See historian, Steven D. Branting's article below, from Sculpture Review magazine:
“So Close to the Banks of Oblivion”. An American Master Is Rediscovered
Steven D. Branting
Institutional Historian • Lewis-Clark State College • Lewiston, Idaho
Inattention has doomed too many masters. Without provenance, context or an appreciation for cultural continuity, artistic treasures become disposable bric-à-brac. And so it nearly was for two companion bianco Carrara marbles that had lain unattested for decades in the storage of a small Idaho museum. Now proven by extensive research to be the works of sculptor Madison Colby (1842-1871), the 19-inch rondels bespeak a talent abruptly silenced by tuberculosis but not too soon to escape the notice of the San Francisco and Chicago art communities. Having experienced this resurrection, Colby’s undeniable skill but sadly limited catalog can once again enjoy a deserved acclaim.
………………………….
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone.
“Big Yellow Taxi” © 2007. Crazy Crow Music / Siquomb Music Publishing
During the May 1965 demolition of a once-gleaning magnesia lithos bank in Lewiston, Idaho, an artist and college professor took pity on a pair of large marble rondels that had been affixed to the wall of the institution longer than anyone’s memory, moving them into her basement, safe but anonymous. By 1974, the mothballed mysteries had outlived her compassion.
Their next stop would be the doorstep of the Nez Perce County Historical Museum, which reluctantly accepted the orphaned pair in their original frames and, without provenance, squirreled them away, out of sight and mind. The curators would not risk a display catastrophe for unknown goods in frames 28-inches-square and weighing 75 pounds each.
In 2017, the museum accessions committee finally tagged the bas-reliefs “to be discarded” but hesitated until this author could examine them in the light of day. Everyone agreed that the city landfill would not be the solution for our uncertainty. The artist who saved the marbles from the scrapheap in 1965 was now dead some 20 years. Measuring twice before cutting once was going to be arduous.
The crucial clue had been in plain sight, chiseled into the stone ̶ “M. Colby. Sculpt.” As simple as that may seem, references to Colby in the annals of the art world universally ran the gamut from A to B. Colby would need a veritable resurrection. Three years of melding disconnected data would breathe life back into his brief career.
Born of New Hampshire stock in 1842, Madison Colby enlisted with the 21st Massachusetts Infantry in July 1861, fighting at Antietam. He was critically wounded at Fredericksburg in December 1862 and spent many months in military hospitals in Washington, D.C., and Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
After mustering out, Colby returned to Boston and advertised himself as a portrait painter and sculptor. By 1867, he was working with Thomas Ball and Hiram Powers in Florence, Italy, and gaining a reputation. On 20 May 1868, the Vermont Watchman & State Journal (Montpelier) published a letter from Rev. Dr. Nathan Lord, president of Dartmouth College. After attending services at the American Church in Florence, he noted that “the sculptors Powers, [Larkin] Mead and Colby ̶ names known and to be known worldwide ̶ were there.”
Colby returned to Boston in 1869 to marry Annie Jameson and depart almost immediately for health reasons for San Francisco, where he set up his studio in the Mercantile Library Association Building.
In November, the Snow & Roos Gallery on Kearney Street exhibited two works by Colby ̶ “Morning” and “Evening.” Completed during Colby’s time in Florence, the works attracted immediate attention. Upon viewing the exhibit, an observer noted the rondels as “deserving attention.” Overland magazine contributor and art critic Hilda Rosevelt opined that “they are remarkable for delicacy of finish and pure and clearly-defined conception.”
The unnamed orphans in the archives of the Lewiston museum now had names.
When the works appeared in the Chicago gallery of Hovey & Heffron in December, the fine arts editor for the Tribune praised the “medallions” as “exquisite.” By all accounts, Colby’s time with Ball and Powers had not proven unfruitful. A comparison between Colby’s rondels and those by Ball that have survived, especially “Whispering Zephyr,” demonstrates that there was little difference in skill between the student and the master.
