1899

Chapter III

John Henri Isaac Browere

HAT one generation fails to appreciate, and therefore decries and sneers at, a subsequent one comprehends and applauds. It is conspicuously so in discovery, in science, in poetry, and in art; so much depends upon the point of view and the environment of the observed and of the observer. Were these remarks not true, the very remarkable collection of busts from life masks, taken at the beginning of the second quarter of the present century, by John Henri Isaac Browere, almost an unknown name a year ago, would not have been hidden away until their recent unearthing. The circumstances that led to their discovery are as curious as that the busts should have been neglected and forgotten for so long.

John Henri Isaac Browere, the son of Jacob Browere and Ann Catharine Gendon, was born at No. 55, Warren Street, New York city, November 18, 1792, and died at his house opposite the old mile-stone, in the Bowery, in the city of his birth, September 10, 1834, and was buried in the Carmine Street Churchyard. He was of Dutch descent, one of those innumerable claimants of heirship to Anneke Jans, through Adam Brouwer, of Ceulen, who came to this country and settled on Long Island, in 1642. Adam Brouwer's name was really Berkhoven, but the name of his business, Brouwer or Brewer, became attached to him, so that his descendants have been transmitted by his trade-name, and thus, as is often the case, a new surname introduced. His second son, Jacob Adam Brouwer, or Jacob son of Adam the Brewer, married Annetje Bogardus, granddaughter of Reverend Edward Bogardus and Anneke Jansen (corrupted to Jans); and among the most persistent pursuers of the intangible fortune of Anneke Jans has been the family of Browere.

John Browere was entered as a student at Columbia College, but did not remain to be graduated, owing doubtless to his early marriage, on April 30, 1811, to Eliza Derrick, of London, England. He turned his attention to art and became a pupil of Archibald Robertson, the miniature-painter, who came to this country from Scotland, in 1791, with a commission from David Stuart, Earl of Buchan, to paint, for his gallery at Aberdeen, a portrait of Washington. Later on, Archibald Robertson, with his brother Alexander, opened at No. 79, Liberty Street, New York, the well-known Columbian Academy, where, for thirty years, these Scotchmen maintained a school, for the instruction of both sexes in drawing and in painting, and where Vanderlyn, Inman, Cummings, and other of the early New York artists, profited by their training. At the present time, when miniature-painting is again coming into vogue, it is interesting to reflect that the letters which passed between Archibald Robertson in this country, and his brother Andrew in Scotland, form the best treatise that can be found upon the charming art of painting in little. These letters, after having remained in manuscript for the better part of a century, have recently been given to the public, in a charming volume of “Letters and Papers of Andrew Robertson,” edited by his daughter, Miss Emily Robertson, of Lansdowne Terrace, Hampton Wick, England.

Determined to improve himself still further, Browere accepted the offer of his brother, who was captain of a trading-vessel to Italy, to accompany him abroad; and for nearly two years the young man travelled on foot through Italy, Austria, Greece, Switzerland, France, and England, diligently studying art and more especially sculpture. Returning to New York, he began modelling, and soon produced a bust of Alexander Hamilton, from Archibald Robertson's well-known miniature of the Federal martyr, which was pronounced a meritorious attempt to produce a model in the round from a flat surface. Being of an inventive turn, he began experimenting to obtain casts from the living face in a manner and with a composition different from those commonly employed by sculptors. After many trials and failures, he perfected his process, with the superior results shown in his work.

Browere's first satisfactory achievement was a mask of his friend and preceptor, Robertson, and his second was that of Judge Pierrepont Edwards, of Connecticut. But the most important of his very early works was the mask of John Paulding, the first to die of the captors of André; and this mask, made in 1817, was followed later by masks of Paulding's coadjutors, Williams and Van Wart; so that we owe to Browere's nimble fingers the only authentic likenesses we have of these conspicuous patriots of the Revolution.

Browere wrote verse and painted pictures in addition to his modelling, and, in the spring of 1821, made an exhibition at the old gallery of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, in Chambers Street, New York, which called forth the following card from his early instructor, Robertson, who was one of the directors of the Academy. It is interesting, notwithstanding the unconscious partiality one is apt to have for a former pupil, and is addressed:

To the American Public.

