She Knew Purgatory When She Saw It

by Sandra Markham, Project Archivist, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Library

Although Annie Burr Lewis is primarily associated with Farmington—and her world there with Wilmarth Lewis and Horace Walpole—she was born in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1902, and that seaside city on Narragansett Bay always held an important place in her life. Her grandparents John and Elizabeth Auchincloss purchased a forty-acre estate on the bay in 1852, and by the time her parents Hugh and Emma Auchincloss inherited Hammersmith Farm, the sprawling shingle-style house on the property was the family’s summer respite from their New York City townhouse. Before her 1928 marriage, Annie Burr Auchincloss was an active participant in the summer social set in Newport’s private clubs and on the ocean beaches in nearby Middletown. After their marriage the Lewises continued to spend time at Hammersmith Farm, but following her mother’s death in 1942, Annie Burr Lewis purchased her own home, small early eighteenth-century house at the edge of the family estate. Renovations made it comfortable for the Lewises to enjoy their own property and to host a stream of guests when they spent their summers in Newport.

It was different there from British-inspired scholarly focused Farmington: Newport offered Annie Burr Lewis a more relaxed lifestyle and regular access to her adored nephews, nieces, and their children, as well as a house full of American family furniture and treasures she’d grown up with. She had grown up too with Aquidneck Island and knew well its topography and history, which she documented with her camera and by collecting local landscapes in prints and paintings to hang in her home.

She was no doubt pleased to add to her collection a small wash drawing of a familiar scene near Second Beach in Middletown when she received it from longtime friend Frances “Doll” Hamill (1904-1987), in 1959.

wash drawing of the Rhode Island coastline near Newport, with a sailboat in the distance on the left

Scituate Beach & Purgatory from the Hanging Rocks near Newport R. Id.
by Anthony St. John Baker
Wash with black ink and pen, Sept. 1825
Lewis Walpole Library

Hamill was an antiquarian bookseller in Chicago and a trusted source of eighteenth-century British material for the Lewises’ Farmington collections. The drawing, entitled “Scituate Beach & Purgatory from the Hanging Rocks near Newport R. Id.,” was made by British diplomat Anthony St. John Baker (1785-1854) while he was visiting Newport in September 1825. In addition to providing another view of familiar places in Newport to hang, Hamill’s gift had a second relevance for Annie Burr: to remind her of the time ten years before when she had challenged the text on an exhibition label in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and provided the evidence to effect the change.

Typed card signed WSL

Typed account of the history of the drawing and Annie Burr Lewis’s identification of the setting of the National Portrait Gallery (London)’s Bishop Berkeley portrait

The Lewises had been touring the museum in 1948 or 1949 with its director Sir Henry Hake (1892-1951) when they stopped to admire a painting of the renowned Irish clergyman and philosopher George Berkeley (1685-1753), who had spent several years living in Newport. The accompanying wall label said the portrait had been painted by John Smibert in 1730 in Bermuda.

Color portrait of a man in black gown with white-tabbed collar (indicating he is a clergyman) seated half-length, turned toward the right. On the right in the distance is a landscape scene of a bluff by the ocean with trees on the top of the bluff

George Berkeley
by John Smibert
oil on canvas, 1730
NPG 653
© National Portrait Gallery, London

Annie Burr Lewis knew about Bishop Berkeley, and she knew about Newport. She disagreed with the Bermuda attribution, and she spoke up about it. To her, it was a matter of local history, topography, and iconography. She knew Berkeley had come to the American colonies in 1728 intending to establish a seminary in Bermuda. She knew he had instead settled in the northern section of Newport (now Middletown) in a house he named Whitehall, but he had never gone on to Bermuda—he returned to England in 1732 after funding for the school could not be secured. With her keen interest in historic buildings, Annie Burr had likely toured Whitehall, which by 1949 had been the property of the Colonial Dames for fifty years, and Annie Burr was a member of that society. With male family members alumni of Yale University, she also likely knew that Berkeley had given his house and nearly a thousand books to Yale College when he departed. Most importantly, though, she recognized the rocky bluff that Smibert painted in the background of the portrait. It was not Bermuda, it was Purgatory, one of Rhode Island’s most noted geological features, as familiar to her as it would have been to George Berkeley. That promontory on Sachuest Bay (not Scituate) has the famous Purgatory Chasm, a glacial cleft in  conglomerate rock 120 feet long, 150 feet deep, and 10 feet wide. It is just a mile south of the Paradise Rocks—also known as Hanging Rock and Berkeley Seat—where Bishop Berkeley is known to have spent time composing his treatise Alciphron or The Minute Philosopher (London, 1732).