A faithful account of Colby’s genius would not be possible but for a short-lived project edited by E. H. Trafton for the Chicago Academy of Design, established in 1866 and now known as the Art Institute of Chicago. The Academy published a journal entitled The Art Review: A Record of Art-Progress in America. Its run of only 6 issues, beginning in August 1870, perfectly coincided with the height of Colby’s career in San Francisco.
While the rondels made their way from gallery to gallery, Colby turned his attention to a bust of California author Bret Harte, which was described as “one of the best portraits we have ever seen in sculpture.” The California reporter for The Art Review (January 1871) continued by saying, “Colby has, in this work, cut, in deep letters, upon the obdurate, adamantine rock of fame, his own name at an equal altitude with that of any American sculptor.” It was, as the reporter noted, “as though the original had, in an unconscious moment, looked upon the Gorgon, and changed into stone.”
However, Harte’s prodigious ego had made enemies, and Colby suffered peripherally from the animosity. The Art Review revealed that “the petty spite which, from jealousy of Bret Harte, prevented a San Francisco journal from doing justice to Colby, has reacted with poetic justice, giving both far greater, more extended fame, through prominent Eastern publications.” So great was the reaction to the bust that famed portrait photographer Silas Selleck was called upon to immortalize the work with two plates, one of which survives.
Colby was dying from tuberculosis by the time the Harte bust was completed. He succumbed on 17 February 1871 at his home in Oakland. Notices appeared in newspapers across the country. A letter to the The Art Review (May 1871) read in part: “Poor Colby has left a widow without anything save the honor of being the relic of one so rich in genius and gifts which availed him nothing because of his ill health.” Annie had his body shipped back to Waltham, Massachusetts, where it was buried in Mount Feake Cemetery.
“Morning” and “Evening” had returned to San Francisco and the gallery of Currier and Winter in January 1871. The last reported exhibition of the works was as part of the Mechanics’ Institute juried competition in September of that year. Colby’s father-in-law, Rev. Thorndike Jameson, submitted them under his own name and won a silver medal.
Knowing the identity of “M. Colby. Sculpt.” and the titles of the rondels failed to solve another conundrum: how did the marbles make their way to Lewiston, Idaho? The answer would require following a trail of deeds and renovations.
Circa 1878, steamboat captain and timber magnate William Smith retired to Lewiston and constructed a new home, considered to be one of the finest in the Pacific Northwest. Unconcerned about the expense, Smith shipped building materials, including Italian marble, around Cape Horn. He had Spanish cedar, mahogany, and oak transported from Honduras for the interiors and imported master craftsmen to complete the construction. The best evidence points to Smith as bringing the bas-reliefs into his new mansion.
By the mid-1880s, William F. Kettenbach Sr, president of the Lewiston National Bank, had purchased the home. In 1902, son William Jr and his wife Mary Jane wanted to update the Second Empire look of the house, which he had inherited upon his father’s death in 1891. The couple invested more than $500,000 in today’s value for renovations, which presumably resulted in “Morning” and “Evening” being relegated to the walls of the bank, where they would hang until demolition began more than 60 years later. The house became a funeral home in the 1920s and burned to the ground in May 1951.
Colby’s reputation evaporated. Aside from the works discussed in this article, only three others appear in contemporary reports ̶ “Love’s Dream,” “Childhood,” and a bust of Rev. Henry Martyn Scudder, the famed missionary to India. Despite repeated searches, there is no evidence that they still exist.
The Harte bust likely perished with the Bohemian Club in the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake, for the surviving photograph of the work by Selleck was mistakenly ascribed decades later as being statuary by Robert Ingersoll Aitken.
Artistic tastes would change, and the sculpted dreaminess of the 1860s fell from favor, thought to be trite and maudlin. Even the stature of the great Thomas Bell, Colby’s mentor, has suffered.
Be that as it may, two enigmas long shuttered in a museum basement have brought to life the handiwork of a forgotten American master worthy of rediscovery.
“Make in your mouths the words that were our names.”
