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 20thcentury jetsetter” because of his frequent, first-class excursions to Europe. Inkeeping with that peripatetic lifestyle, Levy spent most of the summer of 1905on the Continent.
Near the end of thattrip, in September, as I wrote in Saving Monticello, JML was the guestof honor at an elaborate ceremony put in the historic city of Angers in the Paysde la Loire region of France. The occasion: the high-rolling real estate andstock speculator’s presentation of a replica of the David d’Angers statue ofThomas Jefferson his uncle Uriah Levy had commissioned in 1833 to the Musée David, now the Musée des beaux-arts d’Angers.
Levyhad made good on a promise he had made a year earlier to France’s Ambassador tothe United States, Jules Jusserand. During a visit to Monticello, the Frenchmanhad remarked that the city of Angers regretted not having a copy of the famed Davidstatue (below, nowdisplayed in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda), andLevy promised he’d have one fabricated. Early in the summer of 1905 JML arrangedto have the reproduction made and shipped to Angers.
Levyand his traveling companions, the AmericanAmbassador to France Robert Sanderson McCormick (1849-1919, a nephew of the inventor, CyrusMcCormick) and the artistGeorge Torrey and his wife, took a train from Paris on September 16, andarrived in Angersfor the formalities. The Angers railwaystation was decked out for the occasion with American and French flags.
Museum officials hadplaced 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 byDavid of George Washington and James Fenimore Cooper placed next to the larger-than-lifeJefferson statue.
Levy addressed thegathering 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 andphilosopher of modern times.”
After a round ofchampagne and cake, the mayor gave the Levy party a tour of the museum as theband played “Yankee Doodle.” A guided tour of the town followed.
That evening, JMLwas the guest of honor at a banquet at Angers’ Grand Hotel. The next day he andthe Torreys had lunch at the American consulate and then took a train back toParis.
Jefferson Levy receivedseveral gifts from the folks in Angers, that day, including two Sevres vases anda statuette, a reproduction of the noted French painter and sculptor PaulDubois’ “Military Fortitude.”
In my ongoing questto unearth new (to me) information about Uriah and Jefferson Levy’s lives atMonticello, I recently learned more details about the Dubois statute when Icame 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 andfound that Dubois (1829-1905) was a prolific and acclaimed French artist andsculptor, whose work in marble was influenced by his study of ItalianRenaissance sculpture. Dubois created “Military Fortitude” (also known as“Military Courage”) in 1879 as one of a group of four bronze statues for thefour corners of the ornate tomb (below) of a noted French general, Louisde la Moncière (sometimesspelled de Lamoricière), a nativeof Nantes who had died in 1865 and was entombed in the 15th century NantesCathedral.
Dubois dubbed the tomb’s other statues, which represented thedeparted general’s three other virtues, “Wisdom,” “Charity,” and “Faith.” Inthe late 1800s, a French foundry produced a fair number of reproductions of“Military Fortitude/Courage” in varying sizes.
The Tomb
WilliamT. Walters (1820-1894), the wealthy Baltimore businessman and art collector,acquired a life-sized version. He bequeathed it to the City of Baltimore and itstands today on Mount Vernon Square, just north of Downtown Baltimore, alongwith that city’s Washington Monument, virtually overlooking the famed WaltersArt Museum. The statue Jefferson Levy received, onthe other hand. was much smaller, standing just 51 centimeters (20 inches) inheight.
Notthat the art-loving Levy didn’t have large statues displayed at Monticelloduring the time he owned the property, from 1978-1923. As I wrote in SavingMonticello, He had life-sized marble statues of what were known locally as Venus, Apollo,and Jupiter installed on the lawn.
Below are early 20th century photos of two ofthem. The first statue appears to be a copy of a classical statue of theGreek 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 arthistorian, so if you can identify these statues, I’d love to hear from you.
Coda: None of the Levy statuary remains at Monticello. Most likelyJefferson Levy’s sister Amelia, who inherited his estate after he died in March1924, disposed of them before turning the property over to the Thomas JeffersonMemorial Foundation, which had purchased it from her brother, along with itsfurniture and furnishings, in December 1923.
Onthe other hand, the Foundation may have auctioned the statues off with all ofthe other Levy furniture and furnishings after it took control of the property.In its desire to expunge all things Levy from Monticello, theFoundation held a public auction of all of its non-Jefferson contents in 1928. Thelong list of Jefferson Levy’s items the Foundation ridded itself of included tablesand chairs, sofas, carpets, chandeliers, clocks, vases, paintings, lamps, beds,bureaus, dressers, chests, and a pair of twin beds. Some of the larger itemswere shipped to New York City where they were sold at auction at the PlazaHotel.
On each item foundation officialspasted a label that said that the piece had come from Monticello during theLevy period.
EVENTS: None scheduled this month. And I’ll be taking most of the month ofJune 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 Eventspage on marcleepson.com/events
THE 11th PRINTING: The University of Virginia Press will soon be distributing thelatest paperback edition of Saving Monticello, which the Press beganpublishing in 2003 after the Simon & Schuster hardcover went out of print. The new eleventh printing should be available later thismonth.
During the time between printings, on April 4, I tooka peek at SM’s Amazon page and did a double take when I saw that the book’s Kindleversion was the site’s No.1 best-selling book in Historic Preservation. I took a screenshot to preserve that milestone:
If youwould like a new paperback of SavingMonticello, I have a few on hand. To order that book, or the just-publishedhardcover of Huntland, go to this page on my website https://bit.ly/BookOrdering or email me at marcleepson@gmail.com
I also havea few used Saving Monticello hardcovers, and a stack of five of my otherbooks: 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 thisnewsletter at http://bit.ly/SMOnline
EVENTS: None scheduled this month. And I’ll be taking most of the month ofJune 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 Eventspage on marcleepson.com/events
[image error]THE 11th PRINTING: The University of Virginia Press will soon be distributing thelatest paperback edition of Saving Monticello, which the Press beganpublishing in 2003 after the Simon & Schuster hardcover went out of print. The new 11th printing should be available later thismonth. During the time between printings, on April 4, I tooka peak at SM’s Amazon page and did a double take when I saw that the book’s Kindleversion was the site’s No.1 best-selling book in Historic Preservation. I took a screenshot to preserve that milestone:
If youwould like a new paperback of SavingMonticello, I have a few on hand. To order that book, or the just-publishedhardcover of Huntland, go to this page on my website https://bit.ly/BookOrdering or email me at marcleepson@gmail.com
I also have a fewused Saving Monticello hardcovers, and a stack of five of my otherbooks: Flag: An American Biography;Desperate Engagement; What So Proudly We Hailed; Flag: An American Biography; and Ballad of the Green Beret.
