Ann Brownlee, University of Pennsylvania
In early 1905, a collection of more than 450 bronze reproductions, the gift of Philadelphia department store founder John Wanamaker (1838-1922), arrived at the Free Museum of Science and Art, the precursor of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Almost all were reproductions of objects preserved in the Naples Archaeological Museum and found at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Some eighty-five reproductions are copies of objects from Herculaneum, particularly both large- and small-scale sculpture from the Villa dei Papiri. The Free Museum had opened in 1899 in a grand new building, and many of the bronze reproductions were soon exhibited in the classical sculpture gallery on the Museum’s main floor, where they joined other copies as well as Greek and Roman originals. This paper will discuss the acquisition of the bronzes as well as the history of their display at the Museum.
In 1902, John Wanamaker, who had joined the Free Museum’s Board of Managers a few years earlier, was on his way home from a long voyage to India and spent several days in Naples and visited Pompeii and Vesuvius. While in Naples, Wanamaker commissioned the collection of bronzes. They were produced by the Naples foundry, J. Chiurazzi & Fils, which was established in 1870 and had a reputation for fine reproductions of ancient objects. Chiurazzi had a shop in the Galleria Principe di Napoli, across from the archaeological museum. This is probably where Wanamaker, along with other foreign visitors looking for souvenirs of their grand tour, would have seen some reproductions but also consulted Chiurazzi catalogues and photographs before placing his very large order.
The bronzes did not make their way directly from Naples to Philadelphia, rather they journeyed across America in 1904 to St. Louis. There they were featured in the Royal Italian Pavilion at the St Louis World’s Fair, which commemorated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. The pavilion, the work of the Milanese Art Nouveau architect Giuseppe Sommaruga, was meant to recall a grand Roman villa and celebrate Italy’s classical past. Continuing this theme, the bronze reproductions, including sculpture from Herculaneum, adorned the interior.
Once they arrived in Philadelphia, the bronzes were celebrated in newspaper articles and became highlights of the Museum’s collection. As the acquisition of original objects increased, however, the reproductions were gradually relegated to storerooms and endured a lengthy period where such copies were out of favor. The Wanamaker bronzes never disappeared entirely from public view, however, and some of the larger Herculaneum works decorated the Museum’s gardens. In recent decades, as the educational value of reproductions, especially such fine ones as the Wanamaker collection, has been recognized, they have become known to a new generation of students and museum visitors.