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As an art historian and long-time New Yorker, I loved Fiona Davis’s The Magnolia Palace – partly because I when I read it, I could call to mind almost every image mentioned in the book. For those who aren’t as familiar with the Frick Collection or with outdoor sculptures in New York, this post provides images. If you’re curious to learn more, I’ve included links to my blog posts on outdoor sculptures, and links to artworks on the Frick’s site. When an artwork is mentioned more than once, I’ll give a reference back to where it’s first mentioned, and/or give you a link to an image. This post is available as a video at https://youtu.be/gbYr5lwJuco .

NOTE: These 3 posts have not been vetted by Fiona Davis or the Frick Collection. To the best of my understanding, the very limited quotes from The Magnolia Palace fall under fair use, and the images (except photos I’ve taken) are public domain. Credits appear with the photos.

Chapter 1

Rossi: I can’t find a sculptor with that name who was working in NYC in the early 20th century. The SIRIS sculpture inventory is the go-to source for such things.

Augustus Lukeman, Straus Memorial, 1915, West End / Broadway / 106th St. This is one of my favorite outdoor sculptures in NYC. It honors a couple who died on the Titanic; more in this post. On allegorical sculptures – the sort for which Audrey Munson usually posed – see this post. Lukeman’s other works in NYC include the eerie Prospect Park War Memorial, 1921.

Isidore Konti, Three Graces for the Astor Hotel. A plaster model is now in Yonkers at the Hudson River Museum, of which Konti was a co-founder. SIRIS doesn’t know where the original has gone.

Adolph A. Weinman, Civic Fame, 1914, atop the Municipal Building at Chambers & Centre Streets. This 25-foot-tall sculpture is gilded copper on a steel frame. On her right arm is a shield with the seal of the city; in her right hand is a laurel wreath signifying fame. In her left hand is a crown with five turrets, one for each NYC borough. Given Civic Fame’s placement high above the city, it’s a notoriously difficult work to photograph, so I haven’t done a blog post; but there’s more information on Wikipedia. Weinman’s other works in NYC include Samuel Rea near Penn Station, and De Witt Clinton and Alexander Hamilton on the facade of the Museum of the City of New York.

Chapter 2

Sherry Fry, Pediment above the entrance of the Frick Collection, 70th St. at Fifth Ave.

Portrait of Margaret Frick: I haven’t been able to find one online.

Fragonard Room: Contains a series of paintings by Jean-Honore Fragonard from the 1770s-1790s, collectively titled “The Progress of Love.” Images of the room from the Frick’s site are here. Paintings and furnishings (including chairs not to be sat upon) are here. Below is one of the Progress of Love paintings, about 10 feet tall.

Chapter 3

Isidore Konti, Three Graces: see Chapter 1 above, and here.

Gibson Girls: a distinctive type made famous by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson (1867-1944).

Ziegfeld Girls: stars of the Ziegfeld Follies, lavish theatrical revues that ran on Broadway from 1907 to 1931, and sporadically into the 1950s.

For contrast with the Frick Mansion: the Cornelius Vanderbilt II home, Fifth Avenue at 57th St.

The Vanderbilt mansion has long since been demolished: Bergdorf Goodman now occupies the site. But the huge wrought-iron gate that’s visible left of the porte-cochere in the photo above now graces the main entrance to Central Park’s Conservatory Garden.

Sherry Fry, Pediment of the Frick Collection: see Ch. 2 above, and here.

Chapter 4

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, La Promenade (two little girls out for a walk), 1875-1876

Fragonard Room: see Ch. 2 above, and here.

Daniel Farthington, bust of a woman with flying hair: Fiona Davis says she made this piece up (Magnolia Palace, p. 336). No sculptor named Farthington is listed in SIRIS or Wikipedia. The Frick does own Jean-Antoine Houdon’s portrait bust, Élisabeth-Suzanne de Jaucourt, Comtesse du Cayla, 1777.

Chapter 6

Boudoir on other side of the foyer decorated with fanciful panels that reminded Lillian of those in the Fragonard Room: possibly paintings by Boucher.

Massive portrait of Henry Clay Frick: this one is over-lifesize, but the Frick’s site gives the date as 1943.

Smaller portrait of Frick, framed in silver: possibly this watercolor, acquired by Frick in 1913.

Chapter 7

Oversized Turner seascape: probably The Harbor of Dieppe, 1825-1826. It’s more than 7 feet wide.

Vermeer, Officer and Laughing Girl, ca. 1657.

Frederick MacMonnies, Beauty and Truth, 1920, in niches flaking the main entrance to New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue between 42nd and 41st Streets. These allegorical figures are late and uninspired efforts by MacMonnies, whose earlier works include Nathan Hale. On MacMonnies, see my book Artist-Entrepreneurs: Saint Gaudens, MacMonnies, and Parrish, and this post.

Veronese, Choice Between Virtue and Vice, 1565.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Whitney’s most notable early work is the Washington Heights – Inwood War Memorial, 1921, at Broadway / St. Nicholas Ave. / 168th Streets. Among her later works, the most famous is the Titanic Memorial in Washington, DC, 1931, whose pose was incorporated into the movie Titanic.

In 1930 Whitney (1875-1941) founded the Whitney Museum of American Art, devoted solely to twentieth-century American art. Its core collection was 500 pieces that the Metropolitan Museum had refused to accept as a gift. For the past several years, the Frick’s temporary home has been on Madison Avenue, in the Marcel Breuer building that housed the Whitney Museum from 1966 to 2014.

Karl Bitter, Pulitzer Fountain (Pomona), 1916, at 59th St. and Fifth Ave., just east of the Plaza Hotel. The Fountain was constructed with a bequest from Joseph Pulitzer, who ran the sensationalist New York World. Pulitzer’s battle for circulation with William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal helped bring about the Spanish-American War. Pomona was completed by Bitter’s assistants (Karl Gruppe and Isidore Konti) after Bitter became one of the earliest automobile fatalities in NYC.

Next week: illustrations for Chapters 8-9.

More

• When I visited the Frick Collection in February 2024, it was temporarily housed at the former home of the Whitney Museum, at 945 Madison Avenue (East 75th Street). I suspect Mr. Frick would have had some scathing comments about seeing it in a building that’s known as an outstanding example of Brutalist architecture. Never mind: by late 2024, the Frick Collection will be back on East 70th Street, in its renovated and expanded home.
• Dozens of early photos of the Frick Mansion are here.
• You can search the Frick’s collections here. Wikipedia has a partial list of works at the Frick, sometimes with links to Wikipedia articles.
• For an illustrated chronological list of every outdoor sculpture in NYC up to 2021, see my Instagram account. It includes many works for which Aundrey Munson might have been the model.
• Want wonderful art delivered weekly to your inbox? Check out my Sunday Recommendations list and rewards for recurring support: details here. For examples of favorite recommendations from past years, click here.

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