John La Farge's Sleep returns to Glessner House

John La Farge

Sleep, 1884-1885

Watercolor on paper

8 in. x 6 1/2 in. (2032. cm x 16.51 cm)

The Lunder Collection

Accession Number: 011.2011

Colby College Museum of Art

The Glessners were avid collectors of steel engravings but did acquire a small number of paintings and drawings to decorate their home.  John Glessner, in his The Story of a House written in 1923, noted that they possessed a painting by John La Farge, but little was known about it, as it is not currently in the Glessner House collection.

John La Farge (1835-1910) was an American painter and stained-glass designer who enjoyed a considerable reputation throughout the last decades of the 19^th century.  Although largely remembered for his stained-glass work and rivalry with Louis Comfort Tiffany, he produced a significant number of easel paintings and murals during his career.  His extensive decoration of Trinity Church in Boston, designed by H. H. Richardson, gave him a national reputation, and the Glessners saw his murals and stained-glass windows while visiting the church with Richardson in 1885.  La Farge was also among the first American artists to be directly influenced by Japanese prints.  The Glessners had two books by La Farge in their library, Considerations on Painting: Lectures Given in the Year 1893 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1896), and An Artist’s Letters from Japan (1897).

Frances Glessner provided clues about the painting and its acquisition in her journal.  On June 26, 1887, she noted:

“Today we have enjoyed looking at twelve of La Farge’s water colors sent to us by Wunderlich.”

H. Wunderlich & Co. was a New York gallery founded by Hermann Wunderlich in 1874.  It dealt mostly in prints as well as the works of selected contemporary artists including James McNeil Whistler.  Frances Glessner first noted visiting Wunderlich in October 1883 when she went to see a collection of fifty etchings by Whistler.  In March 1885, Wunderlich sent several engravings to the Glessners for review.  They purchased three, including two “Dutch Admirals” they had been anxious to acquire for quite some time.  During a trip to New York in February 1886, they visited the gallery again, so clearly had developed a relationship with the owner.

The most significant clue to the identity of the painting is revealed in a journal entry from May 4, 1892, which recounts a visit by John La Farge to the Glessner home:

“Mr. Norman Williams brought the great John La Farge to call on me and see the house.  He was much astonished to find his painting of the sleeping woman here – he didn’t know it was even in Chicago.  He was delightful and I greatly enjoyed the call.  Mr. Williams told me in confidence that Mr. La Farge is to make a stained-glass window to the memory of John Crerar to put in the Second (Presbyterian) Church.”  (The large rose window was installed in 1893 but was lost in a March 1900 fire that destroyed the sanctuary).

La Farge's watercolor study for the Ascension window at Second Presbyterian Church

Taking Frances Glessner’s description of the work as depicting a sleeping woman, an internet search uncovered a La Farge painting entitled Sleep, now in the collection of the Colby College Museum of Art.  With an image in hand, it was possible to locate the historic location of the painting in the house.  It was revealed that the painting hung over the south music cabinet in the parlor, and appears in the earliest photos taken in 1888, and later photos taken in 1923 for The Story of a House. 

Glessner parlor, 1888 (Sleep at left, centered over music cabinet)

Detail of Glessner parlor, 1923, Sleep at upper center

Another photo provided a valuable clue.  A descendant of the Glessners’ son George donated a photograph of George and Alice Glessner’s home, The Ledge, at The Rocks in Bethlehem, New Hampshire.  Taken about 1940, by which time Alice was a widow, the La Farge painting can clearly be seen on the wall behind her over a table lamp, confirming that the painting went to her when the Prairie Avenue house was broken up following John Glessner’s death in January 1936. 

The Ledge, home of George and Alice Glessner, The Rocks, Bethlehem, New Hampshire
Sleep shown at left above table lamp

In March 2011, the painting was placed for auction with Christie’s in New York.  It was acquired by collectors Peter and Paula Crane Lunder, who gifted it to Colby College, along with seven other La Farge watercolors and two oils, part of a huge donation of more than 500 works of art given to the Art Museum.  In July 2019, the Museum graciously provided Glessner House with a high-resolution scan of the artwork, so that it could be framed and hung in the same location in the parlor where the original hung for nearly fifty years.

