The Saga of Seal and Polar Bear, Part III
Welcome back to my continuing adventures with Seal and
Polar Bear!
In my last post, I introduced you to the artist who painted
this peculiar scene, Charles Sidney Raleigh. Today I’ll tell you what I’ve
learned about the painting itself.
I started my research by consulting the records room in our
Collections Management Building, which contains our object files.
One of the many filing cabinets dedicated to our object
files.
While perusing the folder for Seal and Polar Bear, I
found a reference to a second version of the painting, located at the National
Gallery in Washington, D.C.
The fact that there were two versions of this peculiar work
intrigued me, so I grabbed our library’s copy of the National Gallery’s
catalogue of American vernacular painting.
Law of the Wild, 1881 (image courtesy of
the National Gallery, Washington D.C.)
The version at the National Gallery is called Law of the
Wild, but it’s the same basic composition, and was executed in 1881, the
same year as Seal and Polar Bear. That wasn’t all I learned, however.
While reading about Law of the Wild, I saw a reference to a third
version of the painting.
Wait, there’s a third version?
According to the catalogue, an image of this third painting
is kept in Raleigh’s artist file, which is located at the Archives of American
Art in Washington, D.C. Fortunately, a microfilm copy of Raleigh’s file can be
accessed at the Boston Public Library, and so I took a research trip to look at
it.
I hadn’t visited the library before, but its grand,
Italianate façade made it easy to find.
The exterior of the Boston
Public Library, designed by architect Charles McKim and completed in 1895.
The interior of the library
is as grand as its exterior.
The library is famous for
its murals by John Singer Sargent.
After I had explored the library, I settled down with the
Raleigh’s microfilm reel, and found two photographs of the painting.
The date 1886 had been written on the pictures, which
suggested that this version had been painted five years later. Unfortunately,
the pictures were small and blurry, so I wasn’t sure whether I was really looking
at a third version of the painting, or just a poor, misdated photograph of one
of the two known versions.
I found a note mentioning that this third version had last
been seen at the Bourne Archives in Massachusetts, which was now part of the
Bourne Historical Society. I called and asked whether the Historical Society
had a painting called Seal and Polar Bear in its collection.
“Why yes,” the archivist answered, “I’m looking right at
it.”
Seal and Polar Bear, 1886 (Image courtesy of
the Bourne Historical Society)
The archivist generously sent me pictures, and once I had
them, it was easy to see it was a different painting, with very jagged icebergs
and a seal whose mouth resembled a beartrap.
I was excited to see this third version, but it raised new
questions. Why would Raleigh paint three versions of the same composition, for
example, and who was the intended audience? There is a story waiting to be told
here, and if I had all the time in the world, I’d tackle it. I had an
exhibition to prepare, however, so I needed to put this story on the
backburner, for now at least.
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