Roman Newsboys

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Roman Newsboys

Artist Martin Johnson Heade (American, 1819-1904)

Date1848

DimensionsFrame: 35 3/4 × 31 3/4 × 3 7/8 in. (90.8 × 80.6 × 9.8 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

1953.68

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 29

Label TextBest known for his evocative landscapes (see Hazy Day on the Marshes in Gallery 30B), Martin Johnson Heade’s Roman Newsboys is one of his only known scenes of everyday life (genre). Heade visited Rome in 1848 during clashes between the movement to unify Italy (the Risorgimento) and the secular government of the Roman States, headed by Pope Pius (Pio) IX. The Italian political atmosphere is the subject of Roman Newsboys. The boys offer a pro-Risorgimento satirical newspaper to an approaching pedestrian, whose shadow appears at left. One boy wears a “dunce cap” with the name of the pope; the other wears a Greek cap, symbol of liberty. Graffiti on the wall includes a stick-figure cardinal and a caricature of the pope, while a poster declares support for Vincenzo Gioberti, leader of the Risorgimento. This painting was selected as a prize in a lottery sponsored by the Western Art Union of Cincinnati in 1850.Published ReferencesWestern Art Union, "Additional Catalogue," Record, Dec. 1849, no. 98.

Western Art Union, "Distribution," Transactions for Year 1850, Cincinnati, 1850, p. 17, no. 2. (as The News Boys, 3366 to H. Swisshelm, Pittsburgh).

Western Art Union, "Distribution," Proceedings of the Annual Meetings, Jan. 20, 1851, p. 17, no. 2 (as The News Boys, 3366 to H. Swisshelm, Pittsburgh).

Young, Mahonri Sharp, "From Howling Wilderness to Queensborough Bridge," Apollo, vol. 86, no. 70, Dec. 1967, p. 499.

Stebbins, T., Martin Johnson Heade, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1969, no. 1, repr.

Stebbins, T., Jr., The Life and Works of Martin Johnson Heade, New Haven and London, 1975, pp. 9-11, 13, 212, no. 9, fig. 4.

The Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, pp. 59, 60, pl. 31.

"La chronique des arts" [notice of American paintings catalogue], Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 97, no. 1348-1349, May-June 1981, p. 12, repr. fig. 17.

Soria, Regina, Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century American Artists in Italy, 1760-1914, London, 1982, repr. p. 223.

American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. II, New York, 1985, p. 119.

Vance, William L., America's Rome, New Haven, 1989, vol. 2, p. 126, fig. 15, pl. 1 (col.) after p. 168.

Stebbins, Theodore E., The Lure of Italy: American Artist and the Italian Experience 1760-1914, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1992, no. 23, pp. 201, 203, repr. (col.).

Cash, Sarah, Ominous Hush: The Thunderstorm Paintings of Martin Johnson Heade, Fort Worth, 1994, pp. 39-40, fig. 20.

Apgar, Garry et al., The Newspaper in Art, Spokane, 1996, p. 26, fig. 44 (col.) p. 25.

Turner, Jane, ed., Dictionary of Art, New York, 1996, vol. 14, p. 277.

Kornhauser, Elizabeth Mankin, American Paintings Before 1945 in the Wadsworth Atheneum, New Haven, 1996, vol. 2, p. 450.

Llorens Serra, Tomas, From Canaletto to Kandinsky: Masterworks from the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid, 1996, p. 289.

Stebbins, Theodore E., Martin Johnson Heade, Boston, 1999, p. 185, fig. 37.

Husch, Gail E., Something Coming: Apocalyptic Expectation and Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Painting, Hanover, NH, 2000, pp. 6, 53-54, 61, fig. 12, p. 53.

Stebbins, Theodore E., The Life and Works of Martin Johnson Heade, New Haven, 2000, pp. 10-12, 27 202, fig. 7, (col.) p. 11, repr., p. 202.

Manoguerra, Paul A., Classic Ground: Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Painting and the Italian Encounter, Athens, GA, Georgia Museum of Art, 2004, pp. 35-49, fig. 11 (col.) p. 37, repr. (det., col.) p. 34.

Manoguerra, Paul A., "Mid-19th Century American Painting and the Italian Encounter," American Art Review, vol. 16, no. 6, Nov./Dec. 2004, repr. p. 91 (col.).

Gemme, Paola, Domesticating Foreign Struggles, Athens, University of Georgia Press, 2005, pp. 46-49, 168, no. 62, fig. 7, p. 48.

Vance, William L., et al., eds., America's Rome: Artists in the Eternal City, 1800-1900, Cooperstown, NY, Fenimore Art Museum, 2009, p. 17, fig. 6, p. 12 (col.)

Tamarkin, Elisa, "Losing Perspective in the Age of News," Publication of the Modern Language Association, vol. 125, iss. 1, Jan. 2010, repr. (col.) p. 194.

Tamarkin, Elisa, "Reading for Relevance," Common-Place, American Antiquarian Society, Summer, 2010, repr. (col.). Link to resource.

Dabakis, Melissa, A Sisterhood of Sculptors: American Artists in Nineteenth-Century Rome, University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014, pp. 117-119, repr. p. 118, fig. 48.

Bailey, Brigitte, American Travel Literature, Gendered Aesthetics, and the Italian Tour, 1824-1862, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2019, p. 152, repr. fig. 3.5, p. 153.

Exhibition HistoryCincinnati, Western Art Union, 1850, no. 98. (as Roman News Boys).

Provincetown, Chrysler Art Museum, Hawthorne Retrospective, 1961.

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; College Park, University of Maryland, Martin Johnson Heade, 1969-1970, no. 1.

New York, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, American Paintings from the Toledo Museum of Art, 1986.

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts; Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, The Lure of Italy: American Artists and the Italian Experience 1760-1914, 1992-1993, no. 23.

Athens, Georgia Museum of Art, Classic Ground: Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Painting and the Italian Encounter, Oct. 23, 2004-Jan. 2, 2005.

Cooperstown, Fenimore Art Museum, America's Rome: Artists in the Eternal City, 1800-1900, May 23-Dec. 31, 2009.

Comparative ReferencesSee also Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, 2008 Labor Day weekend fine art and antiques feature auction, Thomaston, ME, Aug. 30 & 31, 2008, lot, 100, p. 24 and on back cover (col.).