Frederick Arthur Bridgman

W. S. Hobart, San Francisco
W. W. Crocker, Burlingame, California (and sold, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, November 12, 1970, lot 83, illustrated)
Bernard Crawford, New Jersey
Sale: Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, May 12, 1978, lot 235, illustrated
Coe Kerr Gallery, New York
Jerald Dillon Fessenden, New York (until 1985)
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, October 27, 1988, lot 50, illustrated
Private Collector, New York (acquired at the above sale)

Paris, Salon, 1878, no. 334 (as Divertissement d'un roi Assyrien)
London, Royal Academy, 1879, no. 441 (as A Royal Pastime at Nineveh)
New York, Samuel Putnam Avery Gallery (1880)
Boston, William and Everett Gallery (1880)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Second Annual Exhibition of the Philadelphia Society of Artists, 1880, p. 23, no. 375 (as A Royal Pastime at Nineveh)
New York, The American Art Gallery, Exhibition of Pictures and Studies by F.A. Bridgman, 1881, p. 21, no. 284 (as A Royal Pastime at Nineveh)
New York, Mr. Moore's American Art Gallery, Group Show
New York, Kirby's Gallery, October 1882
Possibly, London, The Fine Art Society, One Man Exhibition, no. 92 (as A Lesson in Archery)
Possibly, New York, Fifth Avenue Art Galleries, Catalogue of Mr. F.A. Bridgman - Exhibition of Pictures and Studies, 1890, no. 24 (as Assyrian King Teaching his Son Archery)
New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Adventure  Inspiration: American Artists in Other Lands, 1988, pp. 86-7, no. 53, illustrated 

Lucy H. Hooper, “Art in Paris,” Art Journal (American ed.), n.s. 3, December 1877, p. 381
Mario Proth, Voyage au pays des peintres: Salon Universel de 1878, Paris, 1878, p. 47
“Art Preparations for the Coming Salon,” American Register, February 2, 1878, p. 4, col. 7
Lucy H. Hooper, “American Art in Paris,” Art Journal (American ed.), n.s. 4, March 1878, p. 90
Louis Énault, “Le Salon de 1878,” Figaro, Paris, May 25, 1878, p. 1, col. 4
Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art, vol. 46, no. 10, August 1878, p. 176
"American Painters - Winslow Homer and F.A. Bridgman," The Art Journal, vol. XVIII, 1879, p. 155
Henry Blackburn, ed., Academy Notes, London, 1879, p. 45
G. W. Sheldon, American Painters, New York, 1879, p. 152
Richard Whiteing, "Cham," Scribner's Monthly, vol XIX, no. 5, March 1880, p. 750
Montezuma, "My Note Book," The Art Amateur, vol. II, no. 5, April 1880, p. 91
"The Bridgman Collection," The Art Interchange, A Household Journal, vol. VI, no. 3, February 3, 1881, p. 25
Frederick Arthur Bridgman, "The Art of Two Worlds," The Studio and Musical Review, vol. I, no. 5, February 26, 1881, p. 1
Edward Strahan, "Frederick A. Bridgman," The Art Amateur, vol. IV, no. 4, March 1881, pp. 70-1
Edward Strahan, "Frederick A. Bridgman," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. LXIII, no. 377, October 1881, p. 700
M. G. Rensselaer, "Frederick Arthur Bridgman," The American Art Review: A Journal Devoted to Practice, Theory, History and Archaeology of Art, vol. II, 1881, p. 51
Valabrègue, Galeries contemporaine des illustrations françaises, 8, [1882], part 3, n.p.
"The Fine Arts: Art Notes," The Critic, vol. II, no. 47, October 21, 1882, p. 287
Edward Strahan, "F. A. Bridgman," Grand Peintres Français et Etrangers; ouvrage d'art public avec le concours artistiques des Maîtres, vol. I, 1884, pp. 94-6
James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, ed., Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, New York, 1888, vol. I, p. 373
Walter Montgomery, ed., American Art and American Art Collections, Boston, 1889, vol. I, p. 183
"Famous Paintings Owned on the West Coast, VII: Bridgman's 'Diversions of an Assyrian King', owned by the Hobart Estate," Overland Monthly, vol. XXII, no. 127, July 1893, pp. 78-9, illustrated
Nouveau Larousse illustre, 1898, p. 101
William Howe Downes, Dictionary of American Biography, New York, 1930, vol II, p. 37
Ilene Susan Fort, "The Original Genre Paintings of Frederick Arthur Bridgman," unpublished paper, 1979, p. 5, 19, 20, illustrated
Lynne Thornton, Les Orientalistes: Peintres voyageurs 1828-1908, Paris, 1983, p. 172
Ilene Susan Fort, “Frederick Arthur Bridgman and the American Fascination with the Exotic Near East,” Ph.D. dissertation, The City University of New York, 1990, pp. 149-51, 159, 162, 166-68, 171-72, 183, and passim, plate 64, illustrated (as Divertissement d’un roi assyrien)
Gerald M. Ackerman, American Orientalists, Paris, 1994, p. 26
Christopher Wood, et.al., eds., The Great Art Boom, 1970-1997, Art Sales Index, 1997, p. 59
Holly Edwards, ed., Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930, Princeton, 2000, p. 72
L’Histoire, issues 256-60, 2001, p. 63
Kristian Davies, The Orientalists, New York, 2005, p. 34, illustrated (as Diversions of an Assyrian King)

