Johns Hopkins (1795-1873):

Art Collector

The Indian Bride purchased in 1846 by Johns Hopkins,

courtesy of the  Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives

The first documented painting that Johns Hopkins acquired was The Indian Bride by Alfred Jacob Miller (1810-1874).  He did so in 1846, when Miller sold  copies of his painting, best known as The Trapper’s Bride,  to Johns and to B. C. Ward, both trustees of the Baltimore Atheneum and the Maryland Historical Society.  

B. C. Ward acquired his copy of the Indian Bride on January 20, 1846. Johns Hopkins agreed to buy his copy on February 15, but did not pay for it until a year later.^[1]  What Hannah Hopkins (1774-1846), Johns Hopkins’s mother,  a devout Quaker,  might have thought about her son’s purchase of the Indian Bride  is not known, although his letters to her and hers to him suggest that she might not have approved.^[2]  Hannah had moved to Baltimore in the early 1840s where she lived with Johns and his sister Elizabeth (1797–1875) in rental housing on Lombard Street.^[3]   Elizabeth married Nathaniel Crenshaw, a Quaker Minister, in  November 1846, and moved to Virginia where she lived until the death of her husband  in 1866. Hannah died shortly after Elizabeth’s marriage, leaving Johns to build his art collection without advice or disapproval from either.

When Johns Hopkins died December 24, 1873, he had 79 paintings in the inventory of his possessions at 81 Saratoga Street, a townhouse he purchased in 1851. .  They were distributed on the walls of the Library (36 paintings), Parlor #1 (29 paintings) and Parlor #2 (14 paintings).  He left the house and contents to Johns Hopkins Hospital reserving a life estate in the property for his sister, Eliza Crenshaw, who had become his housekeeper after the death of her husband.  When she died a little over a year later the paintings were still  on the walls.  What happened to them thereafter is an ongoing mystery.  Fortunately the catalog of  an exhibit at the Atheneum in the rooms of the Maryland Historical Society in 1849 and the auction catalog of  the remarkable collection of another merchant,  Granville Sharp Oldfield (1794-1860), descriptions of twenty-six  of the paintings have survived along with an accounting of what Johns Hopkins paid for 22 of them at  the  Oldfield auction in 1855.^[4]

Laurence Hall Fowler photograph of the Athenaeum building at the northwest corner of

Saratoga Street and St. Paul taken sometime between 1901 and 1911^[5]

In 1849 Johns Hopkins lent five paintings to the exhibition of paintings, engravings, etc., at the picture gallery of the Maryland Historical Society in the Athenaeum building which the society owned.^[6] 

1849 Exhibit of Paintings Owned by Johns Hopkins^[7]

The Sutler’s Booth (catalog no. 1), unattributed

Dido’s Purchase (catalog no. 135), unattributed

Judith with the Head of Holofernes (catalog no. 267), unattributed

Landscape (catalog no. 235) given to F. Koken (perhaps Edmund Koken)

Love and War (catalog no. unknown) a copy after Titian by Alfred Jacob Miller

The Sutler’s Booth (1849 Catalog no. 1)

This may well have been a copy of Philip Wouwerman’s Soldiers and Horsemen at a Sutler's Booth,  1662.

Soldiers and Horsemen at a Sutler's Booth,  1662^[8]

Dido’s Purchase (1849 catalog no. 135)

This entry is unattributed,  and may have in fact been an engraving:

^[9]

Judith with the Head of Holofernes (1849 catalog no. 267)

This painting from Johns Hopkins’s collection appears to now be at the Walters Art Museum.

Judith with the Head of Holofernes

Circle of Elisabetta Sirani (Italian, 1638-1665) (Artist)

Circle of Giovanni Andrea Sirani (Italian, 1610-1670) (Artist)

1638-1665 (Baroque)

oil on canvas, Walters Art Museum^[10]

Landscape (1849 catalog no. 235)

This could be any number of paintings.   The Taste of Maryland suggests that it may have been by Edmund Koken (1814-1872)^[11] who painted many landscapes of which the following is representative:

a landscape by Edmund Koken, 1843

Love and War,  a copy after Titian by Alfred Jacob Miller 

This painting is likely the one now owned by the Walters Art Museum

Copy of Titian's "Allegory of Alfonso d'Avalos, Marchese del Vasto"

Alfred Jacob Miller (American, 1810-1874) (Artist)

ca. 1833, oil on canvas, Accession Number 37.2594

Walters Art Museum, Gift of Mr. George Durrett, 1981^[12]

The Oldfield Auction, May 16-18, 1855:

