Written by Ashton Hawkins
The first bronze of any significance that I remember buying was a small bronze of Mercury on a gilded pedestal. I bought it from Ruth Blumka who specialized in Renaissance and earlier paintings and sculptures. Ruth and her late husband had been close friends with Thomas Hoving, the Director of the Metropolitan Museum, ever since he had been the Curator of Medieval Art at The Cloisters for eight years.
Soon after Hoving recruited me to become Assistant Counsel and Assistant Secretary to the Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum, he took me to meet Ruth for lunch at her apartment on Park Avenue. I was overwhelmed by her beautiful collection of Medieval and Renaissance Art displayed on both floors of the apartment.
From that moment, Ruth and her two children and I were good friends.
When she first asked me back for one of her Sunday suppers, I met three medieval curators — one from the Met and two from museums in America and Europe. It was immediately apparent how respected Ruth was within her field. It was at this time that I began to appreciate bronze sculptures and began paying more attention to bronzes in the Met’s collection — recently re-installed near the Medieval Hall — which I passed by two or three times a week on the way to my office.
One evening a few months later, at dinner at her apartment, I admired a small sculpture of Mercury from the 18th century. After some hemming and hawing for a week or so, she let me buy it for four thousand dollars — a rather big price for me and most probably a much bigger loss for her. But it started me thinking.
Tom Hoving and I went to London in 1975 on business, and also to meet with Walter Annenberg — at that time he was the American Ambassador to Great Britain. Walter was being wooed to become a trustee of the Met. He and his wife also invited Sir John Pope-Hennessy, the Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, one of the greatest experts on Renaissance bronzes. He was fascinating with a very good and dry sense of humor. In subsequent visits to London, we became friends and he usually invited me for dinner.
After Hoving persuaded him to leave London to become Chairman of the European Paintings Department at the Met, we reconnected. I had bought a few other bronzes by then, but only showed John the Mercury which I had bought from Ruth. He kept it for a few days. He determined that it was not 18th century as Ruth had thought, but actually from the 17th century from the school of a little-known Italian sculptor. I asked his advice about selling it and he suggested a dealer in London whom he knew well. He also offered to write his opinion of the Mercury, which I included in the package sent to London. As a result, it sold very well indeed. Shortly after, I gave a dinner for John and a few of his friends. It made him happy as he had once again been right. This all heightened my interest in bronzes.
Ruth and I became even closer friends. She led me occasionally to a shop where she had seen something I could afford. I also had the chance to learn a bit from the various curators from the Met who came to dine with Ruth quite often because she was always engaging and funny.
After Ruth died, I lost some of my interest in bronzes. However, when Johnnie Moore and I became partners in 1996, things began to change in my life. Johnnie has an instinct about bronzes, and his interest and knowledge gradually became a kind of passion enjoyed by both of us.
We began to buy a few bronzes in New York, and several were acquired from a dealer friend in Paris, Albert-Jean Antonelli at Drouot. We then traveled to Prague to visit a close friend and classmate of Johnnie’s at Harvard. We knew that his elderly and titled father in Boston had persuaded his son to move there with his family in 1991 to try to reclaim the family’s properties.
We immediately discovered that bronzes and Russian objects in Prague were priced far less than other places in Europe and the U.S., and we took advantage of it. Also Johnnie’s friend had managed over a number years to reclaim a number of the family’s important properties, including their famous 600 year old collection of paintings, sculpture, porcelain, and rare and very important musical manuscripts on display in a palace an hour away from Prague. We much enjoyed seeing the collection and getting permission to browse in the storage areas full of treasures.
Three years later, we went back to see more of the Czech Republic and were able to collect a few more Russian objects. This was just before the Russians became interested in their pre-Communist culture. We were also delighted to see their paintings and sculptures moved into another recently reclaimed palace in the center of Prague.
Aside from Paris and Prague, Johnnie and I acquired most of our bronzes in New York City, Hudson, and a couple of auction houses — including Stair Galleries.