D u m b a r t o n O a k sWashington, D.C.

An Oasis of Scholarship 3Denys Sutton

The Building of Dumbarton Oaks 13Giles Constable

Ancient American Gods and Their Living Impersonators 19George Kubler

Four Maya Reliefs 31Mary Ellen Miller

The Byzantine Collection 39Cyril Mango

The Saint Peter Icon of Dumbarton Oaks 53Kurt Weitzmann

A Fête of Flowers: 59Women Artists’ Contribution to Botanical IllustrationAgnes Mongan

The Gardens 69Diane Kostial McGuire

Notes on Contributors 81

© Apollo Magazine Ltd., 1984, ISSN 0003-6536Originally published in APOLLO, Vol. CXIX, No. 266, April 1984

D u m b a r t o n O a k sEdited by Denys Sutton

Although Henry James spent most of his life inEurope, he understood much about his compatriots;those, at any rate, who belonged to the upper strataof society and especially those who went toEurope. His gift for perceiving the strain of inno-cence that could be detected in many Americanswhen they were abroad is clear, but he was no lessaware of their frequent search for an aesthetic ideal.

Needless to say some collectors in the UnitedStates, like those in other countries, went in forostentatious interiors and showed little true con-cern for art. Yet many American collectors hadremarkable f lair and bought splendid pieces: C. L.Freer, Mrs. J. L. Gardner, Henry Walters and JulesBache, to name only some of the most celebrated,were endowed with unusual taste. The next genera-tion produced people such as Duncan Phillips andRobert and Mildred Bliss. The Blisses were thecreators of Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.,which came into the public eye in 1944 when thepreliminary discussions leading up to the founda-tion of the United Nations were held there.

The Blisses were of a type that has more or lessvanished—the civilized amateur—and representedAmerican patrician culture at its f inest. Those whohad the privilege, it was nothing less, of beingshown Dumbarton Oaks in the ‘old days’ by Mr.and Mrs. Bliss with the puckish Director, John S.Thacher, in attendance, will cherish the memory ofa golden phase in American life. The taste of theBlisses, Maecenases of distinction, was for the rareand unusual: the Music Room (Fig. 3) is anepitome of ‘High Culture’, with its rich gold threadtapestry, remarkable early Italian and Northernpictures, a Riemenschnieder f igure, a radiant ElGreco, a marvellous Degas and one or two superbexamples of Chinese and Egyptian art (Figs. 4–10).

Nowadays many museums have becomeLunaparks, often invaded by unruly children whoseteachers are unable, or unwilling, to control them.

This is not the case at Dumbarton Oaks, where thehouse (of which the history is traced by theDirector, Giles Constable, in this issue) is an oasis ofculture where the inanimate beauty of the objectswithin is complemented by the growing beauty ofthe gardens without. These were created by Mrs.Bliss with the help of Beatrix Farrand, a niece ofEdith Wharton and an expert in garden design. Mrs.Bliss also established an important garden library.

Robert Woods Bliss (Fig. 1) was the sort ofcosmopolitan and educated American who appearsin the novels of Henry James and Edith Wharton.Most of his life was spent in the grand world ofinternational diplomacy. After leaving Harvard(where he studied History), he entered the publicservice in 1900. His f irst post was in the off ice ofthe Civil Governor of Puerto Rico to whom hewas appointed secretary. Later he was en poste inVenice, St. Petersburg, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Parisand The Hague. He was also American Ambassadorto Sweden and the Argentine. He worked in theState Department in Washington and althoughretiring at his own request in 1933, he became aconsultant in 1942. When Second Secretary at theAmerican Embassy in St. Petersburg he waspresented to the Czarina and was in Russia duringthe Revolution of 1905.

Bliss’s father, William H. Bliss, was the UnitedStates Attorney in St. Louis and also had railwayinterests. Left a widower, he married the remarkableAnna Dorinda Blaksley (1851–1935), also from St.Louis, whose lineage gave her membership in theColonial Dames and the Daughters of the Ameri-can Revolution. She had been sent to Paris to‘f inish’ at Miss de Vina’s well known school andthen travelled round Europe with a chaperone, MissEmily Mason, known as the ‘Florence Nightingaleof the South’.

Soon after returning to St. Louis, Anna Blaksleymarried her f irst husband, Demus Barnes, a wid-

D e n y s S u t t o nAn Oasis of Scholarship

4

1

Robert Woods Bliss(1875–1962)

2

Mrs. Robert WoodsBliss (1879–1969) byAlbert Steiner, 1908

5

ower, whose daughter, Cora, was older than she.The new Mrs. Barnes was devoted to her step-daughter after whose premature death she built inher memory a special mausoleum at Woodland,New York. Her own husband died too, but notbefore they had had a daughter, Mildred. Barnes,who had interests in Fletcher’s Castoria Corpora-tion, left his widow an exceedingly wealthy woman.It was an instance of the close ties linking theBarneses and the Blisses that Mildred Barnes (Fig.2) should have married her step brother, thehandsome Robert Bliss.

Mrs. Bliss Senior was clearly a forceful person-ality, with a pronounced taste for good music.Although before the First World War she and hersecond husband spent most of the year in Manhat-tan, she decided to build a mansion in Montecito atSanta Barbara, California. The result was CasaDorinda, which was erected during the War, ahandsome example of the American eclectic stylewith strong ‘Churrigueresque’ features. Oneattraction of this vast residence is the grand musicroom where such famous artists as Paderewski andHeifetz would perform.

The older Mrs. Bliss’s love of music wasinherited by her daughter and stepson, who oftengave concerts at Dumbarton Oaks, which theybought and renovated in 1920. The Blisses werefriends of Nadia Boulanger and commissionedStravinsky to compose his celebrated DumbartonOaks concerto (1938) in honour of their GoldenWedding. The tradition of music-making atDumbarton Oaks continued after it had ceased tobe a private home: it had been given by the Blissesto Harvard University in 1940.

As yet the development of the Blisses’ love ofworks of art has not been examined in any detail.Their long stay in Paris, where Bliss served at theAmerican Embassy from 1912 to 1920, was ofparamount importance for shaping their taste. In1918, for instance, Mrs. Bliss acquired Degas’s LaRépétition de Chant (Fig. 10) at the artist’s studio sale.The Blisses moved in the smart upper class intellec-tual society of the time, which is depicted in thememoirs of Mrs. Wharton with whom Mrs. Blissdid not get on.

A determining inf luence on the Blisses wasMrs. Bliss’s friendship with one of the most

intriguing Americans of his time—Royall Tyler(1884–1953), whom she had known since 1902,and with whom she corresponded until his death.Tyler, whose ancestor was the f irst Chief Justice ofVermont and the f irst American playwright, andwhose grandmother was of Slavonic origin, went toHarrow and then to New College, Oxford, but leftafter four terms. He studied in Saragossa andbecame a close friend of the Rector, Miguel deUnamuno. A polymath and a brilliant linguist, Tylerwas commissioned by Grant Richards to write abook on Spain (1909). This remarkable volume isone of the f irst publications in English to paytribute to El Greco. Tyler eloped with the beautifulMrs. Richards, born Contessa Elisina Palamidessi deCastelvecchio, the descendant of a son of LouisNapoleon, King of Holland. Royall Tyler was thenemployed by the British Public Record Off ice asEditor of the Calendar of the Spanish State Papers.

The Tylers had established their home in Paris;it was there that Tyler f irst made Bliss aware of thebeauties of PreColumbian art, taking him to thesmall shop of Joseph Brummer in the BoulevardRaspail where he bought his f irst piece—an Olmecf igure. Bliss’s response to Pre-Columbian art wasanalogous to that of many of the Paris avant-gardeto Negro sculpture.

Bliss later confessed that on the day he saw theOlmec f igure ‘the collector’s microbe took root...invery fertile soil’. Although he looked for pieces inLatin America he never found anything worthwhilethere: his collection was formed of items bought inEurope and the United States. He had no interest inthe anthropological or historical aspects of Pre-Columbian art; he only acquired items that ap-pealed to him as works of art. The result is acollection which is one of the most aestheticallypleasing of its kind in existence. It was on view atthe National Gallery, Washington, D.C. for manyyears and, after the owner’s death, it was installed ina special wing, designed by Philip Johnson, atDumbarton Oaks.

Dumbarton Oaks, however, is best known forits celebrated collection of Byzantine art and itsAntioch mosaics which were excavated by aPrinceton University team. The Blisses had devel-oped their taste for Byzantine art during their timein Paris, largely owing to the inf luence of Tyler. He

6

3

The Music Room, facingEast

7

4

Maddona and Child byTilman Riemenschneider(1460–1531). Wood, height95.25 cms. Acc. no. H. 24.4

5

Head of Bodhisattva,Chinese, T’ang period, 618–906. Black stone, height 43cms. Acc. no. H. 25.5

8

6

Cat, Egyptian, LateDynastic Period. Bronze onrose granite socle, c. 35.5 cm.Acc. no. H. 21.1

7

Landscape by ClaudeLorrain (1600–82), 1663.Sepia, black chalk and wash,26.2 × 37.8 cm. 1935. Acc.No. H. 36.48. An outstand-ing example of Claude’s latestyle, this composition isrelated to several others ofabout the same time

9

8

The Prince of Wicked-ness, Flemish, thirteenthcentury. Tapestry, 4.65 × 3.5m. Acc. No. H. 35.15

10

9

The Visitation by ElGreco (1541–1614). Oil oncanvas, 97.5 × 72 cm. Acc.no. H. 36.18. From theChurch of Santa Clarel,Diamel (Ciudad Real)

10

La Repetition de Chantby Edgar Degas (1834–1917), c. 1873. Oil on canvas,81 × 65 cm. Acc. no. H.18.2. Bought by Mrs. Bliss atthe Degas Sale of 1918

11

had fallen in love with Byzantine art when hismother and stepfather had taken him to St. Mark’sas a lad; later his friendship with Unamuno furtherfostered his love of Byzantium. He was to publishin 1926 a small book on the subject with HayfordPeirce, with whom he later wrote two sections of af ive volume L’art Byzantin that was interrupted bythe Second World War; he also played a major partin organizing the Byzantine exhibition of 1931 atthe Musée des Arts Decoratifs. Tyler was an all-round man with a f ine eye (he owned a magnif i-cent Byzantine chalice) and worked as an econo-mist and off icial at the League of Nations; hisexcellent life of Charles V was published posthu-mously in 1956. During the First World War RoyallTyler served in the American Intelligence in Pariswith Hayford Peirce. Their set included EricMaclagan, head of the British Information Service,Mrs. Wharton and Berenson, who said of Tyler thathe was ‘perfectly genuine and very lovable, a realscholar and a man of taste’.

A taste for Byzantine art was quite the thing inParis: Mrs. Wharton, who worked with Mrs. Tylerduring the war, was keen on it; she would see theByzantine historian Gustave Schlumberger who wasthe ami intime of the Comtesse de Cossé-Brissacand in her novel The Glimpse of the Moon (1922), theAmerican writer introduces a character, ProfessorDarchivio, who had been invited to give an after-dinner talk on the differences between Sasanian andByzantine motifs in Carolingian art.

Two considerations inspired the Blisses in theirenthusiasm for Byzantine art. They were intriguedby the beauty of its f inest objects, a number ofwhich they acquired, and by its arcane qualities:here was a world of art that was then known onlyto an élite. Robert Bliss was also intrigued by theintellectual problems involved in the study of thisart, which then, as now, is notoriously diff icult toassess. Huntington Cairns observed in a tribute toBliss that he was fascinated by a civilization that

had carried on the secular imperial system of theRoman Empire until the capture of Constantinople by theTurks in 1453, and which had preserved the learning of theWest. The preservation and transmission of knowledge wasthe greatest function which, at that time, could have beenperformed. This the Byzantines accomplished with ardentprecision and humility. He saw that here was a f ield of great

richness which Western students had largely neglected.Byzantium was luxurious, commercial, legally minded,theological, touched with science, and motivated by apowerful art impulse. It was an area of history that de-manded exploration if medieval civilization were to be fullyunderstood.

Not everyone would agree with that interpre-tation of Byzantine art, nor with the view ofRoyall Tylor and Peirce that it was essentially the artof the Imperial Court; nevertheless the works atDumbarton Oaks reveal a sensibility towards costlymaterials that is found in Byzantine art at its f inest.In any event, the Blisses felt that this was an art thatrequired further study. As Bliss wrote in a piece on‘Dumbarton Oaks; A Dream becomes Reality’:‘There was need in this country, we thought, of aquiet place where the advanced student and scholarcould withdraw, the one to mellow and develop, theother to write the result of a life’s study’. This noblebelief, one shared by Bernard Berenson at I Tatti,was an offspring of the ethos of the ‘High Culture’of the American Renaissance of the years between1890 and 1914. Both Dumbarton Oaks and I Tattiare sanctuaries for those who (we hope) seek truthin a disinterested fashion.

G i l e s C o n s ta b l eThe Building of Dumbarton Oaks

The main house at Dumbarton Oaks, with itsvarious additions, presents a conspectus of Ameri-can architectural styles ranging from early nine-teenth-century Federal through Victorian to neo-Georgian eclectic and modern in the twentiethcentury (Fig. 1). Each shift in style and ownershipwas accompanied by a change in name. The site, atthe top of a steep slope rising from the PotomacRiver, was known in the eighteenth century as theRock of Dumbarton owing to a fancied resem-blance to the Rock of Dumbarton in Scotland.During the f irst half of the nineteenth century,when Classicism and Romanticism alternatelyprevailed, the house was called Acrolophus, andsometimes the Grove or Oakly. It was renamedMonterey during the war with Mexico, and TheOaks in about 1860, in its Victorian phase. Thepresent name of Dumbarton Oaks, given after theproperty was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. RobertWoods Bliss in 1920, thus combines two elementsfrom its previous history.

The f irst house was built on top of the hill,facing due south, in about 1800. ‘Two stories high,with f ive bays and built of brick, it resembled othergreat houses of the early Federal period,’ accordingto Colket and Vander Poel in their unpublishedhistory of Dumbarton Oaks.1 Among its distinctivefeatures, now lost, were the receding central bay,with a rounded window above the front door, andthe parapet, with sections of balusters, along theroof-line, concealing the roof from the ground (Fig.2). Other features, still visible in the main block of

the present house, are the twelve-pane windows,with stone lintels and keystones above and counter-sunk panels in the brick between them, and, insidethe building, the central hall running through thehouse, with rooms opening on either side. Theshort eastern wing of the original house set backfrom the main façade also survives. Some distancebeyond this wing the elegant pavilion known as theOrangery, which still exists essentially in its originalform and is discussed elsewhere in this issue, wasbuilt probably between 1805 and 1812.

The house was totally remodelled in the mid-nineteenth century by Edward Linthicum, whoenlarged it on every side (Fig. 3). He f irst extendedthe east wing towards the Orangery, and backbeyond the original north side of the house,making an ell, and later he added a west wing, witha porte-cochère at the end. In the centre of theback he added a two-storey bay-window, sur-mounted by a hexagonal tower, shaped like acupola, rising some distance above the roof-line.2

On top he added, under a mansard roof (said to beone of the earliest mansard roofs in Washington), athird f loor, which was later transformed into a smalltheatre, the scene of popular social entertainmentsin the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Under the enlarged cornice a row of heavybrackets was added, further changing the originalcharacter of the building. The disguise was com-pleted by the addition of a portico over the frontdoor, with a glazed-in balcony above, and byporches—two-storey on the west wing, and one-storey on the east wing—decorated with wroughtiron, in the southern style. The result was thor-oughly nineteenth-century, and it would have

1 Cited from the typescript at Dumbarton Oaks, part II, p.20. See also Walter M. Whitehill, Dumbarton Oaks: TheHistory of a Georgetown House and Garden, 1800–1966, p. 15.All students of Dumbarton Oaks are indebted to theseworks, from which much of the information in this article isderived, supplemented by photographs in the DumbartonOaks archives and in memoirs such as John S. White, To Keepthe Declaration, 1978.

