Google
This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project
to make the world's books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the
publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines
Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for
personal, non-commercial purposes.
+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web
at |http: //books .google .com/I
I fyii«wrpi^^«w^p*M>iya>yg
HARVARD COLLEGE
LIBRARY
The
Charles Modey Clark
Memorial
X
1 h '^4 ^ '^^ hi ii
From the
Fine Arts Library
Fogg Art Museum
Harvard University
ABBOTT HANDERSON THAYER
MEMORIAL EXHIBITION
U«»^^ ^
> >^
»«'
Sblf-Poktrait
t
j<
j<
j<
j<
j<
j<
j<
j<
><
J<
A
4-
A
><
j<
j<
j<
><
j<
j<
J<
J<
J<
J<
J<
J<
J<
>k
J<
J<
J<
J<
J<
J<
J<
J<
J<
J<
♦
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ♦ <<<<<<<<<<< -<-<-^t
THE METROPOLITAJ^ MUSEUM
OF ART
MEMORIAL
EXHIBITION
OF THE WORK OF
ABBOTT
HANDERSON
THAYER
NEW YORK
MARCH 20 THROUGH APRIL 30
MCMXXII
j<
j<
J<
j<
J<
j<
J<
J<
J<
j<
J<
J<
<< << <- < < < < -
"^ ^ y y ^ y y y -^ y ^ y y ^ y V
COPYRIGHT BY
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
MARCH, 1033
■(a 4:iB4. ^.^2
/^HARVARD
FINE ARTS
LIBRARY
1 MAY 22 1974
\CUufk IVUH
Of this Catalogue one thousand copies mere printed
hy Bruce Rogers and JViltiam Kdttrin Rudge
COMMITTEE OJ^ THE EXRIBITIOX
Francis C. Jones, Chairman
E. H. Blashfield Thomas W. Dewing
William C. Brownell Barry Faulkner
George de Forest Brush Daniel C. French
C. C. Burlingham John Gellatly
Bryson Burroughs Charles A. Platt
Royal Cortissoz Edward Robinson
Gerald Thayer
LEJ^DERS TO THE EXRIBITIOX
Charles Lansing Baldwin
Estate of Samuel Bancroft, Jr.
Victor G. Bloede
Boston Museum of Fine Arts
John F. Braun
Charles C. Burlingham
Timothy Cole
Mrs. Thomas Millie Dow
Dr. Theodore Dunham
George J. Dyer
Mrs. Henry H. Fay
Mrs.W.W. Fenn
Professor R. T. Fisher
^
Dr. WiLLARD B. Force
John Gellatly
Miss Mary Amory Greene
Mrs. Hendrick S. Holden
Estate of Walter Hunnewell
William James
Miss Louise L. Kane
Dana Kittredge
William G. Mathewson
Mrs. William F. Milton
National Academy of Design
George S. Palmer
Mrs. Bruce Porter
Miss Alice L. Sand
Mrs. J. Montgomery Sears
Smith College
The Misses Clara F. and Bessie G. Stillman
Miss Ellen J. Stone
Professor Henry Taber
Estate of Abbott H. Thayer
Wellesley College
Mrs. E. M. Whiting
Worcester Art Museum
An Anonymous Lender
r
PREFACE
When th£ Trustees oj The Metropolitan Museum decided
to hold a loan exhibition of the works of Abbott Handerson
Thayer y they invited the collaboration of some friends and
admirers of the artist^ who agreed to serve on a committee of
arrangements. To this committee, in particular to Gerald
Thayer, John Gellatly and Royal Cortissoz, has fallen a
great part of the work of selecting the exhibits and preparing
the catalogue. The Museum gratefully acknowledges its obli-
gation to the committee in this enterprise, and on behalf of its
visitors thanks the owners of the paintings and drawings,
whose generosity and public spirit have made the exhibition
possible. Through their cooperation the Museum has been
enabled to assemble as representative a showing of Thayer's
work as could well be brought together. The one highly impor-
tant group of paintings unfortunately lacking is that from the
Freer Collection. This group it was impossible to obtain for
the present exhibition, owing to a clause in the will of the late
Charles L. Freer forbidding the removal of works of art from
the Freer Gallery, Washington, D. C.
The cost of jmblishing this catalogue has been
largely met by the subscription of a friend of the
Museum.
TABLE OF COJfTEJfTS
Committee on the Exhibition pagb vii
Lenders to the Exhibition vii
Preface ix
Introduction xiii
Catalogue 1
Illustrations 17
•A.^ ../■: ...\
IXTROBVCTIOX
^Appreciation of the work of Abbott Thayer is heightened if
we regard it in perspective, taking into consideration the state
of American art when he began his career. Inness, La Farge,
Whistler, Vedder, and Winslow Homer were all his seniors. But
he was more closely allied to them than to the men of his own
generation. There was a decisive moment in the history of Ameri-
can art in which an old point of view gave place to a new one.
