Posted June 15, 2009 A powerful 18th- or 19th-century ivory figure of a woman carved in the round by a South Indian or Sri Lankan artist has been acquired by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Also added to the collection by the museum’s trustees are a 2005 watercolor by American artist James Prosek; three 19th-century lithographs by French artist Théodore Géricault; 64 African objects, mostly jewelry and other items of personal adornment; a 1930s Virginia landscape by Sallie Lee Blount Mahood; 13 watercolors and graphite drawings from the 1850s by American artist William Stanley Haseltine and unknown British artists; a painting by Richard Carlyon, a long-time professor at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts; and a rare American dressing service in the Art Nouveau style of Alphonse Mucha. “As VMFA’s expansion draws closer to its grand opening on May 1 of next year, we are excited as well to be acquiring additional works of art. We’ll have almost twice as much space for our superb collection and our new acquisitions, plus room for extraordinary special exhibitions, so visitors should prepare themselves for a dramatically updated museum,” says Alex Nyerges, VMFA’s director. The carved figure is made of ivory and semi-precious stones and stands 10-1/4 inches tall. Trace evidence suggests that at one time the figure was painted. The figure’s highly stylized body suggests a woman who is “sensuous and aloof,” says Dr. Joseph M. Dye III, VMFA’s curatorial chair and E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art. Dye notes the figure’s “remarkable monumentality,” and says it was almost certainly one of a pair of ivory figures – the other being a now-lost carving of a man. The figure was acquired with funds given to the museum by VMFA’s Friends of Indian Art. The Prosek work, titled “Sailfish,” measures 5 feet by almost 11 feet and is executed in watercolor, colored pencil and graphite on paper. Prosek (born 1975) is an artist, writer and naturalist based on Connecticut. He made his debut as a writer at age 19 with a book featuring 70 of his watercolor paintings of North American trout, demonstrating his grounding in direct observation in the manner of 19th-century American naturalist John James Audubon. However, Prosek’s watercolors and pencil drawings of fish and fowl “now incorporate elements of fantasy that verge on Surrealism,” says John Ravenal, VMFA’s Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. In the museum’s acquisition, a glistening sailfish is depicted with the wing of a parrot. “The work is a tour-de-force of observation combined with brilliant patterning and color.” Ravenal says. “This acquisition adds to our collection a major piece by a quickly emerging talent.” VMFA purchased the wotk with funds contributed by Mary and Donald Shockey Jr., Edith Ferber, The Vilcek Foundation and The Samuels Fund. The three lithographs by Géricault – “one of the towering geniuses of the Romantic period” – date from 1820, 1821 and 1823, according to Dr. Mitchell Merling, VMFA’s Paul Mellon Curator and head of the department of European art. The first, “Shipwreck of the Medusa,” is a print made after Géricault’s great achievement in painting, “The Raft of the Medusa” from 1819. Merling says the print’s rarity comes from its being a pen lithograph on stone paper, a medium not suited to large editions. Very few of Géricault’s Medusa lithographs survive, Merling says. The print is about 7 by 10 inches. The second work, “An Arabian Horse,” is an Orientalist fantasy in a landscape with palm trees and tents. It measures 13 by 18-1/2 inches inches. The third print, “La Giaour,” takes its name from a poem of the same name by Lord Byron. The name means “infidel” in Turkish. It measures 9-5/8 by 12-5/8 inches. The three lithographs were purchased with funds provided by a donor who wishes to remain anonymous. Other
items acquired by the museum:
The
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is on the Boulevard at Grove Avenue.
VMFA is an educational institution of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
For additional information, telephone (804) 340-1400 or visit the
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Web site, www.vmfa.museum. FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Suzanne Hall, 804/204-2704; or Sarah Pennington, 804/204-2701; Virginia
Museum of Fine Arts, 200 N. Boulevard, Richmond VA 23220-4007; FAX
804/204-2707; e-mail suzanne.hall@vmfa.museum.
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Female Figure, ca. 18th - 19th century
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Sailfish, 2005
CAPTION: Shipwreck
of the Medusa, 1820
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Necklace
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Blue Ridge Mountains, ca. 1930s
CAPTION: Pelasgian
Slate III (Pelasgus), 1982
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