̶ Archibald Macleish, “Epistle to Be Left in the Earth”
“So Close to the Banks of Oblivion”. An American Master Is Rediscovered
Steven D. Branting
Institutional Historian • Lewis-Clark State College • Lewiston, Idaho
Inattention has doomed too many masters. Without provenance, context or an appreciation for cultural continuity, artistic treasures become disposable bric-à-brac. And so it nearly was for two companion bianco Carrara marbles that had lain unattested for decades in the storage of a small Idaho museum. Now proven by extensive research to be the works of sculptor Madison Colby (1842-1871), the 19-inch rondels bespeak a talent abruptly silenced by tuberculosis but not too soon to escape the notice of the San Francisco and Chicago art communities. Having experienced this resurrection, Colby’s undeniable skill but sadly limited catalog can once again enjoy a deserved acclaim.
………………………….
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone.
“Big Yellow Taxi” © 2007. Crazy Crow Music / Siquomb Music Publishing
During the May 1965 demolition of a once-gleaning magnesia lithos bank in Lewiston, Idaho, an artist and college professor took pity on a pair of large marble rondels that had been affixed to the wall of the institution longer than anyone’s memory, moving them into her basement, safe but anonymous. By 1974, the mothballed mysteries had outlived her compassion.
Their next stop would be the doorstep of the Nez Perce County Historical Museum, which reluctantly accepted the orphaned pair in their original frames and, without provenance, squirreled them away, out of sight and mind. The curators would not risk a display catastrophe for unknown goods in frames 28-inches-square and weighing 75 pounds each.
In 2017, the museum accessions committee finally tagged the bas-reliefs “to be discarded” but hesitated until this author could examine them in the light of day. Everyone agreed that the city landfill would not be the solution for our uncertainty. The artist who saved the marbles from the scrapheap in 1965 was now dead some 20 years. Measuring twice before cutting once was going to be arduous.
The crucial clue had been in plain sight, chiseled into the stone ̶ “M. Colby. Sculpt.” As simple as that may seem, references to Colby in the annals of the art world universally ran the gamut from A to B. Colby would need a veritable resurrection. Three years of melding disconnected data would breathe life back into his brief career.
Born of New Hampshire stock in 1842, Madison Colby enlisted with the 21st Massachusetts Infantry in July 1861, fighting at Antietam. He was critically wounded at Fredericksburg in December 1862 and spent many months in military hospitals in Washington, D.C., and Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
After mustering out, Colby returned to Boston and advertised himself as a portrait painter and sculptor. By 1867, he was working with Thomas Ball and Hiram Powers in Florence, Italy, and gaining a reputation. On 20 May 1868, the Vermont Watchman & State Journal (Montpelier) published a letter from Rev. Dr. Nathan Lord, president of Dartmouth College. After attending services at the American Church in Florence, he noted that “the sculptors Powers, [Larkin] Mead and Colby ̶ names known and to be known worldwide ̶ were there.”
Colby returned to Boston in 1869 to marry Annie Jameson and depart almost immediately for health reasons for San Francisco, where he set up his studio in the Mercantile Library Association Building.
In November, the Snow & Roos Gallery on Kearney Street exhibited two works by Colby ̶ “Morning” and “Evening.” Completed during Colby’s time in Florence, the works attracted immediate attention. Upon viewing the exhibit, an observer noted the rondels as “deserving attention.” Overland magazine contributor and art critic Hilda Rosevelt opined that “they are remarkable for delicacy of finish and pure and clearly-defined conception.”
The unnamed orphans in the archives of the Lewiston museum now had names.
When the works appeared in the Chicago gallery of Hovey & Heffron in December, the fine arts editor for the Tribune praised the “medallions” as “exquisite.” By all accounts, Colby’s time with Ball and Powers had not proven unfruitful. A comparison between Colby’s rondels and those by Ball that have survived, especially “Whispering Zephyr,” demonstrates that there was little difference in skill between the student and the master.
