Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/311502
In any case, Brumidi most likely inserted the West self-portrait in order to acknowledge Fulton's artistic debt to the older expatriate American painter. 15 e fact that the painting is an incomplete copy, presumably begun and then abandoned by Fulton himself, highlights the semi- nal shift in Fulton's career, his conversion from struggling young artist to distinguished inventor. Nearly from the moment Brumidi first set foot in America as an Italian expatriate—landing in New York City in 1852—and throughout the twenty-five years he spent decorating the U.S. Capitol (1855–80), progress, technological innovation, and manifest destiny were recurrent themes in his work. Characteristically, Brumidi often blended his knowledge of mythology, allegory, and Renaissance-based motifs, fundamental elements of his classical training in Italy, with a personal fascination for the modern tools of American technology. A typical example is Progress (fig. 7), Brumidi's "earliest documented domestic mural," painted in 1853 for the Bennitt family house in South Hampton, Long Island. Here, a figure representing American progress rides on a dolphin while cherubs to either side carry the "symbols of commerce and liberty." 16 Despite the presence of a steamship and locomo- tive in the background and various attributes symbolic of America such as the native headdress and star worn by the figure, Brumidi clearly adapted his iconography from such well-known Renaissance precedents as Raphael's Galatea, 1513, from the Villa Farnesina in Rome. At the same time, Brumidi's theme, American commercial development, also ties his painting to such landmark contemporary A preliminary oil sketch by Brumidi for the Fulton fresco is in the collection of the Marsh-Billings National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont (fig. 6). Long mislabeled on the frame face as a self-portrait by Fulton, the work was correctly re-attributed in 1996. 12 e fresco closely follows the sketch in general design. Brumidi did make several minor changes, however, including reducing the compositional prominence of the Clermont, removing the globe (which is visible in the sketch immediately behind Fulton), and adjusting slightly Fulton's posture and attire. But the most intriguing difference between the sketch and the final fresco concerns the subject of the painting resting on Fulton's easel. In the sketch it is an unfinished Fulton self-portrait; in the fresco, as noted above, it is an incom- plete version of a late self-portrait by Benjamin West. Provenance reveals that the original West painting was sold by the H.N. Barlow Gallery of Washington, D.C., to the Joint Committee on the Library on January 8, 1876. It probably hung somewhere in the Capitol un- til 1917 when it was transferred to the National Gallery of Art, later named the National Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian American Art Museum). In 1897 it was recorded hanging in the room then occupied by the Senate Committee on the Library. 13 Congress's acquisition of the West self-portrait raises the possibility that the por- trait may have been in the Capitol prior to its purchase in 1876. If so, its presence may have inspired the change in Brumidi's fresco of Fulton, which was painted in 1873 and is fully documented in a payment voucher dated November 28, 1873. 14 Fig. 6. Constan no Brumidi, Preliminary Sketch for Robert Fulton, c. 1873-75. Oil on canvas, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Na onal Historical Park, Woodstock, Vermont. MARSH-BILLINGS-ROCKEFELLER NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK 21 THE CAPITOL DOME SPRING 2014