PHILADELPHIA — Concluding a 30-year mystery, theRosenbach Museum & Library has located and acquired a portrait of an early member of the Gratz Family, prominent Jewish early Americans who made their home in Philadelphia.
Through a shot-in-the-dark blog-post query, a little luck and a donor with a romantic streak, the presumed-lost portrait of Maria Cecil Gist Gratz has made its way from Georgia to the Rosenbach, joining an assembly of other Gratz family portraits (including a painting of philanthropist, social activist and Jewish leader Rebecca Gratz, created in 1831 by Thomas Sully). Serendipitously, the Maria Gratz portrait has also been reunited with its other half: a portrait of Maria’s husband, Benjamin Gratz. Sully completed these two portraits as a matching set, but they have been separated for decades.
The Maria and Benjamin portraits were created while the Gratz couple were visiting family in Philadelphia in 1831. It wasn’t until 1970 that Benjamin’s granddaughter bequeathed the Benjamin portrait to the Rosenbach, yet there was no sign of its companion piece, the painting of Benjamin’s first wife. In recent years, Museum curator Judith Guston began to wonder: What ever happened to Maria?
In June of 2011, Guston asked Susan Sklaroff of the blog Rebecca Gratz & 19th-Century America to write a post about the missing painting, asking readers to check their attics, friends’ homes and local museums for traces of Maria. Three weeks later, Guston got a call from Atlanta, Georgia. Maria Gratz Roberts, a great-great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin and Maria, had the original Sully portrait in her parlor. Although Roberts had lived with the painting throughout her life, she believed Benjamin and Maria’s portraits should be reunited. Roberts donated to the Rosenbach the Sully portrait of Maria, a pastel copy (which she also owned) and a chair that Benjamin had brought from Pennsylvania. (See a detailed account of the missing painting below under “Reuniting the Gratz Family Through Portraiture.”)
“We are thrilled to reunite this painting of Maria Cecil Gist Gratz with four other Gratz family paintings, including a companion portrait of her husband, that were already in the Rosenbach’s collection,” says Museum curator Judith Guston. “The opportunity to bring together five family portraits created during the same time and in the same place is rare and special, and one we’re so pleased to be able to share with our visitors. We are also grateful that another branch of the Gratz family has shown its support by donating to the Rosenbach’s ever-increasing collection of Gratz materials.”
This acquisition holds special significance to the Rosenbach Museum & Library. The Rosenbach was founded by legendary book dealer A.S.W. Rosenbach and his brother and business partner Philip,whose ancestry connects to the Gratz family, dating back to the 18th century. The Rosenbach brothers collected Gratz family items throughout their lifetimes, and the Rosenbach Museum has followed suit over the past several decades, now maintaining extremely important collections of Gratz family portraiture, silver, furniture, ceramics, books and manuscripts related to the family. Almost all of these objects have come to the Rosenbach from direct descendants of the Gratz family to be cared for by the museum and enjoyed by the public.
Reuniting the Gratz Family Through Portraiture
(Background story courtesy of the blog Rebecca Gratz & 19th-Century America.)
Just as Rebecca Gratz was having her portrait painted by Thomas Sully in December of 1830, her brother and sister-in-law Benjamin and Maria Gratz arrived from their home in Lexington, Kentucky, for a long visit in Philadelphia. While they were in town, the family commissioned Sully to paint portraits of Benjamin and Maria, as well. In April 1831, he produced them and, at Maria’s request, then painted another portrait of Rebecca to go back to Kentucky.
Three of these four paintings already resided at the Rosenbach Museum & Library, all given by or acquired from Gratz descendants. But no one knew what had become of Sully’s portrait of Maria until descendant Maria Gratz Roberts was connected to the Rosenbach through Susan Sklaroff’s blog Rebecca Gratz & 19th-Century America.
More than 40 years ago, the Rosenbach received a bequest from Benjamin’s granddaughter by his second wife, Henrietta Gratz Clay, that included Sully’s portraits of Benjamin and Rebecca Gratz, painted in Philadelphia in 1831. A second Gratz family bequest came in 1984 from Fanny Gratz, the widow of a descendant of Benjamin and Maria. She notified the Museum that there had been a Sully portrait of Maria painted as a companion to Benjamin’s portrait, but that she didn’t know where it had gone. She donated a black-and-white photo of what she called a “crayon copy” of the portrait, as well as a lovely oil portrait of Maria by Matthew Harris Jouett, to take the place of the missing Sully.
Years passed. In 2010, just after two other Gratz family portraits had been acquired by the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Museum curator Judith Guston decided it was time to look for the Sully portrait of Maria. Yet she found no records of the portrait at auction, nor any records of anyone involved in the 1984 estate as being alive who might be helpful in the search. Sklaroff’s blog seemed as reasonable a first step as any.
Sklaroff published the post, complete with the “crayon copy” image given by Fanny Gratz, on June 6, 2011. Three weeks later, Guston got a call from Maria Gratz Roberts, a great-great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin and Maria, who reported that the original Sully portrait was hanging in her parlor in Atlanta, Georgia. It had been given to her father by his great-uncle, a grandson of Benjamin and Maria, no later than 1935. Upon learning that she could be instrumental in reuniting the paintings, Roberts was happy to return the Gratz portrait to its companion at the Rosenbach.
A Ceremony Honoring the Gratzes, March 4
Coinciding with this fine-arts family reunion, the Rosenbach will host a freeCeremony Honoring the Gratzes on March 4, from 1 to 2:30 p.m., commemorating the heritage of a family best remembered for its dedication to public service, patriotism and philanthropy in Philadelphia. The celebration will include the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, which will conduct a short ceremony honoring Joseph Gratz, who served with the unit during the War of 1812. First organized in 1774, the First Troop is the oldest military unit in continuous existence in the United States. An informal cake reception and a chance for attendees to view the Gratz-related collections in the historic house will follow.
About the Painter
Thomas Sully(1783–1872) was a leading American portraitist during the 19th century. He was born in England and immigrated to the United States as a child. He moved to Philadelphia in 1806, where he resided for the remainder of his life. Sully had a prolific and successful career, painting an estimated 2,000 portraits throughout his lifetime. He painted some of the most famous American statesmen and heroes of his day, as well as prominent Europeans including portraits of Queen Victoria, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette. One of his most famous paintings is the historical piece, The Passage of the Delaware, which depicts George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River during the American Revolutionary War. The Rosenbach is now home to five of Sully’s Gratz portraits, including two portraits of Rebecca and portraits of Benjamin and Maria. The Rosenbach’s collection contains several other Sully paintings including an 1833 portrait of the actress and author Fanny Kemble, whom Rebecca knew, and an 1828 painting Sully described as “child on the sea side” along with a related study.
