When I stand in front of a masterpiece, I like to reflect on all the other people who have ever looked at it, from the artist to famous connoisseurs to my friends and teachers and even past versions of me- even. So the next time I go to the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA), I’ll take great joy in thinking about how Walt Whitman was such a fangirl of this ancient egyptian sculpture that he visited his gay pecs 20 times while on display in lower Manhattan.
I learned this in Lynley J. McAlpine’s recent book, Let’s Not Now Brag About Our Worldly Possessions: Provenance Stories from the San Antonio Museum of Art. The title is a quote from a 1937 letter written by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. A compulsive collector, Hearst bought works of art by boxcar in Europe and often shipped them directly to storage in a five-story warehouse in the Bronx. A reporter started poking around, asking to tour the warehouse. Hearst asked an employee to steer clear, writing that bragging about his treasures in the depths of the Great Depression “would just be an invitation for a red nut to come over and start something.” SAMA now owns some of the hundreds of Greek vases accumulated by Hearst. These vases form one of the 19 “biographies of works of art” of Let’s not boast now of our worldly possessionswhich also contains an overview of provenance research in its 75 attractive pages.
Researchers from like McAlpine try to uncover information about the owners of works of art. While a piece by a 20th century artist often contains enough information from the artist’s and dealer’s archives to tell a researcher exactly where it has been since leaving the studio, the objects Older ones often present much more difficult puzzles. The provenance researcher must be a detective – read in several languages, consult known sources and locate new ones, and find other means of obtaining information than auction houses, museums, private collectors and other major players in the trade are still too often reluctant to disclose.
McAlpine, writing for a general audience, focuses on intriguing details rather than archival details. We hear, for example, of the antiques purchased by Gilbert M. Denman, one of the founding directors of SAMA. He bought them to complete the museum’s collections, but he hung on to them for a while before donating them, so they could classify his lavish apartment, one of San Antonio’s social hubs. Of course, no matter how big the apartment in Texas, its owner faces certain limitations compared to the aristocratic collectors of the English Grand Tour that Denman imitated. He bought a seven foot high portrait of Marcus Aurelius owned in the 18th century by the first Marquess of Lansdowne, who put it on display in a special statue gallery. The Emperor took a decidedly less glamorous position in the lobby of Denman’s building when he couldn’t climb the stairs. McAlpine includes a 1970s photograph of Marcus Aurelius leaning on his staff and staring hazy at the steps, like a tipsy guest gathering strength before the last flight.
New York merchant Mathias Komor took advantage of Denman’s aristocratic aspirations, telling him that a Aphrodite’s torso had once been in the collection of the Earl of Sandwich. But recent research into the Sandwich family archives showed that the torso did not belong to the 18th-century Earl Grand Tourist, but rather to a much later Earl, almost contemporary with Denman. This reassessment of the provenance story has also prompted reconsideration of authenticity; the torso is now considered modern.
In addition to raising the issue of counterfeiting, provenance research can also send a stolen work of art home. Today, many museums and dealers consider themselves obligated to research the provenance of any work of art they suspect to be in continental Europe between 1933 and 1945, to ensure that it is not was not looted from Jewish owners. While Nazi-era research is still a key area, museums are increasingly aware of other provenance issues, including looted antiquities, stolen sacred art, and artifacts removed from countries during conflicts or under colonialism.
SAMA is one of a growing number of US museums to hire in-house provenance researchers, either permanently or for temporary positions. THE Getty, Smithsonian, Philadelphia Museum of Art, MoMA, Denver Art Museum, Nelson AtkinsEmory’s Carlos Museum, newfields, Yale University Art Galleryand the Virginia Art Museum have or have had provenance researchers on staff.
These hirings often occur when museums deal with complaints from source communities. But viewing provenance research solely as a defensive move misses what McAlpine clearly demonstrates: provenance stories can heighten our appreciation of a work of art, adding to the excitement and interest of visitors. The success of books and films like Edmund de Waal’s bestseller The hare with amber eyes (2010) or the 2015 film with Helen Mirren, golden woman, has already demonstrated the public’s interest in these stories. Surprisingly, few museums have tried to make their provenance stories public (with the exception of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts provenance researcher, Victoria Roseau).
This Greek vase is a great example of how the history of the property can sometimes be much more interesting than the object itself. I wrote my thesis on Greek vases, but even I have to say that this one is a somewhat simple example of the genre – one that only a collector could love. But what collectors! The vase was brought home by the English Romantic poet Samuel Rogers, who traveled with Lord Byron until they fell out over Byron’s inability to get up in time for their scheduled departures. (We’ve all had or been that friend.) The vase was passed down to Rogers’ family, appearing in a portrait from 1934 of some of his descendants posed with their proudest possessions: the vase and their pet ring-tailed lemur, Mah-Jongg (nickname: Jongy), which they had purchased at Harrods.
The competition for the most colorful character chronicled in the book is fierce, but my vote goes to fin-de-siècle beauty. Martine-Marie-Pol de Béhaguewho used his vast heritage to make almost daily purchases of art and antiques while traveling the world in his steam yacht Nirvana. When his heirs auctioned off his collections in 1987, an Italian antiquities dealer named Giacomo Medici purchased two vase fragments. At the end of the auction, Medici met a curator from SAMA disappointed that he had not been able to buy them for the museum. Medici let them fall into the hands of the curator as a gift.
Medici was probably hoping that SAMA would buy more pieces from him. Luckily they didn’t, for Medici was soon after revealed to be a prolific dealer in looted antiquities. However, they did not completely escape it. In February 2023, SAMA had to repatriate a head of Hadrian. Medici had smuggled him out of Italy and the now equally notorious Robin Symes provided him with a false provenance. McAlpine does not mention it, nor the museum return of greek pottery in 2021.
On the other hand, McAlpine points out trouble spots in other articles. For example, she writes that the museum ancient tomb relief from the city of Palmyra, Syria, came from a collector known to have purchased similar artifacts from the merchant Azeez Khayat, who admitted to bribing officials to smuggle them out of what was then the Ottoman Empire. The museum’s relief came with too little provenance information to determine whether Khayat had ever touched him, but McAlpine should be commended for raising the possibility of his involvement. (Now if only the museum’s website could be changed to include this important information!)
I recommend this deeply researched, yet still engaging book to anyone from students to museum visitors to scholars who want to learn more about the origin of art in our museums – and who want to have a good time while while learning.
Let’s Not Now Brag About Our Worldly Possessions: Provenance Stories from the San Antonio Museum of Art by Lynley J. McAlpine is published by the San Antonio Museum of Art and is available at the museum or online.