It fell in the '70's, when we discovered Europe for purposes of
training. We went in for craftsmanship then, an object which
many of us have pursued ever since. This choice has promoted
precious gains, but they have been more favorable to the develop-
ment of representative art than of creative art; the *70's ushered
in the triumph of the brilliantly painted morceau. Thayer, who
was nothing if not a man of original genius, made his own choice
and it ran counter to the prevailing tide though he, too, was
nominally swept into that tide. Proceeding to Paris in 1875,
when he was twenty-six years old, he joined in the search after
craftsmanship, yet preserved intact the almost antithetical spirit
which, as I have said, allies him to the seniors aforementioned.
It was the spirit of the painter who is never professionalized
into an arid sophistication, in whom technique remains subser-
vient to the idea, whose genius steadfastly preserves its spiritual
force, keeping itself "unspotted from the world." This, in fact,
is the distinguishing characteristic of all that is finest in Ameri-
can art. Our school is the more essentially national because it
has never been one of organization. We have been not only un-
aided but unhampered by tradition. The influence of the fore-
fathers, of men like Copley and Stuart, with the academic habit
•H-[xiii ]^
IXTROBVCTIOX
of eighteenth-century England behind it, long ago faded away.
The masters who have made our artistic history have been those
with something of their own to say, and peculiarly personal
ways of saying it. Whistler, living in the environment of Europe,
coming into close contact with Courbet and with the Impres-
sionists, taking into his consciousness such diverse modes as
those of Japan and Velasquez, nevertheless ranges himself as the
inventor of the "Nocturne," an absolutely new-minted type
of design. Inness traveled in Italy and France, was aware alike
of Claude and Foussin and of the Barbizon school, yet he beat
out a style having no precedent. Winslow Homer painted as
though the schools of Europe had never existed. John La Farge,
who was saturated in the traditions of them all, went on to
affirm the individuality of a born colorist. Originality, in short,
is the comer-stone of American art. Our painting is most in
character when it has a certain almost primitive freshness,
when it is new and unspK)ilt. Thayer offers an outstanding proof
of this contention.
The constructive elements in an artist's formative period are
sometimes curiously submerged in the work of his prime. From
his youth Degas was an impassioned disciple of Ingres. But in
the intensely modern productions by which he is known the
influence of his great predecessor is discernible only in beauties
of draftsmanship. The fruits of Thayer's pupilage are even less
apparent. When he went to Paris he entered the atelier of
Ger6me and there sometimes seems to me to have been some-
thing almost droll in the subjection of our visionary American
to one of the most unimaginative of all French academicians.
Thayer, at the £cole des Beaux-Arts, appears incongruity itself.
And still the discipline did him enormous good. It strengthened
IXTROBVCTIOX
beyond question his ability to draw. He could always draw like
an angel, if he chose to do so. But it is important to keep in
mind the circumstance that he would never lose himself in the
cultivation of drawing for its own sake; draftsmanship would
always be for him nothing but a means to an end. For the same
reason I pass over as virtually negligible the ambitions of the
animal painter which engaged him on his return from Europe,
as they had, indeed, before he went abroad. If the early works
of an artist are of interest it is usually because, in one way or an-
other, they prefigure his major works. It is so in Thayer's case
only in a limited degree. The backgrounds in his old cattle-
pieces point to the mastery which he was to achieveinlandscape.
I have seen a "Nature Morte" of his, painted when he was only
nineteen, which was not only drawn very skilfully, but in form,
color, and texture disclosed amazing precocity. All this I would
maintain, however, is beside the point. Thayer began to realize
himself, really to function as an artist, only when he abandoned
animal painting, not long after his return to America, and dedi-
cated himself to pictures, not portraits, of women.
This exhibition, varied as it is in its contents, might never-
theless be described as constituting a tribute to one ideal —
Thayer's ideal of the glamour of womanhood. Leonardo, the
supreme master of expression, played in countless drawings with
the mysterious beauty of woman. In the "Mona Lisa" he left
that beauty more baffling than ever. For Thayer the same im-
mortal theme meant the same long and wonderful adventure.
He is not precisely inscrutable as Leonardo was, and as Saint-
Gaudens was in the famous Adams monument. You cannot say
of a single one of Thayer's women that "Hers is the head upon
which all *the ends of the world are come.' " The American is
•»^[xv}^
IXTROBVCTIOX
too American for that. Woman for him is neither a Madonna
nor a sibyl. She is profoundly a human creature. He raises her
humanity to a higher power by bringing out its spiritual traits.
I asked him once to explain the meaning of an angelic figure of
his and he replied: "How you set me talking! As to what my
pictures mean, you see now, exactly. I want the image of one
I worship to become visible for all time to this world — voila
toutr* In another letter he develops his pK)int of view so fully that
I must quote it at length:
"The violin, whose strings ring whenever their note is sounded by
an outside instrument, is pure symbol of the poet. In the poet, cumu-
lative images of every form of beauty begin in earliest infancy to
occupy the brain, till, in his early maturity, these have become true
touchstones, like the violin string. Let the painter once look upon a
person who has, beneath no matter how many surface defects, one
dominant greatness — purity at heart and fiery love of truth and
beauty — and in his own heart the image of such a personality wakes
into brilliant ringing clearness and takes the helm, saying: 'Watch
this being! Thou wilt surely see, now and then, the being she really is
(it's a she now!) come forth and be fully in sight. Watch, then, and
take in how she looks, for in those aroused moments she dominates the
whole face and body, ruling all their details into her heavenly form.'