2 The date of this addition is uncertain, but its angularshape, with three f lat sides, and curved topped windows, aswell as the tower, mark it as Victorian, as does an illustrationin White, op. cit., p. 175, showing it open on the interior,forming a gallery.

14

2

The Orig inal House,with a wooden porchadded. The earliestknown photograph, c.1860

1

Aerial View c. 1970.A: Pre-ColumbianGallery (1963), B: MusicRoom (1929), C: EastWing (c. 1860), D:Orangery (1805/12), E:Main House (c. 1800), F:West Wing (c. 1870) andextensions (1921–9), G:Garden Library (1963),H: Byzantine Gallery(1940)

C

A B

H

G

F E D

15

3

Dumbarton Oaks in thesecond half of thenineteenth century. Thef lagstaff and wrought-ironon top of the tower arevisible beyond the nearchimney. The Orangery,with the hip roof added byEdward Linthicum, can beseen on the left

4

Dumbarton Oaks in the1920s

16

required a sharp observer to discern the Federalbuilding within.

The third and most recent transformation,undertaken by Mr. and Mrs. Bliss in the 1920s, tosome extent restored the original appearance byremoving many of the nineteenth-century accre-tions, especially the portico over the front door, andthe porches. The façade of the central blockrecovered some of its f latness, with an inset frontdoor protected by a slightly protruding porch, withdouble columns on either side. The lintels withtheir keystones and the countersunk panels becamemore visually prominent. The windows on theground f loor, and some others, were elongated andadorned with small wrought-iron balconies. Moststriking was the appearance of the roof, where theheavy Victorian brackets under the cornices werereplaced by a lighter neo-classic design and thedouble-dormer windows with peaked roofs wereincreased from three to f ive in number on thecentral block, changed into rectangular windowswith curved and peaked pediments, and connectedby a low parapet which conceals some of the roofand gives a semblance of the horizontal roof line ofthe Federal house. A balustrade was also addedaround the roof of the Orangery, concealing thehip added in the nineteenth century to improve theventilation, and the visible roof was covered incurved red tiles, giving it a somewhat Mediterra-nean appearance, presumably in order to harmonizewith the design of the swimming pool.3 On thenorth façade, the hexagonal tower was removed andthe bay window was rounded in the eighteenth-century style, and a door and stairs made, givingaccess to the North Vista. The roof of the east wingwas raised, and the west wing was extended,forming an ell parallel to that on the east, andtopped with an artif icial chimney for the sake ofsymmetry.

The interior of the house was entirely remod-elled, except for the central hall which survivedthroughout its history. As Whitehill says:

In the new dispensation, the room to the left ofthe central hall [formerly the parlor] became thedining-room, with pantries and kitchen in the

[new] west wing. The large room to the right[formerly the library] was subdivided into coat anddressing rooms on either side of a passage that ledto an exquisitely proportioned oval room withrecessed bookcases and eighteenth-century Frenchfurniture. The east wing on the front [formerly asitting room and dining room] became a less formallibrary for Mr. Bliss. The space in the ell to the rear[formerly the kitchen and servants hall] wasconverted into a drawing room [to which a largebay window on the east, overlooking the GreenGarden, was added in the late 1920s]. In a longgallery at the back of the house a pair of gracefulstaircases were introduced.4

The extension of the west wing was the f irstof f ive major additions made to the house between1920 and 1963. The second was the Music Room,completed in 1929, which opens off the west wing,down a f light of marble steps. Like the gardens, itincorporates elements, some authentic and someimitated, from France and Italy between thesixteenth and eighteenth centuries but is none theless a distinctively American expression of thecultivated eclectic taste of the 1920s. It was thescene in 1944 of the Dumbarton Oaks Conversa-tions, when the foundations of the United Nationswere laid, and also of the f irst performance ofStravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks concerto and othernotable pieces of music. It is now used for concertsand lectures and occasional receptions and scholarlymeetings. The third addition was the ByzantineCourt, completed in 1940, immediately beforeDumbarton Oaks was conveyed to HarvardUniversity. It consists of two parallel pavilions, onehousing the Byzantine Collection and the other,off ices and the main corridor, connected to theMusic Room on the east and by a glazed corridorto the west, parallel to the street. In the centre is acourtyard with a lawn, with a large mosaic fromAntioch set into it. The two f inal additions werethe wings for Mr. Bliss’s Pre-Columbian Collectionand Mrs. Bliss’s garden library, both f inished in1963, though an ambitious plan was developed inthe mid-70s for building a new library under theNorth Vista and several plans for extending the

3 In the latest repairs, these red tiles have been replaced byslates, as in the earlier versions of the Orangery.

4 Whitehill, p. 63. The insertions are based on the f loor-plan in White, p. 172 and on old photographs.

17

exhibition space by covering the Byzantine court-yard have been proposed.

In looking at the house today, the most promi-nent features on the south and east are the neo-Georgian façade and the Orangery, both reminis-cent of the original Federal building, and thetwentieth-century additions to the north and west,especially the Music Room and the Pre-Columbiangallery, which is the single most outstandingbuilding at Dumbarton Oaks (Fig. 5). The onlyvisible signs, both disguised, of the Victorianchanges are the mansard roof and the bay on thenorth façade, but just as the Federal house underlay

5 Technology and Conservation, VI.3, Fall 1981, p. 23.

5

Exterior of the Pre-Columbian Gallery,designed by Philip Johnsonand f inished in 1963

the Victorian mansion, so the Victorian changesinf luence the present character of DumbartonOaks.

The principal effort in recent years has beendevoted to renovation and upkeep. Like many f irst-class houses built almost without regard for cost inthe early twentieth century, Dumbarton Oaks hassuffered from what has been called ‘Good BuildingMenopause.’ Unlike cheap buildings, which needconstant upkeep, f irst-class buildings ‘will lull youinto a pleasant state of complacency until, at somepoint between ages sixty and eighty, very substantialsums will have to be found to buy another f iftycarefree years.’5 The early owners of Acrolophosfought a constant battle to maintain the house. There-buildings in the mid-nineteenth century andearly twentieth century each gave it a new lease oflife. The recent repairs have given it yet anotherlease, preserving for the future its distinctivecombination of old and new architectural styles.

G e o r g e K u b l e rAncient American Gods and Their Living Impersonators

Robert Woods Bliss began collecting ancientAmerican art in 1912 when he purchased in Parisan Olmec jade f igurine. During the succeedingyears, while he and Mrs. Bliss were forming theirByzantine collection and establishing DumbartonOaks, Mr. Bliss continued to acquire exceptionalexamples of Pre-Columbian art, and he collectedselectively but intensively throughout his life.Between 1947 and 1962 his Pre-Columbiancollection was on display at the National Gallery ofArt. Eager that the Indian art of Latin America bepermanently represented in the nation’s capital, Mr.Bliss gave this collection to Dumbarton Oaks in1962 and asked Philip Johnson to design a gallerythat would enhance as well as house the collection.With this in mind, the Pre-Columbian gallery wasbuilt in 1963 of eight circular glass pavilions that, incombination with transparent and translucent cases,allow the objects to be enveloped in a naturalenvironment with trees.

At a time when most ancient American art wasdisplayed as material culture in museums ofanthropology and natural history, Mr. Bliss collectedPre-Columbian objects for their aesthetic value. Hedid not intend to acquire representative samples ofall the arts of this hemisphere before Columbus, butselected small-scale works of the highest creativity,expression, and skill. The ancient art ofMesoamerica—of the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya,Classic Veracruz, Mixteca-Puebla, and Azteccultures—forms the bulk of the collection, but theproducts in gold and semi-precious stone fromCentral America are also included, as are a broadrange of works from Andean South America. Thescholarly study of the collection draws equally onthe humanities and the social sciences, in books,articles, and conferences arising from the work ofthe Fellows of the programme in Pre-ColumbianStudies directed by Elizabeth Benson from 1966and Elizabeth Boone since 1980.

The collection grows slowly within theoriginal def inition. Some specialists have debatedwhether a few pieces in it are Pre-Columbian ormodern works. These unpublished observations areconsidered in this article. The writer remains infavourable suspense of judgement about thesculpture Woman in Childbirth recently considered tobe modern, although accepted by almost all scholarssince 1898 without challenge. The negative argu-ments are about modern tools and iconographicinconsistencies, but their authors eschew expres-sional and ritual considerations that are positive.

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN (fragment of jadeitestatuette). Olmec style. (Figs. 1, 2)

The Olmec origin has never been questionedsince its appearance on the art market in 1944 andf irst publication.1 It was then identif ied withoutsignature as Olmec.

Depending on lighting and photographic anglethe fragment was f irst thought to be male and laterfemale. Photographs taken from below with topright lighting and left side turned forward, suggest asinger in performance, lifting her face from turningshoulders (Fig. 1). If posed frontally and lightedfrom both sides, the fragment is strikingly mascu-line, and as if listening passively, with the head sunkbetween shoulders (Fig. 2). Lighting is not aloneresponsible for the difference. The fractures atshoulders and torso leave the original posture indoubt. Was the f igure seated or standing, looking upor ahead, making sounds or silent? Other Olmec

1 D Y N [Mexico City], VI, 1944, after p. 24, top left,then given as of unknown provenance or provenience,but in a private collection. S. K. Lothrop catalogued itas of a man (Robert Woods Bliss Collection, Pre-Columbian Art, 1957, no. 9).

20

1 and 2

Portrait of a woman,Olmec style, Mexico, before500 b.c. Jadeite, height 6.6cm. Acquired 1948. Thisfragment of a statuette hasvariously been interpreted asa female singer or a pensivemale

All the illustrations inthis article, except f igures 4and 5, are of pieces in theDumbarton Oaks Collec-tion.

3

Alligator-man pendantDarien style, Colombia, postthird century a.d.? Cast andsoldered gold, height 12.8cm, width 9.9 cm. Acquired1953. With such widediffusion, stable typologyand surprising antiquity, the‘alligator deity’ could beamong the major cultf igures of ancient America

21

ALLIGATOR-MAN PENDANT. Darien style.(Fig. 3)

The problem here is unique in ancientAmerica. It is about all the alleged deities for whomneither mythologies nor rituals were collected inmeaningful records. Over two dozen such breastpendants exist. Most are in Colombian collectionswith provenances from the northwestern Darienregion adjoining Panama. One was in the Well ofSacrif ice at Chichen Itza and another at VenadoBeach in the Canal Zone of Panama. One radiocar-bon date at a.d. 227 plus or minus sixty years pinsdown this site which has no evidence of longoccupation.5 With such wide diffusion, stabletypology, and surprising antiquity, the ‘alligatordeity’ in cast gold could be among the major cultf igures of ancient America.

The symbolic structure is that of a frontalhuman presented symmetrically with f lattened legsand joined feet; arms holding rods of gold to themouth; winglike f inials with scrolls (from fronds?)f lanking a face panel; and two hemispherical bossesin the headdress above nose and eyes. The spiralledscrolls and the braided wire across the face are castfrom wax threads and soldered to the frame. Thesetechniques were in use from Colombia and Panamato Mexico.6

If crocodile be taken as the dominant represen-tation, then only the bosses and the f inials can beread as caiman (the American genus of crocodilians).Neither is sure, unless the bosses are the ‘f loating’eyes of the submerged lagarto de Indias or alligator(the American crocodile). If the winglike orfernlike f inials are of the alligator, they might bebenef icent jaws spreading instead of crushing, butwe have no text for comparison. The rods to themouth show fernlike scrolls (Pérez de Barradas No.

statuettes portraying agitated motions allow themore dynamic standing and twisting posture to beconsidered as not only possible but originallyintended.2 Turning from posture to expression leadsto another uncertainty. Is the woman singing orsobbing? Her dilated nostrils and furrowed brow,carved in translucent surfaces, look like skin wetwith tears caused by emotion.

Such visual effects raise the question of therelationship between the makers of clay f igurinesand the sculptors of stone without metal tools.Users of stone tools early achieved effects of skintextures, gaze, muscular interplay, expressional foldsand emotional intensity before 900 b.c. by workingat the gigantic scale of the huge basalt bouldersused for the famous colossal heads. Their scale, bythis argument, was chosen to magnify the f ield ofthe work. As at Stonehenge the dimensions arelarge because the tools were large celts and adzes.Their furrows became smaller only as smaller,harder instruments were fashioned. By this hypoth-esis about early macrotechnics,3 small carvingsfollow colossal heads, as lenses followed gnomons,or stamped coins followed megalithic money.

Enfolded within the history of Olmec sculp-ture is the contrast recurring throughoutMesoamerican habits of expression—a contrastbetween the representation of life as it appears tosight, and the mythological system that wovetogether the intricate ciphers of the imagined lifeof the gods. A diminutive jade fragment and thecolossal heads are to life and religion, as languageand art are to ‘forms of life’ in the context of recentaesthetic theory.4

2 The jadeite Olmec ‘gladiator,’ ibid., plate IV, f ig. 10and p. 234.3 G. Kubler, ‘Commentary,’ Contributions of theUniversity of California Archaeological Research Facility, no.11, 1971, pp. 162–3.4 Richard Wollheim, commenting on Wittgenstein’saesthetics, in Art and its Objects: an Introduction toAesthetics, 1968, on the sense that language and art are‘forms of life’.

5 J. Pérez de Barradas, Orfebrería colombiana. EstilosQuimbaya y otros, 2 vols., 1965–66; I, f igs. 55–56; II,láminas 63–81.6 D. Easby, ‘Ancient American Goldsmiths,’ NaturalHistory, LXV, 1956, p. 404.

22

4

Couple Embracing,Codex Dresdensis, fol.23c, Maya style, Yucatan,Mexico, post a.d. 1200. Inkand wash on sized f ig barkpaper. SächsischeLandesbibliotek, Dresden.Compare with potteryf igurine in Plate III. The oldman is Itzamna in his humansun-god aspect

5

Deity in Parturition,Codex Borbonicus, fol.13, Aztec style, Valley ofMexico, early sixteenthcentury. Ink and washes onsized f ig bark paper.Bibliothèque de l’AssembléeNationale, Paris. Comparewith sculpture in Plate II.The deity, Tlazolteotl, isgiving birth to a childalready clothed in the liveryof the goddess

23

351, Fig. 48), or fruit-like pods (ibid., No. 6420, Fig.75; No. 3494, Fig. 66). It might even be that thegod (or his impersonator) is eating a plant. If,however, the wings are avian, their scrolls should befeathers. We have no explanation other thanalligator for the grinning teeth in some (ibid., No.3064, Fig. 54; No. 6031, Fig. 79, etc.), which mightbe taken for teeth, dripping water as scrolls.

One specimen f inally has double-spouted,bridge-handled kettles for the bosses (ibid., No.6031, Fig. 79), and alligator dentures ‘ingestingwater plants’ in a caparison where the humanwearer of the paraphernalia carries alligator jaws onhis shoulders, eats water plants, and balances kettleson his head in a ritual dance—impersonating adeity for whom we still have no accepted text orname.

