Henry Walters (September 26, 1848 – November 30, 1931) was noted as an art collector and philanthropist, a founder of the
Walters Art Gallery (now the Walters Art Museum) in
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
, which he donated to the city in his 1931 will for the benefit of the public. From the late 19th century, Walters lived most of the time in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where from 1903 on, he served on the executive committee of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
on
Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...
. He was selected as second vice president in 1913, a position he held until his death.
Like his father
William Thompson Walters
William Thompson Walters (May 23, 1820 – November 22, 1894) was an American businessman and art collector, whose collection formed the basis of the Walters Art Museum.
Early life
Walters was born on the Juniata River in Liverpool, Pennsy ...
, (1820-1894), he was a businessman in the railroad industry, serving as president of the
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad was a United States Class I railroad formed in 1900, though predecessor railroads had used the ACL brand since 1871. In 1967 it merged with long-time rival Seaboard Air Line Railroad to form the Seaboard Coast L ...
(1894-1902), which had been established by his father.
Biography
Henry Walters was born in 1848 to
William Thompson Walters
William Thompson Walters (May 23, 1820 – November 22, 1894) was an American businessman and art collector, whose collection formed the basis of the Walters Art Museum.
Early life
Walters was born on the Juniata River in Liverpool, Pennsy ...
, (1820-1894), a businessman who later founded the southeastern railroad line,
Atlantic Coast Line Company. Henry graduated from
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...
in 1869. He did graduate work in the
Lawrence Scientific School at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
from 1869–72.
In 1889 Walters moved to
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States.
With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is the ...
, to serve as general manager of his father's railroad, the
Atlantic Coast Line Company. Following his father's death in 1894, Henry Walters was elected president of the Atlantic Coast Line Company. He transferred the line's headquarters to New York. Under his leadership, the railroad experienced rapid growth until
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. In 1902 Walters also took control of the
Louisville and Nashville Railroad
The Louisville and Nashville Railroad , commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States.
Chartered by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, the road grew into one of the ...
.
In New York, Walters lived with Pembroke and Sarah Jones, friends whom he had met in
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and the county seat of New Hanover County in coastal southeastern North Carolina, United States.
With a population of 115,451 at the 2020 census, it is the eighth most populous city in the state. Wilmington is the ...
. Each of them was interested in art, and their town house was filled with their collections. Seldom did Walters return to Baltimore other than to attend board meetings of the Safe Deposit and Trust Company.
Three years after Pembroke Jones' death in 1919, Walters married the widow Sarah Jones in 1922, his first marriage. They continued living in the Manhattan house surrounded by their art collections.
He died in 1931.
File:William Thompson Walters Gravestone Detail.jpg, Gravestone detail
Art collection
When his father died in 1894, he bequeathed his collection to Henry Walters, who greatly expanded the scope of acquisitions. He purchased the contents of a palace in Rome that contained over 1,700 pieces. In September 1900, Henry bought the three houses adjoining the property owned by his father in the
Mount Vernon neighborhood of Baltimore, in order to house and display the full collection. He had the site designed and adapted as a palazzo-style building, which opened to the public in 1909 as the
Walters Art Gallery
The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...
.
Walters died in 1931, leaving the building and its contents to the mayor and city council of Baltimore "for the benefit of the public." The
Walters Art Museum
The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...
opened its doors for the first time as a public institution on November 3, 1934.
Walters also donated four
public bath houses to the City of Baltimore.
Walters Bath No. 2 was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1979.
Collection highlights
Henry Walters envisaged a museum that would fulfill an educational role within the community, but initially made modest additions to his father's collection. In 1897 his purchase of a 15th-century Koran, originally thought to be Persian, but now regarded as Indian, may have initiated the manuscript collection.
In 1900 Walters bought
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of works by Raphael, His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of ...
's ''
Madonna of the Candelabra
The ''Madonna of the Candelabra'' is a Madonna painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael, dating to about 1513-1514 and is in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
Painted during his Roman period, this tondo Madonna o ...
'', which had passed through both the Borghese and Bonaparte family collections. The U.S. Postal Service featured this painting on its 2011 Christmas stamp.
In 1902 he undertook an acquisition on a scale unprecedented in the history of American collecting: he bought the contents of the Palazzo Accoramboni in Rome. The collection abounded in significant works, many of them found to be by masters other than those to whom they had been ascribed, and others by artists not in fashion at that time. In the latter category fell
El Greco
Domḗnikos Theotokópoulos ( el, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco ("The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El G ...
's painting, ''
St. Francis Receiving the Stigmata''. Among the collection's archeological treasures were seven magnificent sarcophagi from a burial chamber associated with the
Calpurnii Pisones
The gens Calpurnia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, which first appears in history during the third century BC. The first of the gens to obtain the consulship was Gaius Calpurnius Piso in 180 BC, but from this time their consulships were ...
family. Walters agreed to buy the collection for the sum of five million Italian lire, equivalent at the time to $1.0 million.
He enhanced the breadth of the 19th-century holdings with such early works as
Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...
' ''
The Betrothal of Raphael and the Niece of Cardinal Bibbiena'', bought in 1903. Although Walters was not fond of French Impressionism, he bought two works in 1903 from American artist
Mary Cassatt, including
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
's ''
Springtime
Springtime may refer to:
* Spring (season), one of the four temperate seasons
Film and television
* ''Springtime'' (1920 film), an American silent comedy starring Oliver Hardy
* ''Springtime'' (1929 film), a ''Silly Symphonies'' animated Disney ...
''.
Walters continued to augment his holdings, buying both in New York and abroad. He collected Egyptian, ancient Near Eastern, and Islamic art, as well as a number of key classical and western
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
objects. These included a pair of limestone heads of Old Testament rulers that came from the
abbey church of Saint-Denis.
Beginning in 1903, Walters served on the executive committee of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
. In 1913 he became second vice president, a position he retained for the rest of his life. His experiences on a number of museum committees may have resulted in a change of direction in his collecting after World War I. He shifted from acquiring works representative of various fields and more committed to objects of major historical and artistic significance.
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walters, Henry
1848 births
1931 deaths
American philanthropists
American railroad executives
Businesspeople from Baltimore
American art collectors
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni
Georgetown University alumni