting.

A singular, magnificent object, the Throne of Eucharistic Exposition, is given pride of place in the installation. The tour de force of gold, gilt copper, glass, and precious and semi-precious stones was made by the goldsmith Antonio de Luarentiis in 1754. Emblazoned with the arms of King Charles of Naples and his wife, Queen Maria Amalia of Saxony, It was sent from the Kindgdom of Naples to Jerusalem the following year to serve as a setting for the presentation of the rulers’ gifts of a monstrance or this crucifix in gold, lapis lazuli, glass, quarts and jewels, alternating in place according to the religious occaision.

I am not sure if a museum exhibition can give you a spiritual experience, but this one certainly inspires awe.

Quotes for These Times

I collect quotes and have done so for decades. I do not collect on one subject, but just the quotes that have some special meaning to me. In the past, when I wrote on this subject, my Missives accentuated the arts. But these are difficult times, and what is happening in the world, and particularly in the United States, is not new, just more extreme. I have indicated the original authors when they were indicated in my original notes. My comments will be in italics.

Unfortunately, this is a truism:

"It's the nature of warning signs that they are ignored."

Books have been written on this subject, but do people listen?

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." 

(Archbishop Desmond Tutu).

A scary prospect for us all:

"It is dangerous to be right when the authorities are wrong." 

(Voltaire) 

We have seen this in so many places in recent times: “In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."

(Nietzsche)

This one I had to think about for a while, but when I could think of examples, I understood:

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

(Voltaire)

"The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist." 

(Hannah Arendt)

This may not be true for all, but it is for me:

“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that the nobody believes anything any longer” 

(Hannah Arendt)

When we read the news these days, we must remember that:

"The pen is only mightier than the sword if you are allowed to use the pen."

(Mark Steyn)

&

“Freedom of the Press is only guaranteed to those who own one."

(Journalist, A.J. Liebling)

I believe I remember an example of this from a few years ago:

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and holding a bible." -Generally attributed to Sinclair Lewis

Let us hope that Winston Churchill was right when he said:

"We can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have exhausted all the other possibilities."