The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-10-23
Thomas H. Clark Tells
 of a Day in Philadelphia


 pe welcome with the aiiiet but fine un- vanity that distinguishes him, and then turned ms loose to go where pleased through hisS gaiierte8 Later he Joined, me in person and showed me some of the greater prizss he owns.
 The gAlIeries occupy the whole front of the house on two floors. and consists of some eight rooms unequal in size. lures and these cover the walls from, floor to ceiling. and the doors them selves on both sides. as they swtnS open. are loaded with pictures Half the house appears one vast. canvass lighted from windows and from a, sky light in the roof. This Is not so won derful. you will say. what about the pictures7 Do Americans ever want to know the cost of things? Do they judge by a money standard? Then you may believe this collection Is worth one, two or three millions Of. dollars. It's actual value could not of course be determined except in. an auctioneer's q room, at Chyistiess in London, say. MT \ Waggaman of Washington. who has lately been so pitifully embarrassed.s Z has or had an art collection, ,she. valued at $s0o 1000. :. r. have seen. that coliec- tion, If it is worth SO. nearly a mill lion. then Mir. Johnson.s must be worth $5, ,000. .0e0. II have seen more than once the iwalter.ss collection ip Baltimors. perhaps the most famous private gal. !. iery in the United States. MT. John. sons Is .incomparably finer, than the Walters. Let one instance show the nature of what he has here gathered in the course of many years; he has Of Coroti alone twenty-two examples. He has any number of Rousseaus, Mil1ets. Daubignys. Bretons. These will serve to show the strength of the collection on Barbizon lines. It may be doubted whether there is anywhere, even in resentative pictures of the Barbizon school than are here. The whole his- tory of art from the fourteenth century onward might be profitably studied with manual in hand, going from one group ing to another in these rooms. Let me rehearse some of the nafnes; Botticelli. Tintoretto. Titan. Correggio. Rubens. Rembrandt, Velasquez, Van Dyck. Rey- holds. Gainsborough, Constable, Turner, Whistler and Sargent. And 1t is never merely one, but three or four or half dozen examples. and the total of artists must exceed a hundred in number.
 Naturally was nhomentarily bewiid- cred and lost in such place, but car ried away some impressions that will remain with me and it will not be the slightest one that of the kindly cour- tesy of the owner of this marvellous array of canvasses. MT. Johnson is in- terested in q public spirited way in- the Memorial Hall collection. Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, and he recommends ed should go there. took his word for 1t. but went too. to be amply re- paid, This collection is known as the s.xxr -, a xrrt yoffn founded by a rich merchant, a number of years ago. This bequest has been sufficient to maintain and increase the value of the gallery. but 1t Is most notably enriched through 8 bequest of that most wonderful old man, Benja- min Franklin. Franklin, by a codicil to his will. dated April 23, 1790. gave "the sum of 1000 pounds to the cor porationS of the city of Philadelphia, to invest for one hundred years" and at the expiration of a century, to lay out at their discretion 100000 pounds in public works, which might be judged of most general utility to the inhabit- ants. The remaining 31,O00 pounds was to be reinyested for another hundred years, charged with like trust. The cid doctor. casting his eyes on the far future, divined that the water supply of the place would need attention with in & century and he made bold to spe- cially commend to the corporation the plan of bringing the waters of Wissa- hickon Creek by means of pipes dl- rectly into town. As a matter of fact, the wissahickon would supply Phila- delphia of today with water for about sixty minutes. So as you have already divined, the Doctors charity is being devoted to tlre enrichment of Memorial kof ia UyQ1l Wnrth stopping off to see. It Is easily access sible by street cars that pass the Broad Street Station and three hours would suffice for the round trip, permitting a stay at the hall of more than an hour. The collection. has many feeble things fin it, mean among the pictures. but there are some very fine ones. They have the best Whistler have ever seen: and after all Whistler Is Amer ica's incomparable painter. They have an excellent Gainsborough. a landscape and good examples. if not the best. of Rousseau, Corot and Van Dyck, and there are a host of lesser names and a few that are greater, like Rubens. Murillo and Ruisdael. greater certain ly than Corot or Rousseau.
 I had my chance at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and enjoyed that, too. In the Corcoran at Wash ington, there are two marines by Rich ards, that after Corot's "Woodgather- CTS" seems to me to be the best pictures in the Corcoran. There Is 8 Richards in the Pennsylvania, The BelI-buoy," that surpasses. notably the Washington pictures It can be easily compared here with another marine by Harrison and to the distinct disadvantage of the latter. I know Harrison Is rated as being the better marine painter of the two. Pine Level thinks differently. Yet in this very place I was taught the importance of suspending judgment. had often wondered at Wilson's repu- tation, his high place in English land scape art. I found in the Pennsylva- mia picture of his that might easily pass muster as a Turner. The strong est feature of this collection is its por- L