Having for many years been intimately acquainted with John H. I. Browere, of the City of New York, I deem it a duty which I owe to him as an artist, and to the public as judges, to say that from my own observation of his works both as a painter, poet, and sculptor, I think him endowed with a great genius by nature and first talents by industry. This my opinion, his works lately exhibited in the Gallery of the American Academy of Fine Arts, New York, fully justify and is amply corroborated by all, who with unprejudiced eye, view the works of his hand.

Archibald Robertson.
New York, May 21, 1821.

It was left, however, for “The Nation’s Guest” to lift Browere's art into prominence. At the request of the New York city authorities, Lafayette permitted Browere, in July of 1825, to make a cast of his face. This was so successful that from this time on, Browere was devoted to making casts of the most noted characters in the country's history, who were then living, with the purpose of forming a national gallery of the busts of famous Americans. He intended to have them reproduced in bronze, and devoted years of labor and the expenditure of much money to the furtherance of his scheme. He wrote to Madison: “Pecuniary emolument never has been my aim. The honor of being favored by my country biases sordid views.” In 1828 he wrote to the same: “I have expended $12,087 in the procuration of the specimens I now have.” These included masks of Presidents John and John Quincy Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, and later was added that of Van Buren; Charles Carroll of Carrollton; Lafayette; De Witt Clinton; Generals Philip Van Cortlandt, Alexander Macomb and Jacob Brown; Commodore David Porter; Secretary of the Navy Samuel L. Southard of New Jersey; and Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush of Pennsylvania; Justice of the United States Supreme Court Philip Pendleton Barbour; and the great commoner, Henry Clay; Doctors Samuel Latham Mitchill, Valentine Mott, and David Hosack; Edwin Forrest and Tom Hilson, the actors; Charles Francis Adams and Philip Hone; Thomas Addis Emmet and Doctor Cooper of South Carolina; Colonel Stone and Major Noah, of newspaper notoriety; Dolly Madison and Francis Wright; Gilbert Stuart, Paulding, Williams, and Van Wart; and other personages favorably known in their day, but who have slipped out of the niche of worldly immortality, so that even their names fail to awaken a recollection of themselves. Such is the mutability of fame.

The time, however, was not ripe for the public patronage of the Fine Arts. There was, too, a feeling abroad that it savored of monarchy and favored classes, to perpetuate men and deeds by statues and monuments. Another cause that hampered Browere was the lack of protection accorded to such works. He complains to Madison: “I regret to say that as yet no law has been passed to protect modelling and sculpture, and therefore I have been hindered from completing the gallery, fearful of having the collection pirated.” So disheartened did he become with the little interest shown in his project and the work he had accomplished for it, that at one time he contemplated visiting Panama, and presenting the busts of the more prominent subjects to the republics of South America, in order to incite them to further efforts for freedom. Finally he was forced to abandon his scheme of a national gallery, owing to want of support, and the direct opposition—“jealous enmity,” Browere calls it—of his brother artists, the old American Academy faction led by Colonel Trumbull, and the new National Academy followers led by William Dunlap.

They maligned his pretensions because he was honest enough to call his method for accomplishing what he attempted “a process.” Surely, judging from results, it was superior to any other known method of obtaining a life mask, and it seems most unfortunate that his “process” has to be counted among “the lost arts”; for neither he nor his son, who was acquainted with both the composition and the method of applying it, has left a word of information on the subject. When the public press attacked Browere and his method for the rumored maltreatment of President Jefferson, he replied: “Mr. Browere never has followed and never will follow the usual course, knowing it to be fallacious and absolutely bad. The manner in which he executes portrait-busts from life is unknown to all but himself, and the invention is his own, for which he claims exclusive rights, but it is infinitely milder than the usual course.” That his method of taking the mask was accomplished without discomfort to the subject is fully attested by the number of persons who submitted to it, as also by the many certificates given by Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Lafayette, Gilbert Stuart, and others to that effect.

In the following letter from Browere to Trumbull it will be seen the writer does not attempt to conceal his feelings of resentment:

New York, 12 July, 1826.