A faithful account of Colby’s genius would not be possible but for a short-lived project edited by E. H. Trafton for the Chicago Academy of Design, established in 1866 and now known as the Art Institute of Chicago. The Academy published a journal entitled The Art Review: A Record of Art-Progress in America. Its run of only 6 issues, beginning in August 1870, perfectly coincided with the height of Colby’s career in San Francisco.
While the rondels made their way from gallery to gallery, Colby turned his attention to a bust of California author Bret Harte, which was described as “one of the best portraits we have ever seen in sculpture.” The California reporter for The Art Review (January 1871) continued by saying, “Colby has, in this work, cut, in deep letters, upon the obdurate, adamantine rock of fame, his own name at an equal altitude with that of any American sculptor.” It was, as the reporter noted, “as though the original had, in an unconscious moment, looked upon the Gorgon, and changed into stone.”
However, Harte’s prodigious ego had made enemies, and Colby suffered peripherally from the animosity. The Art Review revealed that “the petty spite which, from jealousy of Bret Harte, prevented a San Francisco journal from doing justice to Colby, has reacted with poetic justice, giving both far greater, more extended fame, through prominent Eastern publications.” So great was the reaction to the bust that famed portrait photographer Silas Selleck was called upon to immortalize the work with two plates, one of which survives.
Colby was dying from tuberculosis by the time the Harte bust was completed. He succumbed on 17 February 1871 at his home in Oakland. Notices appeared in newspapers across the country. A letter to the The Art Review (May 1871) read in part: “Poor Colby has left a widow without anything save the honor of being the relic of one so rich in genius and gifts which availed him nothing because of his ill health.” Annie had his body shipped back to Waltham, Massachusetts, where it was buried in Mount Feake Cemetery.
“Morning” and “Evening” had returned to San Francisco and the gallery of Currier and Winter in January 1871. The last reported exhibition of the works was as part of the Mechanics’ Institute juried competition in September of that year. Colby’s father-in-law, Rev. Thorndike Jameson, submitted them under his own name and won a silver medal.
Knowing the identity of “M. Colby. Sculpt.” and the titles of the rondels failed to solve another conundrum: how did the marbles make their way to Lewiston, Idaho? The answer would require following a trail of deeds and renovations.
Circa 1878, steamboat captain and timber magnate William Smith retired to Lewiston and constructed a new home, considered to be one of the finest in the Pacific Northwest. Unconcerned about the expense, Smith shipped building materials, including Italian marble, around Cape Horn. He had Spanish cedar, mahogany, and oak transported from Honduras for the interiors and imported master craftsmen to complete the construction. The best evidence points to Smith as bringing the bas-reliefs into his new mansion.
By the mid-1880s, William F. Kettenbach Sr, president of the Lewiston National Bank, had purchased the home. In 1902, son William Jr and his wife Mary Jane wanted to update the Second Empire look of the house, which he had inherited upon his father’s death in 1891. The couple invested more than $500,000 in today’s value for renovations, which presumably resulted in “Morning” and “Evening” being relegated to the walls of the bank, where they would hang until demolition began more than 60 years later. The house became a funeral home in the 1920s and burned to the ground in May 1951.
Colby’s reputation evaporated. Aside from the works discussed in this article, only three others appear in contemporary reports ̶ “Love’s Dream,” “Childhood,” and a bust of Rev. Henry Martyn Scudder, the famed missionary to India. Despite repeated searches, there is no evidence that they still exist.
The Harte bust likely perished with the Bohemian Club in the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake, for the surviving photograph of the work by Selleck was mistakenly ascribed decades later as being statuary by Robert Ingersoll Aitken.
Artistic tastes would change, and the sculpted dreaminess of the 1860s fell from favor, thought to be trite and maudlin. Even the stature of the great Thomas Bell, Colby’s mentor, has suffered.
Be that as it may, two enigmas long shuttered in a museum basement have brought to life the handiwork of a forgotten American master worthy of rediscovery.
“Make in your mouths the words that were our names.”