On her next trip to Newport, Annie Burr photographed Purgatory from a vantage point similar to that of Smibert and sent the evidence to Hake; he validated her findings in a letter to Wilmarth Lewis and pledged to correct the museum’s record.[i]

Typescript letter signed by H.M. Hake

Henry Hake to Wilmarth Lewis, October 12, 1949 (Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis Papers, The Lewis Walpole Library)

A triumph for Annie Burr Lewis? Not quite. According to the painting’s entry in the updated National Portrait Gallery’s collection catalogue Early Georgian Portraits (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1977), Wilmarth Lewis is credited with the new information,

The artist is known to have painted details of actual landscapes in some of his American pictures and the background is perhaps the whale-head promontory on Rhode Island known as Hanging Rock to which the sitter possibly refers in the lines from Alciphron: ‘we then withdrew to a hollow glade between two rocks where we seated ourselves’ (dialogue II, section i). W.S. Lewis, in September 1949, noted when staying near Whitehall, Newport, R.I., the farm where much of this work was reputedly written, that the headland about two miles away resembled Hanging Rock.[ii]

and the headland actually resembles Purgatory, not the craggy outcrop ledge of Hanging Rock. Anthony St. John Baker, in a second drawing titled “Hanging Rocks on Scituate Beach near Newport R.I.,” provides that evidence in an opposing perspective to the work given to Annie Burr. [iii] This view—from Purgatory toward Hanging Rock—shows the distinct difference between these two glacial topographies.

wash drawing of a rocky coastline in Rhode Island

Hanging Rocks on Scituate Beach near Newport R.I.
by Anthony St. John Baker
Wash with black ink and pen (?), 1850
in Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose : with illustrations: in four parts
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Annie Burr Lewis died of cancer one month after she received the gift from Doll Hamill and never saw the “corrected” entry in the National Portrait Gallery catalogue. While Baker made these two drawings a century after Smibert painted George Berkeley’s portrait, it is clear the landscape in the background of the painting is not Hanging Rock but Purgatory. That point and the mistaken credit leave Annie Burr’s contribution in Limbo, and the catalogue record in the National Portrait Gallery to be revised once again.

____________

[i] Henry Hake to Wilmarth Lewis, October 12, 1949 (Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis Papers, The Lewis Walpole Library).

[ii] https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/explore/by-publication/kerslake/early-georgian-portraits-catalogue-berkeley

There is another version of the portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.89.25

[iii] Anthony St. John Baker served a variety of diplomatic posts in Europe and America, but resided in Washington for three terms, 1811–1813, 1815–1822, and 1824–1828, after which he retired to England and wrote a seven-part remembrance of his years abroad. Titled Mémoires d’un voyageur qui se repose, it was published privately in London in 1850 in an edition of fifty copies, at least two of which were extra-illustrated with maps, prints, and his own drawings in ink and watercolor. The wash drawing “Hanging Rocks on Scituate Beach near Newport R.I.” is in volume three of the four-volume set at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. That volume also includes three other views of Newport and the area. In both of his drawings, Baker identified the beach “Scituate” rather than its correct spelling Sachuest; locally, it is known as Second Beach.

 

 

From Where to There: Identifying the Location of a Landscape

A recent acquisition helped to bring to light the solution to a mystery regarding a painting at the Library. In September 2022, the Library purchased an 1826 lithograph by Mary Anne Theresa Whitby bearing a helpful caption identifying the scene as a view of the “Sepulchro di Plautio,” or the tomb of the Plautius family, located in the area near Tivoli in Italy.

black and white lithograph view of trees on the left, people on a riverbank in the center front, a bridge with one arch on the middle right leading to a crenillated tower and building with peaked roof in the center of the composition, countryside on the middle left, hill behind.

Mary Anne Theresa Whitby, 1783-1850, Sepolcro di Plautio, 1826, lithograph, Lewis Walpole Library.

The print, produced after a drawing by Whitby and, according to dealer Samuel Gedge printed on her private lithograph press in Newlands in Hampshire, featured two figures on a riverbank in the foreground, a bridge with three rounded arches in the middle right of the scene leading to a large, round crenellated tower next to a building with peaked roof on the left.

Something looked familiar about the scene. Where had I seen that tower and bridge before? Then it came to me.

Hanging on the wall in the reception area is “An Italianate River Landscape,” attributed to British artist Thomas Patch, (1725-1782). The bridge, the round tower, the building with peaked roof, hills in the distance were all there.

