On this day 115 years ago, Howard Pyle traveled from Delaware to New Jersey and met Woodrow Wilson (for the very first time!) to discuss his illustrations for the professor’s serialized biography of George Washington. The next day Wilson wrote to Henry Mills Alden, editor of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine:
…Mr. Pyle came to Princeton yesterday. His train was late in arriving and so he had to hurry away, so that we had very little time together; but I think we came to a perfect and very satisfactory understanding about the illustrations.…Like this lovely interior scene: “Even Sir William Berkeley, the redoubtable Cavalier Governor, saw he must yield” (published in the January 1896 Harper’s). You can see the original oil (15.25 x 23.5") at the Boston Public Library (that is, if they let you - I think an appointment is necessary) and you can see the unusual chair on the right at the Delaware Art Museum (sometimes, but maybe not all of the time). And you can see the boots on the gentleman in the foreground here, here, here, and here, among other places.
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2 comments:
I wonder if the Wyeth Family still owns those boots. My understanding is that the boots that appear in Andrew Wyeth's 1951 painting, Trodden Weeds [http://www.andrewwyeth.com/AndrewWyeth2.html], came to the painter from his father, N.C., who got them from Pyle. N.C. also had an early-19th century naval officer's coat which appeared in paintings not only by Pyle and N.C., but also Andrew and Jamie. I've examined the coat for Winterthur and it's had a pretty rough life. No doubt the cavalier boots did too.
Yopu're right, those are the same boots as in "Trodden Weed," but I understand they came from Stanley Arthurs' estate. Maybe they'll reappear before long - it would be interesting to see them in person.
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