James Reid Lambdin
 |
| James Reid Lambdin, c. 1845, miniature self-portrait National Portrait Gallery |
James was inspired to become an artist at the tender age of 7 after seeing a reproduction of the legendary Gilbert Stuart's portraits of George Washington. He took advantage of access to art instruction books at the shop where he worked. In 1822 at age 15 he moved to Philadelphia to further his artistic ambitions.
Artist Thomas Sully, who had studied under Stuart and Benjamin West, agreed to take James on as an apprentice. But before doing so, he insisted that James complete six months of training with artist Edward Miles. Miles' miniatures and portraits were renowned throughout Russia and England, and in his youth he had studied with famed British painter Sir Joshua Reynolds. James Reid Lambdin absorbed all he could from these impressive influences, and within two years of arriving in Philadelphia exhibited a portrait at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He was fortunate enough to have his own likeness painted by Sully. During that process he benefited from seeing a master at work close at hand. James made the most of his time in Philadelphia, joining The Painters Club and attending its weekly meetings.
Lambdin returned to Pittsburgh in July 1824. Once back in the city of his birth, he began to advertise his services as a drawing instructor and portrait painter. Unfortunately, there was only so much work to be had in 1820s Pittsburgh.
 |
| Pittsburgh Gazette |
 |
| Peale Museum, New York City, c. 1825. Museum of the City of New York |
But the couple had an unexpectedly extended betrothal. Pittsburgh Judge William Wilkins offered in early 1827 to financially sponsor James for two years of European travel and study. That kind of sponsorship and patronage was an artist's dream come true. This was an era before full color art reproductions, and nothing could beat studying the great artistic masterworks of Europe in person.
Unfortunately for James Lambdin, financial setbacks caused Wilkins to rescind his offer. Although James painted
his way to his planned departure in New York City, he didn't have the money to set sail. While cooling his heels in New York, he visited the museum of his friend Rubens Peale, one of the sons of famed American portraitist Charles Willson Peale. Due to poor eyesight Rubens had not pursued an artistic career like his father and brothers, and was instead making his way as a museum director. Rubens first served as director of his father's Philadelphia Museum (aka Peale's American Museum), then as co-founder and director with his artist-brother Rembrandt at the Baltimore Peale Museum, and finally as founder and director of the Peale Museum in New York City.
James had come to know the flagship Philadelphia Peale museum situated in Philadelphia's Independence Hall from his time in that city. He would have recalled it as the prototype for Rubens' New York establishment. Encouraged by Rubens, it didn't take long for James to decide to move on from the loss of his European study-abroad plans, capitalize on his connections, and open his own museum establishment back in Pittsburgh. In making this move, James was likely hoping for a steadier income from the museum business, which would support his artistic career and allow him to settle comfortably into domestic life.
The plan didn't quite live up to expectations.
The Lambdin Museum Collection
James Reid Lambdin opened the first museum west of the Allegheny Mountains on 8 September 1828. He married Mary O'Hara Cochran three days later on 11 September 1828 at downtown Pittsburgh's Trinity Church.
 |
| Mary O'Hara Cochran, c. 1850, by James Reid Lambdin. Smithsonian American Art Museum |
The new Pittsburgh Museum of Natural History and Gallery of Fine Art was situated at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Market Street downtown. The museum solicited subscribers who maintained memberships. But it was also open to the general public, with admission of 25¢ for adults and 12 1/2¢ for children. It should be noted that these were hardly bargain prices for working class Pittsburghers, since a tailor in 1830 might earn 25¢ for a pair of pantaloons that took him 15 hours to sew!
The Lambdin collection consisted of an eclectic assortment of natural history, archaeological and artistic specimens. As such, it reflected the philosophy of Charles Willson Peale, who thought such museums should be made available for education "to both the unlearned and the unwise."
American museums of the day were not that far removed from "curiosity cabinets" that individual collectors maintained to showcase wonders and oddities of the natural world. Whether in an actual cabinet, room, or museum space, specimens were displayed using both logical and idiosyncratic organizational systems. Collecting itself was a haphazard affair, governed by subjective tastes for beauty, oddities and marvels. A combination of natural history and art was typical of such collections, reflecting the era's philosophical and scholarly interrelationship of art and science. The quality of these collections varied considerably.
 |
| Pittsburgh Gazette, May 1830 |
Pittsburgh was fortunate to have a respectable and representative assortment of early American and European artwork in its new museum, made possible by James Lambdin's professional acumen and contacts. Like the Peale museums, the Lambdin Museum's art collection intentionally included original pieces alongside copies of both old and contemporary famous and popular art.
