Centaur, attributed to A.L. Jewell & Co. (working 1852-67),
Waltham, Mass. Electra Havemeyer Webb purchased the
38-inch-long sculpture from Edith Halpert in 1950.
"Silhouettes in The Sky" begins in the museum's lipstick red
1901 Round Barn, moved to its present site from East Passumpsic,
Vt., in 1985-86, and concludes in the Stagecoach Inn, built in
Charlotte, Vt., in 1783 and moved in 1949. Redesigned in 2002, the
galleries of the Stagecoach Inn, in addition to weathervanes, house
cigar store figures, trade signs, ship's carvings and folk
painting. Having the weathervanes evenly divided between the two
locations gets visitors to different ends of the museum campus,
said the curator.
"The Round Barn is the first point of contact for visitors to
Shelburne. It's great architecture, but a problematic exhibition
environment," said Burks. "Our conservation department won't let
us put anything in it that is sensitive to humidity and
temperature. Ceramics and glass are safe, but their scale isn't
right. One thing that immediately comes to mind as suitable for
this space are weathervanes. We probably have the largest
collection in the country."
Burks grouped the weathervanes, mostly of New England origin,
under the headings "Barnyard Beasts," "Equestrian Enthusiasm,"
"Fancy Forms," "Ocean Occupants," "Freedom Figures," "American
Indian Images," "Mythological Monsters" and "Modern Miracles."
"Pisces," a painted weathervane of two sheet-iron fish that
swim in opposite directions, late Nineteenth Century. Courtesy
Shelburne Museum.
There are many old favorites: among them a 54-inch-long wood
mermaid, carved by Warren Gould Ruby, who holds a wooden comb and
gazes at herself in an attached metal mirror; two sheet-iron fish
who swim in opposite directions; and "To, Te," a painted sheet-iron
figure of an Indian depicted in a semiabstract profile reminiscent
of Picasso's almond-eyed sirens. The syllables "To, Te" appear in
silhouette along the banner on which the Indian, bow and arrow in
hand, kneels. "To, Te" stands for "totem of the Eagle" and was an
emblem of the Improved Order of Redmen, an early Nineteenth Century
fraternal organization devoted to the principles of American
liberty.
Burks' own taste runs to a 7-foot-long copper, brass, zinc and
iron fire pumper attributed to J.W. Fiske Company; and a more
primitive, sheet zinc, brass and iron locomotive fitted with a
sunburst lighting rod.
"I love weathervanes that celebrate American ingenuity," the
curator explained. She added, "I hope that people will have new
favorites after visiting the show."
A recent addition to the collection is a needle-nosed iron
swordfish found in Perth Amboy, N.J. The museum purchased it from
New Hampshire dealer Jane Workman in 2002.
Warren Gould Roby, a trained coppersmith, carved this unique
painted wood weathervane for his house in Wayland, Mass.,
around 1825-50. The mermaid measures 54 1/2 inches long and
holds a metal mirror. Courtesy Shelburne Museum.
Many of the weathervanes illustrated in the slim catalog
written by Burks and published by the Shelburne Museum are by
unknown makers. A few are the work of well-known manufacturers of
the late Nineteenth Century, among them L.W. Cushing & Sons and
Cushing & White of Waltham, Mass.; Rochester Iron Works Co. of
Rochester, N.H.; Harris & Co. of Boston; as well as J.W. Fiske
Company of New York City.
"Even in a mass-produced weathervane there was a lot of handwork.
We want visitors to understand how molded copper weathervanes
were made, beginning with carving a pattern from wood; creating a
hollow, two-sided iron mold; putting sheet copper inside of the
mold; then painting the piece. If you had a sheet-iron tail, that
was a separate process," said Burks, who included patterns and
molds in the show.
Of special interest, given Christie's January sale of a Goddess
of Liberty weathervane attributed to William Hennis of
Philadelphia for a record $1.08 million, is a 46-inch-tall
Goddess of Liberty carved and painted wooden pattern made by
Henry Leach for Cushing & White. Webb purchased the pattern
from Halpert in 1941.
"It's massive. People have to see it to appreciate its scale,"
exhibition curator Jean Burks says of this 88 3/4-inch-long
Fire Pumper, a copper, brass, zinc and iron weathervane
attributed to J.W. Fiske Company (working 1873-93) of New York
City. The vane is modeled after an Amoskeag engine built
between 1840 and 1880. Courtesy Shelburne Museum.
Owning patterns and molds could be useful, as Halpert,
director of New York's Downtown Gallery, knew. Halpert acquired
L.W. Cushing & Sons' Nineteenth Century components for making
"Hindoo," a stylized racehorse weathervane modeled after the 1881
Kentucky Derby winner. In 1955, Halpert presented Webb with a
replica, on view in "Silhouettes in The Sky," of the original.
Encouraged by Halpert to regard weathervanes as art, Webb cared
little about the history and provenance of her pieces, a
disappointment, perhaps, to visitors interested in documentation.
When Webb's first assistant, now in her 90s, recently visited the
museum, she recalled that her former boss did not even like
labels on her pictures.
"Webb wanted you to look at the art. She was also a great
decorator. I've never seen any photographs of weathervanes in her
houses, but I have a feeling that she moved them around on a
regular basis. It was just her personality," said Burks.
What Webb loved was color, form and scale. Said the curator, "She
especially loved scale, objects that were very small and objects
that were large. I think scale is one reason why so many people
respond so to weathervanes. Many of these sculptures are huge
when you get them down off a building."
Horse and Jockey, Massachusetts origin, about 1880. Molded
copper with a zinc head; 34 by 17 1/2 inches. Courtesy
Shelburne Museum.
Electra Webb, said Elizabeth Stillinger, author of a
forthcoming book on early collectors of American folk art, "was,
along with Henry du Pont and Henry Sleeper, one of the two or three
most visually motivated collectors of her era and one of the most
gifted at making very charming visual arrangements."
Moving beyond Webb's aesthetic approach, Burks said, "We wanted
to tell the story and put it into context. I wanted to show
people that weathervanes were more than a bunch of roosters. They
were handmade as well as mass-produced. They were cultural
barometers reflecting popular interests of the day."
"Old Gabriel's" next stop has yet to be decided.
"'He can't can go back on top of White Church. He's gotten fairly
fragile and his value is unbelievable," Hunsdon said recently by
phone.
Noting that the White Church Association has been offered
$350,000 to $450,000 for the historic vane since its recovery,
she said, "Most of us are sentimental and not that much motivated
by the money. We have a nice local museum and would like to have
our weathervane here, but, like most museums, we're small and
lack money for the proper security. For the moment, we're happy
to have 'Old Gabriel' safe and sound at the Shelburne Museum."
The Shelburne Museum is on Route 7. For information, 802-985-3346
or www.shelburnemuseum.org.
