GIBBONS, James Cardinal (1886 – No. 2)
Description:
The Daily News, November 29, 1886 gives a full description: ‘…life-size…The Cardinal is represented in his study about to receive a visitor. He is dressed in his scarlet soutane, with the lace ruchette under his cape and covering the soutane to the hips. He has on his head the zuchetta and he holds the beretta by one of its peaks./ He has evidently taken it off his head when notified of the visit and laid it on the open books he had before him for reference. In his left hand he holds a roll of manuscript. The idea conveyed by the portrait is a waking from deep thought with an expecting look for the cause that called him away from his studies. A magnificent, heavy gold frame which increases the size from 50 x 92 to 78 x 120 inches, was made for the portrait by Frederick Kappler of Pearl Street.’ (The measurements are, of course, reversed.)
Location:
Present Whereabouts Unknown.
Exhibition:
SCHAUS’S GALLERY, 204 Fifth Avenue (at Madison Square), New York, until November 22, 1886.
Bibliography:
Town Topics, New York, No. 21, November 18, 1886.
New-Yorker Staats Zeitung, November 21, 1886.
New York Herald, November 22, 1886.
Daily News, New York, November 29, 1886.
New York World, November 30, 1886.
Baltimore Courier, November 30, 1886.
Baltimore Sun, November 30, 1886
The Catholic Mirror, Baltimore, for December 4, 1886 (first issue of this specifically diocesan newspaper after the picture’s presentation on November 29).
Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Switzerland, March 18, 1887.
Appenzeller Zeitung, Switzerland, March 19, 1887.
Intelligenz Blatt, Bern, Switzerland, March 20, 1887.
Urner Volksblatt, Altdorf, Switzerland, March 26, 1887.
Amerikanische Schweizerzeitung, April 23, 1887.
Schweizerische Morgen Zeitung, Basel, Switzerland, March 22, 1888
[This list contains just the articles and notices published about the time of this picture’s presentation; pictures of Gibbons were often referred to in later articles.]
James Gibbons (1834-1921), the first American Cardinal, was nominated to this position by Pope Leo XIII on June 30 1886, had been created Archbishop of Baltimore on October 3 1877.
Muller-Ury painted him soon after his election to the Cardinalate, and this was his first important commission since he arrived in the United States the previous year. The handlist of the exhibition at FRENCH & CO. INC., 1947, states that it was this commission that brought the artist to America. This is therefore untrue.
Bibliography:
James Gibbons (Archbishop of Baltimore), A Retrospect of 50 Years, 1916.
Allen Sinclair Will, Life of Cardinal Gibbons, 1922.
I should like to thank Reverend Paul K. Thomas, Archivist of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, 320, Cathedral Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21201, for providing the information below on Muller-Ury’s portraits of Gibbons.
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Painted in 1886. Some sources say he stands by a desk and others by a table. Archbishop Corrigan of New York wrote to Gibbons on October 15, 1886, as follows:
‘Before leaving home I saw in Mr. Muller’s studio the full length portrait of Y(our) E(minence) which is very much superior to his former picture.’(Archdiocese of Baltimore Archives, 82 B12)
The picture was presented to Cardinal Gibbons on November 29, 1886, by Judge John R. Brady on behalf of St. Leo’s congregation, a parish in New York (the church opened in 1880 has been closed). Despite the fact that the Cardinal thanked Judge Brady on behalf of the people of St. Leo’s parish and stated that “…I shall preserve this gift and leave it as an heirloom in this my residence,” the picture is no longer to be found the Basilica Rectory, 408 North Charles Street, Baltimore, which is where Gibbons resided when Cardinal Archbishop of Baltimore. Apparently the picture hung in the large dining hall during the presentation. The committee who represented St. Leo’s parish included, apart from Judge Brady, Rev. Thomas I. Ducey, Thomas H. O’Connor, Adrian Iselin Jr., William Iselin, M. J. O’Brien, John Alexander, and John A. McCaul.