Now he who in this way comes to know her looks, thereafter waits, no
matter how long. When he finds himself at the end of his last supply
he waits, as it were, outside her window, sure that when she once more
stands there in his sight he will quickly see how to go on with his pic-
ture of her. Dear Cortissoz, this is absolutely the way I work. You
delineate it almost clearly. It is because you see it that I feel I could
crystallize you a little.
"Right you are, alas; the whole trade of art and literature is for the
IXTUOBVCTIOX
time off the planet. Man, finding himself up against that (if he knew it)
greatest blessing, the obvious impossibility of ever understanding ex-
istence, will forever swing between periods of worship and periods like
our present one. He is like a frog in a tub; he can see the light and
jump up at it, but never jump out, and when he tires of this he finds
that searching the tub's corners still offers no escape. So with man, his
epochs of worship will always be followed by a period — such as we are
now somewhere near the end of — of self -deluding digging, egged on by
the elation of unearthing so many of the never before dreamed of tools
that God evidently uses — gravitation, steam, electricity, radium, etc.
"In due time man will again tire of this hojje and again be the simple
worshiping know-nothing. His cosmos theories will forever be on the
same principle as the theories of a worm, hatched in an apple and still
in the apple, might be of the apple's external aspect. The world is now
all for what they call science, and they weigh music, painting and
poetry by what it can do in this field. Or, say, man is a child that
awakes, out of the grass, and gazes awhile at the toys his parents have
set about him, till, wider awake, he begins to work them and learii
what they can do. Elated at finding out some of the stunts the light-
ning toy can do and what the steam one, etc., he comes to feel very big
and forgets that he doesn't know, and can't, where they came from.
So, for the time, there lowers on his horizon no wholesome reminder
that he is forever (thank heaven) stumped.
"The horrible Nemesis that lies in wait for this individualism is the
monkeyfiedness of to-day's craftsmen. Of old, each apprentice strove
merely to help some beautiful picture to get born and placed where it
would help the world, and this habit of self -subordination attended
each of them in his subsequent masteryears. Behold, now, the whispers
creep through the crowd that self must assert itself, and a change
begins, growing till *I, I, I! See how well I can do it!' has entirely sup-
planted *See how beautiful it is !' And then behold these egos all down
at the monkey level. Like monkeys they have looked, unseeing, at
•H-[XVII ]^
IXTROBVCTIOX
their master's service, till they catch up the brush to show that they
can do it, too. Like the ape, no longer seeing what this act of painting
was making, when Gozzoli orLippiheldthe brush, they paint and paint.
None of them sees that — whether or no it is something to boast of
to be able to turn a back-somersault, or paint an actually delusive
counterfeit of one more real shop-girl,when there are more than plenty
always to be seen wherever you look — it has no resemblance to being
the means of erecting before men's sight the crystal type of any desir-
able attribute.'*
He alludes to the cumulative images of the poet. That is what
his works are. And I would extend the figure to cover not only
his pictures of women but his landscapes and his studies of
flowers. Lowell said after hearing one of Emerson's later lec-
tures that he felt as if "something beautiful had passed that
way/' Thayer's paintings give you that impression. Their charm
is curiously independent of technique, though the technique in
them is often beautiful. Is there not, I repeat, something almost
amusing in the thought of the painter of these pictures as a
pupil of Ger6me? That master of composition must have given
him some ideas as to the orderly spacing of the facts placed upon
a canvas. Thayer probably couldn't have arranged the five fig-
ures in his mural decoration at Bowdoin College so well if he
had not studied the art of design in his young manhood. In his
pictures the figure is always rightly placed, effectively posed,
and in some of the larger works, like the great "Caritas,"
Thayer's pattern has a monumental dignity recalling the grand
style of the Renaissance. He could be the masterly workman.
There are phases of this exhibition to be commended to the
student of technique. But the long letter I have just quoted is
the letter of a man of moods, meditative, waiting on his inspira-
•H-[ XVIII ]-^
IXTRODVCTIOd^'
tion, and that is the Thayer of the paintings. They are the un-
studied outgivings of creative imagination.