In 1855 Johns Hopkins added 22 paintings to his collection from the Oldfield auction:

Granville Sharp Oldfield at his residence, 45 Mt. Vernon Place^[13]

By 1855 Granville Sharp Oldfield was literally going mad from acute alcoholism and would soon be checked in to Mt. Hope Insane Asylum  run by the Sisters of Charity.  Shortly before Oldfield  died there in 1860, he would be listed along with the other residents by the census taker as a 58 year old merchant diagnosed with “intemperance”   and  “insane”,  born in Maryland.  In fact he had been born in England,  and had first been a merchant in New York where his partner had also gone insane leading to the dissolution of the partnership and Oldfield’s move to Baltimore where he sold large quantities of liquor at a considerable profit.

In 1819 Oldfield married Anne, eldest daughter of Ralph Higinbotham.^[14]    A remembrance of Oldfield was published at the time of his death in the Times Picayune of New Orleans, the city where his son had died two years before.  It was written by the New York correspondent of the Mobile Register [Alabama] who called himself “Harmony”:^[15] 

Granville S. Oldfield of Baltimore, died in the Baltimore Lunatic Asylum last week [June, 1860].

This gentleman was at one time eminent as a merchant.  Thirty years ago he was senior partner of  Oldfield, Bernard & co. in this city [New York]. In 1834 or 35 Bernard was nearly killed at the Park theatre.  He insulted a lady, and her husband smashed up Mr. Bernard’s spectacles, and drove the fragments into one of his eyes.  He became insane, was sent to the New York mad house, and the firm was dissolved.  Then G. S. Oldfield removed to Baltimore and there became the agent of “Lloyd’s London.” He did a very extensive commercial business.  His residence was up near the monument.  Mr. O. was a lover of fine arts, and at one time had collected a gallery of paintings worth at least $100,000.

He had two Children.  His son not long ago shot off his arm. It was amputated and he died.  The daughter married John Wright of the great American firm of Maxwell, Wright & Co. of Rio Janeiro.

Why G. S. Oldfield went mad I know not, but he did become so, and was confined in a Baltimore asylum.  It was at first a gentle, sorrowing madness.  He signed checks for friends, but at last he became unconscious of all things and persons and so he died.

The brother of Oldfield, Tom, died of small pox at the Staten Island Hospital….  General Jackson thought so much of Tom Oldfield that he made him Consul  to Lyons, in France.

…

Well , this is a changing sort of a world, and when I see a gifted family wind up in this sort of fashion, I wonder what people were placed here for.  Like the inscription upon the tomb-stone of an infant---

“If I am so soon done for,

I wonder what I was begun for.”^[16]   

In  1855 Granville Sharp Oldfield’s row house at 45 Mt. Vernon Place in Baltimore and the 658 pieces of art that crammed its walls were put up for an auction that lasted three days in May,  attracting the wealthy of Baltimore including Johns Hopkins who had made money selling whiskey in bulk to Philadelphia,  and another wealthy liquor dealer, William Walters.  Potential bidders were invited to the townhouse to view the paintings as Oldfield had them displayed.  The paintings were then moved to Carroll Hall at the Southeast corner of Calvert and Baltimore streets where the auction was held and where Alfred Jacob Miller who had painted Johns Hopkins’s first acquisition, his copy of a Titian, and the portraits of himself and his mother, also had his studio.^[17] 

The three day  auction was often a spirited affair with Johns Hopkins paying the highest price bid for a painting.  In all he purchased 22 items for $1515  ($57,068 in 2024 dollars) as described in the auctioneer’s catalog all of which he took home to his Saratoga Street residence where in 1858 his art  collection was assessed at $2,000 ( $75,337 in 2024 dollars).^[18] 

With a few exceptions, actual images of these paintings and engravings are yet to be found, largely because the record of what the Trustees of Johns Hopkins Hospital did with them has not been located.  The paintings remained in the Saratoga Street house after Johns Hopkins’s death and according to his estate inventory were not displayed at his country home, Clifton.  They were at Saratoga street when his life tenant, his sister Eliza, died there in 1875, but it is not known if they were still there when the president of both the University and Johns Hopkins Hospital, Daniel Coit Gilman, moved there in 1880.^[19]  It is likely that at least some had been moved to the Administration Building of Johns Hopkins Hospital as Eliza specified.^[20]

The paintings from 45 Mount Vernon Place:

Oldfield 392: Denys, Simon on canvas, signed -Conflagration of a Farm House in the Mountains near Naples- People and Cattle escaping from the fire; Mountain Torrent, &c. From the Collection of the late Joseph Bonaparte, and undoubtedly an original--presented to him by Murat when King of Naples.