̶ Archibald Macleish, “Epistle to Be Left in the Earth”
See historian, Steven D. Branting's article below, from Sculpture Review magazine:
“So Close to the Banks of Oblivion”. An American Master Is Rediscovered
Steven D. Branting
Institutional Historian • Lewis-Clark State College • Lewiston, Idaho
Inattention has doomed too many masters. Without provenance, context or an appreciation for cultural continuity, artistic treasures become disposable bric-à-brac. And so it nearly was for two companion bianco Carrara marbles that had lain unattested for decades in the storage of a small Idaho museum. Now proven by extensive research to be the works of sculptor Madison Colby (1842-1871), the 19-inch rondels bespeak a talent abruptly silenced by tuberculosis but not too soon to escape the notice of the San Francisco and Chicago art communities. Having experienced this resurrection, Colby’s undeniable skill but sadly limited catalog can once again enjoy a deserved acclaim.
………………………….
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone.
“Big Yellow Taxi” © 2007. Crazy Crow Music / Siquomb Music Publishing
During the May 1965 demolition of a once-gleaning magnesia lithos bank in Lewiston, Idaho, an artist and college professor took pity on a pair of large marble rondels that had been affixed to the wall of the institution longer than anyone’s memory, moving them into her basement, safe but anonymous. By 1974, the mothballed mysteries had outlived her compassion.
Their next stop would be the doorstep of the Nez Perce County Historical Museum, which reluctantly accepted the orphaned pair in their original frames and, without provenance, squirreled them away, out of sight and mind. The curators would not risk a display catastrophe for unknown goods in frames 28-inches-square and weighing 75 pounds each.
In 2017, the museum accessions committee finally tagged the bas-reliefs “to be discarded” but hesitated until this author could examine them in the light of day. Everyone agreed that the city landfill would not be the solution for our uncertainty. The artist who saved the marbles from the scrapheap in 1965 was now dead some 20 years. Measuring twice before cutting once was going to be arduous.
The crucial clue had been in plain sight, chiseled into the stone ̶ “M. Colby. Sculpt.” As simple as that may seem, references to Colby in the annals of the art world universally ran the gamut from A to B. Colby would need a veritable resurrection. Three years of melding disconnected data would breathe life back into his brief career.
Born of New Hampshire stock in 1842, Madison Colby enlisted with the 21st Massachusetts Infantry in July 1861, fighting at Antietam. He was critically wounded at Fredericksburg in December 1862 and spent many months in military hospitals in Washington, D.C., and Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
After mustering out, Colby returned to Boston and advertised himself as a portrait painter and sculptor. By 1867, he was working with Thomas Ball and Hiram Powers in Florence, Italy, and gaining a reputation. On 20 May 1868, the Vermont Watchman & State Journal (Montpelier) published a letter from Rev. Dr. Nathan Lord, president of Dartmouth College. After attending services at the American Church in Florence, he noted that “the sculptors Powers, [Larkin] Mead and Colby ̶ names known and to be known worldwide ̶ were there.”
Colby returned to Boston in 1869 to marry Annie Jameson and depart almost immediately for health reasons for San Francisco, where he set up his studio in the Mercantile Library Association Building.
In November, the Snow & Roos Gallery on Kearney Street exhibited two works by Colby ̶ “Morning” and “Evening.” Completed during Colby’s time in Florence, the works attracted immediate attention. Upon viewing the exhibit, an observer noted the rondels as “deserving attention.” Overland magazine contributor and art critic Hilda Rosevelt opined that “they are remarkable for delicacy of finish and pure and clearly-defined conception.”
The unnamed orphans in the archives of the Lewiston museum now had names.
When the works appeared in the Chicago gallery of Hovey & Heffron in December, the fine arts editor for the Tribune praised the “medallions” as “exquisite.” By all accounts, Colby’s time with Ball and Powers had not proven unfruitful. A comparison between Colby’s rondels and those by Ball that have survived, especially “Whispering Zephyr,” demonstrates that there was little difference in skill between the student and the master.