A landscape with a stone bridge going over a river, in the mid-ground, leading on the right to a round crenillated stone tower with a dark building with peaked roof. Hills are in the background, and figures are by the shore in the foreground

Thomas Patch, 1725-1782, An Italianate river landscape, not after 1782, oil on canvas, Lewis Walpole Library, LWL Ptg. 102 Framed

The oil painting has hung at the Library since Library founder Wilmarth Lewis purchased it in 1953 from Spink & Son. It appears on the firm’s invoice as “Landscape with tower and bridge, thought to be a scene in the Roman Campagna.” It was called “Italian Riverscape” on the catalog card at the Library. The title “An Italianate River Landscape” was assigned by specialists from Christie’s auction house during a 2005 appraisal. No identification of a specific location could be found in the files in which provenance and scholarly communications have been compiled. Presumably it was a capriccio that combined actual landscape or architectural components with elements of imagination.

The landscape was described by Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Paintings Cynthia Roman for the online catalog record. “This view of a river with a tower and bridge is a non-specific Italianate landscape, likely inspired by the Roman Campagna. The rural scene is populated with figures both at work and leisure. Patch painted this type of scene for English grand tourists.”

However, the purchase of the lithograph by Mary Anne Theresa Whitby pointed to a possible alternative. The Sepulchro di Plautio, also known as The Tomb or Mausoleum of Plautii, the adjacent bridge called the Ponte Lucano, both built in the first century BCE, as well as the nearby ruins of a fifteenth or sixteenth-century inn can still be seen in Italy. As the World Monuments Fund, which placed the bridge on its Watch List in 2010, explains, “For over two millennia, Ponte Lucano has survived and adapted to the growing urban landscape while maintaining its historic identity and architectural integrity. The bridge is part of an archaeological landscape that includes remains of the mausoleum of Plautii (1st century B.C.)…”

Further corroboration was found in the Library’s collection in a heavily annotated, extra-illustrated, and interleaved copy of F.J.B. Watson’s Thomas Patch (1725-1782) Notes on his Life Together with a Catalogue of his Known Works, first published in The Volume of the Walpole Society (28, pp. 15-51).*

Watson wrote,

One of Patch’s earliest and most faithful patrons was Lord Charlemont. . . . In particular he ordered a set of views of Tivoli which took some time to execute, for Cardinal Albani told Sir Horace Mann that Patch had been working there for his patron during the three summer months of 1750 and again in 1751. None of these views of Tivoli has so far been traced, but the picture of ‘the Falls of Terni’ (Catalog, No. 35), was almost certainly executed for the same patron.

He also notes “Cat. Nos. 35a and 35b only came to light while this paper was in the press” (Watson, p. 17). Among the many added black and white photographs of paintings by Patch in the extra-illustrated volume at the Lewis Walpole Library are photos of the Charlemont two views, numbered in pencil 35a and 35b. Just opposite them is a page with three further views, numbered 35f (i), (ii), (iii), and apparently only known to Watson after the article was published.

page of book with three horizontal black and white photos of landscape paintings inserted with photo corners

Page with inserted black and white photos of paintings numbered 35f (i), (ii), (iii) in Quarto 75 P27 S940 Copy 1

detail of an unprinted page of a book with pencilled manuscript notes in small neat writing

Penciled notes on blank page opposite page 40 in Quarto 75 P27 S940 Copy 1

The 35f corresponds to penciled notes on the blank page facing Catalog Number 35 on page 40. Those notes say “Three views in the Roman Campagna (1) the Ponte Lucano, (2) the Tomb of Cecelia Metalla, and (3) the Tombs of the Horatii & Curatii [sic], all 20 1/2 x 41 ins, sold Robinson & Foster 19.vi.52 lot 109 as Zucharella [very damaged]. These subsequently turned up miraculously re[suscitated?] at Spinks (1953) see photos. Probably executed at Florence; the backgrounds resemble the hills towards Fiesole, (3) is now in the possession of W.S. Lewis, Farmington.”

There is confusion in the extra-illustrated volume’s handwritten notes. The photo at the top of the page most likely shows the Tomb of the Plautii, not the Ponte Lucano (there is no bridge visible in that scene), or the Tomb of Cecelia Metalla, which is not next to a river. The middle photograph shows the Tombs of the Horatii & Curiatii, mistakenly numbered (iii) in the notes, not the Tomb of Cecelia Metalla, which has a single tower. And finally, photo iii, shows the Ponte Lucano, the painting now on view in the reception area of the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington.