Conflagration was the most expensive painting  sold at the Oldfield auction and  was purchased by Johns Hopkins for $230.^[21]  When Joseph Bonaparte fled Naples for Glenwood New Jersey he took his art collection with him.  When his collection was sold at auction in 1845 it included “Simon Denys--Storm at Night. Barn on Fire, Cattle Rushing Out” that was seven feet six inches long by five feet four inches high”!  Recently that painting or a copy was for sale at the Galerie Perrin in Paris:

detail from: https://www.instagram.com/galerieperrin/p/C04m57IoAAb/?img_index=1

If this was indeed the painting that Oldfield and then Johns Hopkins bought, there is no record to date of it being observed at the Saratoga Street townhouse or any indication how it recently appeared for sale at Galerie Perrin in Paris. It certainly would have dominated the room in which it was displayed. Oldfield placed his Conflagration in his front bedroom, a room of the townhouse in which he mounted the fewest paintings in his collection.  It is hard to imagine anyone sleeping comfortably at  Mount Vernon Place  with such a large and dramatic painting on the wall.  Johns Hopkins’s paintings were confined to his library and two parlors at his Saratoga street residence and would not disturb the sleep of family and guests.

Oldfield 160: Boucher, Francis, on panel, the Marriage of Venus and Neptune--copied from the Original for the present owner by J. Schaeffer

There are a number of Boucher’s  paintings and his circle that reference Neptune and Venus.  One that may come closest to the Oldfield catalog entry was sold at auction in Austria in 2021:

François Boucher (1703-1770)-circle, Venus with Neptune and angels; oil on canvas around 1800,

in a gilded classical frame with open work band top decoration. 35X55cm^[22]

Oldfield had six paintings that were copies by a J. Schaeffer. Nothing can be found about the life of J. Schaeffer.  He worked on canvas and copper. The copy of the Boucher was on canvas.  The rest were on copper.  Hopkins did buy five paintings on copper at the Oldfield auction, but copies on copper by other artists.   If they can be located, they may be of interest below the surface or on the back.  Artists who painted on copper were known to recycle copper etchings which can be revealed by x rays if painted over.^[23]

Oldfield 198: Hamilton, W, ra, on copper, Mary, Queen of Scots taking leave of Melville, the morning of her Execution---Copied by J. Schaeffer, for the present owner.

Oldfield 199: Hamilton, W, ra, on copper, Lady Jane Gray surrendering the crown, copied by J. Schaeffer, for the owner  

William Hamilton (1751-1801) was a noted historical painter.^[24]  According to the Royal Academy, William Hamilton RA (1751 - 1801)

was born  in Chelsea, West London, in 1751.  Hamilton spent time studying in Italy before entering the Royal Academy Schools in 1769. Although he had previously studied architectural draughtsmanship, he chose to pursue painting at this time. He exhibited four paintings at the Royal Academy in 1774, and by 1789 was elected as a Royal Academician. In the early part of his career, Hamilton focused on portraiture but he later began to paint subjects from poetry, history and the Bible. Hamilton was also employed by print galleries to illustrate popular themes and literature. His representations of Shakespearean scenes were not well-received but his rural scenes were fashionable.^[25]

 While there are many versions of Mary Queen of Scots,  Melville, and Lady Jane Gray, none meet the descriptions of the Oldfield paintings on copper.

Oldfield 290: Schoppin, H., on panel- the Graces at the Bath

Oldfield catalog  no. 290  also may have been a copy of a Boucher.  H. Schoppin, was an obscure copyist and painter whose work is little known. What he copied on panel may have resembled this, but that is mere conjecture.

https://www.art-prints-on-demand.com/a/francois-boucher/the-three-graces-decorati.html 

In all Johns Hopkins bought six works “on panel” at the Oldfield auction, a technique of painting on wood, rather than canvas or copper.^[26]

Oldfield 617: Colson, on panel, signed- Two Pastoral subjects, undoubtedly originals

It is plausible that these two paintings on panel were by a French Painter popular in New Orleans where Oldfield’s son lived.  One of his landscapes recently sold at auction:

Charles-Jean-Baptiste Colson

French, fl. 1810–1851

Oldfield 205:  De Troy, Chevalier John Francis, on copper--Haman Condemned to execution by order of King Ahasuerus

Oldfield 206: De Troy, Chevalier John Francis on copper-The Marriage Feast given to Esther, by King Ahasuerus

Jean-François de Troy (1679-1752) was a French Rococo easel and fresco painter, draughtsman and tapestry designer.^[27]    A copy of the original painting on paper of  Haman Condemned to execution by order of King Ahasuerus that probably was on the walls of the Saratoga Street townhouse as a work “on copper”, can be purchased  from Walmart for $39.99.  No “on copper” version  of the original painting has been located, which is also true of The Marriage Feast given to Esther, by King Ahasuerus.

