Description
Before her death in 1935, Anna Barnes Bliss (Mrs. William Henry Bliss) was a prolific patron for artists, musicians, composers, and writers, a legacy that her daughter, Mildred Barnes Bliss (Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss), would carry on at Dumbarton Oaks. Anna Barnes Bliss’ House Book for Casa Dorinda, the Bliss residence in Santa Barbara, reveals the impressive array of guests she supported and entertained, including King Albert and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, musician Myra Hess, chamber music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, and an assortment of famous American painters. (1) It is therefore not unlikely that this drypoint by Arthur Hoeber, inscribed with a dedication to “Mrs. Wm. H. Bliss with warm regards,” resulted from a meeting between painter and patron.
Arthur Hoeber, born 1854 in New York City, studied at the Art Students League of New York and with painter Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris at the École des Beaux Arts before beginning his career as a landscape painter and art critic. (2) His best-known landscape painting explored the environs of New England and Cape Cod with French Barbizon and American Tonalist influences. However, much of Hoeber’s enduring legacy lies in his writings and lectures on art, and he was a well-regarded author in the circles of the National Academy of Design, the Architectural League of New York, and the International Art Association of Chicago. In addition to his reviews as the art critic of the New York Evening Globe, Hoeber’s writings included the publications The Treasures of the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York (1899), The Barbizon painters (1909), and a widely read series on the great painters of history. (3)
- Hannah Chew, Humanities Fellow, 2023-24
NOTES:
(1) James N. Carder, “House Book at Casa Dorinda.” December 2017 (Dumbarton Oaks).
(2) “Arthur Hoeber,” Benezit Dictionary of Artists.
(3) “Arthur Hoeber.” 1915. American Art News 13 (30): 6–6.
Acquisition History
Collection of Anna Barnes Bliss, (1851-1935);
By descent to her daughter, Mildred Barnes Bliss, Washington, DC, 1935;
Collection of Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss, Washington, DC, 1935-1969;
Bequest of Mildred Barnes Bliss (1879-1969), January 17, 1969;
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, House Collection, Washington, D.C.
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