- 3 months ago
Directors: Catherine Orchard, Nina LjetiDirector Of Photography: Michael LopezEditor: Katie WolfordSenior Producer: Bety DerejeAssociate Producer: Lea DonenbergAssociate Producer, On Set: Maya HibbertAssistant Camera: Kahdeem JeffersonGaffer: Eric HinspergerGrip: Alex FrischmanAudio: Nicole MaupinProduction Assistant: Quinton JohnsonProduction Coordinator: Tanía JonesProduction Manager: Kristen HelmickLine Producer: Natasha Soto-AlborsAssistant Editor: Fynn LithgowPost Production Coordinator: Holly FrewSupervising Editor: Kameron KeyPost Production Supervisor: Alexa DeutschExecutive Producer: Rahel GebreyesSenior Director, Video: Romy van den BroekeSenior Director, Programming: Linda GittlesonVP, Video Programming: Thespena GuatieriImages Courtesy of The Frick Collection, New York, Michael Bodycomb, Joseph Coscia Jr.Filmed on Location: The Frick Collection
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PeopleTranscript
00:00Hi Vogue, I'm Amy Ng. We're here in New York City. We're at the Frick Collection,
00:08which is a historic house on Fifth Avenue. I'm the chief curator here, and these are
00:13the objects of my affection. A great work of art stops you in your tracks. It makes you think,
00:20it makes you look, it makes you think about other people. And to me,
00:24that's what a lot of the art in this building does.
00:30I mean, it was very, very typical to have British portraits in a dining room, both in England,
00:44in English country houses, and then in the American houses of those collectors who were,
00:48in a sense, emulating their British precedents. So this is Gainsborough's portrait of the Honourable
00:55Frances Duncombe. And what she's wearing is this amazing blue satin dress that's inspired by Van
01:02Dyke style of the previous century. And that was sort of a masquerade thing. It connected her to
01:07history, but it was also showing off a lot of wealth. So it's covered, dripping in pearls. You
01:13can see that even the hat that she's holding is lined in pearls. She's carrying another little
01:18bracelet of pearls from her hand. And there are more pearls up, woven through her hair, which is the
01:23height of fashion in the 1770s. It's called a poof. If you imagine having a portrait made
01:28of yourself today, for example, and you decide to choose something that's this exuberant, sort of
01:34flamboyant, almost costume. It's not like this is something that you'd wear out. With that standing
01:38dog tooth collar, it just takes her out of time a little bit. And it's just a really extraordinary
01:43expression of identity. Well, there are five of the seven Gainsborough pictures are here in the dining
01:50room, a couple of busts over here, and really an extraordinary kind of outlier in Gainsborough's
01:55of this mall at St. James's Park. What I love about this one is not only are the ladies sort of in
02:00cliques sort of looking at each other, sizing each other up, so are their little doggies.
02:06The evening, it gets so dark. You sort of get this ghostly feeling. So we're here in the West
02:23Vestibule, and we have four paintings, 18th century French by François Boucher, and they are the Four
02:29Seasons. And traditionally, what's funny is Four Seasons were sometimes illustrated by labors, like the
02:34work you do at every season. Well, for Boucher, it was more like the joy and pleasure of each season.
02:39So one of my favorites ones is Winter over here, where she's being pushed in this snow decorated sleigh,
02:46but of course she's leaving her decolletage all open and free. Throughout, you can just see these
02:51tiny little details that tell you what season it is, but really it's about the luxury of living a
02:56privileged life. It's like almost like a maximal way of imagining living life, and that's sort of the
03:03Vivienne Westwood thing. And so sometimes she used Boucher images in the clothing, sometimes
03:08she just used it in the store display. But you could see that she was really thinking about this
03:12historic past as a way to almost make extreme her contemporary clothing.