Mood was indispensable to Thayer. Sometimes in looking at
such a canvas of his as the "Head of a Young Man" you think
first of just his power as a painter, of just his command over
form, but presently you think even more of the spiritual beauty
with which he invests his theme. His dependence upon mood
makes chronology a matter of singular unimportance in analy-
sis of his work. His own view of the subject comes out in a letter
written to me in the spring of 1916, when the war was raging,
the war which filled his mind and to which his discoveries in the
art of camouflage gave him a specially close relation.* "All well
here," he writes from Monadnock, N. H., "and truly I have
done an advanced figure of a girl. It is always silly to think or say
that one's last work is progress. So many traits are at work
maturing themselves, especially in the attempts of a man ad-
vanced in years. He may gain, as I seem to, in accomplishment^
while his earlier things remain the most valuable — sweetest-
flavored, perhaps. My efforts for the Allies still occupy a lot of
my energy but really the preoccupation seems to help the pic-
tures to get born without being mauled by my life-long vice of
morbid over-straining." That is very like Thayer in its detach-
ment. He saw every one of his problems as something new, a
new leap upon achievement. The "mauling" to which he alludes
is immediately understandable. Scattered all through the work
* Readers who wish to investigate Thayer's work as a naturalist, applying his re-
searches to artistic ends, should turn to the summary of his discoveries, ''Concealing
Coloration in the Animal Kingdom," written by his son, Gerald H. Thayer, with an in-
troductory essay by the artist himself. The Macmillan Company, 1909. The New York
Tribune of August 16, 1916, contains an essay of Thayer's on the application of his dis-
covery to the defensive science of war.
•H-[ XIX ]•*«•
IXTROBTJCTIO^
of his career there are passages at variance with the magnificent
authority which you recognize in, for example, the marvelously
painted nude, the great "Figure Half-Draped." It is more par-
ticularly with reference to that commanding exercise in tech-
nique, and, after that, with the whole body of his work in mind,
that I would glance at the injustice Thayer does to himself in
that word "morbid." There never was a sweeter, wholesomer
painter. Wistful his figures are, and sometimes sad» but they are
all sharers in an extraordinary nobility. It is in their fineness that
his women are angelic. His children breathe the fragrance and
purity of flowers. Never was he more the pK)et than in his inter-
pretations of the exquisiteness of youth. It is above all things in
the beauty that he created that Thayer left a great heritage to
American art.
Royal Cortissoz
-^xx}
CATALOGUE
CATALOGUE OF PAIJiTTI^^'OS
ARRANGED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
WITH DATES, APPROXIMATE OR EXACT
1 PORTRAIT OF A DOG 1868
Oil on canvas: h. 35}; w. 24} inches. Signed: A. H. Thayer.
Lent by Mrs. E. M. Whiting.
^2 PASSENGER PIGEONS 1868
Oil on canvas: h.18; w.14 inches. Signed: A. H.Thayer 1868.
Lent by Albert Milch.
3 TIGER'S HEAD Mout 1872
Oil on canvas: h.27; w.22 inches. Signed: A. H. Thayer.
Lent by Victor 0. Bloede.
4 THE OLD LION About 1872
Oil on canvas: h.25; w.36i inches.
Lent by the Estate of Samuel Bancrofty Jr.
5 PLAYING SICK 1874
Oil on canvas: h.12; w.16 inches. Signed: Abbott H. Thayer.
Lent by Miss Alice L. Sand.
d
6 "WHO SAID RATS?" 1874,
Oil on canvas: h.12; w.16 inches. Signed: Abbott H. Thayer.
Lent by Miss Alice L. Sand.
7 CROSSING THE FERRY 1876
Oil on canvas: h.32; w.24 inches. Signed and dated: A. H.
Thayer 1875.
Lent by Charles C. Burlingham.
(s AT THE MARKET Pari^, 1876
Oil on canvas: h.16; w.20 inches. Signed and dated: A. H.
Thayer. Paris 1875.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
CATALOGUE
9 THE DONKEY Paris, 1876
These little Paris pictures were done in spare moments dur-
ing the artist's four years at the *Beaux-Arts/ under Gerome.
Oil on canvas: H.23J; w.32i inches. Signed and dated: A. H.
Thayer. Paris 1876.
Lerd by Mrs. W. W. Fenn.
H --10 PORTRAIT OF JOE EVANS Paris, about 1877
jf^t/tiA^ jW^ JT Oil on canvas mounted on board: H.19i; w.l5} inches. ^
Signed: for Joe Evans from A. H. Thayer. Illustrated.
Lent by Charles C, Burlingham.
h^
11 CATTLE 1878
In Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works, a
book by Clara Erskine Clement and Laurence Button, pub-
lished forty years or more ago, we read: "Thayer, Abbott H.
(Am.). Born in Boston in 1849, and brought up in the country,
where he became familiar with the brute creation, the painting
of which has been his specialty." The first nine paintings in
the present list, and also Nos. 11 and 13, are representative of
the phase and period of Thayer's work here referred to. Among
the drawings and watercolors by him on exhibition in Gallery
25 may be seen still earlier examples of his representations of
the "brute creation," including a watercolor of a brook trout
done when the artist was eleven years old, in the year 1860.
Oil on canvas: h. 22; w. 18 inches. Signed and dated: A. H.
Thayer 1878.
Lent by Miss Ellen J. Stone.
12 PORTRAIT OF MISS ANNE PALMER 1878
Oil on canvas: h. 21 J; w. 18f inches. Signed and dated: A. H.
Thayer 1878. Illustrated.
Lent by Charles Lansing Baldwin.
■[2]
-K-
CATALOGUE
13 LANDSCAPE WITH CATTLE 1879
A woodcut of this picture was made by Timothy Cole.
Oil on canvas: h. 24; w.32 inches. Signed and dated: A. H.
