TheMuseNewsletter of the Slater Memorial MuseumFall 2009

The Slaters’ Grand Tour:A Continuing Marvel

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exhibition, Around the World on the Yacht Eleanor: The Slaters’ Grand Tour (see details, page 2) in the Slater Museum’s Sears Gallery, and from recently received gifts from Slater family descendants.

From Ketchum, Idaho, and Sheri Slater, wife of William A. Slater III, come the remarkable

To frequent readers, it might appear that the subject of William A. and Ellen Peck Slater’s 1894-1895 Grand Tour on their yacht The Eleanor had been herein exhausted. Quite the opposite has proven to be true; the result of further research for a new, permanent

William and Ellen Slater and guests aboard The Eleanor during their 1894-1895 Grand Tour, image courtesy of Sheri and William A. Slater III

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A Message from the Director

The Muse is published up to four times yearly for the members of The Friends of the Slater Memorial Museum. The museum is located at 108 Crescent Street, Norwich, CT 06360. It is part of The Norwich Free Academy, 305 Broadway, Norwich, CT 06360. Museum main telephone number: (860) 887-2506. Visit us on the web at www.slatermuseum.org.Museum Director – Vivian F. ZoëNewsletter editor – Geoff SerraContributing authors: Vivian Zoë, Leigh Smead and Patricia FlahivePhotographers: Leigh Smead, Vivian Zoë

The president of the Friends of the Slater Memorial Museum: Patricia Flahive

The Norwich Free Academy Board of Trustees:Steven L. Bokoff ’72, ChairJeremy D. Booty ‘74Richard DesRoches *Abby I. Dolliver ‘71Lee-Ann Gomes ‘82, TreasurerThomas M. Griffin ‘70, SecretaryThomas Hammond ‘75Theodore N. Phillips ’74Robert A. Staley ’68Dr. Mark E. Tramontozzi ’76David A. Whitehead ’78, Vice Chair*Museum collections committee

The Norwich Free Academy does not discriminate in its educational programs, services or employment on the basis of race, religion, gender, national origin, color, handicapping condition, age, marital status or sexual orientation. This is in accordance with Title VI, Title VII, Title IX and other civil rights or discrimination issues; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991.

Fall is an exciting time. After the summer doldrums, the dog days of August, a crisp air energizes. Fall 2009 has the potential to be one of the most exciting at the Slater in a long time. A commitment by the Board of Trustees of NFA to pursue the universal accessibility project, to include the building’s first elevator, will bring several modest fund raising events with something for everyone to enjoy. The first is an auction event of the work of generous painter and Slater benefactor Paul Zimmerman, followed by the first of a series of lectures. And finally, perhaps the pièce de resistance, the opening of the new permanent exhibition Around the World on the Yacht Eleanor: the Slaters’ Grand tour will transform the Sears Gallery. The latter has consumed much time, energy and passion. More on all of these is included in this issue, so please, read on …

A Vision of Connecticut:Remembering Paul Zimmerman

Around the World on the Yacht Eleanor: The Slaters’ Grand Tour

Making the Mark: The Work of the Stonington Printmakers Society

Upcoming Exhibitions, Programs and EventsSeptember 11, 2009 5:00 - Opening reception and start of silent auction of original Zimmerman paintings.October 30, 2009 5:30 - Live auction events begin. See page 10 for details.

October 24, 2009 5:00 - Unveiling of Around the World on the Yacht Eleanor: the Slaters’ Grand Tour.

November 22 - Exhibition opens.December 6 - Opening reception. Please see details on page 6.

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two-volume album of images from the 13-month Grand Tour, entitled Photographs from the First Voyage of the Eleanor 1894-1895, and First Officer Eugene W. Johnson’s meticulously kept Log Book.

According to its website, “The Griffith Institute in Oxford has one of the largest collections of 19th-century ‘studio photographs’ of Egypt. Professional photographers, between about 1860 and 1890, established studios in major tourist centers such as Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Luxor and Aswan,… to take … stock photographs as mementos. The photographs depict ancient Egyptian, Christian and Islamic monuments, as well as scenes of contemporary 19th-century life.” In addition, the photographers took pictures of tourists engaged in the same activities they might today -- riding camels, for example. However, most American tourists visiting Egypt today would be wearing shorts and a T-shirt, not heavy, multi-layered, dark, bustled and corseted day dresses, hats and gloves! In the photographs donated by Mrs. Slater, we see the distaff members of the Grand Tour party attired in just this style!

