The Frick Collection

On Sunday afternoon, J. and I visited the Frick Collection, an art museum in New York City. The core of the collection consists of works acquired by the American industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919), and it's housed in the enormous stately townhouse he built for himself on Fifth Avenue.

Nearly all the art on display is European, and dates from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century - though the most notable works are 17th to 19th century. It was one of the best art museums I've ever visited - and not just because it housed quite a few exceptional pictures. I loved the fact that the layout and atmosphere of the Frick home has been preserved, so visitors can see the collection displayed in the way it was originally intended. It's also quite small, as art galleries go - you can comfortably see everything in only two to three hours, which is excellent as I suffer easily from art fatigue.

Here are some of my favourite pictures:


The collection is quite strong in 18th-century British painting, featuring works by Turner, Constable, Lawrence, Reynolds and Gainsborough, among others. George Romney's Lady Hamilton as 'Nature' (1782) is a classically lovely, Romantic portrait. Plus, I've always found Emma Hamilton to be a fascinating figure (she was the paramour of Lord Nelson, the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar).


The realism of Hans Holbein the Younger's Sir Thomas More (1527) is astonishing - enhanced, I'm sure, by a bloody good cleaning job fairly recently. There's no evidence of the grime of centuries here. I just found myself mesmerised by More's chin stubble and his velvet sleeves.

In the museum's final room were two pairs of amazing portraits by James McNeill Whistler.

Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland (1872-1873) and Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux (1881-1882) are very pretty, very typical Pre-Raphaelite pictures. But strangely, I liked this pair of portraits, hanging on the opposite wall, even more:

Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Miss Rosa Corder (1876-1878) and Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1891-1892) are two of Whistler's so-called 'dark portraits'. The latter, in particular, couldn't be more different from the pink 'n' pretty pictures above. It's very modern, and has a faintly twisted, decadent air about it - the Comte looks like he's about to set off for a night at the Moulin Rouge, complete with absinthe-induced hallucinations and a tawdry assignation with a can-can girl. I couldn't stop looking at it.