Museum acquires Duncanson painting

The Birmingham Museum of Art is pleased to announce the recent purchase of A Dream of Italy (1865), a major painting by Robert S. Duncanson (1821-1872), one of the most significant African-American artists of the nineteenth century. The descendant of former slaves from Virginia, Duncanson was born in Fayette, New York. In 1828, the family moved to Monroe, Michigan, where Robert, along with his brothers, were apprenticed in the family business of house painting, decorating, and carpentry. Around 1840, Duncanson relocated to Cincinnati to pursue a career as an artist. At that time, Cincinnati—known as the “Athens of the West”—offered a vibrant cultural environment, as well as one of largest communities of “free colored persons” in the country. It was also home to an active community of white abolitionists, many of whom would become Duncanson’s patrons.

After a slow start, Duncanson eventually began receiving commissions for portraits, but found his greatest success when he turned his attention to landscape painting. In 1853, Duncanson traveled to Italy with two other Cincinnati artists, William Louis Sonntag and John Tait. When he returned home the following year, Duncanson began a series of romanticized landscapes based on his time in Italy. Duncanson continued to enjoy critical success, and in 1861, one critic hailed him as “the best landscape painter in the West.”

In 1863, owing to the growing racial strife stirred by the Civil War, Duncanson moved to Montreal, where he remained until after the war. In Canada, as one contemporary reviewer noted, Duncanson’s “color did not prevent his association with other artists and his entrance into good society.” A Dream of Italy is among the most significant works Duncanson painted during his exile. Given the turmoil in Duncanson’s native land at the time he painted this, it is difficult not to read A Dream of Italy as the artist’s longing for a place of peace and serenity.

The painting is fitting for the Museum’s permanent collection of American art, which not only has strong holdings of landscape paintings, but also of other Italian subjects. Additionally, it was painted in 1865—the same year as Albert Bierstadt’s Looking Down Yosemite Valley, California, the anchor of the Museum’s American collection. Discussing the work, Graham C. Boettcher, Ph.D., The William Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art, remarked, “I have been looking to acquire a significant example of Duncanson’s work ever since I arrived at the Museum in 2006. Everything that came up at auction was either minor or had condition issues, and I didn’t want to add something to the collection that wasn’t his very best work. I nearly fell over when I saw A Dream of Italy in a New York gallery. It has been in private hands for the past twenty-five years and I never dreamed it would be available for purchase.”

The painting is currently on view in the Museum’s Styslinger Gallery of American Art.

Renaissance marble relief bust through bequest of Nina Miglionico

The Birmingham Museum of Art has acquired an exquisite Renaissance marble relief carved by the outstanding Florentine sculptor Mino da Fiesole (1429-1484). An early work by the artist, this elegant relief from the late 1450s of a young woman in classical dress is evidence of the artist’s engagement with the antiquities of Rome. Mino worked primarily in that city and Florence, although his many commissions around Tuscany and as far south as Naples testify to the esteem with which he was held. He particularly excelled in relief carving and in portraiture.

While the young woman’s head is shown in profile, her torso is turned slightly toward the viewer. The filmy fabric of her gown, gathered in a knot at the breast, is fastened at the shoulder and upper arm with round buttons. The smooth texture of her skin contrasts markedly with the finely pleated folds of the diaphanous garment. Her hair, tied with a narrow ribbon, is covered with a nearly transparent veil edged in pearls. Mino’s subtle carving of the woman’s delicate features gives the impression of fullness atypical in a relief. Scholars continue to debate whether the subject is an idealized portrait of an actual person or a generic type.

The purchase of this work would not have been possible without a bequest made by a remarkable Birminghamian and dear friend to the Museum, Nina Miglionico (1914- 2009). “Miss Nina,” as she was known to everyone in Birmingham, was the first woman elected to serve on the City Council where she served for 22 years (1963-1985) in an exceptional civic career. Her leadership included four years (1978-1981) as council president; becoming one of the first women admitted to the Alabama Bar Association; service as president of the National Association of Women Lawyers (1958-1959); and being appointed by President John F. Kennedy to serve on the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. Miss Nina was a dedicated public servant who fought for civil rights, education, and women’s issues. She is remembered at the Museum as a regular visitor who relished looking intently at art.

“The bequest was a complete surprise to the Museum, to our obvious delight and immense appreciation,” said Jeannine O’Grody, Ph.D., Chief Curator and Curator of European Art. “It allowed us to purchase an extraordinary object that is now the centerpiece of the fifteenth-century gallery. The impact of Miss Nina’s generosity has had a transformative effect on our Italian collection."

Vann Family's Legacy of Giving Continues with 2 Additions to the European Collection

The Vann family’s long and generous history of donating funds to the Museum for European paintings has been augmented with two significant additions. The first is a Dutch painting, Tobias and the Angel Curing Tobit of Blindness, signed by Simon Hendricksz Van Amersfoort, dated 1630. The subject comes from the apocryphal Book of Tobit, which tells the story of Tobit, his son Tobias, and the Archangel Raphael who cures Tobit of his blindness. The angel, glorious in a white robe and blue cloak, contrasts sharply with the humble, barnyard setting.

The Sorceress, by Georges Merle (1851-1886), was the artist’s submission to the Paris Salon exhibition of 1883. The commanding female figure in the act of performing a spell is likely a subject from literature, although the source has yet to be identified. The mysterious symbolism, including voodoo doll, pentacle, and Egyptian imagery, will be clarified when the origin of the story is known. Until then, the secrets of The Sorceress remain fascinating and perplexing.

The Museum is deeply grateful to siblings William Vann, Robert Vann, and Sally Worthen, whose gift in honor of their parents, Mr. and Mrs. James Allen Vann, continues their family’s legacy of giving. Visit the Dutch 17th-century and European 19th-century galleries to view these new acquisitions.

African Mask Acquired in Memory of Dorothy Steiner

This mask, known as the Queen of Women (Eze Nwanyi), was made and used by the Igbo people of Nigeria. It is one of the most important masks in a multi-character performance that occurs at funerals and dry season ceremonies that purify the village, market, shrines, paths, and other communal places. Perhaps the most important context for the appearance of Eze Nwanyi is a festival, called Otutara, an occasion that reunites living people with their ancestors.

The Queen of Women mask represents a wealthy, senior, titled wife—a mother and a grandmother—a woman who commands enormous respect in the village. She embodies Igbo feminine ideals of strength, wisdom, beauty, stature, and dignity, and is a leader among women. As Igbo scholar Chike Aniakor has noted, “…her wealth and title remind us that all are not equal, for her achievements are outside the reach of most.” Eze Nwanyi and her junior, a young female character named Nwamma, he says, are “the kind of women one fights for.”