James displayed his own paintings beside work by his teacher Thomas Sully, Charles Willson Peale, and copies of work by the famed Gilbert Stuart. He hosted visiting expeditions, too, including the 18x14 foot Calvary or The Moment Before the Crucifixion by one-eyed painter, author and playwright William Dunlap. This monumental painting, which Dunlap considered his masterpiece, was sent on national tour in 1828 and made its way to Pittsburgh (the current location of the painting, if it even still exists, is unknown).
James Lambdin's apprentice Russell Smith claimed that there were about 60 paintings at the museum, some of which had belonged to a German count (possibly a member of the near-by Harmonite community, or the Baron Muller mentioned in Thomas Cushing's History of Allegheny County).
The following letter from notable Pittsburgher William Croghan, father of Mary Croghan Schenley, was written when he was preparing to sell off his own collection in January 1831. It gives us an idea of the quality of artwork that may have been showcased in Lambdin's Museum:
...I expect soon to leave here & know now whether I shall again go to keeping house, I am therefore anxious to dispose of those I offered and others--Those I offered you were 1st Oedipus, Antigone & Polyneus, from a story in the Greek mythology) by Biloq a French artist--This painting was purchased in Paris, in 1824, by W. Lee, (a connoisseur)formerly our consul at Bardran & late 4th auditor of account, & for which he then paid as he spared me, 1500 francsJust as curators do today, James Reid Lambdin worked at keeping his exhibits fresh and exciting in order to entice the public through his doors.
2nd Is a head (doubtless an original) by Rembrandt, purchased at the same time & by the same person for 500 francs
3. The Head of a Miser said by VanDyke (doubtful) certainly of fine execution.
4. St. Peter, by Tiepolo an Italian artist
5 & 6. Concert & Feast--Muller
6 & 7. Freebooters--&Money changers--these are two splendid paintings & universally admired--by Vos
8 "Blessings before meals." Has the appearance of being once a fine painting, it is much injured by age--
For those paintings I am willing to take Three Hundred Dollars (300) I think, they would be an acquisition to any gallery--the motives that induce me to sell are what I had stated--Respectfully
Yr oh SrI leave here about 1s February next WiCroghan
Unlike modern-day museum curators, Lambdin's natural history offerings were really fresh.
At one exhibit, in addition to taxidermied representations of specimens from the avian world, Lambdin's Museum was home to two live white crows.
 |
| Pittsburgh Gazette |
 |
| Pittsburgh Gazette |
Aside from using the novelty lighting of his day, James Lambdin also sought to impress and drum up business by displaying curiosities, much as P.T. Barnum would do a decade later. Lambdin supplemented his regular collection with traveling exhibits of Egyptian mummies, artificial fireworks, armless musicians, and dioramas on subjects ranging from the Great Fire of Russia to the Battle of Waterloo.
There was also a visiting mermaid. She was apparently quite a hit in 1831 -- or at least her ad copy claimed so, stating that even the most "sceptical persons expressed a satisfaction on beholding it."
Not everyone was impressed with Lambdin's Museum. German naturalist Prince Maximilian of Wied passed through Pittsburgh in October 1832 and had this to say:
In the local museum, I had seen several interesting animals native to this region, and had ordered them from a fisherman at the fish market. Dr. Harlan of Philadelphia had also given me a letter to the owner of the museum, a portrait painter, Mr Lambdin; and through this I had been able to familiarize myself with those interesting animals. Otherwise the museum is scarcely worth seeing and does not deserve mention.Apparently not a fan of American portraiture, that Prince Maximilian. Too bad he didn't get to see the mermaid.
Despite such criticism, James persevered with gathering specimens. Existing letters detail shipments of shells and birds and mention his friendship with John James Audubon. The museum received a positive review, with homage paid to the extensive avian collection, from Mrs. Anne Newport Royall. She is considered by some to be America's first professional female journalist, and she described the museum in an 1829 travel book entitled Mrs. Royall's Pennsylvania. Her description of the museum gives us a singular tantalizing glimpse of the variety of the exhibits and the way some specimens were displayed:
Lamdbin's Museum and Gallery of Paintings was established 8th September, 1828, and now contains a valuable collection of paintings from ancient as well as modern masters. Fine landscapes, by Doughty, Birch, Lawrence, &c. Pictures from the collection of Baron Basse Muller. Portraits of distinguished characters, by Stewart, Sally, Peale, and Lambdin.It is unclear from from Mrs. Royall's description whether she actually met the "genteel and amiable" James Lambdin. Although the museum bore his name and regularly advertised its collection, he was in fact largely an absentee curator, inconsistently present in Pittsburgh due to continued travels seeking portrait commissions.