Chevalier DeTroy, Haman Condemned to execution by order of King Ahasuerus,

a version of the original painting that was “on copper” at Johns Hopkins’s Baltimore City townhouse^[28]

Chevalier De Troy, The Marriage Feast given to Esther, by King Ahasuerus  

as it may have appeared engraved “on copper” at Johns Hopkins’s Baltimore City townhouse^[29]

Oldfield 311:   Floris, Francis on panel, Christ, Martha and Mary.  Undoubtedly an original from the collection of the late Tilney Long, Esq. London        

Hans Vredeman de Vries (1526-1609), Christ in the House of Martha and Mary

Signed and dated 1566, Oil on panel 79.4 x 109.2 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 405475

No image has been located of what Johns Hopkins owned  but it could easily have resembled this painting of Christ in the House of Mary and Martha at Hampton Court.^[30]   Frans De Vrient, commonly known as Frans Floris, was the founder of a large school. He usually signed his paintings in full, or with a monogram composed of three Fs (Frans Floris Fecit).^[31]  If the entry in the Oldfield catalog is accurate, Oldfield acquired his  panel of Christ, Martha and Mary from the sale of the contents  of Wanstead House, the ancestral home of Catherine Tylney-Long, which were auctioned off in a 32-day sale in 1822 to pay off the estate's debts.^[32] 

Oldfield 142: Muller, C. A., on copper, Ondine

No examples of C. A. Muller have been found, nor any biographical information

Oldfield 217: Rugendas canvas transferred- Battle Piece

https://www.sulisfineart.com/christian-johann-rugendas-1708-1781-18th-century-mezzotint-battle-scene-pm961.html

Christian Rugendas (1708-1781) was the son of Georg Philipp Rugendas, (1666-1742) and best known for his mezzotints of battle scenes.^[33]

Oldfield 156: Steen, Jan, on canvas, The Poultry Market, undoubtedly an original

The Poultry Yard, 1660 by Jan Steen (1626-1679, Netherlands) museum Mauritshuis (The Hague, Netherlands)^[34]

This is the best known painting of Jan Steen of poultry.  None could be found that matched exactly the description in the Oldfield catalog.

Oldfield 169: Teniers, D., on canvas--The Village Festival--copied from the

original in the Louvre, by A. E. Morneau of Munich, for the present owner.

D. Teniers, The Village Festival, Cleveland Museum of Art

The current location of Johns Hopkins’s copy of this Teniers painting is unknown but this is a plausible candidate.  It apparently was once owned by a New York art Collector, Thomas Jefferson Bryan (1800?-1870) but is now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.  There is a version in the Louvre, but apparently it was not acquired until 1869 so it was not there to be copied by A. E. Morneau, about whom nothing is known.^[35]

Oldfield 281: Tintoretto, on panel- Christ's Agony. Undoubtedly an Original

https://jacopotintoretto.org/The-Agony-In-The-Garden.html

Oldfield 183: Vander Velde, On canvas--Winter Scene--Copied from the original

by Dester, of Munich, for the Present Owner

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/esaias-van-de-velde-a-winter-landscape

It is probable that the Vander Velde copy in the Oldfield collection was of a painting by Esaias Van De Velde (1590-1630).  This version is in the National Gallery in London which was purchased in 1957, provenance not identified.  Who Dester the copyist for Oldfield was, is not known.

Oldfield 130: Weidenbach, C. A., on canvas, --landscape view on the Douro, in the style of Velasquez--painted for the present owner, and undoubtedly original. Carved Rosewood and Gilded Frame.

Oldfield 620: Weidenbach, C. A. on canvas- Venice painted to order for the present owner- richly carved rosewood and gilded frame

Oldfield 621: Weidenbach, C. A. on canvas- Venice the Dogona- Carved frame, etc.