The Slaters must have had a personal camera with them, however, because in addition to photographs clearly taken by professionals are the somewhat unsteady images captured on board at relatively unguarded and casual moments.

The Slaters’ photo album is big. Each of the two volumes weighs about forty pounds, and measures 17” X 12” X 4”. A treasure trove of pictorial information and documentation, it includes images of places well beyond Egypt and provides a glimpse of the Slaters’ relatively lavish and definitely Victorian life on board. As valuable as is the photograph album, the Log Book, physically much smaller, but also densely packed with detailed information, makes it possible for us to “watch” and literally chart the Eleanor’s progress around the world. In it one “hears” in the most economical prose, the daily news of the journey. Both the photo album and the Log Book provide priceless corroboration of assumptions made earlier about the trip and can be matched to the letters of sailor Charles Taylor Bright as he writes home several times a week and relates his perspective. Thus, now three perspectives, collaborate to create a much fuller view of this extraordinary voyage of one of Norwich’s most historically significant families.

Fom the perspective of the First Officer, several new stories can emerge from the pages of the Log Book. For example, the regattas in various ports in which The Eleanor and her crew participated take on life in the contemporaneous descriptions recounted within moments of the events: these descriptions have a “blog”-

Ellen Slater with daughter, Eleanor, and guest athwart camels in Egypt, 1895, image courtesy of Sheri and William A. Slater III

Saloon on board The Eleanor, image courtesy of Sheri and William A. Slater III

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like quality in today’s technological world of instantaneous updates. The Eleanor’s accessory cat boat Willie, a sport sailing vessel named for William A. Slater, Jr., was disqualified in one regatta because of its speed and technology. Both Charlie Bright’s letters home and the Log Book refer to its being declared a “sailing machine” by the British and, its being banned from participation because the harbor sailing races were reserved for traditional sail boats. In another port, rowing races were won by The Eleanor’s all-Scandinavian team. At least one photo of the oarsmen from the album brings them to life.

As many will recall, the yacht The Eleanor was built for William Albert and Ellen Peck Slater in 1894 at the Bath Iron Works (BIW), Maine, one of many shipyards on the banks of the Kennebec River. Nearby now is the Maine Maritime Museum - a very worthwhile visit - whose archives have helped paint a picture of The Eleanor.

The BIW was incorporated in 1884 by General Thomas W. Hyde, a native of Bath who, after service in the Civil War, acquired a shop which made hardware used on wooden ships. Hyde developed his shop, and by 1882, Hyde Windlass was expanding into the new and growing business of iron shipbuilding. By 1890, the company earned a contract with the U.S. Navy, which included the construction of

the gunboat Machias, to which both the First Officer and sailor Charlie Bright refer in their documentation of the Slaters’ Grand Tour. The Eleanor encountered the Machias in several of the ports of call along the route, and the Machias may have contributed to The Eleanor’s being mistaken on more than one occasion as a “Man of War” by the local port authorities, in particular, in southeast Asia. Eleanor’s several Gatling and Rapid Fire Guns, early machine guns, installed on her deck, plus political and martial strife in these regions, brought military inspectors out to meet The Eleanor, and in one case, a near-occupation by guards in the Bay of Manila, Philippines.

William A. Slater was a member of the Yacht Club of New York City and Newport, Rhode Island, and the Eastern Yacht Club of Boston and Marblehead, Massachusetts. He would have had both personal and business connections in New York, where textiles and fibers were traded and shipped in addition to family and business connections in Rhode Island where his Great Uncle had started the Slater’s Mills and his cousins still operated the factories. His connections to Boston were also deep; he attended Harvard, graduating in 1881 and would move the Slater corporate headquarters there in 1900.

