Vose Galleries at the Turn of the Century
Looking back one-hundred years through Vose history, one comes upon Robert C. Vose's first years as an art dealer. His early career paralleled Boston's rise as the center of art in America at the Turn of the Century as he worked to promote his growing family business. Robert broadened the gallery's horizons by showing his fine stock of Barbizon, Dutch, English and American artists throughout America, while his younger brother, Nathaniel, and his cousin, Charles Thompson, handled the busy Boston gallery with a new show every three weeks.
Robert took his first exhibit across the country to Oregon for the Lewis and Clark exposition of 1905. Thereafter, he showed his exhibitions by invitation either in museums or in exclusive hotel shows. In the event of the latter, Robert would reserve a double suite in an agreeable hotel, clear the rooms of all furniture, and literally transform them into a gallery of 100 paintings. Because of the fine eye and aesthetic sense that Robert shared with his forefathers, there developed a certain cachet about a painting obtained from Vose Galleries. As a result of his efforts, Vose paintings now hang in almost every major American museum.
As for his personal taste, Robert thought Adolph Monticelli to be the greatest colorist and initiator of the impressionist technique, while he considered John Twachtman America's greatest impressionist. Ever the aesthete, Robert often described his guiding philosophy in two lines from Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, and that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know!"
His first heady years were not without sorrow, however, as Robert experienced in 1910 the passing of his father and mentor, Seth M. Vose. Having inherited his father's entrepreneurial spirit, and learned art at his side for thirty years, Robert was well prepared to continue the family tradition into the third generation.
Vose Galleries in the 1890s: The Debut of R.C. Vose
Like his father, Robert possessed the energy and entrepreneurial spirit necessary to run a successful business. During the next sixty-seven years, Robert C. Vose was to steer the once provincial gallery into a position of national prominence. Also like his father, Robert C. Vose would be remembered as the greatest American art dealer of his era outside of New York City.
There was little doubt about what Robert C. Vose (1873 1964) would do with his life. At age ten, he had a little desk in the corner of his father Seth's famous gallery in Providence, Rhode Island. The lure of the art world was soon to prove irresistible. After graduating from Brown University in 1896, he set sail for Europe where he toured all the great museums and galleries. Upon returning to Boston, the young enthusiast opened a gallery under his own name and found immediate success in showing paintings by George Inness, William Bradford, George L. Brown, A.T. Bricher and William Trost Richards, artists who had also brought success to his father.
The Roaring 1880s: Seth Vose Finds Success
I liked his pictures from the first time I saw them, and as I had collected a number of them, I thought I would share my pleasure with my friends and townsmen so I hung them in my rooms and asked people to come and see them. Well they came but they laughed so at my pictures and made such fun of my taste that I took all the Corots down and put them away and did not show them again for a long while.
- Seth Morton Vose, Diary entry.
Although his initial attempts to promote the art of the French Barbizon in America were often disheartening, Seth Morton Vose was never fully discouraged from pursuing this endeavor. As a dedicated believer in these artists, Seth championed their cause for nearly thirty years and established himself as the group’s primary dealer in the United States.
The popularity of the French Barbizon School grew exponentially during the 1880s with an expanding art market that America would not experience again to such a great extent until the 1980s. During this affluent period, Seth was finally rewarded for his efforts and greatly benefited from the emerging interest in his inventory. His firm would come to either import or advise on nearly half of the pre-Impressionist French Paintings in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts collection.
On some occasions, fierce competition even developed among Seth Vose’s collectors of Barbizon art. He recalled one uncomfortable incident when he was seated on a couch with a Boston collector while discussing a painting that stood in front of them in its shadow box. A second Boston collector who was normally known as a consummate gentleman, sized up the situation and tossed his cape over the painting, claiming it for his own. The first client rose, said goodbye to Seth, and left quietly. It would take one-hundred years for the art market to reach another such dramatic decade.
In Support of the Barbizon Rebels: Vose Galleries in the 1870s
Seth Vose almost dropped the paints and brushes he had been wrapping. His customer had come bursting out of the picture gallery at the back of the store shouting, “Those paintings in there, where did you get them?”
No doubt the man was American, but he was flinging his arms about like some Frenchman. He liked the pictures, though, so Seth’s deep voice took on a friendly note when he answered, “They are by artists who are working in a little village called Barbizon, not far from Paris, I think they are quite beautiful.”