Thayer 1879. Illustrated,
Lent by Timothy Cole,
14 BABY ASLEEP ( a study ) 1879
William Henry Thayer, 2nd; the artist's first son.
Oil on canvas: h. 12}; w. 16f inches. Signed: A. H. Thayer.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
15 HEAD OF THE ARTIST'S FATHER About 1879
Dr. William Henry Thayer, physician; born in Boston;
practised in Keene, New Hampshire, and Brooklyn, N. Y.; Sur-
geon of the 14th New Hampshire Volunteers in the Civil War.
Lent by Professor R, T, Fisher, Not exhibited,
16 PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S SISTER 1879
Sue Thayer (Mrs. E. M. Whiting).
Oil on canvas: H.23; w.l9 inches. Signed: A. H. Thayer.
Illustrated,
Lent by Mrs, E, M, Whiting.
17 SLEEPING BABY 1880
William Henry Thayer, 2nd.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
18 PORTRAIT OF MISS ANNIE HOE 1880
Oil on canvas: H.144; w.l2 inches. Illustrated.
Lent by Charles C. Burlingham.
19 PORTRAIT 1881
Mrs. William F. Milton. One of the artist's earliest com-
missions for a portrait in oil. Painted in Pittsfield.
Oil on canvas: h.32; w.24 inches. Signed and dated: Abbott
H. Thayer 1881. Illustrated.
Lent by Mrs. William F. Milton.
CATALOGUE
20 WINTER LANDSCAPE (a sketch) About 1881
Peekskill, N. Y.
Oil on canvas: h.20; W.13J inches. Signed: A. H. Thayer.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
21 PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY 1881
Oil on canvas: h.204; w.164 inches. Signed and dated: A. H.
Thayer 1881. Illustrated,
Lent by John Gellatly,
22 PORTRAIT, LADY IN WHITE 188S
Miss Bessie Still&ian.
Oil on canvas: h.36; w.28 inches. Signed: A. H. Thayer.
Lent by the Misses Clara F. and Bessie G. StiUman.
23 THE SISTERS 1884^
Miss Bessie and Miss Clara Stillman.
Oil on canvas: H.54i; w.36i inches. Signed: A. H. Thayer.
Lent by the Misses Clara F. and Bessie G. StiUman.
24 PORTRAIT-STUDY About 1884^
Oil on canvas : h. £9 ; w. 25 inches. Inscribed : A. H. Thayer by
E. B. T.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
25 FIGURE, HALF-DRAPED About 1885
There is a temptation to call this picture Melpomene, or by
some such muse-name; but record is lacking of any such inten-
tion on the artist's part. He seldom named a picture; and most
of those which have acquired distinctive titles have been named
by others — ^sometimes with his knowledge and approval — after
leaving his hands. The present picture has a curious history.
Painted in New York City in the '80's, it was unearthed, in
some old box of canvases and forgotten sketches, in the bam at
the artist's home at Monadnock, New Hampshire, in the sum-
mer of 1920. No one, apparently, of the artist's family had re-
CATALOGUE
membered its existence during those thirty years or more, and
it would seem that the artist himself had lost track of it.
Oil on canvas: h.71 J; w.48 inches. Signed: A. H. Thayer.
Illustrated,
Lent anonymously.
26 MOTHER AND CHILD 1886
The artist's first wife, Kate Bloede Thayer, and his son
Gerald, aged two years.
Oil on canvas: h.36; w.28 inches. Signed and dated: Abbott
H. Thayer. Peekskill 1886. Illustrated,
Lent by John Gellatly.
/ir WATER-LILIES About 1886
One of the few flower pictures by Thayer.
Oil on canvas: h.16; W.12J inches. Illustrated,
Lent by Professor Henry Taber.
28 PORTRAIT OF A LITTLE GIRL 1886
Daughter of Mrs. Henry H. Fay of Boston.
Oil on canvas: h.16; w. 22 inches. Signed: Abbott H. Thayer.
Lent by Mrs, Henry H, Fay,
29 PORTRAIT OF ALICE FREEMAN PALMER
President of Wellesley College, 1882-1887.
Oil on canvas : h. 50 ; w. 36 inches. Signed : Abbott H. Thayer.
Illv^traied,
Lent by Wellesley College,
30 GIRL IN WHITE 1888 or 1889
Margaret Greene, of Boston; a descendant of the painter
Copley.
Oil on canvas : h. 37f ; w. 29§ inches. Signed : A. H. Thayer.
Illustrated.
Lent by Miss Mary Amory Greene,
CATALOGUE
31 ANGEL About 1889
The artist's daughter Mary.
Oil on canvas: h. 36; w. 28 inches. Signed: Abbott H.Thayer.
Illustrated,
Lent by John GeUaily,
32 WINGED FIGURE 1889
Oil on canvas: H.50f ; w.36 inches. Signedand dated: Abbott
H. Thayer 1889. Illjistrated.
Lent by Smith College.
33 BROTHER AND SISTER 1889
The artist's daughter Mary and son Gerald.