The Museum contains about two hundred foreign birds, among which are the birds of Paradise; twenty quadrupeds; five hundred minerals; three hundred fossils, amongst which are many bones of the Mammoth; three hundred marine shells; twelve hundred impressions of medals; one hundred ancient coins; a handsome collection of articles from the South seas; marine productions; Indian articles; &c. &c.
I would suppose Mr. Lambdin to be man of great taste himself, from the neatness and skill displayed in the arrangement of the articles displayed in his Museum--all the articles being put up in neater and better order than any Museum I have met with. The shelves are white, neat, and so regular that they are a show of themselves; and the whole enlosed (sic) with glass. Here I, for the first time, saw flowers of all sorts, pinks, roses, &c. &c. made out of seashells, the most extraordinary of labor and ingenuity I ever saw, excepting the wooden globe in Salem Museum. These flowers are of all sizes and colors, and are said to be the work of Mrs. Peale, of Philadelphia.
Mr. Lambdin is himself an Artist, quite a genteel and amiable man. It is hoped that he may receive the favor and patronage of travellers and enlightened strangers who pass through Pittsburg, it being the only specimen of taste or amusement in the city--no library, no atheneum, no gardens, no theater...
From the 1830s on, James and Mary and their newborn son George stayed for extended periods of time with friends in Ohio and Mississippi. It was Lambdin's painting apprentice, a 16 year old painter christened William Thompson Russell Smith but known as Russell Smith, who maintained the Lambdin Museum when the boss was away. Russell Smith recalled in his memoirs:
Portrait of Russell Smith by James Reid Lambdin, 1838
In the agreement with Mr. Lambdin I was to aid him in any way I could in his painting as a return for his instruction; but as he was about to open the "Pittsburgh Museum"--a partial off-shoot of Peale's in Philadelphia, he had little time to paint or give instruction and I gradually drifted into helping in the stuffing of birds and beasts, arranging minerals, antiquities and Indian costumes--of which there was a most extensive collection given by General Clarke (Lewis' companion)--and hanging the pictures etc; and finally keeping accounts and managing when Mr. Lambdin was off in the South for five months at a time reaping a harvest with his brush to help pay the rent and other expenses of the Museum, which did not pay its own way.
The museum functioned as a cultural center and atheneum, and was home to the Philosophical Society and Pittsburgh Reading Club. Nineteenth century author Samuel Young recalled:
Well do we remember Lambdin's Museum at the corner of Fourth and Market streets. Here night after night a dozen or so of youngsters, who sought to be Forrests or Booths, used to gather and perform upon the stage. The only pay Lambdin ever gave his performers of this class was a hot lunch, and Englishman-like, a big pitcher of hot punch. There was not enough of this latter to "make drunk come," but it put all in a good humor. Our position in this galaxy of genius was that of a singer of Irish songs, and we were able to "bring down the house" on occasions.
The museum was also the site of scholarly lectures such as these on Chemistry.
 |
| Pittsburgh Gazette, March 1832 |
 |
| Pittsburgh Gazette, September 1829 |
Trouble, Vexation and Pecuniary Loss: Whither, Lambdin Museum?
 |
| Pittsburgh Gazette |
So what happened to the museum, and why don't we know about it today?
Despite its prominence in Pittsburgh's cultural scene, the Lambdin Museum was not a financial success. James' passion was for painting, not museum administration. He would later describe his curatorial efforts as "years of trouble, vexation, and pecuniary loss."
At least through January 1833 James was still showing his work at a gallery in Pittsburgh, but he moved with Mary and their son to Louisville Kentucky in 1832. He transferred the contents of his Pittsburgh museum to a rented building on Main Street in Louisville, and a board of trustees incorporated the Louisville Museum Company in February 1835.
The museum was rechartered in 1838 as the Harlan Museum Company, but little is known about its subsequent fate. By that point James Lambdin and his family had moved on, quite literally, permanently settling to Philadelphia. He and Mary raised seven surviving of nine children, and their oldest son George Cochran Lambdin achieved considerable success as a still-life flower painter.