COUPLE EMBRACING. Jaina style. (Plate III)

Commonly identif ied7 as a ‘scene oflovemaking’, this moulded f igurine with modelledheads was reportedly found in a mortuary jar onJaina Island. At least ten other pottery versions ofthe same subject exist, proving the distribution ofthe theme throughout Maya history and geogra-phy.8 Pendergast interprets the scene as representingthe moon goddess (Ixchel) and an old god labelledN (in the Schellhas typology).9

More is known from Maya mythology, in theChilam Balam books of Chumayel, Tizimin, andMani, in López de Cogolludo, and in the Kekchi-Mopan legends,10 reporting the Maya belief that

7 Lothrop, op. cit., no. 127, p. 255; E. P. Benson, ‘Fromthe Island of Jaina: A Maya Figurine,’ Bulletin of theDetroit Institute of Fine Arts, LVII, 1979, no. 3, pp. 95–103.8 J. E. S. Thompson, Excavations at San José, 1939, p.155, f ig. 92n from Burial 11 (before a.d. 850). DavidM. Pendergast, ‘The Old Man and the Moon,’Rotunda, XIV, 1981/2, no. 4, pp. 7–12.9 P. Schellhas, ‘Representation of Maya Deities of theMaya Manuscripts,’ Papers, Peabody Museum(Harvard), IV, 1904–10, pp. 1–47.10 Thompson, ‘The Moon Goddess in MiddleAmerica,’ Contributions to American Anthropology andHistory, V, 1939, pp. 127–73.

the moon and the sun, being the f irst pair tocopulate, were together the patrons of humanreproduction. One myth of the Kekchi cycle,reported from the Guatemalan highlands by G. B.Gordon, tells of the moon as a girl continuallyfollowing the sun: ‘she sometimes nearly catches upwith him and they go down in the west almosttogether’.11

The old man was thought by Eric Thompsonto be Itzamna in his human sun-god aspect, asshown in the Dresden Codex (23c, Fig. 4). In theKekchi-Mopan cycle of Belize, the deerhead hat ofthe old man in the Dumbarton Oaks f igurine isdescribed: ‘deer, willingly or unwillingly, aided thesun in his efforts to win the moon. The stuffeddeerskin gives him his introduction to the moon, adeer restores the moon for him to full womanhood,and a deer, by lending him his skin to hide under,enables him to reach his wife....’12 The samedeerhead-bowknot headdress is worn by a youthfulmale portrayed in a f igurine from Jaina Island, whomay be the morning aspect, rather than the oldevening one.13

The Bliss f igurine alone among its groupshows the hand of high art: withered age and ampleyouth support one another in equal embrace, glanceand gesture, veiled and restrained in a lifting rhythmof reciprocal shapes in their sunset conjunctionevery moon at waning crescent.14

WOMAN IN CHILDBIRTH. Aztec. (Plate II)

As with many Aztec sculptural studies ofnatural forms and processes, no iconographicattributes permit naming the work as portraying agod.15 Other sculptures also portray plants, animals

11 G. B. Gordon, ‘Guatemala Myths,’ The MuseumJournal (Philadelphia), VI, 1915, no. 3, pp. 116–121.12 Benson, op. cit., pp. 100–1; Thompson, ibid. andCommentary on the Dresden Codex, 1972, p. 60.13 A. Emmerich, Gods and Men, 1967, f ig. 42.14 F. G. Lounsbury, ‘Maya Numeration, Computation,and Calendrical Astronomy,’ Dictionary of ScientificBiography, 15, 1978, pp. 774–6.15 H. B. Nicholson, ‘Religion in Pre-Hispanic CentralMexico,’ Handbook of Middle American Indians, X, 1971,pp. 420–2.

24

Plate I

Rabbit Impersonatorand Eagle Knight, Aztecstyle. Cempoala (Veracruz),Mexico, f ifteenth centurya.d. Jadeite, height 18.1 cm,width 9.15 cm. Acquired1947. In Metztitlan myththe rabbit is a symbol ofnight and the moon,sheltering a bird man who issymbol of the sun anddaytime

Plate II

Woman in Childbirth,Aztec style, Valley ofMexico, post a.d. 1450.Aplite (a f ine-grainedgranite of quartz andfeldspar) with inclusions ofgarnet, height 20.2 cm,width 22 cm. Acquired1947. Tlazolteotl was mostprominent among sometwenty deities who receivedworship in childbirth

Plate III

Couple Embracing, Jainastyle, Yucatan, Mexico,before a.d. 700. Mouldedand modelled f igurine withblue paint, height 25.6 cm,width 13.5 cm. Acquired1954. In Maya mythologythe moon and the sun, beingthe f irst pair to copulate,were together believed to bethe patrons of humanreproduction

25

sion. None of it, technical or stylistic, is published.But the thoughts of Esther Pasztory on Aztecmasterpieces in 1976 justify suspending judgementuntil decisive evidence appears. She writes thatsmall size is admissible (p. 379), and that at this latedate, about 1490, in Tenochtitlan the quality is afunction of ‘the creation of a new formal andiconographic image drawing freely on a variety ofvisual sources’.18 Dr. Pasztory adds in a recent letter(21 May, 1983), ‘How can I quarrel with yourrefutation of my opinions . . . when you quote myown words? I still f ind a hard-edged quality and aslickness in the [Dumbarton Oaks Tlazolteotl]sculpture that disturbs me.’ Thus the modernspecialists, whether in anthropology or history ofart, operate as would computers for retrieval from adata base, on which a variety of desired models maybe arranged. The modelling is limited by the database.

Whether the Dumbarton Oaks sculpture wasmade in Mexico in the 1490s, or in Paris in the1880s does not affect its quality as a work of highart made with superior knowledge of the periodand place. It may now be considered as a piece ofancient sculpture perhaps partly re-worked inrecent times with modern drills (until more isknown).19

RABBIT IMPERSONATOR AND EAGLE

KNIGHT. Aztec. (Plate I, Fig. 6)

Colossal in being twice as tall as the humancrouching between its legs, the seated and shelter-ing person wears rabbit attributes in a long-earedhead and rabbit paws. Both humans are in animalcostumes: the small one with hands and arms on hischest wears a round-eyed bird helmet (parrot?eagle?). If he were to stand up he would be as high

and people in physical fullness as sacrif ices worthyto continue the endless cycle of vital exchange inthe universe. Human sacrif ice nourished the godswho were thereby enabled to replenish the earthwith life again each year.16

If we believe our eyes the woman is in labour,but if we believe what has been written about her,she is among some twenty deities who receivedworship in childbirth. Most prominent wasTlazolteotl, ‘goddess of carnal love’, also known byother names, to whose priests sinners confessed.The sculpture was drilled with many suspensionholes on ears, feet, chin, and on the body andcarved hair, for aff ixing attributes that might bechanged as needed. Such alterations may haveconveyed different names, as with the mannequinsof Catholic saints.

E.-T. Hamy, who was a doctor of medicine inParis, wrote of the statue in 1898 that it and a scenein Codex Borbonicus (Fig. 5), (folio 13) explainedeach other, and that the newborn hands in themanuscript were shown as ready to seize theinterlocking loops, symbolic of ‘dualité créatrice’. Thephrase was taken from the commentary on CodexBorbonicus by Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, whowrote before Hamy of it, the creative duality, aspresent and presiding during parturition, and of theneonate as wearing ‘the livery of the goddessherself ’.17 Hamy and Paso both knew the sculpture,which was then in the collection of the geologist,A. Damour, in Paris.

The antiquity of the Dumbarton Oaks piecewas never questioned until the 1960s, when somearchaeological and art historical opinions combinedin the view that the drilling technique was modern.These investigations still being inconclusive, theevidence of inconsistency in style is under discus-

16 G. Kubler, ‘The Cycle of Life and Death inMetropolitan Aztec Sculpture,’ Gazette des Beaux-Arts,XXIII, 1943, pp. 257–68.17 E.-T. Hamy, ‘Note sur une statuette mexicaine enwernerite représentant la déesse lxcuina,’ Journal de laSociété des Américanistes, III, 1906, pp. 1–5.Francisco del Paso y Troncoso, Descriptión histórica yexposición del códice pictórico de los antiguos nahuas que seconserva en la Bibliotecà de la Cámara de Diputados deParis (antiguo Palais Bourbon), 1898, p. 74.

18 E. Pasztory, ‘Masterpieces in Pre-Columbian Art,’Actes [42d-International Congress of Americanists], VII,1979, pp. 388–9.19 Felipe Solis Olguin reports having seen stonefragments of a similar sculpture in the storerooms ofthe Museo Nacional de Antropologia e Historia. Hebelieves the Dumbarton Oaks piece to be of Aztecdate.

26

6

Rabbit impersonatorand Eagle Knight, rearview of Plate I

7

Face of a young manwith smoking mirroremblems, Aztec style, Valleyof Mexico, c. 1507. Stone,mottled grey, height 18.5cm, width 16.5 cm.Acquired 1948. This stoneportrait head represents thesevered head of a humansacrif ice to the godTezcatlipoca, whose namemeans smoking mirror

8

Rear view of Figure 7

27

nized in Tenochtitlan as the severed head of ahuman sacrif ice to the god Tezcatlipoca, whosename means smoking mirror. Carved inside the faceis a calendar date (2 Reed) signifying the day nameof Tezcatlipoca or the year 1507, when a new cycleof f ifty-two years began with relighting the f iresextinguished at the end of the preceding period.

The sacrif ice was chosen each year fromamong a group of prisoners of war, as the mostperfect to enact the role of the god. The ceremonyended with his decapitation. The head was displayedon a large rack as a skull perforated twice forsuspension from one of many poles. A portraitlikeness was also made in stone to commemoratehis appearance. Sahagún’s informants said he waschosen for perfection, as being not corpulent andwithout defects or scars; smooth of f lesh (‘like atomato’), not broad-headed nor square, not bald,neither f lat nor wide nor arched of nose, not thick-lipped, and of well arrayed teeth.22

Traditions of portraiture were rare and widelyseparated in ancient America. Great differences ofperiod also kept artists in ignorance of others. Forinstance, Olmec and Maya portraiture in stone wereone prolonged focus in eastern Mesoamerica,enduring 2,000 years. But Aztec stone portraiturearose separately, about 600 years after the end ofMaya portrait images. Mochica ruler portraits onpottery vessels are another focus on the centralAndean coast, lasting only a few centuries beforea.d. 800. Yet no good evidence links Maya andAndean portraiture, although they were coeval.These parallel passages in separate civilizationswithout contact resist diffusional analysis. Anotherapproach would be to search for differences morethan resemblances in morphology and etiology. Thisuse of double images, more like a stereogram than amagnif ication, might also be ideogrammetric ratherthan iconographic, in relation to comparativestudies of differentiation.

as the seated rabbit. If the rabbit person rose to hisfull height he would tower twice as high as birdman.20 Said by its owner, when it was shown in1940 at the Fogg Museum, to have been found inCempoala near Veracruz, the piece was acquired byMr. Bliss in 1947.

This imagery has been connected by WalterKrickeberg with a sixteenth-century myth recordedin 1575 among the people of Metztitlan in easternHidalgo.21 The deity of pulque (maguey cactusbeer) who represented all vegetation in its annualcycle of dying and reviving, lives in the moon, alsowaxing and waning, in whose spots the people wereaccustomed to see a rabbit, thrown there by thegods, to keep the moon darker than the sun.Rabbit, however, was also the symbol of pulque as acalendar day named 2 Rabbit.

The myth reported from Metztitlan tells of therenewal of life in death, and renewal of day in eachnight. The rabbit would be a symbol of night andthe moon, sheltering a bird man who is a symbol ofthe sun and daytime. A remote connexion with theKekchi myth of sun and moon may be suspected(see p. 242).

FACE OF A YOUNG MAN. Aztec. (Figs. 7, 8)

Less than life-size, a stone portrait head,agreeable in proportion, with images of smokingmirrors on both temples, would have been recog-

20 A. S. Leopold (Wildlife of Mexico, 1972, pp. 344–61)illustrates many rabbit species all seated on hind legsfolding forward, never back. E. Pasztory, Aztec Art,1982, pp. 171–2, notes that the rabbit f igure is seatedwith its arms raised in the ‘death-goddess posture.’ Therabbit’s skull-and-bones belt supports this association.A similar rabbit person appears carved on an alabastervessel in he storerooms of the Museo Nacional (16cm. W.).21 Gabriel de Chávez, ‘Relación de la provincia deMetztitlan’ [1579], Boletin del Museo Nacional deArqueologia e Historia, epoca 4, 2, entrega 5, Jan.–Feb.1924, pp. 109–120 cited by Walter Krickeberg,Felsbilder Mexikos, 1969, pp. 100–2. See also ElizabethH. Boone, ‘The Macuilxochitl and Ometochtli DeityClusters in the Codex Magliabechiano,’ Master’s thesis,1974, University of Texas, Austin.

22 Fray Bernardino de Sahagún’s Aztec informants, inFlorentine Codex, translated by A. O. Anderson andCharles Dibble, II, 1951, pp. 64–5 (paraphrased),recorded before 1585. Similar sacrif ice was made ofan impersonator of the war god, Huitzilopochtli, inanother month (ibid., p. 73).

28

Phrased more generally, to work with nexpressions all different as to conf iguration, yet ofthe same idea (whether integral to the time andplace, or interpretative and later) is comparative inhigher degree than a linear or diffusional study ofisolated traits devoid of context. In effect, the ideaof diffusion produces mirages that may be reducedby the methods of morphology and semiology tomore substantial f indings.

COILED RATTLESNAKE. Aztec. (Fig. 9)

FIRE SERPENT (XIUHCOATL). Aztec.(Figs. 10, 11)

The contexts of the two sculptures interlock:the rattlesnake (Crotalus) is portrayed accurately tosuggest an enhanced vitality greater than that ofnature,23 while the Fire serpent signif ies the dryseason as well as divine power in the daily descentof the sun in the sky.24

In the sixteenth century Sahagún describedsuch f ire-serpent ceremonies in his encyclopedicstudy of native Mexican life.25 These rituals enactedthe daily descent of the sun at sunset and annuallyfrom summer to winter solstices. In Tenochtitlan,Xiuhcoatl and Quetzalcoatl as regents of dry andwet seasons were serpents similar but opposite.26

The tribal god of the Aztec peoples, calledHuitzilopochtli, appeared in the person of his priestclad as a Xiuhcoatl serpent, who ran down from thetop of a pyramidal platform on f ire ‘like a pin-ewood torch’, with a tongue ‘made of red ararafeathers’ and a long tail of paper. While he de-

23 Crotalus: ‘rattles of more than 12 joints are rare, butone having 21 is known.’ J. P. Moore, EncyclopediaAmericana, 1953, 23, p. 228. The caudal rattle of dry,horny epidermal rings is loosely f itted, and formedwhen the skin is sloughed three or four times eachyear.24 H. B. Nicholson, op. cit., pp. 412–14.25 Arid Hvidtfeldt, Teotl and *Ixiptlatli, 1958, pp. 131–2.26 G. Kubler, ‘Serpent and Atlantean Columns:Symbols of Maya-Toltec Polity,’ Journal of the Society ofArchitectural Historians, XLII, 1982, no. 2, pp. 112–3.

scended his tongue f lickered ‘as a red snake’, andthe Xiuhcoatl costume was thrown into a bowl ofsacrif ice where it burned.27

These coiled serpents, from the same civiliza-tion and century, show interdependent domains ofnature and mythology. The torpid f lattened spiral oflethal energy is zoologically plausible, but the othertimeless mythological expression invokes anuminous and protean being, whose existencedepends on constantly renewed human sacrif ices ina relationship where mankind was the eucharist.

27 A. M. Tozzer, ‘Landa’s Relacion,’ Papers, PeabodyMuseum (Harvard), XVIII, 1941, p. 162, n. 848. Thesegmentation of the Dumbarton Oaks Xiuhcoatl isnearly identical with that of the Calendar Stone (H.Beyer, ‘Calendario Azteca’ 1921, reissued in MéxicoAntiguo, X, 1965, pp. 135–256). Beyer’s f ig. 208 may bea less damaged pendant to the Dumbarton Oaks piece.Beyer does not mention its location. A stone bodysection of Xiuhcoatl in the Museo Nacional store-room shows four segments beginning at the tail, inwhich the dots increase by two in each section: 9, 11,13, 15. . . . The serpent scales are the same as in theDumbarton Oaks segments, but in a form suggestingthat the Xiuhcoatl segments on the rim of theCalendar Stone are halves of one serpent seen in bothprof iles, right and left, with each segment containing af lame symbol instead of serpent scales (Beyer, f igs.208–212).

