This ‘offensive’ 1874 portrait of the Vanderbilts reveals their place in Gilded Age society

Seymour Guy was a UK-born painter who came to New York in 1854. After setting up a studio in the famed Tenth Street Studio Building in Greenwich Village, Guy made a living painting portraits of city residents as well as scenes of home interiors and children in the countryside.

“Going to the Opera,” 1873

In 1874, Guy got the commission of his life: William Henry Vanderbilt asked him to paint a portrait of his family. The portrait would be done in William’s spacious Italianate brownstone home on the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 40th Street (below), across from the Croton Reservoir.

Guy accepted the commission and painted “Going to the Opera.” The portrait shows William, his wife, and their children in their opulent drawing room. An avid art collector, William’s paintings surround the adults and kids in the family, almost all dressed in formal attire.

The former W. H. Vanderbilt mansion at Fifth Avenue and 40th Street, where the portrait was painted

Curiously, one non-family member also appears in the background.

“A closer look at the piece reveals a member of the household staff standing in the back of the room holding coats—an interesting detail to have included in this family painting,” states the website for the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, the former family home of William’s son George Vanderbilt (and likely one of the boys in the painting). “The commission and future exhibition of ‘Going to the Opera’ was a definite statement reflecting the Vanderbilt family’s rise in society.”

Though the Vanderbilt family was rich and William was set to inherit his father’s estate, most individual family members were not household names in 1873. “In the early 1870s [William] Vanderbilt was not well known to the public, having yet to emerge from the large shadow of his father ‘Commodore’ Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877), then considered the wealthiest man in the country,” according to americanartgallery.org.

William Henry “Billy” Vanderbilt, portrait by Jared B. Flagg, 1877

William’s children, however, would soon be all over the society pages. One of his nine kids was W. K. Vanderbilt—future husband of social climbing Alva Vanderbilt, whose desperation to break into old money society culminated in her 1883 infamous fancy dress ball. It’s unlikely Alva made it into the portrait; she and William didn’t marry until 1875.

Another son was Cornelius Vanderbilt II, husband of Alice Vanderbilt, wearer of the famous electric dress at sister-in-law Alva’s ball. Alice could be in the painting, as she married her husband in 1867. (Is that Alice and Cornelius in the background standing together as a couple, looking a little glum?)

Alice Vanderbilt, 1880, by Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta

What the Vanderbilts thought of the painting isn’t clear. But when it was displayed a year later at the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design, the critics howled. Guy largely escaped attack; the barbs were aimed at the family.

“Several [critics] mentioned that the room was simply too small to gracefully contain such a large group of figures,” wrote americanartgallery.org. “The critic for the Nation also thought that the room was poorly decorated, and criticized ‘the complete want of individuality in the furniture, the expressionlessness of every inch of background, the machine made look of the carvings, the iron oppressiveness of the black arched molding, completely at war with the wall decoration, etc.’”

Alva Vanderbilt dressed as “Venetian Renaissance Lady” at her infamous fancy dress ball in 1883

“The critic for the New York Evening Express felt impelled to mention Guy’s picture in the context of commenting that family groups ‘on canvas are abominations at the best, but when the figures are dressed up in spic-and-span new clothes, and introduced much after the manner of a fashion-plate they become doubly offensive,’” stated the site.

Guy’s career survived the critics. And the Vanderbilts? It certainly didn’t stop them from rising to Gilded Age New York’s most elite echelon.

William Henry Vanderbilt’s last and final NYC mansion, his “triple palace” on Fifth Avenue and 51st Street

In 1882, William, his wife, son, and two daughters decamped to the family’s new “triple palace” mansion on Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street. Not only did it have plenty of space for his art collection, but the mansions were across the block from W. K. and Alva’s French chateau and down the street from Cornelius and Alice’s 57th Street showstopper.

[Second image: Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site/nps.gov; third image: Biltmore Estate; fourth image: wikiart; fifth image: MCNY, X2012.96.2.2; sixth image: New-York Historical Society]