Sir:

The very illiberal and ungentleman-like manner in which Col. Trumbull treated the execution, &c., of my portrait-busts of Ex-President Adams and Honorable Charles Carroll with the statue of Ex-President Jefferson, late displayed in the banquetting hall of the Hon. Common Council of New York, has evidenced a personal ill-will and hostility to me that I shall not pass over in silence. The envy and jealousy inherent in your nature and expressed in common conversations intimate to me a man of a perverse and depraved mind.

Rest assured, Sir, I fear not competition with you as a portrait or historic painter; I know your fort, and your failings. To convince you that I know somewhat of the Arts of Design, I shall immediately commence an analysis of your four pictures painted for Congress, and shall endeavor therein to refer to each and every figure plagiarized from English and other prints. Your assertion to me that you made your portraits therein to correspond with their characters, will assuredly go for as much as they deserve. In my opinion, ideal likenesses ought not to be palmed on a generous public for real ones.

Remember what was said on the floor of Congress in reference to your four celebrated pictures: “Instead of being worth $32,000 they were not worth 32 cents.” In remembering this remember that “nemo me impune lacessit.” And by attending to your own concerns you will retain a reputation or name of being an able artist and not a slanderer.

Browere, Sculptor.

Colonel Trumbull has endorsed this letter: “Browere. Poor man! too much vanity hath made him mad.”

However, from a letter written three years later to the Directors of the American Academy of the Fine Arts, and “Favored by Col. Trumbull,” it would appear that the two artists had healed their differences; but Browere's feeling of resentment toward the National Academy of Design knew no abatement. He was kept out of the National Academy by Dunlap, who also ignored him in his malevolent and unreliable “History of the Arts of Design in the United States.” The cause for this, as stated by Browere's son, was that before Browere had ever met Dunlap he was asked his opinion of Dunlap's painting of “Death on the Pale Horse,” then on public exhibition. He replied: “It's a strong work, but looks as if it were painted by a man with but one eye.” This remark was reported to Dunlap, who actually had but one eye. He was mortally offended at the sculptor's insight, and became his undying enemy. Browere wrote to the Academy as follows:

New York, 31 July, 1829.

Gentlemen:

For several years past I have strictly devoted myself to the profession of the liberal arts and flatter myself that my efforts have not been detrimental to their interests. The reason why or wherefore I, an American artist, bearing with me an unblemished moral reputation, should have been selected for exclusion by both the American Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the self-denominated Academy of Design, appears mysterious and illiberal, and not in accordance with the principles of religion or democracy. Had not an enthusiastic love of and devotion to the Fine Arts guided my reason, at this day I should have become one of the most inveterate enemies to both institutions. Philosophy has made me what I now am, viz., the sincere friend of man and admirer of the works of his hands. As such I have,—written injuries as sand—favors on the tablet of memory.

As one of the great body of artists of America I deem it an incumbent duty to advance the beauteous arts by all honorable means, and to chastise arrogance, presumption, ignorance, and wilful malevolence. With chagrin I have viewed the sinister and aristocratical proceedings of the National Academy, and the ill results that must eventually follow its longer continuance, and therefore have publicly deprecated its wickedness. As one of the regenerators of the old or American Academy of Fine Arts, I now make bold in saying to its directors a few things, which if duly weighed and followed must result favorably to its vitality and best interests, and be the medium of establishing the reputation of artists on firm and lasting basis, viz.: by collecting around the American Academy and with it all the genius and talent in the arts of design which our country possesses and creating a fund sufficient to all its wants and expenditures.

Already, twenty-five artists of respectability of this city await one effort of the American Academy to reëstablish its original standing and reputation, and they will join heart and hand to oppose the Academy of Design (truly so called) by every work of their hands done and to be done. The one effort alluded to is to procure at a reasonable rent say from 800 to 1000 dollars per annum the second story of the large and splendid building now erecting corner of Anthony Street and Broadway. The undersigned is perfectly well assured that from $1000 to $1500 per annum can be realized (exclusive of rent) from daily exhibitions of the works of living artists not in connection with the National Academy. He is fully satisfied from late observations that twenty-five new pieces or paintings can be procured monthly, all of which may be procured on loan for one month at least. This being the case the Academy must eventually and in a very short time supplant the puny efforts of a few National Esquires, a majority of whom are scarce entering their teens.

