Arts Listings

A very important painting belonging to the university’s Berkeley Art Museum is about to be auctioned off at Christie’s April 18 sale. The large oil is by the renowned 19th-century painter Vasily Vereshchagin (1842-1904), whose paintings are honored in their display at Moscow’s Tretiakov Museum of Art. The picture, entitled Solomon’s Wall, depicts the West Wall of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. It is part of the artist’s Palestine series and was shown in the 1880s throughout Europe and also in New York. 

Beautifully rendered, it is a superb example of 19th-century history painting. 

It was given to the university by Phoebe Hearst and has been on long-term loan to the Judah L. Magnes Museum where it was appreciated by countless viewers and established a long partnership between the two museums. 

The loss of this painting to the Berkeley community is comparable to the fate of Asher B. Durand’s Kindred Spirits (depicting Thomas Cole and William Cullen Bryant standing on a precipice), which was sold by the New York Public Library, its long-time owner, to the Wal-Mart Museum in Arkansas. The New York public, deprived of this painting, is very angry at its loss. The Berkeley community would be similarly impoverished if this sale should be consummated. 

The mission of the Berkeley Art Museum from the beginning was to be as encyclopedic as feasible. At its late start it could not compete with Yale or Harvard, but fine European and American paintings were acquired. This seems to have come to a virtual standstill.  

A museum is judged primarily by the strength of its collection, so this seems a bad time for the Berkeley Art Museum to auction off one of its prime possessions. The de Young Museum’s recent fund drive for its new buildings was largely successful due to its record of acquisitions by gift and purchase of important art. Acquisitions by the Berkeley Art Museum have been meager in recent years. The museum can hardly expect to raise funds when important gifts such as Solomon’s Wall are sold at auction. 

Peter Selz is the founding director of the Berkeley Art Museum.  

Image: Vasily Vereshchagin’s Solomon’s Wall (1884-1885), oil on canvas. The painting was gifted to the Berkeley Art Museum by Phoebe Hearst.