A work by American portrait painter Thomas Sully had me wondering if the 19th-century Philadelphian could have had an outsized influence on fashion advertising. Long before Modigliani and best known for his portraits of women, many Sully paintings have an exaggerated neckline. This is the case with this portrait of Mrs. Caspar Wistar Morris (1808) offered by Potomack Auctions. Then there’s Margaret Siddons Kintzin in Worcester and Mary Sicard David at the Cleveland Museum of Art and of course Queen Victoria. It could be that fashion advertising and our perception of beauty owes a lot to the fact that Sully’s wife, Sarah, either had a long neck or he made it so.
According to the New York Times, a coded note found sewn into an antique dress has been at last deciphered. Like Al Capone’s vault, it turns out the note contains nothing more than weather observations. The mystery remains as to why they were sewn into a dress. The story originated with the Commitment to Costumes blog.
The casualties in the art education world aren’t limited to the Art Institutes. Some tragic news for the history of American art and artists comes from Philadelphia where the oldest art school in the U.S. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), has axed its degree programs. Perhaps a traditional arts education is out of fashion, although the school will continue to offer certificate courses.
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