Maine Antique Digest, April 2017

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14-B Maine Antique Digest, April 2017
- FEATURE -
14-B
Notes
1. The primary source of information about Matteson
is Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists:
American Artist Life, New York: G. P. Putnam’s
Sons (1867), pp. 432-34. For the living artists
covered by Tuckerman, interviews were his
principal source. Therefore, we can assume that
Matteson’s biography is accurate.
2. The spelling of the artist’s name varies in different
publications, with Mattison being exchangeable
with Matteson and Thompkins for Tompkins.
3. Donald D. Keyes (1940-2007), untitled,
unpublished manuscript, 1989, p. 26. This
document also includes a list of all non-portrait
paintings by Matteson known to the author; it is
important for the study of his oeuvre. I am grateful
to Paul D. Schweizer, director emeritus and chief
curator emeritus at the Munson-Williams-Proctor
Arts Institute, for sharing his expertise on Matteson.
He and Donald Keyes once hoped to organize a
Matteson exhibition, but it was never realized.
4. Julie Schlenger Adell, “American Paintings,
Furniture, and Decorative Arts,” M.A.D., June
2016, p. 35-E. Adell telephoned me when preparing
the article to ask about the self-portrait.
5. We purchased the painting from Benjamin A.
Rifkin, a private dealer who has sold several of
Matteson’s paintings.
6. Both served one term as state representative, albeit
separated by two decades. Matteson may have
taught art in the Sherburne school.
7. Several of Plumb’s early works have a close affinity
with Matteson’s prints and paintings. Matteson was
a regular correspondent with Plumb’s older brother
Isaac Jr. when the latter was fighting for the Union
in the Civil War.
8. Simerl has been a remarkably generous source
of assistance with my on-site research. So have
townspeople Mike Mettler, Kathleen and Alex
Erath, Paul Mastro, and Jim McDaniel.
9. Several pages in the sketchbook bear children’s
drawings. The book was on deposit at the Sherburne
Public Library and at the Fenimore Art Museum at
various times.
10. Dealer-publisher William Schaus of New York City
issued prints after several of Matteson’s paintings.
11. Thompkins H. Matteson (1813-1884), Sherburne:
Sherburne Art Society (1949), p. 6.
12. The Palmer sculptures are Evening and the Grace
Williams Memorial.
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13. Fenimore owns two dozen large sheet drawings.
Several are closely related to paintings, including one
for The Meeting of Hetty and Hist, a James Fenimore
Cooper theme. Oils of Hetty and Hist of different
sizes and with slight compositional differences
crossed the auction block in 2003 and 2005.
14. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare,
Comprising his Plays and Poems (New York:
George F. Cooledge & Brother, 1851). Master
wood engraver Alexander Anderson (1775-1870)
made the woodblocks. There were two editions
of the book illustrated by Matteson with entirely
different drawings. This was likely the most
important commission of his career, but since
there is no Matteson archive, we do not have
any knowledge of how it came about. Matteson
had an advantageous relationship with Cooledge,
illustrating several other, more modest, books
for the publisher in the 1850s. Perhaps Anderson
was the connection; Keyes mentions him as an
engraver of Matteson’s compositions during the
1840s, suggesting a possible acquaintance (p.
27). The two would at minimum have known one
another through their shared connection with the
National Academy of Design; Anderson was a
founder in 1825. In the 1830s Matteson studied
drawing there, perhaps at a time when Anderson
was a teacher. Then in 1848 Matteson was elected
an associate member, when the membership pool
was still modest. Barbara J. Slavin mentions the
commission in her master’s thesis, but I accessed
this only in November 2016 (Thompkins H.
Matteson: Illustrator of Mid-nineteenth Century
America , State University of New York College at
Oneonta, Cooperstown Graduate Programs, 1969).
15. Matteson’spaintingTheMoorofVenicefromOthello
(location unknown) is mentioned in period sources
and in the Sherburne Art Society exhibition catalog
referenced in note 11; King Lear is owned by the
Sherburne Public Library. An image of Matteson’s
painting of Falstaff ’s Bath is posted on the Internet
painting from The Tempest depicting Caliban
crossed the block in 2004; a rendition of Ophelia
was auctioned in 2011. A painting from Cymbeline
is also known from the literature.
16. Tompkins H. Matteson, “The Widow’s Friend,” in
The Odd-Fellows’ Offering, New York: John G.
Treadwell (1847), pp. 253-76, and “The Witch,”
in The Odd-Fellows’ Offering, New York: Edward
Walker (1848), pp. 199-227. Matteson created
frontispiece illustrations for his stories and
provided illustrations in both volumes for other
authors’ contributions.
17. Hathitrust and the American Antiquarian Society’s
websites have been superb resources. The former
has made available in full text many publications
reproducing Matteson’s prints; the latter reproduces
prints without the accompanying text.
18. Matteson habitually used family members,
neighbors, and even himself for models.
19. Tuckerman (see n. 1) alludes to this . Matteson’s
most famous pupil, Symbolist artist Elihu
Vedder, also alludes to this in his autobiography,
Digressions of V., and so did Barbara Slavin in her
master’s thesis (p. 93), referenced in n. 14.
20. Matteson’s more famous peers Thomas Cole, Asher
B. Durand, Emanuel Leutze, and Francis Edmonds
all spent significant time in Europe with the purpose
of studying art in museums and private collections
and visiting artists’ studios. William Sidney Mount
was an exception; he turned down the offer of
patron Jonathan Sturges to fund European study.
21. Keyes, pp. 29-31. For example, the composition
of The Last of His Race as published in The Odd-
Fellows’ Offering of 1848 (p. 237) differs from the
oil painting; the print shows the figures on a shore
with trees to their right, gazing out at the nearby
ripples of the Pacific Ocean; the painting shows
them on a barren rocky platform high above the
water. The poses, sex, and age of the people also
differ as does the dog’s position within the picture.
22. Furthermore, fewof hisportraits are located today.Two
of Matteson’s compositions show a slavish borrowing
from paintings by more famous artists, such as his
illustration for King Lear, which closely resembles
Benjamin West’s famous and widely reproduced
painting (1788, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). His
Day’s Catch (1869, New York art market, 2008)
closely resembles Eastman Johnson’s iconic painting
Barefoot Boy (1860, private collection), widely
circulated through Louis Prang’s chromolithograph
(1867-69). However, Barbara Slavin puts this in
perspective, stating that the wholesale lifting of
images was commonplace at the time (master’s thesis,
p. 20). Indeed, John Mix Stanley’s 1857 oil Last of
His Race (Buffalo Bill Center of the West) appears to
borrow from Matteson.