Around the World on the Yacht Eleanor: The Slaters' Grand Tour

Highlights

The phenomenon of the Grand Tour originated in the sixteenth century and reached deeper into the broadest cross-section of society in the nineteenth century. Originally a practice of aristocratic young men, the Grand Tour’s most often visited locales were Paris and Rome. It was thought that only by exposure to the great works of classical art and architecture, could one acquire an appreciation for high culture and beauty.

It was expected that the sojourner would bring back souvenirs as well as knowledge. In many cases, these souvenirs were the germs of art collections at home. Grand Tourists also provided commerce to artists in France and Italy through purchase of existing works as well as through commissioning portraits. The “tourist” might also have brought home rare and ancient books, textiles, clothing and furnishings as well as plaster castings of sculpture, coinage and jewelry.

Grand Tours, embraced passionately by well-heeled English and American families in the 19^th and into the 20^th centuries, lasted from several months to years. Often mothers accompanied their daughters on these travels and, among the truly wealthy, entire families made the trips together, sometimes separating in one city and re-uniting weeks later in another city or port. It was seen as necessary as a coming out or “finishing” for young ladies to travel to Europe and the Far East. Dad was frequently left at home to tend to the family’s finances. The manner in which the Slater family traveled was relatively rare and remained in the realm of the fabulously affluent, like the Carnegies, Morgans and Vanderbilts, whose yachts were berthed alongside the “Eleanor.”

By the 19^th century, travel in general had become more affordable and available. With it becoming more acceptable, young women began to pursue the Grand Tour, often accompanied by an older female (sometimes less wealthy) relative acting as a chaperone. The fashion was further cultivated as a result of the growing middle class, made wealthy by the Industrial Revolution. By 1870, the Englishman Thomas Cook’s tours were becoming a household word and even today the phrase “Cook’s Tour” has come to suggest a comprehensive trip hitting all of the highlights.

Reporting for Alta California, a San Francisco newspaper, in 1867 Mark Twain took a Grand Tour and later turned his dispatches into the book The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims Progress. Selling over 70,000 copies in its first year, it remained the bestselling of Twain's books throughout his lifetime. The book surely inspired both middle class and wealthy people of all ages to travel abroad and to return with treasures and souvenirs. It became a sort of Fodor’s for the 19^th century traveler. Perhaps not coincidentally, William Randolph Hearst began his collecting career as a youth of 10 on his own Grand Tour in 1873. The newly wealthy Americans, still healing from the effects of the Civil War, may have been seeking their roots in much the same way that second and third-generation Americans do today.

Gallery Highlights

Gallery Guide

1. THE YACHT ELEANOR

Gaetano D’Esposito
(1858-1911)
Gouache, 1895

Kimono with green plant forms as the design

2. KIMONO

Japanese
Brocade / Silk lining, c. 1820
250.W.0216

Bronze putto stands on one leg and grasps a dolphin that wraps itself around his body.

3. PUTTO WITH A DOLPHIN

After Andrea del Verrocchio Italian (1435 - 1488)

Bronze cast from the original mold of a sculpture by
Andrea del Verrocchio, c. 1478
Friends of Slater purchase in recognition of f Joseph P. Gualtieri.
230.0186

Seated Madonna with the infant Christ. They are surrounded by saints in a three panel painting

4. MADONNA WITH SAINTS

Artist Unknown
Oil on panel, Italian, late 16th century
180.0287

White bust portrait of Benjamin Franklin

5. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

French (1741-1828)
Jean-Antoine Houdon
Sèvres Bisque / Porcelain base, 19th century
Estate of Baron Thomas Shannon Foran
230.0561

PRINTS FROM LES BOUQUINISTES

Les Bouquinistes (bookstalls along the Seine) in Paris are located on the “quais” or parapets, with their rows of bookstalls arranged with their backs to the river. Selling new and secondhand books and works on paper, they still line the Pont Neuf, built 1604, and the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter.

6. TROUPE DE MLLE. EGLANTINE

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, (1864 - 1901)
Lithograph, 19th century
200.L.0443

7. THE PRAYER

Pierre Louis Rodolphe Julian,
(1839-1907) printed at Delarue,
Paris
Lithograph, 19th century
Gift of Irene Weir
200.L.0027

8. STUDY OF A PRIEST

Alphonse Legros (1837 - 1911)
Etching, 19th century
Gift of Mrs. Ozias Dodge
200.E.0098

Men in a boat traveling under a bridge in Paris

9. CANAL SCENE

Louis Orr (1876 - 1966)
Etching, n.d.
Gift of Janet C. Peterson
200.E.0314

10. LA VIEUX, PARIS

Louis Orr (1879 - 1966)
Etching, n.d.
Gift of Janet C. Peterson
200.E.0312

Three seated girls in old fashioned dress

11. PEASANT WOMEN IN CHURCH

Alphonse Legros (1837 - 1911)
Etching, 19th century
Gift of Mrs. Ozias Dodge
200.E.0101

12. STUDY OF CHILDREN’S HEADS

Pierre Louis Rodolphe Julian, (1839-1907)
Lithograph, 19th century
Gift of Irene Weir
200.L.0025

statue of a standing woman who holds an apple

13. VENUS GENETRIX

Plaster, 19th century
235.0062

GREAT MASTER COPYISTS

In 1842, Norwich native Lydia Huntley Sigourney published her observations and reflections of her European travels in Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.