03:17So this is one of the three Vermeers that are in the collection. And Vermeer is most famous for these
03:33light-filled domestic spaces of women, men talking, these wonderful materials that you can see almost
03:39photo-realistically. And this is a perfect example. It's called Officer and Laughing Girl. She's holding a
03:45little glass of white wine, he's wearing this big broad-brimmed hat, and there's this wall map behind
03:50them that is so meticulously painted that we can actually identify which map it is. It's a 1621 map of
03:58Holland and West Friesland. All of Vermeer's pictures are kind of like this, that you think that there's a
04:03narrative story, but it doesn't really tell you exactly what's going on. So art historians have loved to
04:08play with, well, what's really happening here? Is it flirtation? Is it actually, you know, a sincere love
04:14match? Is she a prostitute? So there's all these sort of rumors that art historians have been sort of
04:20testing, and we don't know the answer. And I think part of the reason why these paintings are so interesting
04:26is because they're meant to get you thinking. And there's a little bit of a mystery around them that
04:30keeps you coming back. Welcome to the Corner of Power, where Louis XIV's scepter, which he's holding
04:39up like this, is matched by Bronzino's codpiece, which is a symbol of male virility in the Renaissance.
04:45We don't often get to talk about elements of male fashion that went in and then out of style. For this
04:51portrait, that codpiece, which am I allowed to talk about male genitalia? Great. Was this element of
04:59fashion that came into popularity around 1500? And for 100 years, anyone who could wore a codpiece.
05:06Pants used to be pant leg, pant leg flap. Well, that flap started to grow. It started to become a
05:13little bit of a purse. You could put some letters in there. And more importantly, it really symbolized
05:18the virility of the wearer. What's interesting about it is that as soon as it goes out of fashion,
05:24it almost becomes kind of obscene to see because, well, for obvious reasons, it's sort of just sticking
05:29out of there. In the 19th century, before Frick bought this picture, somebody on the art market
05:35had painted over the white codpiece so that it disappeared and it was just a little bit more
05:40reserved. And it wasn't until the 1940s, well after Frick died, that conservators here realized there was
05:46something underneath and took off the overpaint. And there, in its gleaming glory, the codpiece came back.
05:52So the Frick is not just about paintings and sculptures, but also decorative arts objects,
05:59and especially furniture like this secretaire or sort of fall open desk. This is French, 18th century,
06:06and it was made for Marie Antoinette. The story with this is she had this and its partner, the
06:11commode, made around 1770. And then when she was arrested during the French Revolution, about 20 years
06:17later, she wanted them brought with her to her sort of prison rooms in the Tuileries Palace. She brought
06:23them, but they didn't quite fit properly. So she asked the cabinetmaker to come back and refit them
06:27for her for her prison rooms. She still got the royal treatment, even under incarceration.
06:36Here in the Frick's living hall, and one of the most famous paintings in the Frick's collection
06:41is this Venetian Renaissance picture by Giovanni Bellini of Saint Francis in the desert. So we're
06:48looking at around 1470s, which is pretty amazing to think this large-scale oil-on-panel painting in
06:55such delicate glazes being made at that time. And it's showing the saint in the deserts. He's rejected
07:01the worldly goods for this sort of monastic life. This is a religious picture, but it's actually about
07:06nature. There's kingfisher, there's sheep with a shepherd in the back. There's all these little
07:11surprises that really bring to life this so-called religious scene, but is much more about the
07:17natural world and our place in it. When I look at this picture, I'm always looking for something new.
07:22I'm looking to see something that I haven't before. And even if it's something I've noticed before,
07:26I'm seeing it differently this time. And it's sort of this regenerating composition, like a natural
07:31landscape. Are we going to go look at Diana's pudenda? Follow me, we're going to go see Diana.
07:41So this is Diana. We're here at the apex of the Portico Gallery. And this is an 18th century French
07:51sculpture by Houdon. During the construction of the last four years, when we were working on the
07:57Frick's reopening, we took all of the works of art out of the Frick, but we left her. And the reason was
08:04it was more dangerous to move her out of the building than it was to just leave her alone and build a
08:08protective cage around her because her entire figure is resting on the ball of her foot. And
08:14this of course is just clay. It's baked clay. It's a very, very sensual and fragile material. This one
08:21in particular has an interesting story because one of its earlier owners prior to Frick had a son who
08:29was getting a little bit too excited at the sight of this very nude and beautiful figure,
08:35to the point where this previous owner augmented part of her anatomy, literally censored the genitalia
08:45of Diana. That was removed, by the way. So her chief conservator had the great job of having to
08:51remove the extra filling. And she was very concerned that Frick audiences would be
08:57shocked and in horror over the true unveiling of the truly nude Diana. But luckily,
09:05people were okay with the nude body.
