How a Dinner in Paris Led to the Creation of The Met

In ‘This Week in History,’ the grandson of Founding Father John Jay envisions a prominent American art museum, a vision that quickly became a reality.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, circa 1914. Public Domain

Bois de Boulogne had long been a section of Parisian forest dedicated to serve strictly as a private hunting ground. In 1777, King Louis XVI became the first monarch to open the forest to the public. When the Second French Empire was established in 1852, Louis-Napoleon, now Napoleon III, chose to cede the vast tract of land to the city of Paris and turn it into a large public park, with lakes, small islands, a large artificial waterfall, paths and trails, and the planting of 420,000 trees. The project was completed in 1858 and provided Parisians with amusements like cafes, boat rentals, and shooting galleries. The park could be used and enjoyed by all classes of people. The restaurants, La Grande Cascade and Le Pré Catelan, however, could only be afforded by the wealthy.

In February 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, some of New York’s prestigious and wealthy citizens formed the Union League Club of New York City. It began with 66 members, and by the end of the year it had garnered more than 500. The Union League Club promoted, as the name infers, the “union” of the country during the country’s disunion. Looking to the future and in the hope that the war would end with reunification, one of the goals of the Club was “to enforce a sense of the sacred obligation inherent in citizenship.”

The year 1863 proved pivotal for the Union cause with the Union victory at Gettysburg on July 3, and the Confederate surrender of Vicksburg the following day. Three years after the surrender of Vicksburg, a number of prominent Americans living in Paris gathered to mark their nation’s 90th anniversary, and no doubt its survival and reunification.

An Art Vision at Dinner

The restaurant in the Pré-Catelan in 1909, painted by Alexandre Gervex. Public Domain

The Americans in Paris met for dinner at Le Pré Catelan. John Jay, one of the Union League Club of New York’s earliest members and the grandson of the famous Founding Father, was invited as the guest speaker. He stood before the assembled colleagues and stated, “Now is the time for the American people to lay the foundation of a National Institute and Gallery of Art, and that the American gentlemen now in Europe are the men to inaugurate that plan.”

That same year, Jay was elected president of the Union League Club of New York and he helped lead the charge to establish that “National Institute and Gallery of Art” vision. He remained the president of the Club through 1869, until becoming ambassador to Austria. The distinguished men of New York City seized upon the momentum for a national art gallery.

In his 1867 work, “Book of the Artists,” Henry T. Tuckerman complained that New York “lacks one Institution essential to a great civilized metropolis,—a permanent free Gallery of Art. There is no safe and eligible place of deposit and exhibition for pictures and statuary. … A few years ago, an enterprising merchant offered to place a large collection of pictures, by the old masters, in any secure edifice, for the benefit of the public; but neither public munificence nor private enterprise would furnish the requisite shelter for these artistic exotics, and they now repose in the obscurity of lumber-rooms.”

A Plan Approved

Jay and several others worked to present their national gallery plan to the Union League Club’s executive committee. After approximately a year, the group presented its idea in October of 1868, and it was quickly approved. The Club established its Art Committee, composed of some of the nation’s leading artists, including John F. Kensett, Worthington Whitredge, John Quincy Adams Ward, Samuel P. Avery, and George P. Putnam.

The Art Committee began organizing a large meeting to be held in the fall of 1869. On Oct. 14, 1869, at a Club meeting, Putnam presented a report on behalf of the committee, suggesting a gathering be held for Club members and those with a keen interest in the cause. The meeting would solicit opinions on the “expediency of further action, and as to what shape [the national gallery] should take.”

The Art Committee sent invitations to fellow members, as well as artists and members associated with the National Academy of Design, the Institute of Architects, the New York Historical Society, the Century Association, and other clubs and organizations that might prove interested in the undertaking. Invitations were also sent to prominent New Yorkers. The event was scheduled for Nov. 23, 1869, inside of the Union League Club’s theater on 26th Street.

Convincing the Locals

A portrait of John Jay II, who served as ambassador to Austria from 1869 to 1875. Public Domain

Approximately 300 arrived, even in poor weather. Jay, already in Vienna as ambassador, could not attend. The spirit of the Art Committee’s report, which proclaimed that New York City “with its belongings, may claim to be third in the civilized world, is it not time to begin something in the shape of a permanent gallery and museum of Art, which, in its dimensions, in the character of its collections, and in the liberal freedom with which they are thrown open to the public, shall be worthy of the great city of a great nation, and shall in some degree emulate those of the old world?”