The watercolor on paper, executed in 1884 or 1885, measures just 6.5” x 8” and is based on an oil painting (now destroyed) John La Farge completed in 1869 depicting his wife.  Exhibition records indicate the watercolor was exhibited at least three times in 1886 and 1887, prior to the Glessners’ acquisition of the piece.  As noted on the Colby College Museum of Art website:

“Intimate in scale and private in mood, the watercolor Sleep combines realistic representation with decorative arrangement.  The artist’s wife, Margaret Mason Perry, is shown reclining in a shallow, interior space, her limp arms and gracefully turned head suggesting complete repose.  Repeated patterns and soft washes of color connect the figure with the surrounding space.”

John La Farge

Sleep, 1884-1885

Watercolor on paper

8 in. x 6 1/2 in. (2032. cm x 16.51 cm)

The Lunder Collection

Accession Number: 011.2011

Colby College Museum of Art

This full image shows the artist's brush wipe marks and signature

that are concealed by the mat when framed.

We are delighted to have Sleep return to the Glessner House parlor, so that visitors can enjoy La Farge’s work of art, just as guests of the Glessners did for half a century.  Special thanks to the staff at the Colby College Museum of Art for their assistance in making this project possible.

The reproduction of John LaFarge's Sleep as reinstalled in the
Glessner House parlor on August 2, 2019.

Postcards from Boston #2 - Trinity Church

H. H. Richardson’s design for Trinity Church on Boston’s Copley Square firmly established him as the most important architect in this country, and also made him the first to be recognized and respected abroad.  This distinction was reinforced when his fellow architects selected Trinity Church to head the list of the ten best buildings in the United States in 1885.  A century later, it was the only building from the original list to be included in a similar survey sponsored by the American Institute of Architects.  More recently, Geoffrey Baer included the building in his PBS documentary “Ten Buildings That Changed America.”

Richardson received the commission through a competition in the spring of 1872, of which he was one of six architects invited to submit.  By the time construction began on the building itself in 1874, Richardson had moved his home and office to Brookline, so that he could closely supervise the building.  He would remain in Brookline for the remainder of his life, resulting in the largest concentration of his work being located in Boston and surrounding towns.

One of four piers supporting the tower

Work began in 1873 when 4,500 wooden piers were driven into the ground to support the enormous weight of the building.  Four huge piers in the sanctuary support the weight of the tower, and sit upon granite pyramids underground, measuring forty feet wide by twenty feet tall.  This massive engineering feat was essential, given that the site sat in the middle of the Back Bay, a former swampy area that had been filled in over the preceding fifteen years.  

Parish House

The overall plan of the building is in the shape of a Greek cross, with the Parish House extending to the northeast, reflecting the original irregularly shaped plot of land.

The exterior comprises four different types of local granite and is trimmed with Longmeadow brownstone.  Richly carved ornament is set amidst walls featuring Richardson’s trademark polychrome stone work, including checkboard and zigzag patterns on the front façade, and eight-petaled flowers on the apse.  

Inspiration for the overall design includes the French Romanesque which Richardson studied extensively during his years at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in the early 1860s.  His refinement of the style led to what later became known as Richardsonian Romanesque and characterized the buildings in the later years of his career.  The cathedral at Salamanca, Spain served as a model for the large tower. 

In 1876, at Richardson’s request, the congregation hired John La Farge to complete the interior decoration.  As noted by Keith Morgan in his Buildings of Boston, “(La Farge), assisted by Augustus St. Gaudens and a team of American artists, produced the most extensive scheme of figurative and architectural painted ornament of any American building up to that time, influencing the emergency of mural decoration in American public buildings.”

The interior features an exceptionally open auditorium for Rev. Phillips Brooks, a Harvard classmate of Richardson, considered one of the finest preachers of the late 19^th century.  A marble bust by Daniel Chester French dominates the baptistry, and was completed in 1897.  It commemorates Brooks’ 22 years as rector of Trinity Church, and his two years as Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts, in which position he served until his death in 1893.

Christ in Majesty (detail)

The church features a dazzling collection of American and European stained glass windows.  Five are by La Farge, including the Christ in Majesty window set into three lancets over the main entrance, and his New Jerusalem window in the north transept.  

