Temple of the Graces, Orchomenus
Framed: 20 3/4 x 26 x 1 3/4 inches (52.71 x 66.04 x 4.45 cm)
Neo-Classicism: Style and Motif, The Cleveland Museum of Art, OH, September 23-November 1, 1964, no. 179, erroneously as by Joseph Michael Gandy, as Fantastic Classical Ruins.
Drawings Collection of Milton McGreevy, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 7-April 4, 1965, no. 92, erroneously as by Joseph Michael Gandy, as Fantastic Classical Ruins.
Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843), Architectural Association, London, November 12-December 10, 1982, no. B13, erroneously as by Joseph Michael Gandy, erroneously as Sketch from Iphigenia, vide Tauris of Euripides.
Master Drawings from Polish Collections, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 17-June 6, 1993. NAMA addition.
Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 23-August 18, 1996; The Cummer Museum and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, September 20-November 29, 1996; The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, December 21, 1996-March 2, 1997, no. 60, erroneously as by Joseph Michael Gandy, erroneously as Iphigenia in the Land of the Tauri.
Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 12-September 6, 1998, no cat., erroneously as by Joseph Michael Gandy, erroneously as Iphigenia in the Land of the Tauri.
Landscape: Real and Imagined, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, August 16, 2014-February 22, 2015, no cat., as by George Maddox, as Temple of the Graces, Orchomenus.
Inspired by the writings of ancient Greek traveler and geographer Pausanias’s descriptions of the ancient Greek City of Orchomenus, this watercolor depicts the imagined ruins of the city. It features the opulent Temple of the Graces, which dominates the right side of the image.
Maddox skillfully rendered the play of light and shadow in the shafts breaking through the clouds, while draped female figures move through the overgrown foliage and dislodged sculptures. Maddox, who was a successful architectural draftsman before turning to watercolors, demonstrates his understanding of rendering buildings in space, as he imagines a distant antique past.
Robert Frank (1924-2019), New York, by May 26, 1959;
Purchased from Frank by Durlacher Brothers, New York, stock no. 706D, May 26, 1959-November 28, 1960 [1];
Purchased from Durlacher Brothers by Milton McGreevy (1903-1980), Shawnee Mission, KS, November 28, 1960-1980;
His bequest to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1981.
NOTES:
[1] Getty Research Library, Los Angeles, Durlacher Brothers Records, Box 14, Ledger 1937-1966, copy in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.
Henry Hawley, Neo-Classicism: Style and Motif, exh. cat. (Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1964), unpaginated, (repro.), erroneously as by Joseph Michael Gandy, as Fantastic Classical Ruins.
“Drawings Collection of Milton McGreevy,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) 4, no. 6 (March 7-April 4, 1965): 46, erroneously as by Joseph Michael Gandy, as Fantastic Classical Ruins.
John Newenham Summerson, Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843), exh. cat. (London: Architectural Association, 1982), 19, 38, (repro.), erroneously as by Joseph Michael Gandy, as Sketch from Iphigenia, vide Tauris of Euripides.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 131, 200, erroneously as by Joseph Michael Gandy, erroneously as Iphigenia in the Land of the Tauri.
Roger Ward, Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 189-90, (repro.), erroneously as by Joseph Michael Gandy, erroneously as Iphigenia in the Land of the Tauri.
Brian Lukacher, Joseph Gandy: An Architectural Visionary in Georgian England (London: Thames and Hudson, 2006), 109, 218, (repro.), as by George Maddox, erroneously as Part of Orchomenus, from Pausanias.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 112, (repro.), as by George Maddox, as Temple of the Graces, Orchomenus.
