Theodore Allen. 2 Autograph Letters Signed. Marseille, Feb. 14, 1836, 4pp., including stampless address leaf; and Paris, May 14, 1836. 2pp.+stampless address leaf. Both to his father-in-law, Luman Reed, New York City.
Wealthy New York merchant Luman Reed, according to a 1990 biography, “one of a handful of enlightened collectors who nurtured the creation of a national artistic culture” in early America, assembled a “pioneer collection” of American art, which he displayed in a specially designed Picture Gallery in his Manhattan townhouse. In assembling and housing his collection, Reed had the enthusiastic assistance of lawyer Theodore Allen, who married Reed’s eldest daughter. Himself an art lover and collector, Allen went to Europe with his wife for six months in 1836, commissioned by Reed to purchase and send home a wide range of objects of artistic interest, from seashells to engravings. These letters were written by Allen while on that artistic odyssey.
In the first, from Marseille, Allen gives a 700-word account of their “long, severe journeys by day and by night”, traversing “a Continent and a kingdom” in six weeks. After Paris, they took a boat down the Rhone River to Avignon (“some of the most picturesque and beautiful scenery in Europe”). Then to Marseille, with its “extremely narrow” streets…very filthy…the houses seem covered with dust and dirt of centuries”; there Allen found only a few seashells for Reed’s collection, but also examined French buildings “in reference to safety from fires”, assuring Reed that he already had the right plan for guarding his art – “heavy substantial walls, floors of stone or brick and tiled roofs”. The Allens would soon sail for Genoa and Naples, Italy offering more “matters connected with the fine arts”. (He adds a note to “Morse” – possibly painter Samuel Morse, future inventor of the telegraph – that he was unable to buy the French chairs he had requested, as they “would cost him more than if bought or made at home”)
Back in Paris three months later, Allen writes the “I feel most sensibly the disappointment you might feel at the only partial accomplishment of your views with regard to engravings…” On this trip, he could do no more than “select patterns, learn prices, etc…”. He would return to New York to learn “more particularly your views and wishes” and have “the benefit of…criticisms and remarks” from the great American painter Asher Durand, whose work Reed generously supported. Then he would return to Europe, “much better qualified to execute your commission…accomplish the work” and “finish the business”. Allen was unaware that when this letter finally reached New York, Reed was mortally ill. He died on June 6, while Allen and his wife were still in Europe. He did not live to see his art collection become the nucleus, before the Civil War, of a New York Fine Art Gallery and eventually, a treasure of the New York Historical Society.