A couple of unbelievably wealthy art collectors roam the 19th c. globe, buying works of art to fill a specially-built mansion in a city’s most fashionable district. It’s the same story behind the Frick Gallery in New York, the Wallace Collection in London, and the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. And, after visiting the latter twice, with art historians and with non-art historians, I’m realizing that this genre of collector’s house museum presents the same sort of difficulties to the non-art historian visitor.
Why? Well, the non-art historian in Paris might reasonably think “why am I paying more than a ticket to the Musée du Louvre, which is full of works that I’ve actually heard of, to go to this place, which is 100 times smaller and which only has somebody’s old furniture and second rate works by second rate artists that not even my high school AP Art History teacher has heard of? Carlo Crivelli? Seriously? Forget this – I’m out. Me and the Mona Lisa are going to hang.”
So, just to give you insight into the mysterious mind of an art historian, here’s what’s going on when we spent hours joyfully screaming at each other in a collector’s house museum: it’s like going on Maury to argue about paternity tests. Collectors’ house museums have a lot of fakes. What else is going to happen if someone with more money than expertise starts shaking fistfuls of cash in the art market’s face and saying “I want to buy an [artist’s name here]!” Some less-than-scrupulous dealer is going to say “Oh yes, I heard that you wanted one of those, and I have one just for you. I think it’s almost finished drying… um, I mean, I’m dying for you to see it!” Hence, there is plenty of opportunity for art historians to get into arguments which go something like this: “This painting is totally by Paolo Uccello! Look – that’s how he paints his noses, that’s how he paints his ears…” “Uh-uh, you lying sack of slut! True, Uccello was one of the Early Renaissance painters struggling to develop perspective, leading to some rather risible errors in spatial construction, but he didn’t suck as hard as this painting sucks – so why don’t you go back to teaching AP Art History, you Sister Wendy wanna-be!”
So… kinda a specialized pleasure.