29

9

Rattlesnake, Aztec style,Valley of Mexico, post a.d.1450. Rhyolite porphyry,height 18.3 cm, width 60.6cm. Acquired 1946. Thecoiled rattlesnake isconnected with f ire-serpentceremonies and with ritualsenacting the daily descent ofthe sun at sunset andannually from summer towinter solstices

10

Fire serpent(Xiuhcoatl), Aztec style,Valley of Mexico, c. 1507a.d. Quartz-diorite, height43.4 cm, width 45.4 cm.Acquired 1940. The Fireserpent signif ies the dryseason as well as divinepower in the daily descentof the sun in the sky

11

Fire serpent, view ofunderside of Figure 10. The dateshown carved on the base(1507) marks the end of thef ifty-two-year cycle withknotted rope

M a r y E l l e n M i l l e rFour Maya Reliefs

About twenty years ago, Dumbarton Oaksacquired four Maya relief panels.1 Like most suchcarved Maya stones of the Classic period (a.d. 300–900), these reliefs depict rulers of independentcentres in the Maya lowlands. The associatedhieroglyphic inscriptions record historical data,although mythic information is often included aswell.2 Stone carvings of the Classic Maya areusually freestanding limestone stelae, but in thewestern Maya region, along the Usumacinta Riverand west to Palenque, carved panels similar toDumbarton Oaks 1–4 (Figs. 1, 2, 4 and 6) were oftenset directly into architecture, as both structural anddecorative elements. Despite the absence of adocumented provenance for three of the fourpanels, text, style, and architectural positioning allargue for a western Maya origin for the DumbartonOaks carvings.

Both text and formal elements of D.O. Panel 1suggest a provenance within a short radius of theimportant Usumacinta site of Piedras Negras. As

1 Michael D. Coe and Elizabeth P. Benson published thef irst three panels in 1966, ‘Three Maya Relief Panels atDumbarton Oaks,’ Studies in Pre-Columbian Art and Archaeol-ogy, No. 2 and Mary Ellen Miller and David S. Stuartpublished the fourth, Dumbarton Oaks Relief Panel 4,Estudios de Cultura Maya, XIII, 1981, 197–204. D.O. 1, 2, and4 were never seen in situ, but the Lacanha panel (D.O. 3)was recorded by Wolfgang Cordan at that site (which helabelled Kuna), Geheimnis im Urwald, 1955.2 The single, standing Maya f igure was labelled ‘theClassic motif ’ by Tatiana Proskouriakoff, A Study ofClassic Maya Sculpture, Carnegie Institution ofWashington Publication 593, 1950. Proskouriakofflater determined that the f igures depicted werehistorical rulers of independent polities and that theassociated hieroglyphs recorded historical information,‘Historical Implications of a Pattern of Dates atPiedras Negras, Guatemala, American Antiquity, 25:4,1960, 454–475.

Coe and Benson have pointed out, Lintel 5, PiedrasNegras, and Lintel 1 from nearby El Cayo, bothresemble D.O. 1 in composition. The uncarvedportion of D.O. 1 has been sawn off, but thedimensions of the sculptured area (65 × 63.5 cm)are very similar to those of the El Cayo panel (68 ×67.5 cm). Similar Piedras Negras monuments aresubstantially larger.3 Although such panels areusually called lintels, archaeological evidence fromPiedras Negras and Bonampak now suggests thatmany such small panels, including ‘Lintels’ 5 and 7of Piedras Negras, were exterior panels designed toabut staircases.4

The Dumbarton Oaks panel shows a singlef igure within a stepped niche on a ground lineslightly higher than the glyphic frame, whichsuggests that the f igure stands within architecture.Structure 39 at Yaxchilan has doorways of similarshape, and so our f igure may be standing in such astructure, completely framed by glyphs.5

The text of D.O. 1 records the events in thelife of a ruler who owed fealty to Piedras Negras,for the local ruler’s name is connected by a state-ment of relationship to that of an individual whouses the Piedras Negras emblem glyph throughout

3 Lintel 5, for instance, measures 120 × 158 m, withonly a small plain margin.4 How such panels were positioned can best be seenin Tatiana Proskouriakoff ’s reconstruction drawing ofPiedras Negras Structure K-5 1st, An Album of MayaArchitecture, 1946.5 See Teobert Maler, ‘Researches in the CentralPortion of the Usumatsintla Valley: Report ofExplorations for the Museum, 1898–1900,’ Memoirs ofthe Peabody Museum, Harvard University, 11:2, 1903,Plate XLIII. Less standing architecture is preserved atPiedras Negras and El Cayo than at Yaxchilan, so anybuildings there with such doorways may have col-lapsed.

32

1

Carved wall panel (D.O.1), probably from El CayoChiapas, Mexico. Limestone,height 65 cm. A standingwarrior is depicted within aniche which may representLate Classic architecture ofthe Usumacinta region

Figures 1–5 are dated to theeighth century of The LateClassic Maya period, A.D.600–900

33

the text. Given the proximity of El Cayo to PiedrasNegras, it is plausible that the subsidiary ruler ofthe D.O. panel held sway at that site.

Unfortunately, the erosion of the lengthy textallows for little more than a sketch of our f igure’slife.6 A distinctive element of all names in the text,including our protagonist, his father, and the PiedrasNegras ruler, is the turtle carapace, recorded at Cla,7

C2b, F1b, E2b, and throughout the text. Theglyphic record includes an anniversary (recorded atF2) of the completion of three years in off ice ofthe Piedras Negras ruler in a.d. 689, and seven yearslater, the seating (H2a-b) of our protagonist in anoff ice typical of secondary lords rather than ofmajor rulers. Our individual lived into his dotage,and he probably died at the age of 83 ( J2a-13b),three years after he had been succeeded in off ice( J4). D.O. 1 is thus a memorial, and the protagonistis remembered as a warrior, bearing the spear andf lexible shield used in battle.

Dumbarton Oaks 2 (Fig. 2) must also come froma secondary site, because although a Palenque ruleris depicted, the panel could not have come from thesite of Palenque itself. The reason this panel mayhave been set at some distance from Palenque willshortly become apparent.

This panel was probably f lanked by side panelswhich are now missing. Both the text and thef igures of the panel are incomplete, and the stone

shows saw marks. Large interior wall panels pre-dominate at Palenque, and this panel may have beenset within a small enclosure inside a temple cham-ber, as are the Cross Group panels of that site.Captions identify the two seated individuals as LadyAhpo Hel and Lord Shield Pacal; the text itselfnames Lord Kan-Xul as the protagonist.

Lord Shield Pacal was the f irst great ruler ofPalenque. During his 68-year reign (he acceded as aboy of twelve in a.d. 615), a monumental architec-tural programme was begun, and long glyphicrecords were made on limestone tablets, document-ing both the real and mythic activity of the rulingfamily. He was succeeded by a son, Chan Bahlum,who ruled from a.d. 683 to 702. A second son,Kan-Xul, then acceded to power, and it is this rulerwho is the central f igure on D.O. 2.8 Late in Kan-Xul’s life, Palenque engaged in warfare with Toniná,some sixty kilometers away. Kan-Xul was appar-ently taken prisoner, for he is depicted as a captiveat Toniná.9 This single Toniná monument is unlikeothers of that site, resembling instead the Palenquemonuments, especially in pose and prof ile. Monu-ments celebrating victory often resemble thesculpture of the conquered site, which suggests thatreparations included artistic labour. For all we know,Kan-Xul himself may have designed the record ofhis own demise. Later, on D.O. 2, he is shown afterdeath, in the guise of the Maya deity known asG1.10 The shell diadem, shell earpiece axe, andknotted pectoral are all characteristic of G1.

As Peter Mathews has recently shown, thePalenque lineage was thrown into chaos after thedeath of Kan-Xul, and dynastic instability marked

6 Coe and Benson made the f irst studies of thesetexts. For their analysis, see Coe and Benson 1966.7 Maya hieroglyphs are read in columns, by pairs oftwo, from top to bottom. Columns are given lettersand rows are assigned numbers. Many texts begin withwhat is known as an Initial Series, a record of all dayselapsed since the beginning of time, a mythical date inthe fourth milennium b.c. A correlation constantallows Maya dates to be converted to Julian dates, andthese are given along with Maya dates in the text. Thedate 9.18.10.0.0, for instance, notes that zero days, zeromonths of twenty days (for this is a vigesimal system),10 years (each composed of 360 days for computingpurposes), eighteen blocks of twenty computing years,and nine periods of four hundred computing yearshave elapsed since the beginning of time. The standardGoodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation constantf ixes this date as occurring in a.d. 800.

8 As outlined by Peter Mathews and Linda Schele in‘The Lords of Palenque—the Glyphic Evidence,’ inPrimera Mesa Redona de Palenque, Part I, ed. MerleGreene Robertson, 1974, pp. 64–75.9 His name is clearly shown emblazoned on thethigh in the drawing of Monument 122 of Toniná byIan Graham and identif ied by Peter Mathews,reproduced in Pierre Becquelin and Claude F. Baudez,Toniná, une cité maya du Chiapas (Mexique), III, 1982,f ig. 168.10 Linda Schele, ‘The Xibalba Shuff le,’ Paper read atthe Princeton University Conference on Maya VasePainting, Princeton, New Jersey, November 1980.

34

2

An important Palenqueruler, Lord Kan-Xul(D.O. 2). Limestone, height167 cm. His reign com-menced in A.D. 702.Depicted posthumously inthe guise of a Maya deity, hestands between his seatedmother, Lady Ahpo Hel(left) and his father (LordShield Pacal)

3

Drawing of the reliefin Figure 2 by LindaSchele

35

several generations.11 It is likely that politicalcircumstances precluded the erection of thisposthumous memorial within the heart ofPalenque.

Although D.O. 2 is a very important panel, italso shows signs of haste and lack of f inish in itsexecution. The section of the panel below the crackline has been crudely carved: the feet, hands, andtextile designs of the two parents seem to havebeen only roughed out. The entire ground surfaceof the stone shows the sculptor’s marks, and thebuttery, smooth surface typical of Palenque carvingswas not achieved. In technique, this panel mostresembles that celebrating the accession of Chac-Zutz, a possible usurper of the same era.12

The ruins of Lacanha have received littlesystematic study, probably because of their proxim-ity to the more famous site of Bonampak.13 It maybe incorrect to consider these two places distinct,however, for these two sites appear to have beenruled by a single family, who in turn maintainedclose ties with Yaxchilan, 26 kilometres to thenortheast. Bonampak and Lacanha lie on oppositesides of the Lacanha River, perhaps to controltraff ic. These upper reaches of the Lacanha werefertile ground for artistic invention, for it was herethat stone sculpture with many f igures f irst ap-peared in Early Classic times,14 and no survivingprogramme matches the complexity and beauty ofthe Bonampak murals, painted at the end of Classictimes, c. a.d. 790–800.

In keeping with the Bonampak tradition, theskill and beauty of the Lacanha panel D.O. 3 (Fig. 4)surpasses the other Maya monuments at

Dumbarton Oaks. A single f igure rests gracefully ona representation of personif ied stone. The right legis sharply foreshortened, and the line created by theextended left leg leads the viewer’s eye to the faceof the f igure and then to the beginning of the textat upper left. The seated f igure bears a double-headed serpent bar in his arms, and with his lefthand he chucks the bearded monster under thechin. In contrast to most Maya lords, but like manyothers from Lacanha and Bonampak, he displaysfacial hair, and like his descendant on Stela 1, his eyehas been drilled.15

Among his names and titles is the expressionKnotted-eye Jaguar at C4, as scholars now refer tohim. Mathews has shown him to be the father ofthe more famous ruler of the era of the paintings,and his own parentage is included from D6 to J4,thus establishing several generations of rulers.16 Weprobably see the ruler in formal garb appropriate toa portrait commemorating the closing of an era: hisclothes are simple but elegant, his posture calm butregal. According to the text, Knotted-eye Jaguar hadalready been installed on 9.15.11.17.3, or a.d. 743,into the same off ice that is named on DumbartonOaks 1, possibly a lesser position than ruler. Despitethe absence of references to Yaxchilan on thisonmonument, it is possible that Bonampak andLacanha held a subsidiary position to that city.Although this panel has been labelled a lintel, anydoorway it spanned would have been wider thanthose usually seen in the region. Like DumbartonOaks 1 and 2, the Lacanha panel was probably seteither into an interior wall or against an exteriorabutment.

Dumbarton Oaks 4 (Fig. 6) is in poor condition,having been broken in antiquity and then sawn inmodern times. The remaining pieces were set incement, and it is hard to determine whether thefragments were part of a wall panel or a freestand-ing stela.

Unfortunately, much of the face and headdressof the f igure have been lost. In his left hand he

11 Peter Mathews, ‘Palenque’s Mid-life Crisis,’ Paperread at the Quinta Mesa Redonda de Palenque, June1983.12 The Tablet of the Slaves can be seen in Westheim,Ruz et al., Prehispanic Mexican Art, 1972, f igs. 148 and150.13 See, for example, Frans Blom, La Selva Lacandona,1957.14 The earliest example of multifugural Maya carvingon a single surface of stone is the so-called Po panel,now in a private collection in the United States. Earlysculptures from Caracol, Belize, also show multif iguralcompositions.

15 The best illustrations of the Bonampak stelae are inRaul Pavón Abreu, Bonampak en la escultura, 1962.16 Peter Mathews, ‘Notes on the Dynastic Sequenceof Bonampak, Part I,’ in Third Palenque Round Table,1978, Part 2, 1980, pp. 60–73.

36

5

Drawing of theLacanha wall panel inFigure 4 by David S. Stuart

4

Lacanha wall panel(D.O. 3). Limestone, height70 cm. This panel dipicts aLacanha-Bonampak lordcelebrating the Maya periodending in A.D. 746. He isnamed as ‘Knotted-eyeJaguar’ and, like hissuccessor, Lord Chaan-muanof Bonampak, he sports agoatee and moustache. Hehas bound his hair withsmall beads, and appears towear a nosebead as well

6

Carved wall panel (?).Limestone, height 151.5 cm.Probably from Tabasco orChiapas, Mexico, A.D. 800.This monument sufferedboth in antiquity andmodern times. In his righthand the f igure holds thestrap of a shield, displayingthe clenched hand of theruler

37

holds a short serpent bar; in the right, he grasps thestrap of a shield, showing the viewer the clenchedhand of the ruler. Unlike the other threeDumbarton Oaks panels, the glyphic text makes noreference to persons or places known from othersources. The text gives us a date, 9.18.10.0.0 (a.d.800), late in Classic Maya chronology, and namesthe ruler (A3–A4) and a woman related to him,either a wife or mother (A5–B6). Based on its date,style, and workmanship, the piece can be attributedto the region of Tabasco or Chiapas lying betweenTenosique and Palenque.

The four Maya panels at Dumbarton Oaksrepresent a good cross-section of sculpture from thewestern Maya region during Late Classic times.Different aspects of rulership are recorded: D.O. 1shows a posthumous warrior, framed by architec-tural space; D.O. 2 represents the apotheosis of apast lord; the Lacanha panel (D.O. 3) shows acontemporary lord, celebrating the passage of hisreign. D.O. 4 is a late monument, executed duringan era when many sites no longer erected stonemonuments. The increasing poverty of expressionduring the ninth century is augmented by the poorpreservation of this monument.

Cy r i l M a n g oThe Byzantine Collection

A public collection or museum devoted largelyto objects of the Early Christian and Byzantineperiods is something of a rarity. Next to theDumbarton Oaks Collection, one can think only ofthe Byzantine Museum in Athens, in which theholdings, however, are to a considerable extentpost-Byzantine, containing, as they do, Greekreligious and folk art down to about the year 1800.Why are there only two such institutions in thewhole world? Not because Byzantine art has beenneglected; on the contrary, it has been sought outand assiduously studied for the past hundred yearsand more. The reason is rather that availableByzantine objects of museum quality are few andfar between. The heritage of Byzantine art is, in themain, irremovable: it is made up of paintings andmosaics decorating the walls of churches and ofheavy pieces of architectural sculpture in marble.Has the rest simply perished? Undoubtedly, most ofit has been destroyed in the ceaseless wars andinvasions that make up the annals of the ByzantineEmpire—burnt, melted down and looted by Huns,Slavs, Arabs, Bulgars, Crusaders and Turks. Theresidue is small and we cannot always assume that itis representative of what originally existed. Theonly nearly complete series is that of Byzantinecoins, of which Dumbarton Oaks possesses prob-ably the most extensive group in the world.

