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An Improbable friendship by William Nathaniel Banks In 1845, Daniel Pratt (1799-1873), who is described in the Dictionary of American Biography as the first great manufacturer of Alabama, built an art gallery adjoining his splendid house in Prattville as a showcase for the paintings of his friend and protégé George Cooke. In nineteenth-century America it was not uncommon for wealthy businessmen, such as Luman Reed and John Taylor Johnson in New York and Gov. William Aiken In Charleston, S.C. to build private galleries as testaments to both their affluence and their cultivated taste. But it was certainly unusual for a collector to create an art gallery primarily to display the work of a single artist. The temperaments of Pratt and Cooke were seemingly antithetical. Cooke was a gregarious and affectionate southern whom his friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow described as "an artist, an enthusiast, and a fellow of infinite jest." Pratt, in contrast was taciturn and aloof and had nether the time nor the inclination to cultivate a large circle of friends. "Work was his element." Pratt
was born in Temple, N. H. and, although he spent all of his mature life in the
south, he consistently displayed the New England traits of industry, thrift,
ingenuity, and self-reliance.
While Cooke's father was a lawyer who "gave George a good
education," Pratt's formal education was scant and generally restricted to
eight or ten weeks in winter and a similar period in summer. Because of his
father's ill health Pratt was apprenticed at age sixteen to a carpenter in the
neighboring village of Wilton. After four years of apprenticeship he borrowed from his
grandfather the cost of the passage from Boston to Georgia and arrived in
Savannah in November, 1819 with nothing in the way of material goods except his
box of carpenter's tools. 'After spending more than a year in Savannah, he moved to the
Georgia piedmont in 1821 and settled in Milledgeville, then the state capital
and the center of a flourishing plantation economy. The invention of the cotton
gin and the development of improved methods of cultivation had been the means of
creating sizable fortunes, and the newly rich planters were vying with each
other in building larger and grander houses. The ambitious young carpenter from
New Hampshire was well-equipped to satisfy their aspirations. A biographical sketch of Pratt in the 1860 History of
Temple, N. H., succinctly states: "In the vicinity of Milledgeville and
Macon he carried on his trade (of carpentry) until 1831..." a meager
summation of the extraordinary achievement of a decade in which he designed and
constructed at least eight houses that rival, in style and elegance, anything
built in the Georgia piedmont before the Civil War. Distinctive features were
sunburst fanlights over the entrance doors, graceful plaster decoration of
cornices and ceilings, elaborate graining and marbleizing, and in some of the
houses, grand spiral stairs. In 1831, despite his growing mastery of his craft, Pratt quit
the building trade and moved to nearby Clinton, where he joined a prosperous
local man in the manufacture of cotton gins. It was in expectation of greater
profit that, two years later, Pratt, his wife, the former Esther Ticknor of
Connecticut, and two slaves set out in wagons for Alabama, taking with
them materials Settling in an Autauga County log cabin in a virtual wilderness, Pratt built a blacksmith shop and set to work manufacturing the gins that would, make him a rich man. In 1838, he purchased almost 2,000 acres on Autauga Creek some fourteen miles northwest of Montgomery, established a town modeled on his' native village of Temple, and christened it Prattville. In rapid succession Pratt built a saw mill, a grist mill, and then his first permanent gin factory. In 1842, on a picturesque site overlooking the river, Pratt built a classical manor house resembling. those he had designed for the Georgia planters and surrounded it with elaborate flower and vegetable gardens and an orchard with apple, peach, pear, plum, and fig trees. During the 1940s Pratt continued to elaborate his master plan for Prattville. In addition to a Methodist church he built a school equipped with individual desks, which he designed, to replace the old-fashioned benches. He built a cotton mill of 22,800 spindles and a hundred looms, a woolen mill, a foundry, a carriage factory, a sash, door and blind factory, and a tin shop. He seemed to have a Midas touch, and his various enterprises flourished. In 1843, Pratt purchased a lot at 13 SL Charles Street in New Orleans and built a warehouse for storing and marketing his cotton gins. It was there hat he met and befriended the itinerant George Cooke. Cooke's life, in contrast to Pratt's had often seemed a concatenation of ironies and disappointments. As an aspiring young artist he had turned to the Peale family for instruction, but, according to William Dunlap, he was discouraged when Rembrandt Peale suggested a fee of "something like 2,000 dollars." In abortive