Constantino Brumidi (July 26, 1805 – February 19, 1880) was a Greek-Italian-American historical painter, best known and honored for his fresco work in the Capitol Building in Washington, DC.
Parentage and early life: Brumidi was born in Rome, his father a Greek from Filiatra in the province of Messinia, Greece, and his mother an Italian. He showed his talent for fresco painting at an early age and painted in several Roman palaces, among them being that of Prince Torlonia. Under Gregory XVI he worked for three years in the Vatican.
Immigration and following work: The occupation of Rome by French forces in 1849 apparently persuaded Brumidi to emigrate, having joined the short-lived risorgimental Roman Republic, and he sailed for the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1852. Taking up his residence in New York City, the artist painted a number of portraits.
In 1854 Brumidi went to Mexico, where he painted an allegorical representation of the Holy Trinity for the altarpiece of the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral.[1] Brumidi subsequently created several works for St. Stephen's Church in New York, including an altarpiece (1855) and murals (1866 and 1871-72).[1]
Brumidi first visited the United States Capitol in the 1850s, after being introduced to Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, who was overseeing the completion of the Capitol dome and rotunda.[1]
Brumidi also executed frescoes at Taylor's Chapel, Baltimore, Maryland.
His first art work in the Capitol Building was in the meeting room of the House Committee on Agriculture. At first he received eight dollars a day, which Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War of the United States, helped increase to ten dollars. His work attracting much favorable attention, he was given further commissions, and gradually settled into the position of a Government painter. His chief work in Washington was done in the rotunda of the Capitol and included the Apotheosis of George Washington in the dome and the Frieze of American History, which contains allegorical scenes from American history. His work in the rotunda was left unfinished at his death, but he had decorated many other sections of the building, most notably hallways in the Senate side of the Capitol now known as the Brumidi Corridors.
Brumidi's Liberty and Union paintings are mounted near the ceiling of the White House entrance hall.
In the Cathedral-Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he pictured St. Peter and St. Paul. Brumidi was a capable, if conventional painter, and his black and white modeling in the work at Washington, in imitation of bas-relief, is strikingly effective. He decorated the entrance hall of Saleaudo, located at Frederick, Maryland, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.[2]
A Brumidi fresco appears behind the altar in St. Ignatius Church in Baltimore, Maryland. Another, of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga receiving communion from Saint Charles Borromeo, hangs over the high altar of St Aloysius Church in Washington, D.C.
Another Brumidi altarpiece was recently restored behind the marble high altar of the Shrine of the Holy Innocents (New York). in New York, New York. The fresco commissioned by the first pastor of Holy Innocents Fr. John Larkin, portrays the crucifixion.
In memoriam: Brumidi died in Washington, D.C., and was interred at Glenwood Cemetery. When he was buried, his grave was unmarked. The location of Brumidi's grave was lost for 72 years. It was rediscovered, and on February 19, 1952, a marker was finally placed above it.[3]
Forgotten for many years, Brumidi's role was rescued from obscurity by Myrtle Cheney Murdock.[4]
On June 10, 2008, Congress passed, and on September 1, 2008, President George W. Bush signed, Public Law 110-59 (122 Stat. 2430), which posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to Constantino Brumidi, to be displayed in the Capitol Visitor Center, as part of an exhibit honoring him.
Oil on canvas painting, after the 1869 artwork titled Liberty by Constantino Brumidi, 1805 to 1880, an Italian-born American artist. Brumidi is known for his frescoes in the government buildings in Washington, DC. The allegorical representation of Liberty was comissioned by President Ulysses S. Grant for display in the renovated Entrance Hall of the White House. Unsigned. Ornate golden frame. Collectible Figurative Fine Art, Americana.
"Liberty, 1869", oil on academy board, inscribed and titled in pencil verso, along with the artist's stencil, a patriotic allegory in oval format, in the original molded red walnut cove frame with gilt liner, OS: 23" x 19", SS: 19 1/2" x 15 1/2". Brumidi was known as "The Artist of the Capitol".
