Bernard Berenson, Vol. 2: The Making of a Legend

Controversy swirls around Bernard Berenson today as it did in his middle years, before and between two world wars. Who was this man, this supreme connoisseur of Italian Renaissance painting? How did he support his elegant estate near Florence, his Villa I Tatti? What exactly were his relations with the art dealer Joseph Duveen? What part did his wife, Mary, play in his scholarly work and professional career? The answers are to be found in the day-to-day record of his life as he lived it—as reported at first hand in his and Mary's letters and diaries and reflected in the countless personal and business letters they received. His is one of the most fully documented lives of this century. Ernest Samuels, having spent twenty years studying the thousands of letters and other manuscripts, presents his story in absorbing detail. Berenson helped Isabella Stewart Gardner build her great collection and performed similar though lesser services for other wealthy Americans. It was merely an avocation and a useful source of income; his vocation was scholarship. But after 1904, when the book opens, his expertise was in ever-greater demand: a purchaser's only assurance of the authorship of an Italian painting was the opinion of an expert, and in this field Berenson was pre-eminent. Increasingly he was drawn into the lucrative world of the art dealers; inevitably Joseph Duveen found it essential to enlist his services, at first ad hoc, then by contractual agreement. Samuels charts the course of Berenson's long association with Duveen Brothers, detailing the financial arrangements, the humdrum chores and major contested attributions, the periodic clashes between the stubborn scholar and the arrogant entrepreneur. The portrayal of Berenson's relationship with Mary is especially intriguing: a union of opposites in all but brains and wit, bonded—despite love affairs, jealousies, recriminations—no longer by passion but by shared concerns. Impinging on their lives are those of a huge circle of friends and acquaintances in America and the beau monde of Europe. Both as biography and as a chapter of social and cultural history, it is a compelling book. Contents Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Prologue I. The Missionaries’ Return II. A Man of the World III. Throes of the North Italians IV. Pathway to Dwveen V. The “Fourth Gospel” VI. A Home in Exile VII. Matisse and the Highroad of Art VIII. America the Plutocratic IX. The Pursuit of Life Enhancement X. The Red Robe XI. The Ixion Wheel of Business XII. Idyll with Belle da Costa Greene XIII. A Marital Truce ΧIV. “The Flavor of Dust and Ashes” XV. The “Merchants” and the “Expert” ΧVI. Last Season of the Belle Epoque XVII. America Revisited XVIII. The Darkening of Europe XIX. A Time for Writing XX. Paris in Wartime XXI. Venetians Restudied and Leonardo Dethroned XXII. From Art Expert to Military Adviser XXIII. Domestic Crisis XXIV. “The Dragon’s Eggs” XXV. Spoils of War and Art XXVI. An “American Bacchus” XXVII. An Island of Relative Solitude XXVIII. Suspect in the Tromised Land XXX. Germany and the Stelloni d’Italia XXXI. The Case of La Belle Ferronière XXXII. The Archaeology of Art XXXIII. On the Way toTruth XXXIV. The “Two Sposini” XXXV. The End of Profit Sharing XXXVI. Afloat on a Golden Flood XXXVII. “Prince of Art Critics” XXXVIII. A New Disciple XXXIX. The “Book of Revelation” XL. The Role of Art History XLI. Life in “Mussolinia” XLII. The Allendale Nativity XLIII. The Drawings Revisited XLIV. Toward the Abyss XLV. Travels into Self XLVI. The Peace of Le Fontanelle XLVII. Patriarch of Florence XLVIII. At Home in the House of Life XLIΧ. Paradoxical Talmudist L. Master of the Inn LI. Garnering the Past LII. “The Last Aesthete” LIII. Doctor of Letters and Philosophy LIV. Toward a “Humanistic Priesthood” LV. “A Scene from Rembrandt” SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY. NOTES. INDEX Selected bibliography Notes Index Both as a biography and as a chapter of social and cultural history, this book portrays the life of the connoisseur of Italian Renaissance painting