A faithful account of Colby’s genius would not be possible but for a short-lived project edited by E. H. Trafton for the Chicago Academy of Design, established in 1866 and now known as the Art Institute of Chicago. The Academy published a journal entitled The Art Review: A Record of Art-Progress in America. Its run of only 6 issues, beginning in August 1870, perfectly coincided with the height of Colby’s career in San Francisco.
While the rondels made their way from gallery to gallery, Colby turned his attention to a bust of California author Bret Harte, which was described as “one of the best portraits we have ever seen in sculpture.” The California reporter for The Art Review (January 1871) continued by saying, “Colby has, in this work, cut, in deep letters, upon the obdurate, adamantine rock of fame, his own name at an equal altitude with that of any American sculptor.” It was, as the reporter noted, “as though the original had, in an unconscious moment, looked upon the Gorgon, and changed into stone.”
However, Harte’s prodigious ego had made enemies, and Colby suffered peripherally from the animosity. The Art Review revealed that “the petty spite which, from jealousy of Bret Harte, prevented a San Francisco journal from doing justice to Colby, has reacted with poetic justice, giving both far greater, more extended fame, through prominent Eastern publications.” So great was the reaction to the bust that famed portrait photographer Silas Selleck was called upon to immortalize the work with two plates, one of which survives.
Colby was dying from tuberculosis by the time the Harte bust was completed. He succumbed on 17 February 1871 at his home in Oakland. Notices appeared in newspapers across the country. A letter to the The Art Review (May 1871) read in part: “Poor Colby has left a widow without anything save the honor of being the relic of one so rich in genius and gifts which availed him nothing because of his ill health.” Annie had his body shipped back to Waltham, Massachusetts, where it was buried in Mount Feake Cemetery.
“Morning” and “Evening” had returned to San Francisco and the gallery of Currier and Winter in January 1871. The last reported exhibition of the works was as part of the Mechanics’ Institute juried competition in September of that year. Colby’s father-in-law, Rev. Thorndike Jameson, submitted them under his own name and won a silver medal.
Knowing the identity of “M. Colby. Sculpt.” and the titles of the rondels failed to solve another conundrum: how did the marbles make their way to Lewiston, Idaho? The answer would require following a trail of deeds and renovations.
Circa 1878, steamboat captain and timber magnate William Smith retired to Lewiston and constructed a new home, considered to be one of the finest in the Pacific Northwest. Unconcerned about the expense, Smith shipped building materials, including Italian marble, around Cape Horn. He had Spanish cedar, mahogany, and oak transported from Honduras for the interiors and imported master craftsmen to complete the construction. The best evidence points to Smith as bringing the bas-reliefs into his new mansion.
By the mid-1880s, William F. Kettenbach Sr, president of the Lewiston National Bank, had purchased the home. In 1902, son William Jr and his wife Mary Jane wanted to update the Second Empire look of the house, which he had inherited upon his father’s death in 1891. The couple invested more than $500,000 in today’s value for renovations, which presumably resulted in “Morning” and “Evening” being relegated to the walls of the bank, where they would hang until demolition began more than 60 years later. The house became a funeral home in the 1920s and burned to the ground in May 1951.
Colby’s reputation evaporated. Aside from the works discussed in this article, only three others appear in contemporary reports ̶ “Love’s Dream,” “Childhood,” and a bust of Rev. Henry Martyn Scudder, the famed missionary to India. Despite repeated searches, there is no evidence that they still exist.
The Harte bust likely perished with the Bohemian Club in the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake, for the surviving photograph of the work by Selleck was mistakenly ascribed decades later as being statuary by Robert Ingersoll Aitken.
Artistic tastes would change, and the sculpted dreaminess of the 1860s fell from favor, thought to be trite and maudlin. Even the stature of the great Thomas Bell, Colby’s mentor, has suffered.
Be that as it may, two enigmas long shuttered in a museum basement have brought to life the handiwork of a forgotten American master worthy of rediscovery.
“Make in your mouths the words that were our names.”
