BENEDICT XV, Pope
Description:
Half-length seated on a gilt chair, dressed in white pontifical robes and white cape, and wearing a jewelled pectoral cross and chain around his neck. The right hand, with a jewelled ring on the third finger, holds a piece of paper. Oil on canvas, 48” x 32”, signed upper right ‘A. Muller-Ury’.
Location:
The Catholic University of America, 620, Michigan Avenue, N.E., Washington D.C. 20064.
Provenance:
Gift of the artist, 1923.
Bibliography:
Neue Zürcher Nachrichten, October 3, 1920
Giacomo Della Chiesa was born on November 21, 1854. He was elected Pope on September 3, 1914 and died on January 22, 1922.
American Art News, Vol. XVIII, No. 28, May 1, 1920, p. 1, said that, ‘A. Muller-Ury will sail today for London on the Kaiserin-Augusta-Victoria. He will go to Paris and later to Rome to paint the portrait of the Pope, and will visit all the European galleries during the summer months.’
Painted in 1920, after July 10, in Rome. Father B.J. Mahoney wrote to Muller-Ury from the Villa Santa Caterina, Castelgandolfo on July 22, 1920 and the first page of the letter, of which the below is part, is in the artist’s papers:
‘My dear Mr. Ury:
This is just a line to let you know that Felici, the photographer, called this morning, and during the course of his visit, he said that he had met Monsignor Migoni, the other day, and that the latter began immediately to speak about your picture of the Holy Father. “The best picture of the Holy Father ever done” was his verdict. What is more you gave the Holy Father no fastidio at all. Naturally the stock of the ‘artisti Americani’ is now very high at the Vatican…’
It should be recalled that in 1915 the great sculptor Rodin had been commissioned to make a bust of the Pope, and that Benedict was unhappy with the finished work, and indeed disliked the way in which the great French sculptor Rodin used the sittings to scrutinise him closer than he liked. Muller-Ury’s success in not giving the Pope any fastidio (trouble, inconvenience) during his sittings is therefore interesting.
According to a letter from Bishop Shahan dated May 25, 1923 in the artist’s papers, the artist offered the portrait of Pope Benedict XV in a letter dated May 23, 1923, now lost. The artist queried whether it had arrived in Washington, through Knoedlers, in a letter he wrote from San Francisco from the residence of Archbishop Edward Hanna on August 23, 1923 (Archives of the Catholic University), to which Shahan replied on September 8, 1923 saying that the picture had arrived just as he was departing for Rome for two months, hence the delay acknowledging the ‘generous donation’ (artist’s papers).