It cannot be claimed that the Dumbarton OaksCollection represents a conscious attempt at asystematic coverage of Byzantine artifacts. It israther a ref lection of personal taste, that of thefounders, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, whowere greatly inf luenced by Royall Tyler, himself acollector and connoisseur, and that of the f irstDirector, John S. Thacher. They were guided bycriteria of artistic quality and had a penchant forprecious materials—gold, silver, enamel, ivory. Thispropensity gives to the Collection (or, at any rate,that part of it that is visible to the public) the

appearance of a medieval treasury. A f inancialcontribution made to the Franco-Americanexcavation of Antioch in the 1930s brought inseveral mosaic pavements, a silver lampstand andewer and a number of other objects. For the rest,discounting gifts from individuals, the acquisitionswere limited to pieces on the art market. Fromtoday’s viewpoint it is truly remarkable that fromthe 1920s to the present the market could yieldsuch an array of riches—superior, in the Byzantinef ield, to that held by the greatest national museums,with the possible exception of the Hermitage atLeningrad.

I have mentioned the emphasis on preciousmaterials as representing the taste of wealthy privatecollectors, but that, perhaps, is not a suff icientexplanation, since the preference expressed by theBlisses also corresponded to a certain conception ofByzantine art; and if we seek to f ind its formula-tion, we may discover it in a book entitled L’artbyzantin by Hayford Peirce and none other thanRoyall Tyler (Paris, 1932–34). In the opinion ofthese authors, Byzantine art was essentially a luxuryart, an art of the Imperial Court, that was bornwhen the capital of the Roman State was moved toa Greek country and that died with the FourthCrusade in 1204, when Greek artists, because of theprevailing poverty, lost access to beautiful and costlymaterials. After that date they turned to a descrip-tive or anecdotal approach (referring, I suppose, tolate Byzantine painting), to mere ‘illustration’ thatlacked the true spirit of Byzantium. This is not aconception that many specialists would endorsetoday, but it does have something to be said for it.

Even though the Dumbarton Oaks Collectionis not a representative cross-section of EarlyChristian and Byzantine art, it is suff icientlyextensive to raise certain questions in the mind ofthe informed visitor. The nature of these questionswill naturally depend on the visitor’s viewpoint and

40

knowledge. He may be motivated by purelyaesthetic considerations as Mrs. Bliss probably washerself. No justif ication is needed for aestheticenjoyment; besides, it has been respectable since the1920s to admire Byzantine art for interpreting,instead of reproducing perceived reality, as RobertByron put it. But if the visitor wishes to understandas well as to enjoy, he will have a harder task unlesshe is content to fall back on accepted verdicts.Understanding implies some form of classif ication,of pigeonholing. But how is one to classify Byzan-tine art? By date? By place? By School?

No one will deny the importance of dating.Some Byzantine objects are, in fact, independentlydated by inscription, e.g. an appreciable part of thesilverware of the sixth and seventh centuries whichbears State control stamps and of whichDumbarton Oaks has many important examples. Itis helpful to remember that some of the datesprovided by the stamps would not otherwise havebeen guessed at. Who would have thought, forexample, that the Silenus plate (Fig. 3), to which Ishall return, was of the sixth century and not of thethird or fourth? The majority of Byzantine objectsare not, however, dated except by comparison withother objects, so we have to content ourselves withlabels saying ‘Fourth-sixth century’ or ‘Tenth-twelfth century’. No doubt, we shall eventually getbetter at this sort of thing. In the meantime, weought to bear in mind that recognized authoritiesmay disagree by as much as f ive centuries regardingthe date, not of some ring or button, but of a majorwork of art; which implies either that the develop-ment of Byzantine art is not yet known in manyareas or that it developed so slowly and impercepti-bly as to deceive the best trained eye.

A classif ication by place and/or School is evenmore problematical and, before resorting to it as ifit were self-evident, we should ask ourselves towhat extent it is helpful. Some provincial areas, it istrue, like the Coptic (rather poorly represented atDumbarton Oaks, except for textiles) are fairlydistinctive. But when we deal with major urbancentres, do we really know in what respect the artof Constantinople differed from that of Antioch orthat of Alexandria? The most extreme disagree-ments in attribution are clear evidence that we donot.

In case I should be thought to be exaggerating,let me single out the attractive and well-knownivory plaque of the Nativity (Fig. 9) which isrelated to a larger group of ivories, now sharedbetween Milan, London, Paris and Lyons. For along time these (or some of them) were attributedto Alexandria or Cyrenaica with a date of c. a.d.600; they were then moved to southern Italy orSicily and to the eleventh or twelfth century; whilethe latest opinion, by Professor Kurt Weitzmann, isthat the Dumbarton Oaks plaque and a few of theothers are Syro-Palestinian work of the eighthcentury. Professor Weitzmann is not given to f lightsof arbitrary fancy; yet not everyone has beenconvinced by his arguments. So much for placesand dates.

Faced with such uncertainties, I should like toadopt here a somewhat different approach, namelyto inquire what the objects and works of art cantell us about Byzantine civilization, its society, itsvalues and its material resources. First, however, amatter of terminology ought to be clarif ied. Wetend to speak rather vaguely of the Byzantineperiod as extending, in the eastern Mediterranean,from the foundation of Constantinople in a.d. 324to the capture of that same city by the Turks in1453. So did Peirce and Tyler, except that they setthe terminal date in 1204. We also speak of EarlyChristian art (East and West) from its obscurebeginnings in the second century down to aboutthe sixth. This overlapping use of labels leads toconsiderable confusion. In terms of what actuallyhappened, it is more helpful to think of the LaterRoman Empire, of which Constantinople was theeastern and more important capital, an Empire thatbroke down towards the middle of the seventhcentury; and of its successor, the Byzantine Empire,which reached its apogee between the ninth andtwelfth centuries and survived in a diminished formuntil 1453. Only if we adopt such a historicalperspective can we place the artifacts of the periodsin question in their proper context. I shall, there-fore, use the label Late Roman for objects datingbetween the third and mid-seventh centuries,whatever their geographical origin, and the labelByzantine for objects produced within the Byzan-tine Empire or under its immediate inf luence fromthe mid-seventh century to the mid-f ifteenth.

41

1

Mosaic Pavement,Antioch, second to thirdcentury A.D. Stone tesserae,length 2.64 m., width, 1.68m. Acc. no. 40.64. Threewinged erotes are shownf ishing, one from a boat andtwo from the banks of thepond. From a house atDaphne-Harbiyer

42

2

The Riha Paten, Antioch(?), 577. Silver repoussé withgilding and niello, diameter35 cm. Found near Riha,Syria. Acc. no. 24.5. Christ isrepresented twice distribut-ing the eucharistic bread andwine to two groups ofApostles. The rim isinscribed in niello with adedication of the stateoff icial Megas and his family

3

Fragment of a Plate,Constantinople (?) 542–50.Silver cast and engraved,present diameter 29.3 cm.Acc. no. 51.20. A drunkenSilenus is shown reclining,while another f igure blows atrumpet in his ear. Thisfragment was the centre of avery large plate and hashallmarks of the reign ofJustinian (527–65) on thereverse

43

Entering the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, onetreads over three Antioch pavements (Fig. 1) andglimpses a fourth (a very big one of Tethys amongmarine animals) in the pool in the open courtyard.The mosaic pavements evoke a cultural setting.They were made at various times between thesecond century a.d. and the sixth, but were prob-ably still in use when the city fell, f irst to thePersians, then to the Arabs, in the seventh. They tellus, therefore, that the citizens of Antioch in the daysof Justinian (527–65) and later were still dining andbathing amidst symbols of pagan mythology and incircumstances of considerable material comfort.The silver objects in several cases in the maingallery belong to the same milieu. Some of themare liturgical—the famous Riha paten (Fig. 2), theRiha chalice and the f labellum; others are secular—a dish with a hunting scene, two plates withepisodes from the story of Hippolytus and Phaedraand the fragment of a large plate showing a partlynude Silenus turning his head away from a hornthat a personage is jocularly blowing in his ear (Fig.3). The Silenus plate is dated by control stamps tothe reign of Justinian and is, therefore, almostexactly contemporary with the Riha paten, dated(577) in the same manner. We need not concernourselves with the precise geographical origin ofthe objects in question, nor should we suppose thatthe Silenus plate was made for a person holdingpagan views.

The important fact to notice is that in the sixthcentury an art with a Christian content co-existedwith an art of antique or traditional contentdepending on its destination and, occasionally, onthe social class of the person that commissioned it.By the standards of a ‘happier’ age, the Augustan orthe Antonine (compare the Hildesheim silvertreasure in Berlin), the style of these objects mayappear less than ref ined, which only means thatthey belong to the tail end of the classical tradition.Anyone familiar with the literature of the period,who has read the History of Procopius or theepigrams of the Palatine Anthology, will have notrouble in accommodating both the Silenus plateand the Riha paten within the same historicalcontext.

Certainly, the Christian element was gainingthe upper hand with the gradual decline of the old

urban gentry and the funnelling of ever-increasingfunds into ecclesiastical donations, and here the‘Sion treasure’ is of particular importance. It is asilver treasure found near Antalya in southernTurkey in 1963, of which Dumbarton Oaks holdsabout one half (some thirty to forty pieces) and theAntalya Museum most of the rest. Unfortunately,this f ind has not yet been studied in its entirety andmany of its constituent objects, badly squashed inthe process of burial, have not been restored totheir proper shape, so that their function remainsuncertain. What is, however, obvious—and in thisrespect the ‘Sion treasure’ is so much more instruc-tive than single objects of the same character thathave found their way on to the market—is that weare dealing with a considerable portion of the silvermobilier of a provincial cult centre, that of themonastery of Sion, set up in Lycia by a St. Nicholaswho was active in the f irst half of the sixth centuryand of whom a biography is preserved. Many textsdescribe the silver furnishings of contemporarychurches, particularly that of St. Sophia atConstantinople, but never before have we been ableto visualize them so exactly—the sets of patens(Fig. 4), chalices, censers, openwork lamps andpolycandela (Fig. 5) and various forms of revetmentthat were applied to the altar table and, perhaps,other items of furniture. Stunning as this collectionis, we must remember that an urban cathedral ofthe period would have had more varied andextensive furnishings in silver.

Late Roman jewellery, of which DumbartonOaks has a particularly rich array, shows the samemixture of secular and Christian elements, some-times on the same object. The gold marriage belt,for example, has Christ blessing the nuptial pair onthe larger medallions and pagan divinities on thesmaller ones (Fig. 6). One pressed gold pendant hasa f igure of Dionysus nonchalantly pouring wineinto the mouth of a panther, while another pendantof the same period has the Baptism of Christ.Elsewhere a nude Aphrodite in gold, standing on ashell of lapis lazuli, holds up her long wet tresses(Fig. 7). Equally strong is the Imperial element,often in the form of coins or medallions that havebeen incorporated into pieces of jewellery, as in thetwo remarkable f iligree pendants containingmedallions of Constantine I (Fig. 8) or the two

44

4

Sion Paten,Constantinople, c. 546–65.Silver with gilding andniello, diameter 60.5 cm.Found at Kumluca, Turkey.Acc no. 63.36.1. Betweenthe engraved chrismon in thecentre and the cuspedborder with leaves andpalmettes, runs a nielloedinscription stating that thepaten was given in the timeof Bishop Eutychianus

5

Sion Polycandelon,Constantinople, 546–65.Silver with niello, 56.5 ×56.6 cm. Found at Kumluca,Turkey. Acc. no. 65.1.1. Thispolycandelon is unusual inbeing cruciform; the morecommon form of thesesuspended lamp-holders iscircular. The open circles,which held the glass lamps,are supported by pairs ofdolphins and foliateornament

45

massive gold bracelets decorated with coins of theEmperors Maurice, Phocas and Heraclius (madeshortly before 640) that we can imagine gracing theburly arms of a State off icial or military com-mander.

I have mentioned the high level of urban lifethat was enjoyed at Antioch until the sixth century:the same surely applied to many other cities of theEmpire. Of this several indications may be found inthe Dumbarton Oaks Collection. Such are thef inely made bronze lamps and lampstands that musthave been used for domestic lighting; the medicineboxes, scribe’s writing case, furniture plaques andhairpins in ivory or bone, carved with f iguraldecoration; and the series of objects pertaining tothe marketplace: calibrated bronze steelyards withhooks and chains, bronze weights in the form of anemperor or an empress and smaller weights, usuallyrectangular, with the indication of the number ofounces inlaid in silver. There is also a great rarity,namely a silver fork of about the sixth century, witha spirally f luted handle terminating in an animal’shead; though probably of Sasanian workmanship, itsurely ref lects Roman practices of the time. Souncommon are forks of this period that a distin-guished German scholar some f ifty years ago couldargue that since they are shown in representationsof the Last Supper in Cappadocia, the paintings inquestion (executed, in fact, in the eleventh century)could hardly be earlier than the f ifteenth orsixteenth!

When we turn to the objects of the Byzantineperiod, i.e. of the eighth and following centuries,we may not be immediately aware that we areconfronting a somewhat different civilization. Atf irst sight there is no evidence of a dramaticchange; on the contrary, there is a deceptivecontinuity, especially in the retention of a canon ofreligious illustration which both in its iconographyand its style remains close to much earlier models.What we may not immediately perceive is thedisappearance of whole categories of artifacts: thereare no longer any bronze lamps or lampstands, anysteelyards or weights, any forks or spoons, anymedicine boxes or furniture ornaments. Secularsilver of whatever description is totally lacking.Even ecclesiastical silver is represented only by oneicon frame (gilded silver and enamel) and three

crosses, the most interesting of which depicts themiracles of the Archangel Michael andConstantine’s conversion by Pope Sylvester (Fig.10): it should not, incidentally, be associated withthe Patriarch Michael Keroularios (1043–58) as hasbeen asserted. In the place of the massive silverpatens of the sixth century, we f ind only twocopper ones. Jewellery remains very f ine, but itsrange is more limited than in the earlier period andthe objects themselves become smaller. The Impe-rial element in the form of inset coins or medal-lions is replaced by religious imagery. Increasing useis made of cloisonné enamel, as on a beautiful goldclasp with busts of Christ and the Virgin Mary (Fig.11). At the same time there is a growing tendencytowards ‘personalization’ in the sense that theowner’s Christian and family names are occasionallyinscribed, witness the ring of the eleventh-centuryhistorian Michael Attaleiates or that of the twelfth-century admiral Michael Stryphnos.

Setting aside personal jewellery, the secularsphere is pretty much limited to two ivory boxesand a collection of glazed pottery. The f irst of theboxes is a ‘rosette casket’ attributed to the late tenthor eleventh century (Fig. 12), not nearly as f ine asthe Veroli Casket in the Victoria and Albert Mu-seum, but a good specimen of the same classnevertheless. It bears tiny, pudgy f igures, some ofthem nude, most of them armed. In ProfessorWeitzmann’s opinion they have been copied partlyfrom an illustrated Book of Joshua, partly from aDionysiac procession—an odd combination ofsources, which suggests that the f igures have lost allmeaning just as they have lost any feeling for thehuman form. The other ivory box, a diminutivecircular pyxis (height only 2.9 cm.), is quite unique.It represents two Imperial families and the offeringof a city, probably of Thessalonica to the EmperorJohn VII in 1403–4.

