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Side by Side: Oberlin's Masterworks at The Met
By STAN PARCHIN
March 11, 2010
| | Hendrick ter Brugghen (Dutch, ca. 1558-1629). St. Sebastian Tended by Irene (1625). Oil on canvas. 149 x 119.4 cm (58.7 x 47 in.). Allen Memorial Art Museum. |
The nearly 14,000 objects in the Allen Memorial Art Museum, founded in 1917, are a valuable resource for Oberlin College's students, faculty and staff as well as the public. Closed for renovations and storage expansion until Fall 2011, it is generously lending 20 European and American pieces for temporary integration into the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Represented in Side by Side: Oberlin's Masterworks at The Met (March 16-August 29, 2010) are 18 German, Spanish, Flemish, Italian, Dutch, English and American artists from the 16th to the 20th Century by 19 paintings and one sculpture. Their presence in the Met enhances the visitor's knowledge of familiar artists and introduces them to others whose works are not part of the museum's holdings.
The objects on loan are displayed in the Met's European Paintings Galleries, 19th- and Early 20th-Century European Paintings and Sculpture Galleries and Modern and Contemporary Art Galleries alongside corresponding works. A special walking tour brochure with maps indicates each one's location. The artists represented include: Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri) (1581-1641); Hendrick ter Brugghen (ca.1588-1629); Michiel Sweerts (1618-1664); Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797); Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851); Claude Monet (1840-1926); Paul Cézanne (1839-1906); Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938); Mark Rothko (1903-1970); Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974); and Barnett Newman (1905-1970).
St. Sebastian Tended by Irene
One important painting on loan to New York is Dutch Baroque artist Hendrick ter Brugghen's St. Sebastian Tended by Irene (1625). It's paired with The Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John (ca. 1624-25). The oil on canvas' theme became popular in early 17th-century Europe as a result of the Counter-Reformation's emphasis on the Church's early history. The arrow-pierced and martyred Sebastian was extolled for his militant defense of the Christian faith; Irene was recognized for her virtue and piety.
Images of St. Sebastian in early modern Europe increased during times of plague because the faithful prayed to him for his intercession. Utrecht, the predominantly Catholic Dutch city where Ter Bruggen's masterful works were executed, experienced two such outbreaks of the virulent disease in 1624-32 and 1634-37.
The exhibition travels next to The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. from September 11, 2010 to January 16, 2011.
Sources
Conisbee, Philip, et al. Georges de la Tour and His World (exh. cat.). Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1996, 90-91, 205, 280.
Slatkes, Leonard J., et al. Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht during the Golden Age (exh. cat.). San Francisco: The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1997, 158-162, 412-413.
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