Sparkle in the Storerooms

Few blues in the history of painting equal the electric indigos and aquas that ornament the baked enamel crafted in the 15th and 16th centuries for princes and prelates in the French city of Limoges. These extraordinary hues, combined with lesser colors, were used by master craftsmen to limn exquisitely detailed pictures on altarpieces, caskets. ewers and platters, garnished lavishly with silver and gold. Subjects range from the Annunciation to the labors of Hercules, and some panels even chronicle minor themes like the French proverb of the bad shepherd.* The finest U.S. collection of these Renaissance enamels is owned by the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, which is currently displaying some of its most sparkling examples (see color opposite).

Snip, Snip. It is typical of both the varied splendors of the Walters and the casualness with which they are kept that the show marks the first time that a complete catalogue of the museum's 215 enamels has been prepared. The task was completed with the aid of a $12,500 Ford Foundation grant--and a dozen more catalogues are needed. Many experts believe that the Walters has one of the top ten all-round public collections in the country, but nobody knows for sure. The museum has shown so many superlative examples of work from the classical era through the Renaissance that scholars are positive that many works by as yet unidentified masters lie hidden in the Walters' chockful storerooms.

The key to the museum's contradictions lies in the temperaments of the two Walters. Father William, a Yank with Confederate sympathies, made his millions in grain, whisky and railroads, then "holidayed" in France from 1861 to 1865, buying French landscapes and commissioning Daumier to do a series of the first, second-and third-class railway carriages. The son Henry, who loathed publicity and personally scissored the price from every bill of sale, doubled his patrimony and spent over $1,000,000 annually on art.

Jeweled Eggs. For all his quirks, Henry had a remarkable eye. Without relying on professional advice, except occasionally from Bernard Berenson, he rambled all over Europe, picking up Italian primitives, Byzantine silver, Renaissance bronzes and Persian ceramics. He sailed into St. Petersburg on his yacht to buy Faberge jeweled eggs.

At present only 20% of the father and son's collection can be shown in the compact palazzo on Mount Vernon Place bequeathed to the city by Henry after he died childless in 1931. Yet, under the aggressive management of Director Richard H. Randall Jr., 40, a Harvard graduate and former New York Metropolitan curator, the Walters is making the most of what William and Henry bought. It has boosted membership with lectures, movies and gallery-sponsored art tours of Europe. And after losing two city votes for bond loans to help finance a $4,500,000 annex, the museum finally won last year on its third try. When completed in 1971, the new annex will enable the museum to display 50% of its collection .--including, it is hoped, treasures that have never before come to light.

*Who exlaims: "I do not know which remedy to use, which sheep should I run to help? 1 cannot defend them all, so it would be best to desist from the lot."

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