Oil on canvas: h.36; w.28 inches. Signed and dated: Abbott
H. Thayer New York 1889. Illustrated.
Lent by John Gellatly.
34 PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL 1891
Miss Mary Hunnewell of Wellesley (Mrs. Williams).
Oil on canvas: h. 44i; w. 31 inches. Signed and dated:
Abbott H. Thayer 1891. Illustrated.
Lent by the Estate of Walter Hunnewell.
35 VIRGIN ENTHRONED 1891
The artist's children — Mary, Gerald, and Gladys.
Oil on canvas: H.72J; w.524 inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer. Illustrated.
Lent by John Gellatly.
36 HEAD OF A BOY 1891
Raphael Welles Pumpelly, son of Raphael Pumpelly, the
geologist and explorer.
Oil on canvas: H.loJ; w.l3f inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer.
Property of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
-H-[ 6 ]-*^
CATALOGUE
37 PORTRAIT OF A LITTLE GIRL About 1891
Daughter of J. Montgomery Sears of Boston.
Oil on canvas: H.54i; w.38 in. Signed : Abbott H. Thayer.
Lent by Mrs, /. Montgomery Sears.
38 PORTRAIT About 1891
Miss Faith Mathewson of Washington.
Oil on canvas : h. 24; w.l9 inches. Signed : Abbott H. Thayer.
Illustrated.
Lent by William G. Mathewson.
39 PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S FATHER About 1891
Dr. William Henry Thayer.
Oil on canvas: h. 18; w. 14 inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
40 PORTRAIT OF A LITTLE BOY About 1894
George Phillips of Boston.
Lent by George W. Phillips.
m
41 PORTRAIT OF A THOROUGHBRED HORSE,
"HARBOROUGH" About 189i
Harborough was a gift to the artist from his life-long friend,
S. Dana Kiltredge of Hastings-on-Hudson.
Oil on canvas : h. 24 ; w. 20 inches. Signed : Abbott H.
Thayer.
Lent by S. Dana Kittredge.
42 A BRIDE About 1895
Oil on canvas: H.21; w.l7 inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer. Illustrated.
Lent by John Gellatly.
CATALOGUE
43 PORTRAIT 1896
Josephine Balestier (Mrs. Theodore Dunham).
Oil on canvas: H.35f ; w.25 inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer.
Lent by Dr. Theodore Dunham.
44 ROSES About 1896
Oil on canvas: H.22i; w.Sli inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer. Illustrated.
Lent by the Worcester Art Museum.
45 CARITAS 1897
Central figure Elise Pumpeixy (Mrs.T. Handasyd Cabot),
daughter of Raphael Pumpelly.
Oil on canvas: H.84f ; w.54i inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer. lUustraied.
Lent by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
46 MY CHILDREN About 1897
An unfinished group; the artist's children — ^Mary, Gerald,
Gladys.
Oil on canvas: H.86i; w.Gl^ inches. Inscribed: My Children
Abbott H. Thayer Never to receive one pin point of re-
touching see back A. H. T.
Lent by John GeUaUy.
47 ROSES About 1897
Oil on canvas : h. 25 ; w. 28f inches. Signed : Abbott H. Thayer.
Lent by Miss Louise L. Kane.
48 PORTRAIT 1897
Bessie Price.
Clarke Prize, National Academy of Design.
Oil on canvas: h.28; w.19| inches. Signed and dated:
Abbott H. Thayer 1897. lUustraied.
Lent by Mrs. Hendrick S. Holden.
CATALOGUE
49 YOUNG WOMAN 1898
The same model, Bessie Price (Mrs. Fred. Beaulieu), as
in Stevenson Memorial, the Winged Figure, No. 69, the
Angel, No. 54, and the Portrait, No. 48.
Oil on canvas: H.39f ; w.Slf inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer.
Property of The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
50 CORNISH HEADLANDS 1898
Near Saint Ives, Cornwall, England. One of the distant
promontories is perhaps Gurnard's Head.
Oil on canvas: h. 30; w. 40 inches. Signed and dated: Saint
Ives 1898 A. H. Thayer. Illustrated.
Lent by John OeUatly.
51 ROSEMARY 1898
Mary Dow, daughter of Thomas Millie Dow, of Scotland
and Saint Ives, Cornwall, England.
Oil on canvas: h.28; w.21} inches. Signed: A. H. Thayer.
Illustrated.
Lent by Mrs. Thomas Millie Dow.
52 PORTRAIT OF ELSIE PILCHER 1898
Stepdaughter of Thomas Millie Dow.
Oil on canvas: h.^); w.l9i inches. Signed: A. H. Thayer.
Lent by Mrs. Thomas MiUie Dow.
53 SELF-PORTRAIT 1899
Oil on canvas : h. 30; w. ^ inches. Signed and dated on back:
Abbott H. Thayer April 1 1899 N. A. D. Frontispiece.
Lent by the National Academy of Design.
54 ANGEL (Left unfinished; worked on again, 1921 ) 1899
One of the last things the artist touched, a few weeks before
his death.