efforts to please his father and to support himself and his wife, Maria Heath of Richmond, Cooke failed at several mercantile ventures before becoming a professional artist at the age of 27. In the 1830s he fervently sought a commission to paint a large historical panel to decorate one of the niches in the rotunda of the Capitol. Although Cooke had the support of Henry Longfellow as well as Webster, Clay, and many southern statesmen, the commission was finally awarded to John G. Chapman, a cousin of Cooke's wife whom, ironically, Cooke had encouraged to become a painter. Cooke had frequently painted other men's houses, but he had never had a house of his own. He had painted children with special tenderness, invariably charming his juvenile sitters who sometimes affectionately dubbed him "Uncle Cooke", but he and his wife were childless. While some critics used adjectives like "distinguished," "able," and "intelligent" to characterize his work, one pundit described his painting as "still and formal as an army of broomsticks." Now, at the age of fifty, sometimes discouraged, often ill, and tired of his peripatetic life, Cooke met the man destined to pay the, highest tribute to his art. Despite the differences in their temperaments and backgrounds, the two men quickly developed a warm friendship. They seemed to agree about everything: they were both political conservatives who deplored Jacksonian populism; they were devote Methodists; and they shared; the same taste in art. In 1844 Pratt outfitted the third and fourth floors of his warehouse on St. Charles Street as a gallery and studio for Cooke, and in December Cooke opened the National Gallery of Paintings. For five years, until Cooke's death in March 1849, the National Gallery was a fixture in the cultural life of New Orleans. On display were portraits, landscapes, historical paintings, and copies of Old Masters. A preponderance of the paintings were by Cooke, but John G. Chapman, Thomas Cole, Thomas Doughty, George PA. Healy, Charles Bird King, Rembrandt Peale, and Thomas Sully were also represented. The critical reception of the National Gallery was enthusiastic. Cooke arranged for the sale of, Thomas Sully's copy of Gilbert Stuart's portrait of Washington, exhibited at the National Gallery in 1845, for $600. Unfortunately, sales such as the Sully's Washington were infrequent, and, despite the good press and the celebrity of some of the artists, the gallery was a commercial failure. By the spring of 1848 Cooke had determined to close the gallery and to establish himself in his favorite classical city, Athens, Ga., where he and his wife would accept what he once called "the hospitality of the truly Athenian people." Meanwhile, the Cookes were making numerous visits to the Pratts' luxurious house at Prattville, and the two families were enjoying a growing intimacy. Cooke painted a portrait of Pratt as well as a charming portrait of his wife, Esther and their daughter Ellen, and the Pratts' named their younger daughter, Maria for Mrs. Cooke. The climax of the relationship came when Pratt built a spacious art gallery adjourning his house to display his collection of Cooke's works. Pratt commissioned Cooke to enlarge a painting he had executed in Rome in the 1820s of the interior of St. Peter's to fill one end of the gallery. It took the artist the two summers of 1846 and 1847 to complete the vast canvas, which measures 17 by 23 feet. The Descriptive Catalogue of Paintings in the Gallery of Daniel Pratt, published in 1853, describes, in addition to the interior of St. Peter's paintings of historical subjects like the Landing of Cleopatra and Landing of Columbus, romantic landscapes including the Falls of Niagara, the Natural Bridge, Virginia, and Naples, and portraits of such prominent figures as George Washington and Henry Clay. On March 24, 1849, he was stricken with Asiatic cholera at a church service in New Orleans, and in 40 hours he was dead. It might be said that even after death ironic circumstance still involved George Cooke. His widow, whom he had called his "attendant angel," thought it appropriate for her husband to rest in proximity to the outstanding collection of his paintings, and he buried in the Pratt family cemetery on a hill overlooking Prattville. Mrs. Cooke returned to Athens and a few years later married Asbury Hull, a prominent lawyer. Not long afterward Pratt's gallery, infected with dry rot, had to be destroyed in order to save the house, and Cooke's paintings were dispersed. In 1867 Pratt gave Cooke's masterwork, the Interior of St. Peter's to the University of Georgia at Athens. Daniel Pratt died in 1873. His elaborately decorated monument towers above the unadorned obelisk that marks the artist's grave. One side of the obelisk is inscribed, in part: His genius still lives in the productions of his art. Indeed, both Pratt and Cooke left artistic legacies that have perhaps been insufficiently appreciated: the handsome classical houses that Pratt built in Georgia and Cooke's remarkable visual record of the people and places of early nineteenth century America.