Gatling Gun(Continued on page 7)

Scandinavian oarsmen, crewmembers on The El-eanor, participating in a regatta during a port call, image courtesy of Sheri and William A. Slater III

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Around the World with William and Ellen Slater: The Grand Tour of the Yacht EleanorDecember 4, 2009Join Ms. Zoë for an exclusive tour of the Slater Museum’s newest exhibit, and hear about the Slaters’ worldwide voyage aboard their yacht in 1894-95.

John Denison Crocker:Norwich’s Renaissance ManMarch 7, 2010Paintings by Norwich resident, John Denison Crocker (1822-1907), document the town’s late 19th-century golden age. Some depict captains of the city’s industrial revolution, some are portraits of important members of the community, still others are landscapes that document the original nine square miles of Norwich and its rural environs. Discover the many sides of the man, the artist and inventor John Denison Crocker in this enlightening presentation.

Norwich CelebratesOctober 4, 2009This year Norwich marked its 350th Anniversary with a variety of events and festivals, but how did the town observe anniversaries over the past 200 years? Ms. Zoë presents a delightful video and commentary retrospective of

celebrations past.

John Fox Slater: An American LegacyFebruary 7, 2010Learn about the philanthropy of the man for whom the Slater Memorial Museum is named, as Ms. Zoë discusses the life of John Fox Slater and the result of his largesse in support of the education of

emancipated slaves in the South.

Notable Norwich Lecture SeriesIn support of the Slater Memorial Museum Accessibility Project

Join Vivian Zoë, Museum Director, as she presents a series highlighting the people and places that influenced Norwich’s rich history. All lectures will take place on Sunday afternoons at 3 pm in the Slater Memorial Building on the Norwich Free Academy campus. Refreshments will be served. Proceeds from all ticket sales will support

the Slater Accessibility Project.

2009-2010 Notable Norwich Lecture Series Schedule

2009-2010 Notable Norwich Tickets

Henry Watson Kent & The Slater MuseumApril 11, 2010Ms. Zoë discusses the origins and early development of the Slater Memorial Museum, its first curator, and their influence on dozens of American museums.

Series Tickets $45 members / $50 non-members Includes: Admission to all five lectures•

Patron Tickets $90 members / $100 non-members Includes: Admission to all five lectures• Listing in Lecture Series program• 1922 limited edition copy of The Portraits • Hung in Slater Memorial Hall and Other Academic Buildings

Single Tickets $12 members / $15 non-members Includes: Admission to one lecture•

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New Exhibition to Open in November

The Slater Museum is pleased to announce the opening of the next exhibition to be held in the Converse Art Gallery. Making the Mark: The Work of the Stonington Printmaker Society will feature the work of a group of regional printmakers, and many works featured in the show will be available for purchase.

Making the Mark will open November 22, 2009, and a reception for the artists, friends and the public will be held Sunday, December 6, 2009 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. The reception is free and open to all. Light refreshements will be served.

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The Making of a Cast

Beginning this Fall, visitors to the Slater Museum’s cast gallery will have a new display to explore. Thanks to funding from the Community F o u n d a t i o n

of the Tri-County Area’s Cultural Heritage Program, supported by the Connecticut Humanities Council, the museum was able to once again enlist the help of expert cast restorer and creator Bob Shure, owner of the Guist Gallery in Woburn, MA, in creating small scale molds and partially created figures to illustrate the casting process.

The new display will also include historical information about the origins of cast making and culture of display from the late 19th century to today.

Monotypes by Mara Beckwith (top) and Sadie DeVore (bottom), Stonington Printmakers Society co-founders

Don’t Miss Out!

Registration for the Norwich Art School’s Saturday Morning Art Program for chil-dren grades 3-8 is still open! Classes be-gin September 19, and are taught by Slater Museum Curator of Education Mary-Anne Hall.

The program runs through April, and cul-minates with an exhibition of participants’ art work in the Converse Art Gallery.

To register your child please call Carol Baker at 425-5741.

Bob Shure removes a newly created plaster cast from its mold

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At the time of the Slaters’ Grand Tour, J.P. Morgan was the “Commodore” of the New York Yacht Club. J.P. Morgan’s first yacht was the Sagamore. About twenty feet smaller than The Eleanor, the Sagamore had been William Slater’s second yacht. Subsequently, J. P. Morgan built a succession of four yachts, all named Corsair and each one larger than the one before it and larger than the Eleanor.

