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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The small study of Gibbons’ head is in the corner next to the frame of Alpenrose and Edelweiss.
Listed in a 1972 Inventory of the Basilica Rectory. The picture was examined by the editor in May 2007. It appears to have been strip lined, and the background has been repainted, though it appears the artist’s signature may have been added on top of the repaint.
The portrait appears to be that visible in the corner of Muller-Ury’s Sherwood studio in photographs taken in 1894.