Oil on panel: H.52i; w.38i inches. Signed : A. H. Thayer.
lUustraled,
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
^[9]-^
CATALOGUE
55 HEAD OF SHANDY 1901
Son of Dr. E. Channing Stowell, of Dublin and Marlboro,
N.H.
Oil on canvas: h.21; w.19J inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer.
Lent by George S. Palmer.
56 MARY Jbout 1902
The artist's daughter.
Oil on canvas : h. 24 ; w. 22 inches. Signed : Abbott H. Thayer.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H, Thayer.
57 PORTRAIT OF A LADY Jbout 1902
Mrs. William B. Cabot of Boston.
Oil on canvas : h. 39§ ; w. 32 inches. Signed and dated : Abbott
H. Thayer 190(?) (indistinct).
Lent by John GeUatly,
58 PORTRAIT OF BEATRICE 1902
Oil on canvas: H.63; w.32 inches. Signed and dated: Abbott
H. Thayer 1902. lUustraied.
Lent by Mrs. Hendrick S. Holden.
59 STEVENSON MEMORIAL 1903
One of the several attempted or projected 'memorials,' in
paint, to Robert Louis Stevenson, whose work and personality
the artist boundlessly admired and loved, although he had
never met him. Of the somewhat various attempts at this
* memorial' painting, the present picture is the only one which
eventuated as such. The picture My Children, No. 46, was at
one time intended as a Stevenson Memorial. The beautiful
Irish girl with brooding eyes made a fit subject for a Stevenson
angel. Vaea, the inscription on the rock, is the name of the
mountain overlooking Stevenson's home in the Samoan Is-
lands, in a grave upon whose summit "Tusitala," as they
called him, was laid to rest, in accordance with his expressed
•H-[ 10 ]^
CATALOGUE
wish, by the natives, who had to hew a track through the
jungle to fulfil this last request of their beloved master. (See
the account of Stevenson's burial at the end of the second vol-
ume of the Vailima Letters.)
"Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
"This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea.
And the hunter home from the hill."
Oil on canvas: h.81|; w.60 inches. Signed and dated:
Abbott H. Thayer 1903. Illustrated.
Lent by John Gellatly,
60 GLADYS About 1905
The artist's daughter.
Oil on canvas: H.25; w.23| inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer. Illustrated,
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
61 PORTRAIT OF A BOY 1905
Henry Thayer Whiting, the artist's nephew.
Oil on canvas: H.24i; w. 22§ inches. Signed and dated: begun
1903 Abbott H. Thayer Monadnock 1905. Illustrated.
Lent by Mrs. E. M. Whiting.
62 PROFILE, YOUNG WOMAN About 1906
The artist's niece, Eleanor Fisher.
Oil on panel : h. 20 J ; w. 15 J inches. Signed : Abbott H. Thayer.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
-»-[ll]-i-
CATALOGUE
63 PORTRAIT (Unfinished) 1908
Eleanor Fisher (Mrs. Laurence Grose), the artist's
niece.
Oil on panel: h.36; w.£8 inches. Signed and dated: Abbott
H. Thayer Monadnock 1908.
Lent by Mrs. Bruce Porter.
64 GIRL ARRANGING HER HAIR (Worked on again, 1921)
A. E. W. (Mrs. Gerald Thayer). AboiU 1909
Oil on canvas: H.25; w.S4 inches. Signed and dated: A. H.
Thayer 1918, Illustrated.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
65 ANGEL OF DAWN (Finished 1918) About 1909
A. E. W. (Mrs. Gerald Thayer).
Oil on canvas: h.102}; W.62J inches. Signed and dated:
Abbott H. Thayer 1919.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
66 YOUNG WOMAN IN FUR COAT About 1910
A. E. W, (Mrs. Gerald Thayer).
Oil on canvas: H.44f ; w.S6i inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer. Illustrated.
Lent by Dr. Willard B. Force.
67 LADY IN GREEN VELVET (Finished 1918) About 1910
A. E. W. (Mrs. Gerald Thayer).
Gold medal and first prize, International Exhibition, Car-
negie Institute, Pittsburgh, 1919.
Oil on canvas: H.49J; w.37i inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer. Illustrated.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
•Kl2]-H-
CATALOGUE
68 HEAD OF A MAN (sketch) Ah(mi 1911
Richard Thornton Fisher, Professor of Forestry at Har-
vard, the artist's nephew.
Oil on cardboard: H.22f ; W.17J inches. Inscribed: to Bill
James Abbott H. Thayer.
Lent by William James.
69 WINGED FIGURE 1912
Oil on canvas: h. 50^; w. 38i inches. Signed and dated:
Abbott H. Thayer 1912. Illustrated.
Lent by John F. Braun.
70 PORTRAIT OF A LITTLE GIRL 1917
Elizabeth Beaulieu.
Oil on panel: H.43i; w.21i inches. Signed and dated:
Abbott H. Thayer June 20 1917. Illustrated.
Lent by the Worcester Art Museum.
71 PORTRAIT 1917
A. E. W. (Mrs. Gerald Thayer).
Oil on canvas: H.21i; w.l7 inches. Signed and dated:
Abbott H. Thayer 1917.