Attributed to Constantino Brumidi (American 1805-1880) Untitled (Industry) Unsigned Oil on canvas 9 x 15-1/2 in (22.9 x 39.3 cm)Property of Various Owners
Constantino Brumidi (Italian/American, 1805-1880) Study for The Apotheosis of Washington in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol Building. Unsigned. Oil on canvas, dia. 35 1/4 in., in a molded giltwood frame. Condition: Relined, restretched, scattered retouch. . Provenance: Purchased at auction in 1919 for $300. Literature: Barbara Wolanin, Constantino Brumidi: Artist of the Capitol, (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1998). Note: In the late summer of 1852, artist Constantino Brumidi arrived in New York City from Italy, an expatriate artist of great skill and experience. Many of his fresco series in the classical style adorned public buildings, baroque-era residences, and churches throughout Rome, though it was to be his works in America that would define his career. Born in 1805, Brumidi began studying art at a young age, and continued his education under such 19th century luminaries (and classically trained artists) as Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorwaldsen. As early as 1840, scholar Barbara Wolanin tells us, Brumidi was doing public work at the Vatican, restoring 16th century frescoes in the Vatican's Third Loggia. Throughout the 1840s, Brumidi worked steadily, building his resume and receiving acclaim. Political winds in Italy shifted in the late 1840s, and a series of unfortunate events landed Brumidi in jail as a revolutionary. After some legal maneuverings, his sentence was commuted in March of 1852, and he left for the United States as a refugee half a year later, arriving in New York. There he worked regularly for two years, as his reputation grew. Late December of 1854 was the turning point in his career, Wolanin says, when he met Captain Montgomery C. Meigs, who was overseeing the ongoing construction and decoration at the United States Capitol building, in Washington, D.C. (Wolanin, p. 49). The Captain, knowing Brumidi's talents, gave the artist an opportunity: to paint a fresco in what was to become the Agriculture Committee's room, as a trial. Brumidi's work on that fresco was a great success by all accounts, and as a result Meigs and the design group at the Capitol employed him steadily thereafter. Over the next quarter century, Brumidi would establish and cement his reputation as the "Artist of the Capitol." He painted frescoes for the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs, decorated a group of hallways now called "the Brumidi Corridors," and designed and executed the decorative schemes for the Senate Library, the room used by the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, and the President's Room. But it is his work on the Capitol Building's focal point which has become his legacy. Wolanin calls it Brumidi's "masterpiece" - the huge fresco inside the Capitol's magnificent new, rotunda. Helped by a letter of recommendation from Captain Meigs, Brumidi was officially hired in 1862 by Thomas Walter, the architect of the Capitol's extension and dome, and B.B. French, the Commissioner of Public Buildings. French, having realized that there existed "no artist in the United States, capable of executing a real fresco painting as it should be done… except Mr. Brumidi," admits, "I do not see how we can do otherwise than employ him." (quoted in Wolanin, p. 126). Brumidi had multiple visions for the rotunda painting before the official commission, beginning in 1859, which he nevertheless always envisioned as an apotheosis of Washington. Apotheosis paintings are a subject as classical as any - and refer to the rising of a subject to the divine or to the ideal. Great artists that Brumidi surely studied deified subjects in their art - Ingres with Homer, Rubens with Henry IV and others, and Francois Le Moyne with Hercules at Versailles. Of course, there was no better American subject in 1859 for an Apotheosis than George Washington, hero of the Revolution, father of the country, and the first President of the United States. The Capitol painting's circular geometry and its need to be viewed from 360 degrees presented some challenges in composition, however. Brumidi's first designs fell short of meeting those criteria, and he wasn't satisfied until he came to an important realization. Wolanin calls it his "crucial conceptual transition from easel painting to monumental