Several years ago, after my retirement from the active practice of law, I enrolled as a special student in the art history department of Johns Hopkins University. During the course of my studies, I was encouraged by Stephen Campbell, the chair of the department, to write an article on Henry Walters’s acquisition in 1902 of a massive collection of art owned by Marcello Massarenti, an assistant to the pope in Rome. My research on this project began with Bill Johnston’s definitive biography, William and Henry Walters, the Reticent Collectors, and it continued with Bill Johnston’s generous offer to open for my exploration the historically rich archives of the Walters Art Museum, where I came close to residing for days and weeks on end. I was introduced to Elissa O’Loughlin, a senior conservator at the Walters, who, like a guardian angel, carefully escorted me through a treasure trove of old letters, newspaper clippings, vintage photographs, and notes which, when collaged together, began to reveal both Berenson’s substantial influence on Walters’s collection of Italian paintings and the episodic events that brought Walters and Berenson together and then drove them apart.
My research led to the Villa I Tatti (now owned by Harvard), Berenson’s beautiful villa outside of Florence, which I visited initially in January 2007 and again in January and April of 2008. There I was warmly greeted by Joseph Connors, the director of I Tatti, and by Fiorella Superbi and Michael Rocke, who granted me access to I Tatti’s archival records pertaining to Henry Walters. It was there that I found the substantial body of correspondence between Walters and Berenson upon which this book primarily rests. I want to thank Dr. Connors for authorizing me to publish some of these letters, which can be found in appendix A. I am also indebted to Ms. Superbi, the director of the Berenson Fototeca, not only for sharing her knowledge about Berenson but also for discovering and promptly bringing to my attention Bernard and Mary Berenson’s handwritten notes recorded while inspecting Walters’s collection of Italian paintings in 1914, as well as an unfinished catalogue about these paintings that Berenson had written. I likewise want to extend my thanks to Mr. Rocke, the director of the Berenson Biblioteca, for placing before me Berenson’s copy of the Walters Gallery Catalogue of Paintings that Henry Walters published in 1915 based on Berenson’s advice and direction.
From 1910 to 1916, Walters was a client of Berenson and acquired many paintings from him, but for the reasons discussed in this book, Walters retained no coherent record of this. One of my challenges has been to unlock the history of these purchases. In pursuing this task, I was guided by an excellent article—“Bernard Berenson, Villa I Tatti and the Visualization of the Italian Renaissance,” by Professor Patricia Rubin—which referred to several paintings that Berenson sold to Walters from his own collection. In response to a letter inquiring about her research for that article, Professor Rubin provided me with her research notes about the paintings that Walters acquired from Berenson. I hope that this acknowledgment adequately conveys my respect for her scholarship and gratitude for her generosity.
I am also grateful to Joseph Rishel for allowing me to review the archival records at the Philadelphia Museum of Art pertaining to the correspondence between Berenson and John G. Johnson, who was a Berenson client around the same time as Walters; Jay Fisher, deputy director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, for allowing me to read the BMA’s archival records pertaining to Walters; Barbara File, an archivist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, for providing me with documents pertaining to Walters’s service on the Metropolitan board and his gifts to that museum; Christine Nelson, the Morgan Library’s curator of literary and historical manuscripts, for facilitating my examination of archival documents at the Morgan Library pertaining to Bella da Costa Greene, Berenson, and Walters; Beverly Tetterton, the librarian of the New Hanover Public Library in Wilmington, North Carolina, who shared with me files of newspaper clippings about Henry Walters and his life in Wilmington; and the many wonderful librarians at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, especially the librarians in the Maryland and Fine Arts Departments, whose courtesy and professionalism set a standard to which all librarians across the country should aspire.
My work on this book took me to Wilmington, North Carolina, where Walters once resided, and to the Cape Fear Club, where eight of the paintings Walters acquired from Massarenti can now be found. I thank Kay Stern and Marilyn Anderson for their gracious hospitality, for arranging for me to see the paintings that Walters gave to the Cape Fear Club, and for serving together as a font of information about Henry Walters’s life in Wilmington. I likewise want to thank my dear friends Laura and Barrett Freedlander for organizing this trip and for their ongoing interest in my project.
Without the support of the Walters Art Museum, the publication of this book would not have been possible. I specifically thank Joaneath Spicer, the curator of Renaissance and Baroque art, for carefully reading my manuscript and offering frank and constructive criticism, sometimes of the no-holds-barred variety, which served to correct some of my missteps and improve the quality of my work. I also want to thank Chris Henry, the Walters’ head librarian, for responding with alacrity to my many requests for hard-to-find books, for providing me with shelves and other space for my work, and for permitting me to reside in her library for days and weeks on end while she made me feel at home. I also thank Susan Tobin, head of photography, and Ruth Bowler for their excellent work in creating the photographic illustrations for this book and Joan Elizabeth Reid, the chief registrar, for sharing her knowledge, files, and records relating to the history of the Italian paintings in the Walters collection. Most of all, I am deeply indebted to Gary Vikan, the great director of the Walters Art Museum, for his active encouragement and support, which have been instrumental in bringing this book to publication.
I am also indebted to Sylvia Eggleston Wehr, the associate dean of external affairs of Johns Hopkins University. After reading the first chapter of my manuscript, she encouraged me to submit it to the Johns Hopkins University Press for publication and at the same time encouraged the press to consider it. But for her vital assistance, this book might not have been published. Finally, I express my deep appreciation to the Johns Hopkins University Press, especially to Executive Editor Henry Tom, Assistant Editor Suzanne Flinchbaugh, and Assistant Managing Editor Linda Forlifer, for their thoughtful ideas and suggestions that improved the book and that paved the way to its publication.