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting has been restored but not recently. The canvas has been lined with wax as an adhesive. However, this lining is no longer supporting the paint layer or the canvas, and there is noticeable instability in the upper left, the lower left, across the top edge, in the upper right corner and in other areas, particularly around the edges, above the standing lions head and in the sky in the upper right. Due to this instability, the lining should be reversed and replaced with one applied with a non-acidic adhesive. The work could then be cleaned. This painting may have been shaped at some point, perhaps to fit a particular kind of frame. There are sections on the edges that show cuts in the canvas. These breaks and additions can be seen in the upper left side, in the lower left corner running through the signature, across the bottom edge, in the right corner, and across the top edge, where the canvas had been cut or folded for some reason. However, the figures, the animals and the sculptural work on the walls and around the coliseum are all very healthy. If the picture is cleaned after it is lined, there should be every indication that the painting is in very good condition. Retouches would be required, but almost all of them would be needed around the edges and would not interfere with the main focus of the composition for the most part.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

“In drawing and in general execution, the firm and practical hand of the master is everywhere visible [in The Diversion of an Assyrian King] . . . Gérôme himself might be proud to sign this page.” (Hooper, 1878)

These words, written at the time of this picture’s exhibition at the 1878 Paris Salon, summarized the opinion of many who encountered Frederick Arthur Bridgman’s art.  A pupil of the great Orientalist painter Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), Bridgman had made his name one year earlier, winning a medal at the 1877 Salon and a place at the Paris Exposition Universelle with the archaeologically exacting Les Funerailles d’une momie (location unknown).  Like that work, and true to Gérôme’s artistic principles, The Diversion of an Assyrian King was based on hundreds of sketches made abroad, an impressive personal collection of ancient artifacts, architectural fragments, and historical costumes, and countless hours of scholarly research.  Bridgman’s many visits to the Louvre and the British Museum are evidenced by the precisely copied Assyrian wall reliefs in the background of the picture (it may, in fact, have been the celebrated lion hunt series of bas reliefs from Nimrod, ancient Nineveh, and Khorsabad, displayed since 1847 at these museums, that inspired the gripping subject of Bridgman’s work), while his assiduous study of large folios of engravings produced in the wake of the astonishing discoveries in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) of Austen Henry Layard (1817-1894) and Paul-Émile Botta (1802-1870) in the 1840s and the much-publicized efforts of the Englishman George Smith (1840-1876) to find ancient Assyrian accounts of the Deluge in the early 1870s, are reflected elsewhere in the composition.

The Diversion of an Assyrian King was the second of three highly acclaimed historical reconstructions that Bridgman painted in three consecutive years, and its progress was closely followed in the media.  The light palette and vigorous brushwork in certain passages of the picture – trademarks of Bridgman’s maturing style – were widely commented upon by critics upon its debut, perhaps due to the uncommonness of these formal elements in academic history painting.  Such idiosyncrasies, along with a fine balance between appealing spectacle and fearsome violence, are today what distinguish Bridgman’s theatrical tableaux from those of his mentor Gérôme (see Pollice Verso, 1872, Phoenix Art Museum), and from those of his peers, especially Bridgman’s friend Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912), who also capitalized on contemporaries’ increasing fascination with the ancient world. 

This catalogue note was written by Dr. Emily M. Weeks.