̶ Archibald Macleish, “Epistle to Be Left in the Earth”
“So Close to the Banks of Oblivion”. An American Master Is Rediscovered
Steven D. Branting
Institutional Historian • Lewis-Clark State College • Lewiston, Idaho
Inattention has doomed too many masters. Without provenance, context or an appreciation for cultural continuity, artistic treasures become disposable bric-à-brac. And so it nearly was for two companion bianco Carrara marbles that had lain unattested for decades in the storage of a small Idaho museum. Now proven by extensive research to be the works of sculptor Madison Colby (1842-1871), the 19-inch rondels bespeak a talent abruptly silenced by tuberculosis but not too soon to escape the notice of the San Francisco and Chicago art communities. Having experienced this resurrection, Colby’s undeniable skill but sadly limited catalog can once again enjoy a deserved acclaim.
………………………….
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got
Till it’s gone.
“Big Yellow Taxi” © 2007. Crazy Crow Music / Siquomb Music Publishing
During the May 1965 demolition of a once-gleaning magnesia lithos bank in Lewiston, Idaho, an artist and college professor took pity on a pair of large marble rondels that had been affixed to the wall of the institution longer than anyone’s memory, moving them into her basement, safe but anonymous. By 1974, the mothballed mysteries had outlived her compassion.
Their next stop would be the doorstep of the Nez Perce County Historical Museum, which reluctantly accepted the orphaned pair in their original frames and, without provenance, squirreled them away, out of sight and mind. The curators would not risk a display catastrophe for unknown goods in frames 28-inches-square and weighing 75 pounds each.
In 2017, the museum accessions committee finally tagged the bas-reliefs “to be discarded” but hesitated until this author could examine them in the light of day. Everyone agreed that the city landfill would not be the solution for our uncertainty. The artist who saved the marbles from the scrapheap in 1965 was now dead some 20 years. Measuring twice before cutting once was going to be arduous.
The crucial clue had been in plain sight, chiseled into the stone ̶ “M. Colby. Sculpt.” As simple as that may seem, references to Colby in the annals of the art world universally ran the gamut from A to B. Colby would need a veritable resurrection. Three years of melding disconnected data would breathe life back into his brief career.
Born of New Hampshire stock in 1842, Madison Colby enlisted with the 21st Massachusetts Infantry in July 1861, fighting at Antietam. He was critically wounded at Fredericksburg in December 1862 and spent many months in military hospitals in Washington, D.C., and Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
After mustering out, Colby returned to Boston and advertised himself as a portrait painter and sculptor. By 1867, he was working with Thomas Ball and Hiram Powers in Florence, Italy, and gaining a reputation. On 20 May 1868, the Vermont Watchman & State Journal (Montpelier) published a letter from Rev. Dr. Nathan Lord, president of Dartmouth College. After attending services at the American Church in Florence, he noted that “the sculptors Powers, [Larkin] Mead and Colby ̶ names known and to be known worldwide ̶ were there.”
Colby returned to Boston in 1869 to marry Annie Jameson and depart almost immediately for health reasons for San Francisco, where he set up his studio in the Mercantile Library Association Building.
In November, the Snow & Roos Gallery on Kearney Street exhibited two works by Colby ̶ “Morning” and “Evening.” Completed during Colby’s time in Florence, the works attracted immediate attention. Upon viewing the exhibit, an observer noted the rondels as “deserving attention.” Overland magazine contributor and art critic Hilda Rosevelt opined that “they are remarkable for delicacy of finish and pure and clearly-defined conception.”
The unnamed orphans in the archives of the Lewiston museum now had names.
When the works appeared in the Chicago gallery of Hovey & Heffron in December, the fine arts editor for the Tribune praised the “medallions” as “exquisite.” By all accounts, Colby’s time with Ball and Powers had not proven unfruitful. A comparison between Colby’s rondels and those by Ball that have survived, especially “Whispering Zephyr,” demonstrates that there was little difference in skill between the student and the master.
