May 2024

 Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XXI, Number 5                                                        May 2024

 

 

 

STATUARY: I have been known to describe Jefferson Monroe Levy as “an early 20^th century jetsetter” because of his frequent, first-class excursions to Europe. In keeping with that peripatetic lifestyle, Levy spent most of the summer of 1905 on the Continent. 

Near the end of that trip, in September, as I wrote in Saving Monticello, JML was the guest of honor at an elaborate ceremony put in the historic city of Angers in the Pays de la Loire region of France. The occasion: the high-rolling real estate and stock speculator’s presentation of a replica of the David d’Angers statue of Thomas Jefferson his uncle Uriah Levy had commissioned in 1833 to the Musée David, now the Musée des beaux-arts d’Angers. 

Levy had made good on a promise he had made a year earlier to France’s Ambassador to the United States, Jules Jusserand. During a visit to Monticello, the Frenchman had remarked that the city of Angers regretted not having a copy of the famed David statue (below, now displayed in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda), and Levy promised he’d have one fabricated. Early in the summer of 1905 JML arranged to have the reproduction made and shipped to Angers.

Levy and his traveling companions, the American Ambassador to France Robert Sanderson McCormick (1849-1919, a nephew of the inventor, Cyrus McCormick) and the artist George Torrey and his wife, took a train from Paris on September 16, and arrived in Angers for the formalities. The Angers railway station was decked out for the occasion with American and French flags. 

Museum officials had placed the Jefferson in the center of the museum’s Great Gallery surrounded by French and American flags. Special carpets were put down, hundreds of chairs brought in, and busts by David of George Washington and James Fenimore Cooper placed next to the larger-than-life Jefferson statue.

Levy addressed the gathering with a short, flowery speech, in which he praised the city of Angers, the nation of France, the Marquis de Lafayette, Uriah Levy, David d’Angers, and, of course, Thomas Jefferson, whom Levy called “the greatest statesman and philosopher of modern times.” 

After a round of champagne and cake, the mayor gave the Levy party a tour of the museum as the band played “Yankee Doodle.” A guided tour of the town followed. 

That evening, JML was the guest of honor at a banquet at Angers’ Grand Hotel. The next day he and the Torreys had lunch at the American consulate and then took a train back to Paris. 

Jefferson Levy received several gifts from the folks in Angers, that day, including two Sevres vases and a statuette, a reproduction of the noted French painter and sculptor Paul Dubois’ “Military Fortitude.” 

In my ongoing quest to unearth new (to me) information about Uriah and Jefferson Levy’s lives at Monticello, I recently learned more details about the Dubois statute when I came across a front-page article in May 28, 1906, Richmond Times Dispatch, headlined, “Levy to Put French Gift in Monticello.” 

I did a little digging and found that Dubois (1829-1905) was a prolific and acclaimed French artist and sculptor, whose work in marble was influenced by his study of Italian Renaissance sculpture. Dubois created “Military Fortitude” (also known as “Military Courage”) in 1879 as one of a group of four bronze statues for the four corners of the ornate tomb (below) of a noted French general, Louis de la Moncière (sometimes spelled de Lamoricière), a native of Nantes who had died in 1865 and was entombed in the 15^th century Nantes Cathedral. 

Dubois dubbed the tomb’s other statues, which represented the departed general’s three other virtues, “Wisdom,” “Charity,” and “Faith.” In the late 1800s, a French foundry produced a fair number of reproductions of “Military Fortitude/Courage” in varying sizes. 

The Tomb

William T. Walters (1820-1894), the wealthy Baltimore businessman and art collector, acquired a life-sized version. He bequeathed it to the City of Baltimore and it stands today on Mount Vernon Square, just north of Downtown Baltimore, along with that city’s Washington Monument, virtually overlooking the famed Walters Art Museum. The statue Jefferson Levy received, on the other hand. was much smaller, standing just 51 centimeters (20 inches) in height.    

Not that the art-loving Levy didn’t have large statues displayed at Monticello during the time he owned the property, from 1879-1923. As I wrote in Saving Monticello, he had life-sized marble statues of what were known locally as Venus, Apollo, and Jupiter installed on the lawn. 

Below are early 20^th century photos of two of them. The first statue appears to be a copy of a classical statue of the Greek good Nemesis in the Vatican Museum. The second likely is a copy of a Roman noblewoman, although it could be Venus.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an art historian, so if you can identify these statues, I’d love to hear from you.

Coda: None of the Levy statuary remains at Monticello. Most likely Jefferson Levy’s sister Amelia, who inherited his estate after he died in March 1924, disposed of them before turning the property over to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, which had purchased it from her brother, along with its furniture and furnishings, in December 1923. 

On the other hand, the Foundation may have auctioned the statues off with all of the other Levy furniture and furnishings after it took control of the property. In its desire to expunge all things Levy from Monticello, the Foundation held a public auction of all of its non-Jefferson contents in 1928. The long list of Jefferson Levy’s items the Foundation ridded itself of included tables and chairs, sofas, carpets, chandeliers, clocks, vases, paintings, lamps, beds, bureaus, dressers, chests, and a pair of twin beds. Some of the larger items were shipped to New York City where they were sold at auction at the Plaza Hotel. 

On each item foundation officials pasted a label that said that the piece had come from Monticello during the Levy period.

EVENTS: None scheduled this month. And I’ll be taking most of the month of June off, mainly getting away from it all (most of it, anyway) in Charleston, S.C. Will have more events later in the summer and fall. For details, check the Events page on marcleepson.com/events 

THE 11^th PRINTING:  The University of Virginia Press will soon be distributing the latest paperback edition of Saving Monticello, which the Press began publishing in 2003 after the Simon & Schuster hardcover went out of print. The new eleventh printing should be available later this month.

During the time between printings, on April 4, I took a peek at SM’s Amazon page and did a double take when I saw that the book’s Kindle version was the site’s No.1 best-selling book in Historic Preservation. I took a screenshot to preserve that milestone:

If you would like a new paperback of Saving Monticello, I have a few on hand. To order that book, or the just-published hardcover of Huntland, go to this page on my website https://bit.ly/BookOrdering or email me at marcleepson@gmail.com 

I also have a few used Saving Monticello hardcovers, and a stack of five of my other books: Flag: An American Biography; Desperate Engagement; What So Proudly We Hailed; Flag: An American Biography; and Ballad of the Green Beret. You can read back issues of this newsletter at http://bit.ly/SMOnline

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EVENTS: None scheduled this month. And I’ll be taking most of the month of June off, mainly getting away from it all (most of it, anyway) in Charleston, S.C. Will have more events later in the fall. For details, check the Events page on marcleepson.com/events

 

THE 11^th PRINTING:  The University of Virginia Press will soon be distributing the latest paperback edition of Saving Monticello, which the Press began publishing in 2003 after the Simon & Schuster hardcover went out of print. The new 11^th printing should be available later this month. During the time between printings, on April 4, I took a peak at SM’s Amazon page and did a double take when I saw that the book’s Kindle version was the site’s No.1 best-selling book in Historic Preservation. I took a screenshot to preserve that milestone:

If you would like a new paperback of Saving Monticello, I have a few on hand. To order that book, or the just-published hardcover of Huntland, go to this page on my website https://bit.ly/BookOrdering or email me at marcleepson@gmail.com 

I also have a few used Saving Monticello hardcovers, and a stack of five of my other books: Flag: An American Biography; Desperate Engagement; What So Proudly We Hailed; Flag: An American Biography; and Ballad of the Green Beret.