The subscribing artist respectfully informs you that the exhibition of the rough specimens of his art, viz., “The Inquisition of Spain,” at No. 315 Broadway, did positively realize to him, in eighteen months, Seven thousand and sixty-nine dollars. If, then, such an exhibition could realize such a sum, what would an exhibition of splendid historic and allegoric subjects, with portraits, miniatures, and landscapes by our native artists, not realize under the guidance of such a respectable board of directors as is that of the American Academy of Fine Arts?

The names of Trumbull, Vanderlyn, Frothingham, etc., alone would act as magic on a discriminating public, provided fair specimens of their talents be judiciously arranged for public inspection. Boston has done wonders this year in her Athenæum. Why, then, should we, equally blessed with native talent, despair, and sit down in sack-cloth and ashes, when a single effort can make us her equal and rival? Gentlemen, I am enthusiastic, and yet have maturely weighed each and every reason against your regeneration, and boldly assert more is for you than against you. The three preceding mentioned gentlemen are equal to, if not superior in talent to, any Boston can produce. Our portrait-painters generally bid fair to excel. All that is wanted is your help as a body corporate, your co-operation as lovers of the Fine Arts. Where, if you become extinct, shall we go to study the models of antiquity? Alas! we know of no other place wherein the experience of ages is collected, en masse, no place wherein to receive that instruction so essential to a knowledge of our profession. Mr. Bowen, the proprietor, has offered to you through Colonel Trumbull, the room alluded to at a fair compensation; it now rests with you to say for once and for all, “We will,” or, “we will not continue the patrons of art.” Wishing to yourselves individually, and collectively as a body corporate, health and peace, I remain,<.P>

Gentlemen, truly your Friend in the Fine Arts,

John H. I. Browere.

No formal action is known to have been taken upon this communication; but the antagonism plainly evident as existing between the new Academy of Design and the old Academy of the Fine Arts, forms a lively chapter in the history of American art. Full particulars of the strife are given in Dunlap's book and in Cummings's “Historic Annals of the National Academy of Design.” But these accounts are from biased adherents of the new institution and bitter opponents of the old, so that, for a brief but philosophical and judicial consideration of the subject, one must turn to John Durand's sketch of Colonel Trumbull in the &ldauo;American Art Review” for 1880.

Browere died, after only a few hours' illness, of cholera; and it is pathetic to picture the disappointed sculptor, on his deathbed, directing, as he did, that the heads should be sawed off the most important busts, and boxed up for forty years, at the end of which period he hoped their exhibition would elicit recognition for their merit and value as historical portraits from life. This directed mutilation was not made; but the busts never saw the light of day until the Centennial year, when a few of them were placed on exhibition in Philadelphia. But not being connected with the national celebration, they were a mere side-show, and were not in a position to attract attention. Indeed, the fact of their exhibition was unheralded, and has only recently become known.

Browere left a wife and eight children, his second child and eldest son, Alburtis D. O. Browere, inheriting the artistic temperament of the father. He was born at Tarrytown, March 17, 1814, and died at Catskill, February 17, 1887. After his father's death, he entered the schools of the National Academy of Design, and, in 1841, gained the first prize of $100, in competition with twenty-four others, for his picture of “Canonicus Treating with the English,” as detailed in Thatcher's “Lives of the Indians.” Previous to this, when only eighteen years old, he was awarded a silver medal, by the American Institute in New York, “for the best original oil painting,” the title of which has been forgotten. He painted several pictures with Rip Van Winkle as the subject, and among his contemporaries and friends was highly appreciated as an artist and as a man. He went to California soon after the opening to the east of that El Dorado, where he remained several years, painting many pictures of mining scenes. It was he who added the draperies to the busts made from his father's life masks—an addition much to be regretted; but, on the other hand, it was his filial reverence that preserved these invaluable human documents, and has permitted us to see and know how many of the great characters who have gone before really appeared in the flesh, how they actually looked when they lived and moved and had their being.

John Henri Isaac Browere, Chapter III of Browere's Life Masks of Great Americans, by Charles Henry Hart, 1899.