Images of the interior of the Yacht Eleanor also came recently from Mrs. William A. (Sheri) Slater and corroborate every detail reported in 1894 in several publications including the New York Times. In addition, the images bring to life the luxury and elegance of the ship, which had a full, steam-driven laundry with its own power plant, fully staffed by Chinese immigrants. The laundry was needed to accommodate long stretches at sea and because the bed linens were changed daily. We know that the ship had its own table linens which were likely changed for each meal. Katherine Fox Slater, now of St. Petersburg, Florida, three years ago donated a napkin and table cloth from the ship embroidered with the name “Eleanor” and the image of a sailing vessel. At the same time, Kate Fox Slater donated a scroll presented to William A. Slater by the City of Norwich to acknowledge, memorialize, and thank him for his many and magnanimous gifts to the city. The proclamation documented by the scroll was presented to William upon his departure for the voyage.

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John Pierpont Morgan’s yacht, Corsair

With their frequent visits to Paris and their obvious love of art, William and Ellen would have also been familiar with the Louvre, the Salon de Paris and their particular style of exhibition, now known as the “Salon Style.” Paintings are hung tightly side by side and one over the other from floor to ceiling, nearly like tiles, a style depicted in paintings, drawings and photographs of artists’ studios and galleries of the 19th century. The method is depicted in a drawing by Winslow Homer published in Harper’s Weekly (January 11, 1868); Art Students and Copyists in the Louvre Gallery.

To aid in the creation of a Salon Wall for the new exhibition, the Slater acquired two new pieces to add to its existing collection of Great Master copies. One is a copy of Carlo Dolci’s Mary Magdalene, the other Raphael’s The Madonna del Granducca. Virtually every American painter of note or means in the 19th century either studied in or traveled to France and Italy studying the Great Masters, and absorbing the particular light and landscape and adopting classical styles. Norwich native and Norwich Art School (NFA) graduate Eleanor Abbott Winslow went from the Art Students League to Paris and exhibited her Great Master copies in the Slater Museum in 1904. Included were copies of a sketch for a frescoe by Botticcelli and “The Annunciation” by Lorenzo di Credi.

As a result of extensive research for the new exhibition, the Slater was able positively to

Salon Style installation at the Crocker Art Mu-seum, Sacramento, CA

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identify the copyist’s hand of copies in its collection. These include a self portrait by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, portraits by Michelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci, a portrait of the tortured Lucrezia by Guido Reni, all now identified as copies by Antoine Sébastien Falardeau (1823-1889). Le Chevalier Falardeau was born near Quebec, Canada, in 1823. He went to Italy about 1844, and became a copyist in Florence. Very little of his work was original, but it was in great demand. He died in Florence, Italy, on August 14, 1889.

French Canadian historian Michel Bibaud reported that Falardeau gave a picture to the Grand Duke of Tuscany instead of selling it to Don Carlos of Spain for the significant price offered him. In return, the Grand Duke made him a chevalier. It was claimed that nearly all Canadians making the Grand Tour visited him. Copies hanging in his studio in 1857, and reported in the Quebec press, included portraits of the great masters, such as Leonardo de

Vinci, Raphael, Guido Reni, Rubens, Van dyke, Titian, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Displayed as well were copies of Raphael’s Madonna, of Reni’s Christ on the cross, Franceschino’s Death of St. Joseph, the Judith after Leonardo de Vinci, and several landscapes after Salvator Rosa and Claude Lorraine.

One reporter described Falardeau’s studio thus:

“These six galleries or halls are elegantly furnished in the style of the fifteenth century. The furniture is of rare quality, beautifully carved, and derived in descent from some of the principal Etruscan families, the Medici, the Strozri, &c., and even from the time of the Florentine republic. Every room is unique and complete; and Signer Falardeau (as we must call him) has refused to part with the mere furniture for more than one thousand pounds sterling, without taking into account the Venetian crystal lustres, the candelabra and similar additional ornaments, hangings of gold and silver work, damasks, bronzes, coins, medals, vases and dishes. Everything is arranged in neat and tasteful order; and his studio, while it reflects credit on the classical apprehension of the artist, excites the admiration of visitors from all parts of the civilized world.”