The acquisition of a small nineteenth century amateur lithograph prompted a reassessment of the Patch painting. No longer an imagined “Landscape with tower and bridge, thought to be a scene in the Roman Campagna,” “Italian Riverscape,” or “An Italianate River Landscape,”  the actual location depicted in the landscape painting by Patch, which has remained unidentified from the time it was acquired nearly seventy years ago, can be securely identified as “A View of the Ponte Lucano and mausoleum of Plautii.” Its identity had indeed been known by the annotator of the Watson volume, but that knowledge had not found its way into an object file, onto a Library catalog card, or into the online catalog record.

As these things go, now that we know what the view is, we fully expect to find scenes with the bridge, mausoleum, and inn cropping up in the Library’s and other collections.

Thomas Manby, 1633(?)–1695, British, Ponte Lucano, Near Tivoli, recto, between 1660 and 1690, Pen and brown ink, gray wash, and graphite on medium, moderately, textured, cream laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1977.14.5699.

Thomas Manby, 1633(?)–1695, British, Ponte Lucano, Near Tivoli, recto, between 1660 and 1690, Pen and brown ink, gray wash, and graphite on medium, moderately, textured, cream laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1977.14.5699.

Robert MacPherson, 1814–1872, British, Ponte Lucano and the Tomb of Plautii, Tivoli, recto, cropped to image, 1860s, Albumen print on medium, smooth, cream wove paper mounted to board, Yale Center for British Art, transfer from the Yale University Art Gallery, B2016.11.2.

Robert MacPherson, 1814–1872, British, Ponte Lucano and the Tomb of Plautii, Tivoli, recto, cropped to image, 1860s, Albumen print on medium, smooth, cream wove paper mounted to board, Yale Center for British Art, transfer from the Yale University Art Gallery, B2016.11.2.

For example, it turns out that the Yale Center for British Art has a seventeenth-century drawing by Thomas Manbey and a nineteenth-century photograph, both of which show the Ponte Lucano and mausoleum of the Plautii near Tivoli.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian, 1720–1778, Veduta degl’avanzi del sepolcro della famiglia Plauzia sulla via Tiburtina vicino al ponte Lugano due miglia lontano da Tivoli (View of the Remains of the Tomb of the Plautii on the Via Tiburtina Near the Ponte Lugano Two Miles from Tivoli), from Vedute di Roma (Views of Rome), 1761 (1765–9?), Etching, The Arthur Ross Collection, 2012.159.11.81

Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian, 1720–1778, Veduta degl’avanzi del sepolcro della famiglia Plauzia sulla via Tiburtina vicino al ponte Lugano due miglia lontano da Tivoli (View of the Remains of the Tomb of the Plautii on the Via Tiburtina Near the Ponte Lugano Two Miles from Tivoli), from Vedute di Roma (Views of Rome), 1761 (1765–9?), Etching,
The Arthur Ross Collection, 2012.159.11.81

And the Yale University Art Gallery has a Piranesi etching showing the mausoleum from a different angle.

wash drawing showing a landscape with a crenillated tower and small building with peaked roof on the left, a bridge with one arch going over a river in the middle and hills and countryside on the right, foreground, and background

John Holland, -1777, William Gilpin, 1724-1804, and William Mason, 1725-1797, Drawing 47 in Album of landscape drawings by Mason, Gilpin, and Holland, not after 1797?, wash drawing, The Lewis Walpole Library, Folio 75 G42 797.

Here is a view that appears in an Album of landscape drawings by Mason, Gilpin, and Holland held at the Lewis Walpole Library. Is it wishful thinking, or do those tower, bridge, and small building with the peaked roof look familiar? Or is it only a scene evocative of the Roman campagna, just an imagined Italianate river landscape?

–Susan Odell Walker, Head of Public Services, the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

__________

*The volume is extensively extra-illustrated with photographs, research notes, articles, correspondence. It is not clear when the extra-illustration was carried out or by whom the primary annotations were made, although perhaps it is not too far-fetched to suggest they were added by F.J.B. Watson himself. A provenance note indicates Watson gave Lewis the volume in April 1978.

_____________________

Sources:

Album of Landscape Drawings by Mason, Gilpin, and Holland not after 1797. England. Folio 75 G42 797

“Ponte Lucano.” World Monuments Fund, accessed Oct 21, 2022, https://www.wmf.org/project/ponte-lucano.

Samuel Gedge Ltd. “Grand Tour in Lithograph by Amateur Printmaker.” Prints, Drawings &c., Autumn 2022, p. 21. accessed Oct 21, 2022, https://www.samuelgedge.com/PRINTS%20&%20DRAWINGS%202022.pdf.

Watson, F. “Thomas Patch (1725-1782) Notes on His Life, Together with a Catalogue of His Known Works.” Reprint from The Volume of the Walpole Society 28 (Jan 1,): 15-50. Quarto 75 P27 S940 Copy 1