Hercules and the Centaur Eurytion
Framed: 14 3/4 x 17 1/4 x 1 inches (37.47 x 43.82 x 2.54 cm)
Kansas City Collects: A Selection of Works of Art Privately Owned in the Greater Kansas City Area, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 22-February 28, 1965, no. 72a.
Drawings Collection of Milton McGreevy, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 7-April 4, 1965, no. 54, as Centaur and Nymph.
Harold Woodbury Parsons (1882-1967), New York and Rome, by September 22, 1950;
Purchased from Parsons, through Alessandro Brass, by Jacques Seligmann and Co., New York, stock no. 7909, September 22, 1950-March 17, 1953 [1];
Germain Seligmann’s gift to Paul Gardner (1894-1972), Kansas City, MO and San Patricio, NM, March 17, 1953-October 3, 1963 [2];
Purchased from Gardner by Milton (1903-1980) and Barbara (née James, 1905-1996) McGreevy, Shawnee Mission, KS, October 3, 1963-1964 [3];
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1964.
NOTES:
[1] Archives of American Art, Washington, DC, Jacques Seligmann and Co. Records, box 292, folder 2, copy in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.
[2] In addition to selling the Nelson-Atkins a number of works of art over the course of several decades, the dealer Germain Seligmann, of Jacques Seligmann and Co., was a personal friend of the Museum’s first director, Paul Gardner. Seligmann married Gardner’s assistant, Ethlyne Jackson, and Gardner served as best man in their wedding. Upon hearing of Gardner’s impending retirement as Nelson-Atkins director, Seligmann wrote the following to Gardner on March 17, 1953: “For quite a few years it has been Ethlyne’s desire and mine to offer you as best man a small souvenir of our wedding. However, besides being a close friend of ours you were also the director of the K.C. Museum, and we hesitated sending you the little present we had in mind. Today, and I need not repeat to you how sorry we are that the circumstances have changed, we are no longer hampered by such ethics, over exaggerated ones I am sure, and we feel free to send you this token of our feelings. You will thus receive in the next few days a small package containing two drawings of Centaurs by Domenico Tiepolo…we hope that in years to come besides reminding you of us they will also recall to you the skies of Italy which mean so much to you.” Archives of American Art, Washington, DC, Jacques Seligmann Records, box 116, folder 4, copy in NAMA curatorial files.
[3] Documentation of McGreevy’s purchase from Gardner is found in the Nelson-Atkins Archives, MS007 Milton McGreevy Papers, Box 1, folder 9.
“Drawings Collection of Milton McGreevy,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) 4, no. 6 (March 7-April 4, 1965): 32, as Centaur and Nymph.
Ralph T. Coe, Kansas City Collects: A Selection of Works of Art Privately Owned in the Greater Kansas City Area, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1965), (repro.).
