The Golden Wedding
Artist
Cesare Agostino Detti
(Italian, 1847-1914)
CultureItalian
Date1880
MediumWatercolor on paper
DimensionsOverall: 28 1/2 x 51 1/2 in. (72.4 x 130.8 cm)
InscribedSigned at lower right: C. Detti 80
Credit LineGift of the Mowbray Arch Society, 1999
Object number99.24
Not on view
Label TextCesare-Auguste Detti
Italian, 1847-1914
The Golden Wedding, 1880
Watercolor and bodycolor on paper, 28½" x 51½"
Gift of the Mowbray Arch Society 99.24
Detti's exceptionally large watercolor is a prime
example of academic genre painting, a strain of late
Victorian art that focused not on scenes of modern,
19th-century life, as the Impressionists prescribed,
but on vignettes drawn from earlier Western history--
from ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages,
the Renaissance. These works reflected a clear
nostalgic longing to escape the complexities of 19th-
century industrial, urban life and seek refuge in an
earlier, more gracious, and presumably simpler time.
The Golden Wedding depicts an imaginary, idyllic
scene of aristocratic pageantry set in Renaissance
Italy. The elderly couple at center-a duke and duchess
cloaked in ermine and silk- mark their 50th wedding
anniversary with a second, "golden" wedding ceremony
performed in the midst of courtiers and family. Despite its
16th-century setting, the work serves as a Victorian paean
to the virtues of marriage and family.
Italian by birth, Detti moved by 1876 to Paris, where he
established an international reputation for his brilliantly
crafted oils and watercolors. The present work--executed
in watercolor and bodycolor (watercolor mixed with white
to make it opaque)--is a genuine tour de force, a vituoso
demonstration of the artist's technical abilities. It was
purchased from Detti in 1880 by the celebrated New
York collector William Henry Vanderbilt and
descended through the Vanderbilt family.
Written By: MTH
Edited By:ProvenanceThis painting was on deposit to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1886-1903. It also was in the collection of the artist; to Mr. William H. Vanderbilt, New York, 1880; to George Washington Vanderbilt, New York and Biltmore, North Carolina; to Cornelius Vanderbilt, III; to Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, April 19, 1945, Lot 178; to private collection.Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc.; Gift of the Mowbray Arch Society to the Chrysler Museum of Art, 1999.
Exhibition History"Behind the Seen: The Chrysler's Hidden Museum," Large Changing Gallery, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va., October 21, 2005 - February 19, 2006.
"Come Together, Right Now: The Art of Gathering," Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, October 11, 2020 - January 3, 2021.Published ReferencesEdward Strahan, ed., The Art Treasures of America (1880), p. 108 (as the collection of Mr. William H. Vanderbilt).
Chrysler Museum of Art. "Cesare-Auguste Detti's THE GOLDEN WEDDING 1999 Gift of the Mowbray Arch Society," CMA CALENDAR OF EVENTS. Mar/Apr 2000. Norfolk: Chrysler Museum of Art. 03/2000: 4.
Jeff Harrison, _Collecting with Vision: Treasures From the Chrysler Museum of Art_ (London: D. Giles Ltd., 2007), 94, fig. 111. ISBN: 978-0-940744-72-1
19th century
Giovanni Cesare Testa
Pauly et Cie