The collection of glazed pottery, thoughlimited to the last phase of Byzantine art (twelfth tofourteenth centuries) is remarkable for the numberof complete pieces it contains (Fig. 13). Here wereach a broader social class than that of the aristo-crats and government dignitaries who could affordgold and ivory and it is interesting to observe thatthe pottery in question is completely divorced fromthe antique tradition. The graff ito technique, the

46

6

Marriage Belt (detail).East Mediterranean, latesixth to seventh century.Gold pressed discs, diameters4.8 cm. and 2.5 cm. length75.5 cm. Repurtedly foundat Antioch. Acc. no. 37.33.The two large discs showingChrist between the marriagecouple are inscribed ‘fromgod, concord, grace andhealth’ and the twenty-onesmall discs are ornamentedwith busts of Dionysiaccharacters

7

Necklace (detail ofpendant), East Mediterra-nean, early seventh century.Gold and lapis lazuli, length83 cm., height of pendant(without chains) 4.5 cm.Repurtedly from Egypt. Acc.no. 28.6. A gold AphroditeAnadyomene is mounted inthe lapis lazuli shell

8

Pendant with Medal-lion of Constantine I,East Mediterranean, fourthcentury. Gold Struckmedallion mounted in opusinterrasile, diameter 8.5 cm.Acc. no. 70.37.

The medallion ofConstantine I (306–37), atwo solidi piece, was struckat Sirmium in 324 and is aunique specimen. Thependant in which it is set,with three male and threefemale projecting busts, mayhave been executedelsewhere

47

decoration of stylized animals, the splashes of greenand brown glaze are of a type that was then currentall over the Near East in both Muslim and Chris-tian lands.

The rest of the Byzantine objects in theCollection are decorated with religious subjects,whether they were intended for ecclesiastical orprivate use. Among several pendant reliquaries,there is a lovely one of St. Sergius in gold and aneven more curious one of St. Demetrius in goldand enamel. There is a superb series of small ivoryicons, such as that representing the Incredulity ofThomas (Fig. 14), one of a set that originallyincluded the Twelve Feasts. There are also twominiature mosaic icons of great rarity, that of theForty Martyrs of Sebaste which shows thePalaeologan style at its very best, and that of St.John Chrysostom (Fig. 15) in which the same stylehas been used to more hieratic effect. The sphere ofilluminated manuscripts is represented by threebooks and three single leaves, the most interestingbeing a magnif icent Psalter and New Testament ofthe year 1084 that once belonged to thePantocrator monastery on Mount Athos (Fig. 16).Paradoxically, it is in objects such as these that theantique tradition survives, encapsulated in theunchanging conventions of Christian iconography.

It would be, of course, unwarranted to drawany broad historical conclusions from the contentsof a single collection, especially one so personal asthat of Dumbarton Oaks, and I would not havemade the above remarks had they not applied in

large measure to all other collections of Byzantineantiquities. What strikes me is not so much therestriction of the secular element in Byzantine artas the scarcity of the kinds of object, still commonin the Later Roman world, that bespeak a high levelof individual comfort and a developed urban life.This can hardly be due to accidents of preservation.If the medieval Byzantines had continued to use ona large scale f inely made objects in their daily life,such as lamps, candlesticks, metal vessels, toiletarticles, etc., the chances are that an appreciablenumber of them would have survived and foundtheir way into museums. Seeing that they have not,one can only conclude that the domain of civilizedlife shrank very considerably between Late Antiq-uity and medieval Byzantium, as it also did inwestern Europe.

It was not the Blisses’ intention to create whatwould be called today a ‘study collection’ so as todocument all aspects of Byzantine civilization. Evenso, it would not be true to say that they used artisticquality as their sole criterion. Thus, Mrs. Blissprovided funds for the acquisition of many thou-sands of lead seals which are of little beauty, butwill constitute, when published, an extremelyimportant body of material for the prosopographic

9

Nativity of Christ, Syriaor Palestine (?), end ofseventh to eighth entury (?).Ivory plaque, 9.3 × 19.1 cm.Acc. no. 51.30. The Virginand Child, f lanked byJoseph and Salome, are setagainst a dense architecturalbackground instead of theusual cave. Variously datedfrom 600 to the twelfthcentury, and assigned toworkshops from Alexandriato Sicily, the presentattribution was latelyproposed by ProfessorWeitzmann on the basis oficonographic and stylisticdetails of the entire groupof fourteen plaques, towhich the Nativity beongs.The latter may have beenattached to a churchsanctuary door

48

10

Three Arms of a Cross,Constantinople (?),eleventh-twelfth century.Silver with gilding andniello, height of upper arm15.3 cm., width of left arm7.5 cm. Gift of John S.Thacher. Acc no. 64.13. Theupper arm shows theConversion of the EmperorConstantine (306–37), whobows towards the icons ofSaints Peter and Paul, heldby Pope Sylvester. On theleft arm is represented theMiracle at Chonae in Phrygia,in which the ArchangelMichael saves a church froma torrent of water; it isinscribed the funneling ofthe waters. The thirdsurviving arm features ascene from Joshua (5:13–15)

49

11

Necklace Clasp, obverseand reverse,Constantinople, tenthcentury. Gold and cloisonnéenamel, 2.3 × 5 cm. Gift inMemory of Frances LakeThacher. Acc. no. 65.4 Abust of Christ is on theobverse (to the right) andthat of the Virgin Mary onthe reverse (to the left). Thewires surrounding thequatrefoil plaque wereoriginally strung with pearls

12

Rosette Casket,Constantinople, late tenth toeleventh century. Ivorymounted on wood, 16 × 22× 16 cm. Acc. no. 53.1. Oneof a group of casketscharacterized by their bandsof rosette ornament. Thewarriors on the f ifteenrectangular panels and theanimals in the vine rinceauhave apparently been drawnfrom a number of icono-graphic sources. Dionysiacbattle and grape harvestingscenes, the Book of Joshua,the Physiologus, thePhaeonomena of Aratus and atextile

50

13

Shallow Bowl, Byzantine,thirteenth century. Glazed andincised pottery, diameter 31.7cm. Acc. no. 58.103.

The f igure of a Harpywearing an elaborateheaddress is incised throughthe slip-painted ware andcovered by a pale green glaze.The marked orientalizingfeatures of the design suggestthe dish was made in theChersonese or possibly theCaucasus

and administrative study of the Byzantine Empire.Inevitably, as we look back, we can point to certainareas that the Blisses neglected, for example that ofpainted icons. Fifty years ago many excellent iconscould have been acquired and it is a pity they werenot, considering their present popularity and rise invalue. The same may, perhaps, be said of illuminatedmanuscripts. Though the possibilities of purchaseare not the same today as they were when theBlisses were active, one may hope that theDumbarton Oaks Collection will gradually f ill thefew gaps in its holdings so as to ref lect more fullyall the signif icant aspects of the Byzantine artisticheritage.

14

Plaque, Constantinople,mid-tenth century. Ivory,10.6 × 8.8 cm. Acc. no. 37.7.The Incredubility of Thomas isinscribed the doors beingshut ( John 20:26) andshows the usual elevenApostles, without Judas.Carved in very high relief,the plaque was stronglyinf luenced by painted iconsor miniatures

51

15

Portable Mosaic Icon,Constantinople, c. 1325.Glass tesserae set in waxground with wood backing,18 × 13 cm. Acc. no. 54.2.St. John Crysostom, whosename is inscribed on thegolden background, holds agospel book

16

Headpiece of theMagnificat, IlluminatedManuscript,Constantinople, c. 1084.Tempera on parchment, 16.2× 10.3 cm. Once belongedto the PantocratorMonastery on Mt. Athos.Acc. no. 62.35. This shows atwo-zone composition ofThe Annunciation (above) andthe Seated Virgin, who holdsan open prayer book(below). The opening initialof the text is historiatedwith The Visitation

Ku r t We i t z m a n nThe Saint Peter Icon of Dumbarton Oaks

We see the apostle* half-length, slightly turnedto his left and looking with concentration into theoutside world, his gaze bypassing the beholder(Plate IV). He is dressed, as usual, in tunic andpallium, the former being dark blue, the latter olivegreen, highlighted in gold, and rich in folds thatsuggest a soft material. With his left hand he holdstwo attributes simultaneously, and the somewhatdistorted rendering of the f leshy hand suggests thatthe artist had some diff iculty in making him holdboth in one grip. One attribute is a long staffsurmounted by a black metallic cross with spiralleaves at the bottom and knobs at the ends of thearms; the cross of Peter’s martyrdom has herebecome a liturgical object—that is, a processionalcross staff. The other attribute is a scroll tied by ared string, similar to an Imperial chrysobullon. Withthe long f ingers of his right hand, of which theknuckles are emphasized, Peter points at the scroll,thereby alluding to the writing of his Epistles.There is, however, still a third attribute: two goldenkeys with which the gates of Paradise are to beopened. In a most unusual depiction, for which Iknow no parallel, the keys are hanging from theneck on a golden cord. All three attributes havetraditionally been associated with Peter, but theircombination here in a single composition is quiteexceptional.

Turning now to a closer examination of thehead of the Dumbarton Oaks St. Peter, the moststriking features are the pronounced plasticity ofthe skull and the f irm f leshy face with its articu-lated muscles, which together produce the effect ofa high degree of physical reality. His penetratingeyes set beneath contracted brows give the impres-sion of intense concentration, on the one hand, andof a brooding mood—which might also be inter-preted as a quick temper—on the other. But nomatter how one interprets the expression of theface, there can be no doubt that it was the painter’sintent to depict Peter in a state of tension. Yet theunderlying naturalism of the head is mitigated bythe adoption of stylized formulae for certainfeatures. The focal point is the junction of thebridge of the nose and the brows where a U-shaped wedge, coming down from the forehead,separates the arched brows, and where two tufts ofwhite hair jut out with almost explosive force.Creasing the forehead are two long furrows, oneending upward, the other downward, which serveto intensify the frowning expression. The nose,instead of forming a continuous ridge, is tripartite,structured (metaphorically speaking) almost like acolumn, with a globe-like base, a swelling shaft, anda basket capital. The tendency toward linear formled to an oval pattern for the right cheek. Thedesire for vivid forms is marked in the treatment ofthe hair, which is depicted as a series of shortoverlapping locks, two rows of which cover thehead, while others cascade along the right templeand form the scalloped, parted beard. Even the f lowof the moustache is disrupted in order to underlinethe general staccato effect. Each one of thesedevices serves the purpose of heightening themood of the f igure.

How is the Dumbarton Oaks icon to be dated?In our view it is at least a generation earlier thanthe frescoes of the Protaton, Mt. Athos, of around

* The most important addition to the Dumbarton OaksByzantine Collection in nearly two decades, this icon of St.Peter (acc. no. 82.2) is without parallel outside the Balkansin its combination of extraordinary size (93.1 × 61.3 cm),quality, and art-historical signif icance. The present shortarticle was excerpted and adapted from a lecture of the sametitle delivered by Kurt Weitzmann at the opening of theexhibition ‘Masterpieces of Byzantine Icon Painting,’ held atDumbarton Oaks on April 27, 1983, in honour of this newacquisition. The full text of the lecture has recently appearedas Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection Publications, no.6.

54

Plate IV

St. Peter by a Greekpainter working inMacedonia or Serbia, c. thirdquarter of the thirteenthcentury. Tempera on panel,93.1 × 61.3 cm. The mostimportant addition to theDumbarton Oaks ByzantineCollection (1982) in nearlytwo decades, this icon iswithout parallel incollections outside theBalkans for its combinationof extraordinary size, quality,and art-historical signif i-cance. Its high level ofplasticity and emotionalexpressionism are stylisticqualities which associate itwith Macedonia

55

1300, and not much later than those at Miles. eva, inSerbia, of about 1235.1 The former represent thefully-developed Palaeologan style, which our iconhas not reached, while the latter show the formaldevices upon which Peter’s already fully developedstyle rests. In the sixty year period between thefrescoes of Miles. eva and those of the Protaton,there is one major dated monument—the TrinityChurch of Sopocani, in Serbia, erected anddecorated around 1265 by the Serbian Tzar StephenUro s. . Among its frescoes is an especially impressivehead of Paul (Fig. 1),2 which immediately suggests arelationship with our Peter icon. In general, there isa similar degree of plasticity in the well-structuredhead, and a comparable forcefulness in the expres-sion of the face; in particular there are the familiardevices used to delineate the eyebrows, the fur-rowed forehead, the U-shaped wedge into thebridge of the nose, and the oval of the cheek.

Drawing our conclusions from this and otherevidence, we would like to date the DumbartonOaks St. Peter icon to the third quarter of thethirteenth century and close to Sopocani, leavingopen the possibility that it may be a bit earlier orlater. Thus we propose a date somewhat earlier thanthat suggested by Manolis Chatzidakis,3 but wecompletely agree with him on the attribution toMacedonia. He and A. Xyngopoulos before himhave consistently stressed the ‘realistic’ element inMacedonian painting, the centre of which wasThessaloniki. But this does not necessarily meanthat our icon was executed in Thessaloniki, sinceartists from that centre worked in Ohrid, and inmany other places in Macedonia and Serbia. It thusseems wiser to attribute the Dumbarton Oaks iconto the hand of a Greek painter working inMacedonia or Serbia.

All scholars who have worked on Macedonianpainting of the thirteenth century have realized thatMacedonia did not possess a clearly-def ined styleof its own, and that Thessaloniki, its artistic centre,

at all times depended strongly on Constantinople.The diff iculty is to def ine this dependence and thesubtle differences of style between these twodominant artistic centres within the ByzantineEmpire. Because of the lack of material securelylocalized in the capital, particularly in the unsettledperiod of the Latin conquest (1204–61), there is nobasis for concrete comparison. And while wecannot solve this problem here, we can, I think,bring its solution perhaps one step closer. There isan icon in the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mt.Sinai with a majestic bust of St. Peter which, at onemetre in height, is even slightly larger than theDumbarton Oaks icon; its impressive featuresbecame apparent only after its recent cleaning (Fig.2).4 In his left hand Peter holds a scroll, and a pairof keys on a ring over the index f inger. What ismost striking about the f igure, however, are theplasticity and clear structure of the head, and thesharp but at the same time brooding gaze, which isachieved with devices similar to those of theDumbarton Oaks icon: the U-shaped wedgebetween the brows which causes the effect offrowning, the tufts of hair, et cetera. Yet there are alsodecisive differences. The Sinai Peter is morewithdrawn and more aristocratic, qualities whichare usually—and this is true for all periods—associated with the style of Constantinople. Yet, thestylistic features of both icons have so much incommon that it seems likely that both ultimatelydepend on the same source—a source we believe tohave been Constantinople. The measurably greaterdegree of realism in the Dumbarton Oaks iconmust be considered the Macedonian contribution.Of course we do not know whether the Sinai Peterwas in fact the product of a Constantinopolitanatelier, as it may well have been. Another possibilitywould be Cyprus, where the Sinai monastery had(and still has) major possessions, and from which itrecruited artists, especially in the twelfth andthirteenth centuries.

By its size (nearly a metre high) and composi-tion, the Dumbarton Oaks Peter belongs to acategory of large icons which were not made to besingle and self-contained, but rather to be part of

1 For the Protaton, compare especially A. Xyngopoulos,Manuel Panselinos, 1956, Plate 17; and for Miles eva, S.Radojc ic, Miles eva, (in Serbo-Croatian), 1963, Plate XIII.2 V. J. Duric, Sopocani, 1963, Plate I.3 Icons and East Christian Works of Art, ed. M. van Rijn,1980, 168f.