mural," which related more directly to the "soaring space" of the Rotunda. (Wolanin, p. 143) Instead of a work in the typical horizontal orientation, Brumidi envisioned concentric rings of figures, ensuring that "the viewer would look up into the space of the apotheosis." (Wolanin, p. 143) The final design was sketched in oil at least once sometime between 1859 and 1862, and that design is offered as the present lot. Brumidi imbued his Apotheosis with symbolism throughout, including allegories for the thirteen original colonies, and representations of Commerce, Marine, Science, War, Agriculture, and Mechanics. In the Renaissance tradition he knew well, Wolanin says, Brumidi depicted "historic or allegorical figures with the features of the artist's notable contemporaries." (Wolanin, p. 129) Those representations include the Union shield-wielding personification of Freedom, vanquishing President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis as "Discord" and Alexander H. Stephen, Davis's Vice President, as "Anger," who is also being struck by a bolt of lightning. (Wolanin, p. 129) In the representation of "Science," Brumidi includes portraits of Benjamin Franklin, Robert Fulton, who invented the steam engine, and Samuel F.B. Morse, inventor of the telegraph. Washington himself, the focus of the viewer's gaze, is at the center of a classical arrangement, flanked by two women - one representing Liberty, the other both Victory and Fame. He is dressed in his military uniform and seated on a cloud. Above him is the bright yellow-white of the heavens, to which he ascends, and which acts as a halo to frame him. Surrounding the Rotunda's apex with him are the thirteen female figures representing the original colonies, holding the banner with the familiar Latin phrase "E Pluribus Unum" (Out of Many, One). Contemporary reactions to the final product in 1865 were overwhelmingly positive, and it was understood then, as now, that the Apotheosis of Washington in the Capital Rotunda is arguably the most important fresco painted in America. It is now seen by millions of visitors to the building each year, and stands as a testament to mid-19th century patriotism at a time of national crisis. It also serves as high reverence for a military and political leader of the highest esteem, instrumental to the beginnings of the United States of America, which Brumidi reportedly called "the one country on earth in which there is liberty." (Wolanin, p. 9)
Attributed Constantino Brumidi (American 1805-1880) Cupid With Lamb Bears the signature C. Brumidi on verso Oil on ivory Oval: 3-1/2 x 2-3/4 in (8.9 x 7 cm) Note: This work is illustrated in Virgil E. McMahan's The Artists of Washington, D.C., Washington, D.C., 1995, fig. 26.
Constantino Brumidi 1805-1880 A Portrait of George Washington inscribed on the right of the top tacking edge: Brumidi oil on canvas Painted Oval: 37 1/4 x 30 1/4 inches ( 94.6 x 76.8 cm ) Provenance: Private Collection, Diamond Bar, California, to the present owner, by descent through the family of James Ware Bradbury (1802-1901), United States Senator from Maine, 1847-1853. Note: In 1856 the Italian born immigrant Constantino Brumidi was commissioned to decorate a new portion of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. His work can be found throughout the interiors of the Rotunda, Senate Reception Room, various committee rooms and, for what is now called, the Brumidi Corridor.According to the present owner's family lore, Brumidi set up shop in the Rotunda and sold portraits of Washington and other historical figures to the Congressmen as they were passing through the building.
U.S. Capitol Cartes-de-Visite [Bell & Hall]. "Commerce" (Mercury god of Commerce), "War" (Armored Freedom), "Agriculture" (Ceres, goddess of Agriculture), "Mechanics" (Vulcan, god of the forge), four views of the eye of the Capitol rotunda dome, "The Apotheosis of Washington", by Constantino Brumidi (1805-1880). 4" x 2 1/4", three with cut corners. The Rotunda which took Brumidi 11 months to paint (Dec. 1864-Oct. 1865) was the crowning achievement and remains the Capitol's focal point. Together With Wolanin, Barbara, [curator] Constantino Brumidi: Artist of the Capitol, Washington, 1998, and a polychrome mixed media plaque with gilt rim. Plaque, D: 15 1/2".
dated "C. Brumidi 1853", New York canvas stamp on the reverse. Oil on canvas (oval format), 30 x 24 3/4 in. (75.8 x 63 cm), framed. Condition: Minor scattered retouch.