Karl Augustus Weidenbach (1825-ca. 1890), Professor of Painting, Baltimore Female College,  

Norval H. Busey Photograph, dated 1890^[36]

Karl Augustus Weidenbach was a particular favorite of Johns Hopkins.   He employed him to paint a mural of Naples for Clifton and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad hired him in 1856 to accompany George Bancroft the historian,, Joseph Henry, Secretary of the Smithsonian, Brantz Mayer of the Maryland Historical Society and late minister to Mexico, Professor Morris of Baltimore, a naturalist, Benjamin H. Latrobe, Chief Engineer of the B & O,  and a number of other gentlemen,  on a “full and extended trip over the line” of the railroad “to observe and to note the natural, historical, and scientific features of the route. The trip resulted in more than one painting and lithograph of Harper’s Ferry by Weidenbach.^[37]

The restored Weidenbach mural at Clifton, the country estate of Johns Hopkins

and the proposed site of his University

https://www.instagram.com/p/DCzRuuuu_M9/ 

Johns Hopkins bought three paintings of Weidenbach’s at the Oldfield Auction, two depicting Venice.  One of these is at the Maryland Historical Society for which a request of an image is pending.   The painting of a “landscape view on the Douro, in the style of Velasquez” has disappeared from sight.

Oldfield 177: Yarnold, J. W., on canvas- Flint Castle--Mouth of the Dee Flintshire--painted for the present owner. An Original--carved Rosewood and Gilded Frame.

Oldfield 111: Yarnold, J. W. (London), on Canvas--Carved rosewood and gilded frame-- pier and lighthouse- entrance to the harbor of Etretat, Normandy, painted for the present owner, an original

Oldfield 116: Yarnold, J. W. (London), on canvas- Carved rosewood and gilded Frame- British Men-of-War off Gibraltar in a Gale of Wind--Painted for the present Owner. An original. (In the Back drawing room of 45 Mt. Vernon Place)

Joseph W. Yarnold (1817-1852) was a London artist.^[38]  Johns Hopkins paid high prices for these three paintings, none of which has been found to date.  This engraving may have been a copy of Yarnold’s painting of British Men-of-War off Gibraltar, although there seems not to be the presence of a gale.

https://gibraltar-intro.blogspot.com/2012/01/1805-1807-susannah-middleton-captain-m.html 

In addition to the paintings exhibited in 1849 and those purchased at the Oldfield auction in 1855, there are two other portraits that Johns Hopkins owned now in the possession of  Johns Hopkins University.  One is of Johns Hopkins and the other is of his mother Hannah, both attributed to Alfred Jacob Miller.   They  have been dated as early as the 1830s but the entries in Alfred Jacob Miller’s account book suggest they were painted after Hannah’s death in 1846.^[39] 

Johns Hopkins (1795-1873), Alfred Jacob Miller,  1847?

Hannah Hopkins (1774-1846)

https://digital.library.jhu.edu/node/154 

In all the paintings and engravings, along with the medallion of George Washington that he gave to the Maryland Historical Society, suggest  that Johns Hopkins was not the strict Orthodox Quaker that some believe he was,  but rather a prosperous businessman with a taste in art not unlike a fellow dealer in spirituous liquor, William Walters who also successfully bid for some of Granville Sharp Oldfield’s collection.  As one author noted about  Quaker aesthetics: “finding the right balance between propriety and taste—felt by wealthy Friends is revealed in a letter from Elizabeth Fry to her brother Joseph John Gurney in 1829: 'I think if the pictures at Earlham [the Gurney family estate] were very fine or expensive it would make it an ornamented house highly improper for thee but as they now are and were left by my father, I think removing them from any friendly views would be a pity, though as a matter of taste it would in time perhaps prove a real improvement.' “^[40] 

While it is likely his mother Hannah would not have approved of Johns’s  taste in art, sister Eliza, who became his housekeeper after her husband died in 1866, felt they needed to be preserved and on view in a room dedicated to him at his hospital.  

When Eliza died she willed that the 79  paintings, 1,411  books, sculpture and furniture that Johns Hopkins had in the library rooms of the Saratoga Street residence (which included two parlors) should,  after the death of their sister Sarah, be delivered to the Johns Hopkins Hospital.  There she specified that they be preserved “as memorials of my brother, Johns Hopkins”.  Sadly that was not to be.  The books probably did end up in the University library, but the whereabouts of almost all the paintings and sculpture remains a mystery to this day.  The only hint that Johns Hopkins Hospital may have followed the spirit of Eliza’s instructions, at least for a time, is a photograph of a room in the  administration building of the hospital taken between 1904 and 1920, but the images of the paintings in the photograph are too blurry to identify and the ultimate  fate of those paintings “is still unknown”.^[41]

courtesy of The Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives

Johns Hopkins at Mount Washington

5801 Smith Avenue, Suite 235

Baltimore, MD 21209