A faithful account of Colby’s genius would not be possible but for a short-lived project edited by E. H. Trafton for the Chicago Academy of Design, established in 1866 and now known as the Art Institute of Chicago. The Academy published a journal entitled The Art Review: A Record of Art-Progress in America. Its run of only 6 issues, beginning in August 1870, perfectly coincided with the height of Colby’s career in San Francisco.
While the rondels made their way from gallery to gallery, Colby turned his attention to a bust of California author Bret Harte, which was described as “one of the best portraits we have ever seen in sculpture.” The California reporter for The Art Review (January 1871) continued by saying, “Colby has, in this work, cut, in deep letters, upon the obdurate, adamantine rock of fame, his own name at an equal altitude with that of any American sculptor.” It was, as the reporter noted, “as though the original had, in an unconscious moment, looked upon the Gorgon, and changed into stone.”
However, Harte’s prodigious ego had made enemies, and Colby suffered peripherally from the animosity. The Art Review revealed that “the petty spite which, from jealousy of Bret Harte, prevented a San Francisco journal from doing justice to Colby, has reacted with poetic justice, giving both far greater, more extended fame, through prominent Eastern publications.” So great was the reaction to the bust that famed portrait photographer Silas Selleck was called upon to immortalize the work with two plates, one of which survives.
Colby was dying from tuberculosis by the time the Harte bust was completed. He succumbed on 17 February 1871 at his home in Oakland. Notices appeared in newspapers across the country. A letter to the The Art Review (May 1871) read in part: “Poor Colby has left a widow without anything save the honor of being the relic of one so rich in genius and gifts which availed him nothing because of his ill health.” Annie had his body shipped back to Waltham, Massachusetts, where it was buried in Mount Feake Cemetery.
“Morning” and “Evening” had returned to San Francisco and the gallery of Currier and Winter in January 1871. The last reported exhibition of the works was as part of the Mechanics’ Institute juried competition in September of that year. Colby’s father-in-law, Rev. Thorndike Jameson, submitted them under his own name and won a silver medal.
Knowing the identity of “M. Colby. Sculpt.” and the titles of the rondels failed to solve another conundrum: how did the marbles make their way to Lewiston, Idaho? The answer would require following a trail of deeds and renovations.
Circa 1878, steamboat captain and timber magnate William Smith retired to Lewiston and constructed a new home, considered to be one of the finest in the Pacific Northwest. Unconcerned about the expense, Smith shipped building materials, including Italian marble, around Cape Horn. He had Spanish cedar, mahogany, and oak transported from Honduras for the interiors and imported master craftsmen to complete the construction. The best evidence points to Smith as bringing the bas-reliefs into his new mansion.
By the mid-1880s, William F. Kettenbach Sr, president of the Lewiston National Bank, had purchased the home. In 1902, son William Jr and his wife Mary Jane wanted to update the Second Empire look of the house, which he had inherited upon his father’s death in 1891. The couple invested more than $500,000 in today’s value for renovations, which presumably resulted in “Morning” and “Evening” being relegated to the walls of the bank, where they would hang until demolition began more than 60 years later. The house became a funeral home in the 1920s and burned to the ground in May 1951.
Colby’s reputation evaporated. Aside from the works discussed in this article, only three others appear in contemporary reports ̶ “Love’s Dream,” “Childhood,” and a bust of Rev. Henry Martyn Scudder, the famed missionary to India. Despite repeated searches, there is no evidence that they still exist.
The Harte bust likely perished with the Bohemian Club in the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake, for the surviving photograph of the work by Selleck was mistakenly ascribed decades later as being statuary by Robert Ingersoll Aitken.
Artistic tastes would change, and the sculpted dreaminess of the 1860s fell from favor, thought to be trite and maudlin. Even the stature of the great Thomas Bell, Colby’s mentor, has suffered.
Be that as it may, two enigmas long shuttered in a museum basement have brought to life the handiwork of a forgotten American master worthy of rediscovery.
“Make in your mouths the words that were our names.”
̶ Archibald Macleish, “Epistle to Be Left in the Earth”
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