James Reid Lambdin went on to a stellar career as a painter of some of America's most prominent citizens of the day. Every American president from John Quincy Adams to James Garfield sat for him. He was a prolific artist and his paintings can be found in museums and collections around the country. Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art possesses two of his portraits.
 |
| Benjamin Darlington by James Reid Lambdin Carnegie Museum of Art |
 | |
| Henry Clay by James Reid Lambdin Carnegie Museum of Art |
The McCandless/Northern Allegheny Heritage and Cultural Center in northern Allegheny County also possesses an original Lambdin painting, that of Judge Wilson McCandless (1810-1882), namesake of the township. It is unknown if the painting's provenance has been thoroughly researched but at the very least it can be traced to the possession of Judge McCandless, whose estate appears to have placed it for sale in 1859 at the First Exhibition of the Pittsburgh Art Association. According to the catalogue for that noteworthy exhibit, McCandless possessed at least two other Lambdin works of Pittsburgh legal contemporaries and friends: Portrait of Walter Forward, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States (now in the Smithsonian collection, although the University of Pittsburgh's Darlington Library owns an engraving) and Portrait of the late Judge Baldwin (US Supreme Court Justice Baldwin was the namesake of the southern Allegheny County suburb of Baldwin).
 | ||
| Judge Wilson McCandless by James Reid Lambdin McCandless/Northern Allegheny Heritage and Cultural Center Collection |
Lambdin's erstwhile assistant Russell Smith would himself achieve great acclaim as a landscape artist. Poor Smith didn't get much painting done under his apprenticeship with James Lambdin but didn't seem to mind, later noting:
....I did very little painting until I was twentyone; but I never blamed Mr. Lambdin; he could not help it; and I believe, in my various duties, I learned much that was of great use to me in after life, when my pursuit of painting took an entirely different turn. Mr. Lambdin also had a good collection of books on Art and these I used much to my advantage especially "Edwards' Perspective," and, in order to put its' rules into practice, I drew many buildings and views in and about Pittsburg, which have since the destruction of the Great Fire, a value....
Russell Smith's paintings of Pittsburgh are indeed valuable treasures that preserve a visual record of the city from the early 1830s, just as James Lambdin's portraits allow us to visualize the men and women of their day.
But the museum these men maintained is long gone, the building likely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1845. The site is today occupied by the PPG Plaza Ice Rink (aka Tomb of the Unknown Bowler).
 |
| James Reid Lambdin, c. 1862 Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division |
_________________________________________________________________
Selected Sources and Suggested Reading
Catalogue of the First Exhibition of the Pittsburgh Art Association
Crutcher, Lawrence M. George Keats of Kentucky: A Life. University Press of Kentucky, 2012.
Cushing, Thomas. History of Allegheny County. Chicago: A. Warner & Company, 1889.
Kelly, George Edward. Allegheny County, a sesqui-centennial review. Pittsburgh, PA: Allegheny County Sesqui-Centenntial Committee, 1938.
Lambdin, James R. Journal of James R. Lambdin. Division of Archives and Manuscripts, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, PA.
Lewis, Virginia E. Russell Smith Romantic Realist. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1956.
Martin, Scott C. Killing Time: Leisure and Culture in Southwestern Pennsylvania, 1800-1850.
University of Pittsburgh Press, Nov 1, 1995.
O'Connor, John Jr. Reviving a Forgotten Artist: A Sketch of James Reid Lambdin, The Pittsburgh Painter of American Statesmen. Carnegie Magazine 12 (September 1938): 115–18
Sargent, Elizabeth Kennedy. Lambdin’s Pittsburgh Museum of Natural History and Gallery of the Fine Arts, 1828–1832. Tutorial research paper, Chatham College, 1984.
Swetnam, George. Pittsburgh's Early Painters. The Pittsburgh Press. Sunday August 6, 1967. United States, Bureau of Labor Statistics. History of Wages in the United States from Colonial Times to 1928: Revision of Bulletin No. 499 with Supplement, 1929-1933. Gale Research Company, 1966.
Weidner, Ruth Irwin. The Lambdin Family Collection of Paintings by James Reid Lambdin and George Cochran Lambdin. Philadelphia: Schwarz Fine Paintings, 2002.
Witte, Stephen S. Witte and Marsha V. Gallagher. The North American Journals of Prince Maximilian of Wied: May 1832-April 1833, Volume 1. University of Oklahoma Press, Apr 9, 2014.
Young, Samuel. The history of my life; being a biographical outline of the events of a long and busy life. Pittsburgh: Herald Print. Co.,1890.
No comments:
Post a Comment