“I know, I know,” the stranger sputtered. “I’ve lived there and painted beside Corot, Daubigny, Rousseau, all of them. Millet was my teacher.” And before Seth could back away, the visitor had seized him by the shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.” Thus began Seth’s relationship with William Morris Hunt.*
By the late 1800’s, Corot, Millet, Rousseau, Delacroix and Daubigny were all recognized artists in America. Such was not the case in 1852 when Seth Vose brought the first works by Barbizon painters to America. His first exhibition was a complete disaster – not one painting sold!
Seth Vose possessed an intense passion for Barbizon painting, convinced that Corot was the greatest painter of his day. Vose’s collection of Barbizon paintings numbered in the hundreds, but it took more than twenty years before he would sell even one painting.
Seth Vose and William Morris Hunt were perhaps the first Americans to recognize the brilliance of the Barbizon painters. Hunt’s personal charm and society marriage afforded him great influence amongst Boston collectors. Art patrons such as Martin Brimmer (a founder of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) began to purchase works by Barbizon painters. A terrific competition for the purchase of Barbizon paintings ensued.
Early support for the Barbizon “rebels” made Boston the American center for the more experimental European art. Thus, by the 1870’s, Seth Vose had achieved recognition for the Barbizons, as well as securing himself an important position in American art history.
Dramatic Change: Vose Galleries in the 1860s
The 1860s brought dramatic change to Seth Vose’s obscure Providence, Rhode Island, art supply business. In addition to selling artist materials and frames, Seth began to act as a dealer for local artists. He quickly gained a reputation as a respected dealer, and by the end of the decade many famous artists of the period sought his advice and critical evaluation. Gallery records show early dealings with Martin Johnson Heade, William Bradford, William and James Hart, R. Swain Gifford, George L. Brown, Albert Bierstadt, A.T. Bricher, William Trost Richards, Daniel Huntington and John F. Kensett.
The artists themselves were not the only source of admiration for Seth Vose. Having recovered from a near fatal bout of lock-jaw in 1861 (during which Seth knocked out his front tooth in order to take sustenance), Seth discovered that his partner had brought the gallery to near ruin:
“... he found that his partner had committed the firm far beyond its resources to a purchase of the plate glass used for framing pictures. When he refused to consider bankruptcy as an easy solution, a group of fellow art dealers, headed by Roland Knoedler, bought up the outstanding obligations and handed them to Seth, marked ‘paid’. Within two years after this amazing gesture from his competitors, Seth had justified their faith and reimbursed them in full.”*
In time, Seth Vose’s reputation grew considerably, as did his collection of paintings. His influence as a dealer now extended beyond Providence to nearby Boston, where many prominent patrons were attracted to his good name. By the latter half of the 19th century, Seth Vose had established the respect and admiration that would ensure his place in history as one of America’s foremost art dealers.
Embracing the Avante Garde: Seth M. Vose in the 1850s
At the time T. Worthington Whittredge was in Switzerland painting “The Lake of Lucerne,” Vose Galleries had entered the second decade of its existence under the stewardship of Seth Morton Vose. Collecting art was becoming a popular pastime in America, and although early ledgers show sales mostly of frames, looking glasses, and brass nails during the 1850s, the occasional entry of the sale of an “oil painting” gives us the first inkling of the role that Seth Vose would play as a major art dealer and arbiter of taste in the decades to come.
It was in the 1850s that Seth Vose, barely 20 years old, discovered and fell in love with the paintings of the Barbizon School, then the avante garde movement in France. Seth’s decision to promote their work would lead him to near financial disaster. At Vose’s first American exhibition of Barbizon painter Camille Corot, not one painting sold! Undaunted, Seth continued to buy works by the Barbizon painters, and by 1857 had collected examples by all painters in the school. It would be over twenty years before Seth sold even one of their canvases.
From Humble Beginnings: Vose Galleries in the 1840s
Joseph Vose had been a shoe manufacturer before he decided to branch into the art business. In 1841, he purchased the Westminster Art Gallery in Providence, Rhode Island, an art supply store that had been started by local artist Ransom Hicks. Primarily involved in sales of molding, cord, prints and picture frames, Westminster Gallery was only marginally involved in what was then a quiet art market, revolving mainly around commissioned works.
Joseph’s nineteen-year-old son, Seth, soon developed an interest in the gallery and in 1850 took over running the business. While the first decade involved selling primarily art supplies, an entry from an early account book shows the sale of a painting as early as 1853. Seth Vose would soon indulge his passion for buying and selling paintings, and would be responsible for the radical introduction of French Barbizon paintings to the Boston art market.