Further research conducted for Around the World on the yacht The Eleanor: The Slaters’

William and Eleanor Slater’s yacht, The Sagamore

Portrait of Michelangelo, Antoine Sébastien Falardeau, 1857. Copy of a 1540 painting at-tributed to Michelangelo which hangs in the Pitti Gallery, Florence, Italy, collection of the Slater Memorial Museum

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Grand Tour also produced new understanding of the Slaters’ passion for yachting and the disposition of The Eleanor after Slater ownership.

The Eleanor was not William and Ellen Slater’s first yacht. Their first was The Talisman, which they purchased in 1887, followed

by the The Sagamore, on which William and Ellen traveled to England, Scandinavia, and continental Europe. The Sagamore, which may have been jointly owned by William and his cousin John W. Slater of Rhode Island, and described by The New York Times in 1898 as “one of the handsomest and best-equipped yachts in American waters,” was sold to J. Pierpont Morgan. By then, William had established a relationship with Captain Charles W. Scott who oversaw the construction of The Eleanor.

After the 1894/95 Grand Tour, the Slaters made several more voyages on The Eleanor before selling her in 1898 to Charlotte (Mrs. James) Wardle Martinez Cardeza. Mrs. Cardeza, a Philadelphia socialite, invited several guests to join her on her Grand Tour, including William’s cousin John W. Slater of Rhode Island. In 1901, Mrs. Cardeza was the only woman listed in The History of American Yachts and Yachtsmen which describes The Eleanor in great detail.

By March 1900, The Eleanor became The Wacouta when New York Yacht Club member and railroad and steamship magnate James J. Hill of St. Paul, Minnesota, bought her. The Navy acquired The Wacouta through lease from financier and Harvard College benefactor George F. Baker, and renamed her Harvard. The ship was commissioned May 10, 1917, as a U. S. Navy convoy escort. Sources differ on her disposition after her wartime service. She may have ended her days as a Greek ferry in the Adriatic.

The Museum’s existing collections have been plumbed for objects relating to the era of and places visited on the Slaters’ Grand Tour. Some objects were acquired through generous donations and bequests. Collections left to the museum recently include those of Grace Silverman Sears, whose European and Asian objects will help to round out the display. A

spectacular vase by Daum, Nancy and culturally illuminating Chinese ivory “Doctor’s Doll” are in this group. The exciting loan of a painting of The Eleanor and the donation of Ellen’s gowns by great great grandson Robert Latham Woodward are eagerly anticipated.

Charlotte Wardle MartinezCardeza

The Wacouta by Antonio de Simone (1851-1907), 1866

Daum Nancy vase, from the collection of the Slater Me-morial Museum, bequest of Grace S. Sears

A VISION OF CONNECTICUT:REMEMBERING PAUL ZIMMERMAN

September 11, 2009 - November 1, 2009

Paul Warren Zimmerman (1921-2007) was an internationally known artist and professor emeritus of the Hartford Art School of the Uni-versity of Hartford. Throughout his extensive career, Paul received well over 86 awards in both regional and national exhibitions. His numerous landscape paintings are fantasies of every season; the work is exuberant approachable and engaging, drawing the viewer ever closer. Every Zimmerman tells its own story.

Join us as we celebrate the work of Paul Zimmerman

Friday, September 11 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Friday, October 30 5:30 pm Gallery opens for Live Auction preview. 6:30 pm Hors d’oeuvres served. 7:30 pm Silent Auction closes. 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm Live Auction of select Zimmerman paintings.

November Rust by Paul W. Zimmerman, oil on masonite, n.d.

Opening reception in the Converse Art Gallery. Silent Auc-tion of original Zimmerman works. Silent Auction will con-tinue through duration of exhibition. Refreshments will be served. Free and open to the public.

SERVICE CHANGE REQUESTED

WSHU Public Radio Group ia a proud media sponsor of this exhibiion