This watercolor was the final preparatory work for one of La Farge’s finest late stained-glass windows, Wisdom, 1901, in the east transept of Unity Church in North Easton, Massachusetts. The window, a memorial to Oakes Ames and his sons Oakes Angier Ames and Oliver Ames, was commissioned by the grandchildren of Oakes Ames. Designed by John Ames Mitchell, the church itself had been a gift of the Ames family, and most of the memorials in the church were dedicated to members of the family. Earlier, in 1887, La Farge had designed for the family the Angel of Help window in the west transept, a memorial to Helen Angier Ames.
Depicted as a lovely woman, Wisdom is enthroned and surrounded by an elaborate architectural structure. She thoughtfully touches her right hand to her cheek; her right elbow rests on a globe. To her left stands Youth, a handsome man dressed in Renaissance military garb, and to her right, Old Age, a bearded man clothed in classical attire. The differences between this window and the earlier Angel of Help reveal the impact of La Farge’s visit to Italy in 1894. While both have allegorical figures and a similarly symmetrical arrangement, Wisdom is more structured with an emphatic architectural perspective.
Art historian Henry La Farge has suggested that the window relates to decorations in the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii. The overall format, however, is that of a late-fifteenth century Italian sacra conversazione image. The Ionic baldachin under which Wisdom sits is reminiscent of fifteenth-century Italian tomb monuments, while inlaid checkered marble floors appear in countless Renaissance paintings. La Farge derived the figure of Old Age from a relief by Donatello (1386?-1466). The angels holding a wreath above the figure may have been derived from terra-cotta bas-reliefs by Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488) for the Forteguerra monument. The image of a seated, hooded figure in meditation appeared in oriental art as Kannon (Kwannon), Buddhist deity of mercy AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS used such an image for the grave monument for Henry Adams’s wife, 1886-91 (Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C.), for which La Farge was Saint-Gaudens’s advisor, indicating the degree to which La Farge absorbed Far Eastern philosophy. Such an amalgamation of sources not only reflects La Farge’s eclectic learning but also is in keeping with the American Renaissance aesthetic. La Farge’s late windows, such as Wisdom, reveal a greater pictorialism, possibly as much in response to patronage demands as to his own preferences.
The watercolor probably was executed between 1900 and 1901 since a sketch of the central figure (Toledo Museum of Art) is inscribed August 1900, and the finished window was exhibited in the autumn of 1901 and installed on December 17 of that year.