09:14We're here in the West Gallery, and there's so much in here. Like, I could just name on one wall,
09:20Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velázquez, Goya, El Greco, Turner. I mean, there's just so much going on in here that you
09:26could really spend the entire day just looking and enjoying. Imagine that this was built for a
09:33private person and his family of three who lived here. It's amazing to think that soon after moving
09:38in here, he made the decision to, after his death and that of his wife, donate. He would give this
09:43building and its art collection as a public museum to the city of New York. I'm standing in front of
09:50Rembrandt's largest self-portrait. Of all the many self-portraits he made, this is the largest one.
09:56And not only is it really big, he looks like a king. He looks like he's sitting there in a throne with a
10:01scepter facing forward almost with a cape on. He's gone bankrupt by now. And so what he's painting here
10:08is kind of a figment. It's a projection. It's a construction. It reminds us that all of the paintings
10:14you see everywhere are actually just paint on canvas. And it's not about reality. It might have
10:22been what he looked like, but he certainly didn't feel like a king at the time. Along the wainscoting
10:28here is a set of buttons. And these are called buttons made of mother of pearl, and they are
10:33labeled housekeeper, valet, secretary, pantry, and butler. They really remind us that there were lives
10:41lived here in this building, both of the people who were pressing these buttons and those who would
10:45be answering those calls. So the second floor of the Frick's home was not really seen by that many
10:53people. It would really be only guests pretty much who were staying overnight who would come upstairs.
10:58And we're walking right now on a rug that is without a seam, like this was made in one
11:05long weave. And it's a pretty amazing thing. So when it gets trashed by all the
11:10public are coming in with muddy feet, that'll be a very expensive repair. I know you didn't really
11:16want to hear that. But that's what I think about every time I come up. Because for the first time,
11:20people are actually stepping on this carpet as members of the public and not just as family guests.
11:29So we're here in the Boucher room. It has paintings of these little babies
11:34enacting arts and sciences like painting and fishing and things like that.
11:38This was Mrs. Frick's boudoir. And I don't know if you can hear me, but the floor is creaking a
11:42little bit differently than it did downstairs. This is an 18th century French parquet that's been
11:47restored and brought up here piece by piece. What I like is this little vignette of this little
11:52toddler doing marble sculpture and the little bust that he's doing is not just any random bust but
11:59actually something that really existed and was made by one of Boucher's contemporaries
12:04at the time. So he's incorporating sort of contemporary art and the things that he was
12:07seeing around him. This is the kind of room that reminds you that the Frick is not just
12:11a collection of art in a place. It's the whole thing together. It's the carvings on the wall,
12:16the paintings themselves, the furniture, all of it, even the floor, all coming together to make a masterpiece.
12:24We're here in the walnut room. This was Henry Clay Frick's bedroom and it is where he died
12:29in December of 1919 just after his 70th birthday. And in here we have what some people refer to as the
12:36poster girl of the Frick collection. This is a portrait by Ingres, the 19th century French neoclassical
12:43painter of the Contesse d'Aussonville. And why is it the poster girl? Well, it's become so familiar
12:49to Frick visitors that as soon as people come into the building they're like, where is she? Where is
12:54where's the Contesse? Even though it seems to be an instant like she's just come back from the opera,
13:00the shawl's been thrown, the purse has been shown, all of these things that give an air of informality.
13:06The body is all wrong and in the drawings you see him actually moving the arm lower and lower and for
13:13those people who see this painting for the first time like well it looks so real and then they
13:17start to notice that the elbow is coming out of her hip and then for our physics majors they look
13:24in the mirror and they say wait a minute the reflection doesn't make any sense at all you
13:28wouldn't be able to see the finger and the whole thing is this kind of game to show you
13:33painting is this construction, it's an illusion, he's making magic on this canvas.
13:37These are the objects of my affection, thanks for watching.
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