Lent by Charles Lansing Baldvrin.
72 WINTER SUNRISE, MONADNOCK 1918
From the artist's home at Dublin, New Hampshire. He
painted several versions, both large and small.
Oil on canvas: h.54; w.63i inches. Signed: Abbott H.
Thayer. Illustrated.
Property of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
73 HEAD OF A BOY 1918
TowNSEND Martin.
Oil on canvas: h.21; w.17 inches. Signed: Abbott H. Thayer.
LerU by George J. Dyer.
-»-[ 13 ]-t.
CATALOGUE
74 BOY AND ANGEL About 1917 to 1920
This the artist was inclined to regard as his most significant
and finest composition. He tried several versions, of which
the present is the most finished. The boy is Townsend
Martin.
Oil on panel: H.61i; w.49 inches. Signed and dated:
Abbott H. Thayer April 2, 1920. Illustrated,
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
75 SELF-PORTRAIT 1919
Oil on panel : h. 22 i ; w. 24 inches. Signed and dated :
Abbott H. Thayer 1919.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer,
76 WINTER SUNRISE, MOUNT MONADNOCK 1919
Oil on canvas: H.53J; w. 62 J inches. Signed and dated:
Abbott H. Thayer 1919.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H, Thayer.
77 HEAD 1921
The artist's daughter; done in the eariy spring of 1921, a few
weeks before the artist's death.
Oil on panel: H.18J; w.l4| inches. Inscribed: A. H. Thayer
by E. B. T.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
78 MONADNOCK ANGEL 19W and 1921
Thayer's last picture; unfinished, the idea of putting his cher-
ished theme of Monadnock Sunrise into this picture as a back-
ground having come to him in the winter or early spring of
1921. Possibly his last touches of creative work, but a few weeks
before his death, were on this picture.
Oil on canvas: h.91; w.59f inches. Inscribed: A. H. Thayer
by E. B. T. Illustrated.
Lent by the Estate of Abbott H. Thayer.
DBJWIJ^GS
A REPRESENTATIVE GROUP OF DRAWINGS by
Abbott Handerson Thayer not here listed in detail is on exhi-
bition in Gallery ^, the room among the paintings galleries
regularly devoted to drawings.
ILLUSTRATIONS
vA- A/*/»o
^ '^U^^ c^^ L,c ff.. u^^^^ t:^^^c. e/_
*-( 12 )-*
Portrait of Miss Anne Palmer
I
•-(13)-<-
Landscape with Cattle
-( 16 )^
Portrait of the Artist's Sister
-( 18 )-
Portrait of Miss Annie Hoe
Portrait
Portrait of a Young Lady
Figure Half-Draped
-( 26 )-»
Mother and Child
H 27 )-
Water Lilie
Portrait
-( 21 )-
Portrait of a Young Lady
~( 25 )-*
FiGUHE Half-Dhaped
-( 26 )-
Mother and Child
/9€^
,^./r.-U.i ,: /l->''%'^'^'
Water Lilies
*-( 29 )-*
Portrait of Alice Freeman Palmer
-(30)-»
GiEL IN White
1^
Angei,
-»-( 32 )-«■
Winged Figure
-iu.r^V.- V.:_^,«^C ./^7'--^ ""'7
^ ;u^-; ;..■/, Sa'-.- ,,.,■/ / / ■
■*-{ 33 )-*
Brother and Sister
H 31 )-
POHTBAIT OF A YoUNG GiRL
1
-( 35 )-<■
Virgin Enthroned
-^{ 38 )-
Portrait
A Bride
*-( 14 )-<-
Roses
CyHAi,Ayn^
<rvti "M t-o"
*-( 45 )-*
Caritas
■^jl-iA. ['"
■^(48)-<-
Portrait
*-( 50 )-*
CoHNisH Headlands
H 51 )-»
Rosemary
^ji-i/i^yU<X^
Angel
Portrait of Beatrice
-( 59 )-*
Stevenson Memorial
-( 60 )-»
Gladys
^{ 61 H
POHTRAIT OF A BOY
Girl Arranging Her Hair
*-{ 66 )-,
Young Woman in a Fur Coat
I
-(67)-»
Lady in Green Velvet
*.(69)-<-
Winged Figure
I
^{ 70 )-
Portrait of a Little girl
■..{ 72 }■<■
Winter Sunrise, Monadnock
v...^r../^.: ,/?/
i
*.( 74 )-*
Boy and Anoel
*.( 78 )-
MoNADNOCK Angel
../
/>^
Head of the Artist's Son
(Drawing)
iiL\-A, f-
The Artist's Son
Head of a Child
(DratDing)
Girl Arranging Hair
(Dratmng)
1
Portrait of Mary
{Drawing)
A Head
(Drawing)
i
Sketch for the Virgin
(Drawing)
i
Sketch for a Pobtrait
(Drawing)
A Girl Standing
(Drawing)
MONADNOCK
(Drawing)
Study for Cabitas
{Drawing)
* . ' '
V;ALT-v,], f^^^S. 02154
MMWrM «ji WMo«l i
iiiiihi
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11