4 Unpublished; 105.7 × 71.1 cm. It was cleaned by T.Margaritoff in 1967.

56

1

St. Paul (detail), c. 1265,Trinity Church, Sopoc ani,Serbia. Fresco. Thisimpressive head immediatelysuggests a relationship withthe Dumbarton Oaks icon(Plate IV) by its plasticityand the forcefulness of itsexpression. Compare alsothe U-shaped wedge at thebridge of the nose, and theoval of the cheek

2

St. Peter, Constantinopleor Cyprus, f irst half of thethirteenth century. Temperaon panel, 105.7 × 71.1 cm.Monastery of St. Catherine,Mt. Sinai. The panel hasbeen cleaned of its lateroverpainting to reveal animage more withdrawn andaristocratic than that ofPlate IV—qualities thatassociate it with theByzantine capital

57

grander ensembles. That Peter is shown turningtoward one side indicates that he once had acompanion icon of Paul, probably much like thatwhich survives as the pendant to the Sinai Peter(Fig. 3).5 And quite surely, both portraits wouldhave been placed on an iconostasis, that screen ofholy images which separates the sanctuary from thenave in an Orthodox church. Moreover, theirextraordinary size suggests that they were placedbelow the epistyle, between the columns of theiconostasis, where they would likely have f lanked

5 Unpublished; 104.3 × 89.8 cm. It is slightly smaller inheight than the Peter icon, but that the two icons form a paircannot be questioned. To my knowledge the Paul icon hasnot yet been cleaned.

3

St. Paul, Constantinople orCyprus, f irst half of thethirteenth century. Temperaon panel, 104.3 × 89.8 cm.Monastery of St. Catherine,Mt. Sinai. Unlike Figure 2this panel has not beencleaned, but is a companionpiece to St. Peter, much likethat which would haveaccompanied theDumbarton Oaks icon

portraits of Christ, the Virgin, and John the Baptistas part of a Great Deesis.

Although the Dumbarton Oaks Peter stands ina f irmly established artistic tradition, it shows arelatively greater individuality compared with otherSt. Peter icons of the period. Stylistically, it has arare combination of a high degree of physicalreality on the one hand, and an intensity of emo-tional expression on the other. Iconographically, itshows a hair style which has no precise parallelamong any of the other heads of Peter, and it isapparently unique in the motif of wearing the keysaround the neck. Thus, this icon f ills a gap not onlyin the Dumbarton Oaks Collection but also in ourknowledge of thirteenth-century icon paintinggenerally.

A g n e s M o n g a nA Fête of Flowers: Women Artists’ Contribution to Botanical Illustration

Every year thousands of visitors come to seeand enjoy the gardens at Dumbarton Oaks. Few ofthese visitors are aware of the planning that wentinto the preparation of the gardens or that Mrs.Bliss, as she grew older, instead of narrowing herinterest in gardens, stretched her imagination andbroadened her knowledge of them. After WorldWar II, she began with acumen and enthusiasm tocollect beautifully illustrated garden books andmanuscripts. She called on three different sourcesfor advice: her friend, the designer of the gardens,Beatrix Farrand; the Houghton Library (the rarebook library at Harvard); and the librarian at theHarvard School of Architecture. Although theBlisses had donated Dumbarton Oaks to HarvardUniversity in 1940, in 1963 Mrs. Bliss commis-sioned the construction of a new wing of thebuilding to house her collection which became theproperty of Harvard on her death in 1969 (Fig. 1).

In a volume now at the library, in which arecord was kept of her acquisitions, the f irst gardenbook entry is dated 1948. It lists Stevens andLiebault’s Countrie Farm (or Maison Rustique)published in 1600. That book was a fortunatebeginning. As long as she lived Mrs. Bliss continuedto acquire not only standard reference books, whichshe added to her already considerable collection of‘How To’ books on gardening, but also rare andbeautiful publications or manuscripts devoted tof lowers, gardens or fountains. The collection grewsteadily and when she died it had become one ofusefulness and distinction.

The stacks in the downstairs library containnearly 7,000 reference books. Rare books devotedto botany or portfolios of original drawings, whichdate from the late f ifteenth century to the present,are kept in the beautifully lighted, spacious RareBook Room. There are about 3,500 volumes.

It is not too surprising to f ind that the GardenLibrary contains a large number of books by and

about women and their enduring concern with thef loral and herbal world. For centuries f loral andherbal illustration has been considered one of thefew appropriate genres for women artists. In 1772,G.{t}B. Passeri prefaced his account of the lives ofartists and architects of Rome (which includedonly one woman) by writing

. . . the Lord did not endow them (women) properlywith the faculty of judgement, and this he did in order tokeep them restrained within the boundaries of obedience tomen, to establish men as supreme and superior, so that withthis lack, women would be more amenable to suggestion.’

The ladies discussed here were not always veryamenable to suggestion.

An outstanding but little-known woman artistrepresented in the collection, Giovanna Garzoni(1600–70) came from Ascoli Piceno, the Marches,Italy. She worked in Florence, as well as Rome andNaples. That she was well-known in her own timecan be surmised when we learn that among herpatrons were the Medici, the rulers of Florence, andthe Spanish Viceroy of Naples. Her portrait waspainted by two of the leading artists of the period,Carlo Maratta and Sassoferrato. She was a memberof the Roman Accademia di San Luca, and it wasto that academy that she bequeathed her estate andan album containing twenty-two studies of insectsand f lowers. In the Garden Library there is a largefolio volume, almost completely unknown, even tospecialists. It contains f ifty watercolours of plants byGiovanna Garzoni as well as a frontispiece (Fig. 2).The latter shows within an elaborate frame sup-ported by three cherubs, a self-portrait in red andblack chalk. On the frame, in capital letters in heavyink, is: giovanna garzoni. ascolana miniatrice. Acollector’s stamp at the lower left reveals that thebook once belonged to the Strozzi family.

The watercolours, all full-page and measuring49.5 × 38 cm, reveal not only an artist of exquisite

60

1

The Rare Book Roomof the Dumbarton OaksGarden Library. Designedby Frederick RhinelanderKing and completed in 1963

61

the example of William Roscoe and his daughter-in-law, both of whom published f lower illustrationbooks, she had her watercolours published as abook entitled A Selection of Hexandrian Plantsbelonging to the Natural Orders Amaryllidae and Liliacae(London, 1834). A comparison of the plates of thebook and the watercolours, also in the collection,shows the astonishingly faithful reproduction madepossible by the recently invented colour printingtechniques used. Robert Havell, Mrs. Bury’s printer,is better known for his printing of John JamesAudubon’s The Birds of America.

In 1816 George Brookshaw published inLondon a delightful and instructive volume, A newTreatise on Flower Painting or Every Lady her OwnDrawing Master . . . Familiar and Easy Instructions. Itwas one of the many books on the subject toappear in the nineteenth century when it wasfashionable for all young ladies to learn to drawf lowers. A folio containing f ifteen watercolours bya French lady, Céline Guillaume, is entitled HistoireNaturelle Botanique. The artist, whose dates areunknown, lists f ifteen classes of plants and draws,on heavy wove paper, one example from each class.Opposite the lively and exquisite watercolour is apage headed by the plant’s botanical class. Beneaththe latter, within a ruled pen and coloured inkborder, are the families. Descriptions in very f inescript note the distinguishing characteristics of eachfamily (Fig. 7).

Another handsome volume bears the title TheFête of Flowers. It is a seven page sentimentalgathering of light verse opposite watercolours off lowers. The unsophisticated verse, handwritten onpages with borders of f lowers drawn in a light penline, is followed by a section, Blossoms and Berries,which contains eight watercolours of differentberries, wild roses and deadly nightshade (Fig. 8). Apencilled note opposite the title page states, ‘janeelizabeth giraud, 1868. Author of Flowers ofMilton, Flowers of Shakespeare.’

An American example of ladies’ f lowerillustration of this era is Laura Gordon Munson’sFlowers from My Garden Sketched and Painted fromNature with an introductory poem by the author(New York, Anson D. F. Randall, 1864). Theaquatints are intense in colour and varied in design(Fig. 9).

accuracy and control, but one of a lively anddelightful inventiveness. At the top of each page,the scientif ic name and reference is written in ink.One can follow the reference. For example: on thef irst page which represents a plant of sea holly, (Fig.3) there is written at the top of the page in heavyink: eryngium maritinum casp bauh: 386 p.m. Ifone turns to Kaspar Bauhin’s Theatri Botanici, f irstpublished in Basel in 1658, one f inds on page 386under eryngium maritinum reference both toDioscorides and Pliny, suff icient indication that ourartist was acquainted with the botanical history ofGreece and Rome, as well as that of her own time.

When we move to the end of the seventeenthcentury, there is a volume bound in white parch-ment, a coat of arms stamped in gold on its frontcover. The title page records, within a wreath ofexquisitely drawn and deftly coloured tulips,carnations and other f lowers (Fig. 4), that thevolume was offered to ‘the world famous Universityof Altdorf ’ in 1692 by the author MagdalenaRosina Funck, about whom nothing is known. Thebook contains 295 watercolours of f lowers alldrawn in a very f ine, thin, precise line and colouredwith an astonishing range of light colours. Thename of each f lower is written in black ink belowthe f lower.

Naturally one would expect to f ind at least onevolume by the seventeenth-century naturalist,Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717). The daughterand wife of artists, she devoted her career to thestudy and illustration of insects in their naturalenvironment. Her major innovation was thedepiction of insects on the plants on which theywere normally to be found (Fig. 5). Her illustrationsare notable for their botanical as well as theirentomological beauty and accuracy.

Her interests in natural history led her to travelwith her young daughter to Surinam, today theRepublic of Suriname, where she remained forthree years. In the library there is a f ine copy of herbook, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensum,published in 1719, two years after her death.

When we move into the f irst half of thenineteenth century, there is a portfolio containingtwenty-four watercolours by Priscilla Susan Bury,the wife of a railroad engineer, who lived andworked in Liverpool (Fig. 6). Possibly inspired by

62

2

Self-Portrait byGiovanna Garzoni (1600–70), ms. c. 1650. Red andblack chalk. Frontispiece toPiantae Variae

3

‘Eryngium Maritinum’(Sea Holly) by GiovannaGarzoni. Watercolour. Fol. 1,Piantae Variae

63

4

Title page, Blumenbuch byMagdalena Funck (activelate seventeenth century),ms. 1692. Watercolour

5

Plate 67, Disertatio deGenerationi et Meta-morphosis InsectorumSurinamensium by MariaSibylla Merian (1647–1717),(2nd ed.) 1719. Engravingwith watercolour

64

6

‘Amaryillis Johnsoni’ byPriscilla Susan Bury (active1831–37), 1829.Watercolour. No. 14 of thetwenty-f ive in theCollection

7

‘Liseron’, Histoire NaturelBotanique by CélineGuillaume (nineteenthcentury). Watercolour

65

8

‘Blossoms and Berries’,The Fête of Flowers by JaneElizabeth Giraud (nine-teenth century), ms. 1890.Pencil and watercolour

9

‘Crocus’, Flowers from myGarden, Sketched and Paintedfrom Nature by LauraGordon Munson (nine-teenth century), 1864.Aquatint

66

10

‘Guttiferae Clusia’ byMargaret Mee, 1960.Watercolour. Used inpreparation for the printedfolio Flowers of the BrazilianForests, 1968

11

‘Magnolia Virginiana’by Marian Ellis Rowan(1848–1922). Watercolour

67

The twentieth century is represented by animpressive folio of Brazilian f lowers drawn andpainted in watercolours in the 1950s and 1960s byMargaret Mee, an English resident of Brazil. Thewatercolours are rich in colour, varied in textureand handsome in design (Fig. 10). A note informsus that they were made at Visconde de Maua, S.Paulo. A foreword on Brazilian forests was contrib-uted by the distinguished Brazilian artist, architectand landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx, and apreface by Sir George Taylor, the former Directorof the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

Four large handsome watercolour drawings bythe Australian artist, Marian Ellis Rowan (1848–1922) are on exhibition in the stairway hall of thelibrary. Rowan spent her life recording the beautifuland exotic f lora of her native country. Widowed atan early age, she travelled the outback andrainforests painting the f lowers and shrubs she saw.Many of her illustrations were eventually purchasedby the National Library of Australia as a pricelessrecord of the subcontinent before ‘civilization.’ Thefour paintings at Dumbarton Oaks of Americanplants were given in 1968 to Mrs. Bliss by LadyCasey, the wife of the then Australian Ambassadorto the United States (Fig. 11).

The collection of works by women artists inthe Dumbarton Oaks collection is characteristic ofthe variety of aims their art fulf illed. While some ofthe paintings were done as pastimes by societyladies, such as the Fête of Flowers or as designs forembroidery or other decorative arts, most had aserious scientif ic purpose. Plant studies and depic-tions by women over the centuries made importantcontributions to the developing science of botanyand the dissemination of knowledge of newlydiscovered species.

We have mentioned only some of the womenartists represented in the Garden Library atDumbarton Oaks. There are others of equal talentsand distinction whose works are to be found in thisvery special collection.

D i a n e Ko s t i a l M c G u i r eThe Gardens

. . . the serenity of open spaces and ancient trees; . . . areas integral a part of Humanism at Dumbarton Oaks as arethe Library and the Collection.

Mildred B. Bliss1

The Dumbarton Oaks garden is an especiallywell-designed and well-maintained example inAmerica of European inf luence in gardens as it wasinterpreted in the earlier part of this century byAmerican designers who wished to offer theirclients opulence, grandeur, a sense of history andEuropean sophistication. It is the work of twowomen, the client Mildred B. Bliss and the designerBeatrix Farrand,2 both possessed of highly ref inedtaste, who wished to create the atmosphere of theculture of early Humanism which they saw as mostappropriate for private recreation combined withscholarly pursuits. Major construction began in thegardens in 1922 and continued through the transferof ownership to Harvard University in 1941 untilMrs. Bliss’s death in 1969. The maturity of thegarden as a work of art most closely approximatingto the vision Mildred Bliss and Beatrix Farrand hadof the garden, was attained in the f ive year periodfrom 1936 to 1941.

Fortunately, the garden was recorded at thistime in a topographical view (Fig. 1) by ErnestClegg, which occupies a position of centralimportance above the f ireplace in the music roomand is especially valuable because it indicates theextent of the garden, including the twenty-sevenacres of the naturalistic section. This was not givento Harvard in 1941, but instead went to theNational Park Service and has been allowed in thelast forty years to grow over, although severalarchitectural features remain, in various states of

ruin, objects of curiosity for the garden archaeolo-gist. The present garden consists of all of the formalspaces and some of the more naturalistic portion.These formal enclosures form a series of outdoorchambers (Fig. 2), used for different functions, someceremonial, some private, but all characterized by asense of appropriateness and f itness with respect toscale and choice of materials.

GARDEN STRUCTURES

There are several important structures whichreinforce the architectural quality of the gardenenclosures, as well as providing contrast to theplantings. Preceding the Bliss ownership of theproperty is the Orangery which was built byRobert Beverly, c. 1810. It is a distinguishedstructure, originally a rectangular pavilion withseven, tall, arched sash windows (formerly eighteenpanes by eighteen) on the south side and three onthe east end (Fig. 8). An impressive f ig, Ficus pumila,whose branches now cover the interior of thebuilding, was growing here as early as 1860. Theroof of the Orangery was redesigned by LawrenceWhite of McKim, Mead and White, architects whocollaborated with Beatrix Farrand on the additionsto the house. Now, f ifty years later, a new roof hasbeen designed and restoration of this charmingbuilding continues at the present moment. TheOrangery houses mediterranean plants from thearbour terrace in winter, as the temperatures inWashington can fall to –21ºC during periods ofsevere cold. In the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies orangeries were found on properties ofsome size, especially in Virginia; there is a well-restored example at Mount Vernon and another atWye House,3 in Maryland, which were used1 From the preamble to the last will and testament, August

1966.2 Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872–1959) landscape gardener,and the only woman founder of The American Society ofLandscape Architects, 1899.