The New Jerusalem (detail)

That area features a series of windows by Sir Edward Burne-Jones for Morris & Co., who also designed the window, David’s Charge to Solomon, located in the baptistry.  

David's Charge to Solomon

William Morris as the head of Goliath (detail from upper right of window)

A humorous note is that Burne-Jones incorporated Morris’ image in the window, as the severed head of Goliath being held in the right hand of David.  Other English windows include a series of seven surrounding the chancel by Clayton & Bell of London and several by Henry Holiday, also of London, including Three Scenes in St. Paul’s Life, shown below.

Three Scenes in St. Paul's Life

The building was consecrated in February 1877 with the total cost of the site and building at $635,000.  In 1897, Richardson’s successors, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, added the richly carved west porch, combining Richardson’s general scheme and the design of St. Trophime, a Romanesque church in Arles, France.  The firm returned to add the massive sculptural pulpit in 1914.  Architects Maginnis and Walsh extensively remodeled the apse in 1937-1938 to reflect the shift toward a more ceremonial form of worship.

2015

2017

A major restoration and expansion was begun in 2003, and continues to this day, with significant work on the exterior being undertaken during 2017. 

Who designed the leaded glass window in the house??

For years, the beautiful amber glass window in the curved door of the first floor main hall has been attributed to Donald MacDonald, a Boston glassmaker.  Recently, however, a newspaper article which appeared in the Chicago Tribune on May 31, 1903, cast some doubt on this attribution.  The article focused on the work of John La Farge, one of the great designers of stained glass windows in the late 19th century, and the chief competitor of Louis Comfort Tiffany.  In the article, La Farge's Chicago windows are listed, including the Crerar memorial window for Second Presbyterian Church (which had been destroyed in a fire in March 1900), a window for Trinity Episcopal Church (later destroyed in a fire), a dozen windows in the Chicago Board of Trade (later demolished) and "windows in the house of J. J. Glessner and of Franklin MacVeagh (later demolished)."


What was this La Farge designed window?  There is no other leaded glass in the house, and the Glessner journal and other documents make no mention of a La Farge window in the house, although they do mention a small painting he did for them.  Could the amber window be a La Farge, and was perhaps Donald MacDonald merely the fabricator?


A letter just unearthed in the archives appears to solve the mystery.  In a letter dated October 22, 1887, George Shepley (the architect who supervised construction of the house after the death of H. H. Richardson) tells John Glessner, "Shortly after you left I got a design from Mr. Grant LaFarge for the stained glass work in your hall which was not satisfactory, so I returned it with instructions to make another which I send you by mail today.  The design is I think very quiet and will be very successful.  I enclose with the design Mr. LaFarge's letter to me which will explain just what is intended by the drawings and in that he mentions the choice between two different kinds of clear glass, either of which I think would be saitsfactory, but I think it would be rather better to have it all jewels."  (Grant La Farge was the eldest son of John La Farge)


By November 21, 1887, John Glessner had apparently settled the matter, for in a letter of that date from George Shepley, he states "We received Mr. Bosworth's letter giving the measurements of the glass in the circular door in your hall and I will try to have the glass made as you direct.  The firm who made this glass for Mr. Richardson has gone to pieces but I will try to get what you want by sending in one of the windows and having it copied."


Finally, on December 10, 1887, Shepley writes that "We sent in one of the yellow glass windows to Donald MacDonald, a glass maker here in Boston, and he is making the light for your hall exactly like it.  We had a letter from him the other day saying he expected to have it finished in a few days."


So how did the mistake make it into the Tribune article, especially since there are several quotes directly from John La Farge.  The answer to that appears later in the article.  The reporter asks La Farge if he goes to see any of his work to which he replies, "Seldom.  You see I've made about ten thousand, and I've rather lost the run of them.  I hardly have any time to keep track of them.  I'm like Brigham Young, who, whenever he went into the streets, had to be told which were his grandchildren.  He couldn't keep tally on them himself."


So the mystery is solved.  La Farge did design a window for the house, but the design was rejected in favor of the window crafted by Donald MacDonald and installed late in 1887.