George Cooke (American Painter, 1793-1849) Connected to the Daniel Pratt home was an art gallery, which contained the largest private collection of art in Alabama or perhaps in the South in 1860. Much of the art in the gallery was the work of George Cook, the famous Maryland artist, for whom Pratt had built a studio in New Orleans in 1844. Pratt paid Cook large sums of money for each of paintings, the best known of which "The Interior of St. Peters Church in Rome," hangs today in the chapel at the University of Georgia. When Cook died in New Orleans in 1849, his body was shipped to Prattville for burial. George Cooke is buried in the Pratt family cemetery, in Prattville. There are George Cooke Paintings in the White House, National Gallery, University of Alabama, University of Georgia, museums and private collectors. The Daniel Pratt & George Cooke New Orleans Connection
Daniel Pratt, the founder of the Daniel Pratt Gin Company, decided to become his own commission merchant at the largest center of gin sales, New Orleans, Louisiana. He purchased property in New Orleans and erected at 15 St. Charles St. a large three story brick building for storage and sale of his gins, gin parts, and various other products of his manufacture. The building Mr. Pratt had built is located at 125 St. Charles Avenue (15 St. Charles St. early street address). The building since 1899 has been known as Kolbs restaurant, until recently a New Orleans tradition. The three story building has been home to Daniel Pratt’s art studio playing host to many famous artist of the 1850’s. George Cooke a famous Maryland artist managed the studio on the top floor. Later the Building was home to the Louisiana Jockey Club and in 1981 was declared a National Historic Landmark. The complex pulley and belt-driven fans which graced the kolb’s grill room was first admired by thousands of visitors to the 1884 Cotton Centennial as the forerunner to modern air conditioning.
Interior of St. Peter’s Rome, George Cooke, 1847, oil on canvas 17-by-23 1/2 feet University Of Georgia Chapel After a wagon ride from central Alabama, two fires and about 130 years of exposure to Southern heat and humidity, the 17-by-23 1/2 foot painting in the University of Georgia’s Chapel, which for a time was said to be the world’s largest framed oil painting, underwent a well-deserved restoration. The painting was completed in 1847 by George Cooke for architect and industrialist Daniel Pratt who was building an addition to his home in Prattville, Ala., and wanted the painting to fill one end of it. The gallery became infested with dry rot and had to be torn down to save the house. The painting was given to the university in 1867 because of Pratt’s friendship with the chancellor and at the request of the artist’s widow who eventually married an Athenian. The Chapel was extended to accommodate the enormous work of art. Some work has been done on the canvas since then, especially after a fire in 1955 destroyed a portion of it. New canvas was woven using a sample of the original, and Walter Forbus, a local restoration specialist, repainted it-darkening the paint so it would match the rest of the smoke-damaged picture. The "Interior of St. Peter’s Rome" was cleaned and repaired as part of the 1994 renovations to the Chapel. "It’s definitely been worth the effort," says Thomas Bowen, assistant to the vice president for academic affairs. "The painting is valued at roughly a quarter of a million dollars, but it’s irreplaceable. It’s a campus landmark."
Information From The University Chapel Web Site University of Georgia Chapel painting undergoes massive restoration
by Nancy Cooper After a wagon ride from central Alabama, two
fires and about 130 years of exposure to Southern heat and humidity, the
17-by-23½-foot painting in the university's Chapel, which for a time was said
to be the world's largest framed oil painting, is about to undergo a
well-deserved restoration. This summer the "Interior of St. Peter's
Rome" will be cleaned and repaired as part of the recent renovations to the
Chapel.
The painting was completed in 1847 by George Cooke for architect and industrialist Daniel Pratt who was building an addition to his home in Prattville, Ala., and wanted the painting to fill one end of it. The gallery became infested with dry rot and had to be torn down to save the house. The painting was given to the university in 1867 because of Pratt's friendship with the chancellor and at the request of the artist's widow who eventually married an Athenian. The Chapel was extended to accommodate the enormous work of art. Click to enlarge Some work has been done on the canvas since then, especially after a fire in 1989 destroyed a portion of it. New canvas was woven using a sample of the original, and Walter Frobus, a local restoration specialist, repainted it-darkening the paint so it would match the rest of the smoke-damaged picture. Now the historic painting will be treated to a total cleaning job. Flaking fragments will be painstakingly reattached and repainting may be needed in some areas. The work is being handled by James Swope of James Swope Fine Arts Conservation Inc. in West Palm Beach, Fla. Several art students have been hired to execute the work under the supervision of Swope's assistant. "They'll be working basically with cotton swabs during 40-hour weeks over a 12-week period during the summer," says Lynne Perdue, registrar at the Georgia Museum of Art, which serves as "caretaker" of the university's art holdings. "The Painting is attached to sheets of masonite, so we have set up scaffolding." Museum staff are working with Swope and the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, which has led the effort to renovate the entire Chapel, including the painting. The walls of the building have been reinforced and air conditioning is now installed, both of which had to be done before work on the painting could begin. State funding for the renovation will pay the approximately $90,000 bill for restoring Cooke's painting. "It's definitely been worth the effort," says Thomas Bowen, assistant to the vice president for academic affairs. "The painting is valued at roughly a quarter of a million dollars, but it's irreplaceable. It's a campus landmark." (Photo caption:) Kate Cretz, a 1994 master of fine arts
graduate, cleans paraffin mixture-which helps adhere flaking paint to the
backing-from the painting's surface with mineral spirits.
Patrick Henry Arguing the Parson's Cause at the Hanover County Courthouse, 1834, oil on canvas, Virginia Historical Society.
05/09/2007
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