3 Wye House, in Talbot County, Maryland was the homeof Colonel Edward Lloyd, brother-in-law of RobertBeverly. The Orangery at Wye is a considerably larger

70

1

A Topographical View ofDumbarton Oaks,Georgetown, D.C. byErnest Clegg 1935. Watercolour on paper. Althoughlocated in the centre of oneof the oldest sections ofWashington, D.C., thegardens express theatmosphere of a countryestate

71

2

The Lover’s Lane Pool,1923. This charming gardentheatre has seats adaptedfrom the well-known open-air theatre on the slopes ofthe Janiculum Hill at theAccademia degli ArcadBosco Parrasio

72

3

The North Vista. Theview is taken from the maindoor from the garden intothe house, the broad sweepof lawn ending with thelarge tulip poplar in thedistance

73

the Château Montargis).4 It is planted almostentirely with wisteria, mainly of the lavendervariety, but with some plants of white.

THE GARDEN FURNITURE

The garden furniture and the various gates areof special interest, most of them are unique indesign although there are also pairs and sets. Theseare constructed of teak or cypress, often with ironwork (in the form of rods in strapping) incorpo-rated in the design. Most of the furniture has beendesigned for its specif ic place in the garden, and istherefore appropriate in scale and form, as well as intype of material. This furniture was designed as thegarden developed by Beatrix Farrand in thefollowing manner. Initially, in consultation with herpatron she would decide the location of a pro-posed piece and its general form or style, as well asthe specif ic materials, then preliminary sketcheswere prepared in her New York off ice.5 She wouldcomment on, reject or approve these sketchesseveral times as the process continued. Eventually,three or four alternative sketches would be ap-proved by Beatrix Farrand and shown to MildredBliss. When a design was chosen, it would be‘mocked-up’ and the full-scale mock-up placed inthe garden for further study. Adjustments weremade in proportion and often subtle design changeswere decided upon at this critical stage. It wastypical of Mildred Bliss to come back after one ofher trips abroad and to study a great many of thesemock-ups at one time, including not only gardenfurniture, but gates, piers, walls and sculpture as well.Only after her inspection was the furniture actuallyconstructed and placed in the garden.

Although Beatrix Farrand maintained through-out her long career that the wishes of the clientwere of paramount importance and one of the twogreat responsibilities she had as a designer (the otherbeing to f it the garden to the form of the land), itwould have been informative to have overheard thetwo women discuss such matters. Beatrix Farrand

primarily for citrus fruits and tender ornamentals.At Dumbarton Oaks, the Orangery is now attachedto the house by a passage which provides a cross-axial entry to the formal part of the gardens,effectively dividing them from the informality ofthe sweeping east and south lawns.

The loggia and the Pool House, set into andbelow the Green Terrace to take advantage of theabrupt grade change, were also designed by McKim,Mead and White in 1926, and ref lect in their designthe inf luence of the Orangery, but with a morestudied mediterranean effect. It is in the immediatearea of the swimming pool (Fig. 4) with its dra-matic siting and its architectural complexity thatone can now experience the atmosphere and theambience of the French Riviera that Mildred Blisssought to evoke. Adjacent to the pool, facing theformer tennis court (now the pebble garden) is agenerous pergola of semi-circular design withhandsome built-in teak seats. The provision ofshade and the modelling of the earth to takeadvantage of the prevailing breezes were primaryrequirements in the design of the garden as it wasintended to be used for exercise as well as for moresedentary pursuits.

In the lower portion, three large tool housesdominate, their ornate roofs covered with convexterracotta tiles in an armorial shield pattern; theyare designed in the Portuguese manner with curvedlines and heavy, strapped, cypress doors. One ofthese houses is the focal point of the cutting gardenand is f lanked by two large English lead cisterns,with Sophora japonica behind. This composition isdirectly reminiscent of the English gardens inOporto, terraced as they are down to the banks ofthe Duoro with a combination of Portuguesedesign and English artifacts.

A long, rustic arbour marks the southern endof the kitchen garden and another more elaboratearbour is the dominant feature of the arbour terrace(Fig. 5). It was placed in this position to minimizethe rather overwhelming height of the stone wallwhich was needed to retain the northeast corner ofthe rose garden. The arbour, constructed of heart-wood tidewater cypress, was modif ied from a designof DuCerceau (from his drawing of the garden of

4 Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, Le premier volume des plusexcellents basiments de France, Paris, M.D. XXVI.5 Anne Baker, Margaret H. Bailie, and after 1929, RuthHavey were the designers in her New York off ice whoworked on Dumbarton Oaks.structure, the major sash windows were over thirty feet high.

74

4

View of the SwimmingPool and its surround-ings looking West. Therocaille work on theenclosing walls is used invarious parts of the garden.In bloom is Azalea indica alba

5

The Arbour. Wisteriahangs down from the roofand clematis is trainedaround the posts

75

was more conservative in her approach to design,whereas Mildred Bliss favoured a more f lamboyantapproach. She admired the great sweeps and smallerexcitements of baroque art and this inf luence canbe readily seen in work executed in the gardens byRuth Havey after Beatrix Farrand’s retirement in1947. Beatrix Farrand’s simpler approach checkedMrs. Bliss’s exuberance while never diminishing thevitality which underlies the design of most of theelements in the garden. Ruth Havey, on the otherhand, was closer in spirit to the exuberance exhib-ited in the f inal design of the Garden Librarygarden and the pebble garden, (Fig. 6) the latterbeing the last work undertaken by Mildred Bliss atDumbarton Oaks and the part of the garden mostadmired by the public.

THE IRONWORK

Ironwork, and ironwork together with teak orcypress, forms a principal decorative feature of thegardens. The gates between the various enclosuresof the formal gardens are especially noteworthy fortheir combination of delicate beauty and strengthof design, and it is unfortunate that when visitorsare in the gardens all of these gates must be open inorder to encourage passage between the variousparts. The gates in their closed positions form a veryimportant aspect of the design by reinforcing thecharacter of the planting while at the same timeallowing the distant scene to become a part of thegeneral composition. The design of many gates ischaracterized by a plant motif and this variesconsiderably in intricacy and in stylization. Themore naturalistic designs are the most arresting asthey have the greatest delicacy.

In the past thirty years some of the ironworkhas deteriorated and has not been replaced andsome of the gates have disappeared. A substantialamount remains, however, and it has recently beenrestored and repainted. The ironwork, throughoutthe gardens, is painted glossy black with the notableexception of the main entry gates which are glossyblack highlighted with elaborate gold leaf. Origi-nally these wide entry gates were wood, solid andsomewhat rustic in appearance. The change toimposing heavy iron entry gates was a signif icantone as it considerably altered the character of the

approach to the house, changing it from theappearance of an arts and crafts garden sequesteredin a leafy suburb to a grander image associated inWashington with embassies and governmentaloff ices.

With the exception of the entry gates theironwork complements the planting and is mostnoticeable when combined with teak in gates andin the garden furniture. It is an integral part of thegarden design and provides lightness and contrast tothe heaviness of the substantial stone walls. Thedesigns were prepared in Beatrix Farrand’s off ice,and were made into mock-ups to be approved onthe site. Because the various pieces of ironworkwere done over a span of thirty years, they repre-sent the work of several craftsmen with varyingquality.6 The combination iron-teak gates are ofspecial interest because of their strong and vigorousdesigns, and because they contribute signif icantly tothe arts and crafts motif of the garden.

In addition to the ironwork there is some veryf ine work in lead, although its use is limited to therose garden and fountain terrace. Lead work wascommonly used in European-inspired Americangardens in the early part of this century. AtDumbarton Oaks it is combined with stone whereit lightens the effect and offers an effective foil tothe tracery of vines and rambler roses (Fig. 7).

PLANTING

When work began in 1922, there were on theproperty some f ine trees, primarily native Americanoaks, many of which were integrated into thegarden scheme. In addition there were outstandingspecimens of silver maples, Japanese maples,paulownia, katsura and beech, which BeatrixFarrand carefully preserved and worked into thedesign with success. Older large trees formed animportant part of Beatrix Farrand’s work and shedefended her choices,

6 Current ironwork restoration is being carried out byThomas Bredlow, who executed some of the f ine ironworkin Washington Cathedral. Restoration of the gardenfurniture, gates and pergolas has been undertaken by CharlesAppleton, cabinet-maker, who constructed some of thememorial outdoor furniture at Harvard University.

76

6

The Pebble Garden,1969. The pool basin holds ashallow sheet of water,intensifying the colour ofthe cobbles brought fromthe beaches of Mexico

77

of monumental sculpture. The large beech on thebeech terrace, the magnolias adjacent to the urnterrace and the silver maple are examples of treesskilfully placed to achieve a sculptural effect. Mostof the varieties used in this manner have outstand-ing winter form and bark giving them year-roundinterest.

Dumbarton Oaks is representative in manyways of the arts and crafts movement in gardensespecially in choice of materials, choice of plantsand in a limited way choice of colour. In this latterconsideration, Beatrix Farrand was directly inf lu-enced by Gertrude Jekyll, but also by the prefer-ences of Mildred Bliss who considered the manyhues of white to be the essential colour of thegarden. However, the most successful use of colourat Dumbarton Oaks is in the rose garden (Fig. 8)which is the grand ballroom of these outdoorenclosures. The various roses seem to me as f iguresin bright costume gracefully moving in the lateafternoon breeze. This exemplary rose garden wasplanned together by Beatrix Farrand and MildredBliss, and we read that

the pink and salmon colour sorts have been selected forthe south third, together with a few of the very deep redones, such as Etoile de Hollande and Ami Quinard. Thecentre third of the garden was planted more particularlywith salmon-coloured and yellowish-pink roses, while thenorthern third was given over entirely to yellow orpredominantly yellow and orange sorts. There was a wash ofcolour over the garden, deepening in hue from north tosouth.[8]

The gardens were designed for winter as well,therefore the thought behind the planting of therose garden has been given quite as much to theevergreen and enduring outlines and form as to theroses.

REPRESENTATIVE PLANTS IN THE

DUMBARTON OAKS GARDEN

Cedrus deodara Deodar cedarCedrus libani Cedar-of-LebanonTsuga caroliniana Carolina hemlockMagnolia grandiflora Southern magnolia

The big Paulownia tomentosa on the southeast side ofthe east lawn is a tree which has often been criticizedadversely, but the magnif icent size of its trunk, its greatheight, and its purple f lowers in the early summer make itso conspicuous and splendid an object that the gawkiness ofits lower structure should be overlooked.[7]

Her planting design is of an extraordinarilysubtle and complicated nature. She used plants asstrong design elements in themselves, but combinedthem so skillfully that one experiences a pervasiveatmosphere of restfulness in all of her gardens. Inher planting designs the formalism which charac-terized her work comes through clearly. AtDumbarton Oaks, as one enters each gardenenclosure, the arrangement is such that one con-templates the whole and then examines the detail.The balanced planting within a space contributesgreatly to this sense of completeness, and yetbecause plants were used as markers as well asspecimen plants, there is also a sense of progressionfrom one space to another.

Beatrix Farrand relied heavily on broadleafevergreens to form the structure of the design andto provide strong textural interest. The hollies andboxwoods do both, and they have enormousversatility. The history of the use of plants was ofimportance to Mildred Bliss, who not only wantedto live on a country estate, but to have at the sametime the feeling that her garden was old andfurnished amply with historic associations. Theplants most commonly used in the design, the oaks,the yew, the holly, and the boxwood, are theembodiment of our deepest associations with theolder gardens of England.

In several instances trees were planted in theEuropean manner. The Kieffer pears at the end ofthe arbour terrace were planted in the style of theTuscan gardens of the early Renaissance as a raiseddouble hedge with look-outs that frame the viewin a series of panels. Several Magnolia grandifloraespaliered against the house are an example of anAmerican tree planted and maintained in theEuropean way. The specimen trees have had thegardens designed around them or have beenintroduced into the design to further the impression

7 Beatrix Farrand’s Plant Book for Dumbarton Oaks, ed. DianeKostial McGuire, 1980, p. 19. 8 Beatrix Farrand’s Plant Book, pp. 63–4.

78

7

Small Villa. Located inthe grounds at the head of32nd Street. It is an exampleof the attention given todetail by Lawrence Whiteand Beatrix Farrand insecondary structures andspaces

8

Rose Garden. The viewlooks west to the Orangery

79

Buxus sempervirens Common boxBuxus sempervirens ‘Suffrutiscosa’ Edging boxIlex crenata Japanese hollyIlex opaca American hollyAcer palmatum Japanese mapleAcer saccharinum Silver mapleCercidiphyllum japonicum Katsura treeCornus florida Flowering dogwoodMagnolia heptapeta Yulan magnoliaPaulownia tomentosa Karri treeQuercus alba White oakQuercus nigra Red oakQuercus velutina Black oakSophora japonica Japanese pagoda treeUlmus americana American elmAbelia grandiflora Glossy abeliaForsythia intermedia Border forsythiaForsythia suspensa Weeping forsythiaJasminum nudiflorum Winter jasmineSyringa vulgaris Common lilacHedera helix English ivyParthenocissus tricuspidata Boston ivyWisteria sinensis Chinese wisteria

N o t e s o n C o n t r i b u t o r s

DENYS SUTTON is Editor of APOLLO and theauthor of books on Derain, Rodin, Sickert andWhistler, and the editor of Letters of Roger Fry.

GILES CONSTABLE is Director of DumbartonOaks and Professor of Medieval History at Harvard.His principal f ield is religious and institutionalhistory in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.Among his publications are books on monastictithes and medieval letters and an edition of theletters of Peter the Venerable.

GEORGE KUBLER is Stirling Professor of theHistory of Art at Yale University and a SeniorFellow for Pre-Columbian Studies at DumbartonOaks. His publications include Religious Architectureof New Mexico, Mexican Architecture of the SixteenthCentury, Art andArchitecture of Ancient America,Portuguese Architecture 1521–1706, and The Shape ofTime. For his contributions to the art history ofMexico, he is recipient of the Order of the AztecEagle, Mexico’s highest award offered to foreigners.

MARY ELLEN MILLER has been a Junior Fellowat Dumbarton Oaks and is now Assistant Professorin the History of Art at Yale University. In additionto numerous articles, she is the author of Murals ofBonampak being published by Princeton UniversityPress and is writing a volume on Mesoamerica forthe World of Art series of Thames and Hudson.

CYRIL MANGO was lecturer in Fine Arts atHarvard University from 1957–8; Junior Fellow andthen lecturer in Byzantine Archaeology atDumbarton Oaks from 1951–63; Professor ofModern Greek and Byzantine History at KingsCollege, University of London, from 1963–68. Hehas been the Bywater and Sotheby Professor ofByzantine and Modern Greek at Oxford Universitysince 1973. He is the author of several books onByzantine art and history.

KURT WEITZMANN is Emeritus Professor ofPrinceton University and the Institute for Ad-vanced Study and the author of many publications,especially on Byzantine manuscripts, ivories, andicons. He helped to lead a joint research team tothe Monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai in thelate 1950s and early 1960s and is now preparing thesecond in a series of volumes on the Sinai icons.He is an Honorary Associate of the Center forByzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks.

AGNES MONGAN is Emeritus Curator ofDrawings and former Director of the Fogg ArtMuseum at Harvard University. She has writtenmany catalogues of drawings exhibitions. Amongthe best known of these are the catalogue of theIngres exhibition at the Fogg in 1967 and thecatalogue of the Tiepolo exhibition at the Fogg in1970.

DIANE KOSTIAL McGUIRE is Advisor for thegardens at Dumbarton Oaks and editor of BeatrixFarrand’s Plant Book. She is a landscape architectwith a widely ranging practice ranging from thepreservations of historic gardens to the reclamationof industrial sites. She is Professor of LandscapeArchitecture at the University of Arkansas.

82

Typesetting and Printing in Great Britain for the Proprietors and Publishers, Apollo Magazine Limited (A Subsidiary of The FinancialTimes), Bracken House, 10 Cannon Street, London EC4P 4BY, England by Watmoughs Limited, Idle, Bradford; and London

Registered for transmission by magazine post to Canada

1

Interior of the MusicRoom, f inished in 1929.The f ireplace is French, latesixteenth century; thetapestry depicts the Princeof Malice (Tournai, latef ifteenth century) with aMadonna and Child byRiemenschneider placedbelow. The f loor is Frencheighteenth century