The renowned American poet, William Cullen Bryant, who was also appointed acting president of the Nov. 23 meeting, echoed Putnam’s sentiments when he addressed the audience, stating, “We are assembled, my friends, to consider the subject of founding in this city a Museum of Art, a repository of the productions of artists of every class, which shall be in some measure worthy of this great metropolis and of the wide empire of which New York is the commercial centre. … The object of the present meeting is to awaken the public … to the importance of taking early and effectual measures for founding such a museum.”

Upon the conclusion of the meeting, four resolutions were made, the first and most important being “that efficient and judicious measures should at once be initiated with reference to the establishment in this city of a Museum of Art, on a scale worthy of this metropolis and of a great nation.” It was also resolved that a Committee of 50 be organized in order to conduct all business necessary to accomplish the stated resolution.

The Work of the Committee

By December, the committee was organized. Such was the enthusiasm behind the endeavor that the committee number was raised from 50 to 116 by the first official meeting on Dec. 7, 1869. The goal of the meeting was to draw up an organizational plan for a Metropolitan Art Museum Association and to nominate its officers.

On Jan. 4, 1870, a subcommittee presented a report indicating the purpose behind the museum, “That it should include not only collections of paintings and sculpture, but should also contain drawings, engravings, medals, photographs, architectural models, historical portraits, and specimens illustrating the application of art to manufactures.”

It was also recommended that the officers of the Museum should include one president, three vice presidents, nine trustees, a recording secretary, a corresponding secretary, a treasurer, and a 13-member executive committee. On Jan. 31, the first officers were elected, with Bryant as one of the vice presidents and John Taylor Johnston as president, an office he would hold for 19 years. Several of the Union League Club’s original Art Committee members were elected as officers, including Kennsett, Ward, and Putnam.

After drafting a charter, a constitution, and by-laws, its request for incorporation was issued. It was during this week in history, on April 13, 1870—precisely a year after John Jay was appointed U.S. ambassador to Austria—that the New York State Legislature incorporated the organization under the name of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The act of incorporation stated the museum was “to be located in the City of New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a museum and library of art, of encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of arts to manufacture and practical life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular instruction and recreation.”

Collecting Works of Art

The trustees’ first quarterly meeting took place on June 15, and it was agreed that the first order of business was to raise funds for the museum. The goal was $250,000 (approximately $6 million today). By the end of the year, $100,000 was raised. Nonetheless, the timing for purchasing pieces of art proved ideal. William Blodgett, a member of the executive committee, traveled to Europe shortly after the June meeting.

On July 19, the Franco-Prussian War broke out. During this war, which ended in May 1871, the Bois de Boulogne was pummeled by mortars. Le Pré Catelan, where John Jay proclaimed his vision for the museum, however, thankfully survived.

As the war raged, Blodgett found himself surrounded by opportunity to purchase classic works of art at a discounted price. In what has been called the Purchase of 1871, Blodgett accumulated 174 paintings, including by masters like Anthony van Dyck, Nicolas Poussin, and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. The vast purchase set the foundation of the Museum’s collection.

One Parisian magazine noted Blodgett’s exceptional timing. “Mr. Blodgett was in a position to act. … [H]e learned that owing to circumstance it would be possible to obtain three of the most important French and Belgian collections under exceptionally favorable conditions.” The New York World suggested that “at any other time their purchase would hardly have been possible.”

Additionally, on Nov. 21, 1870, the Museum received its first work of art. It was a 3rd-century Roman sarcophagus, gifted to them by the American vice consul at Tarsus, J. Abdo Debbas.

Marble sarcophagus with garlands was the first gift accepted by the Met. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain

By 1872, the Metropolitan Museum of Art had leased its first “secure edifice, for the benefit of the public” at the Dodworth Building at 681 Fifth Avenue. The vision of John Jay and many others was finally realized on Feb. 20, 1872, when the museum opened its doors, becoming what Tuckerman noted as that “safe and eligible place of deposit and exhibition for pictures and statuary.” Today, the Metropolitan Museum of Art stands as one of the world’s greatest art museums.

Opening reception in the picture gallery at 681 Fifth Avenue, Feb. 20, 1872; wood-engraving published in Frank Leslie's Weekly, March 9, 1872. Public Domain

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