http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/arts/design/masterpieces-from-scotland-visit-the-frick.html 2014-11-20 16:18:02 Masterpieces From Scotland Visit the Frick In “Masterpieces From the Scottish National Gallery,” the Frick welcomes 10 works by the likes of Sargent, Botticelli and Reynolds. === Among the lesser-known idiosyncrasies of the Frick Collection is that it has never had a painting by John Singer Sargent, the in-demand Gilded Age portraitist. But Sargent’s “Lady Agnew of Lochnaw,” a supremely stylish dark-haired beauty afloat in a voluminous white satin and chiffon tea gown, looks so at home at the Frick that visitors may mistake her for a resident. As it did last year with masterworks from the Mauritshuis, the Frick has welcomed 10 paintings from the It’s also a rangier show, one that isn’t as identifiably Scottish as the Mauritshuis works were Dutch — even considering the commanding Sir Henry Raeburn portrait of a kilted Macdonell clan chief. This traveling show includes works of the European masters Botticelli, El Greco, Watteau and Velázquez, alongside the British favorites Reynolds, Gainsborough and Constable. And — surprise — this matchup doesn’t favor the Continent as much as you might assume. Europe does have an early edge in Botticelli’s “The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child” (about 1485), which shows a Madonna cocooned in an enclosed garden that symbolizes her immaculate conception. This Italian Renaissance painting has never been exhibited in an American museum. Viewers who know Botticelli only from the giddy, overwrought “Birth of Venus” and El Greco’s “An Allegory (Fábula)” (about 1585-95) has a similarly focused composition, with three figures — a boy, a man and a monkey — hunched over a glowing ember. Not much is known about the meaning of the allegory. Some scholars have interpreted it as a warning against lust, with the monkey and the man (who is dressed as a fool) representing base, animal instincts. Others see a more lighthearted meditation on the work of the painter, a nod to the classical dictum “ars simia naturae,” or art as the ape of nature. Either way, the uplit faces, touched by that white-hot light particular to El Greco, draw you in close. The matron and young boy in Velázquez’s “An Old Woman Cooking Eggs” (1618) seem oddly disconnected. This cluttered kitchen scene, painted when Velázquez was just 18 or 19, is best taken as an ambitious study in different textures and shapes. A ripe melon, a gleaming metal bowl, ceramic pitchers, a wicker basket, a glass wine jug and two perfectly rendered eggs frying in oil are among the objects offered up for our delectation. Showing off is also the subtext of Watteau’s “Fêtes Vénetiennes” (1718-19), set at an elegant garden party. Two costumed revelers preen and strut, making eyes at each other, while the third, a lovelorn musician, looks on. The hint of romantic rivalry may have been personal: At a late stage of the painting, Watteau reworked the men’s faces to suggest his own features and those of his friend Nicolas Vleughels. Peacocking is political in the 1812 Raeburn portrait, “Colonel Alasdair Ranaldson Macdonell, 15th Chief of Glengarry.” The chief, borrowing his contrapposto pose from the Another prominent Scottish artist, Allan Ramsay, is represented by a delicate portrait of his second wife (identified, in the title, as Margaret Lindsay of Evelick.) And nearby, “The Ladies Waldegrave,” by the renowned British portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, advertises the charms of three marriageable sisters, all grandnieces of the writer Horace Walpole. Walpole commissioned the piece for his Contemporary viewers may have other criticisms, about Reynolds’s slavish imitations of Titian and Rubens. In at least one sense, though, the painting was successful; all three women wed not long after its debut at the Royal Academy. From Reynolds’s rival Thomas Gainsborough comes the confidently constructed “River Landscape With a View of a Distant Village,” which looks, at first glance, like an example of 17th-century Dutch naturalism. Further study reveals that everything is a little too perfect, from the weird symmetry of the clouds and trees, down to the charming dog standing at the end of a dock. John Constable’s magnificent “Vale of Dedham,” from 1827-28, on the other hand, strikes more of a balance between observation and imagination. It’s partly a homage to Constable’s idol, Claude Lorrain, with an overall composition that echoes Claude’s “Landscape With Hagar and the Angel.” But its details reflect Constable’s upbringing in the area and his study, in plein-air sketches, of its light and atmosphere and native foliage. Together, the 10 works in the exhibition (organized by the senior curator Susan Grace Galassi)  enhance the overall Frick experience, insinuating themselves into the collection.  They seem to have been chosen with an eye to the quirks and history of this museum, as opposed to pure wall power or “masterpiece” status. They were selected by Colin B. Bailey, director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and formerly the Frick’s deputy director and chief curator, with the Scottish National Gallery’s director, Michael Clarke. They will be joined by other works from Edinburgh when the show travels to the de Young in San Francisco and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. As it happens, Sargent’s “Lady Agnew” very nearly found a permanent home at the Frick: Helen Clay Frick, the founder’s daughter, was offered the painting in 1922 and turned it down. She’s here now, though, and we should meet her entitled, slightly frosty gaze with a warm welcome.