Museum staff · Photographer
Dickson B. Alley
fl. 1877–1884
Metropolitan Museum watchman from 1877 who, in The Art Amateur's summary, testified for Feuardent in the 1883-84 libel suit that Cesnola Collection pieces were restored and re-aged at the museum.
Biography
Dickson B. Alley was a photographic printer who joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1877, first as night watchman and then in charge of the curios department, which held gold, jewels and bronzes. He helped Henry G. Hutchins mount some of the statues, and after the museum moved to Central Park he worked as a watchman and sold photographs and the catalogue at the door1.
He appeared for the plaintiff in Feuardent v. Di Cesnola, and The Art Amateur, a magazine that took the plaintiff's side, summarised his testimony in December 1883. Alley said he had seen Charles Balliard take statues apart and restore them at the museum with Luigi Palma di Cesnola present and directing. He said bronzes were brightened in one bath and aged again in another, and that stone dust from sawing was used as colouring1. He also described the mirror of Venus statuette no. 157: after Gaston Feuardent and two others had handled it, Alley found the mirror fresh and made of plaster, and later saw it replaced by one carved in the stone1,3. These are his statements as reported; Cesnola denied altering the pieces. The January 1884 report, which prints his name as Dickson D. Alley, says his testimony was not shaken on cross-examination2.
According to The Art Amateur, Alley and Charles Henkel were discharged for telling Alexander D. Savage, the First Assistant Director, about the restorations2. Nothing is recorded of him after the trial.
Life and work
- 1877Employed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (then at Fourteenth Street): first night watchman, then put in charge of the department of curios, covering gold, jewels and bronzes. He helped H. G. Hutchins mount some of the statues. When the museum moved to the Park he was a watchman and sold photographs and the catalogue at the door.
- November 1881 – February 1882Discharged from the Metropolitan Museum together with Charles Henkel, according to the Art Amateur, for telling Savage, First Assistant Director, of the restorations they had witnessed. Savage's letter to Cesnola of 29 Nov 1881 protests against discharging 'the janitor and his assistant for answering my question' (unnamed); Henkel said he stayed until February 1882.
- October–December 1883Direct testimony for the plaintiff, as summarised on p. 24: he saw Balliard take statues apart and restore them at the Park museum, Cesnola present, superintending and directing; Balliard prepared a bath for the bronzes that brightened them like new bronze, then a kettle mixture that aged them again (whitish-green verdigris); dust and stone dust from boring and sawing was used for colouring; he saw Balliard saw legs off statues and bases off objects; sphinx no. 35 arrived in fragments with plaster legs that were replaced by stone; Cesnola ordered the stumps of legs of a statuette carved off to fit a circular base; the 'Egyptian warrior' had a plaster nose that Balliard knocked off after the newspaper controversy began; brass pins were put in a face before plaster for a nose; he repeatedly saw the priest with hand and patera detached and once with the head separate in the bath room; sarcophagus and bas-relief carving; pottery dissolved in a muriatic-acid bath; and, before the Duke of Argyle's visit, headless figures were set up by employees of Fisher & Bird, marble workers of Houston Street.
- October–December 1883The Venus statuette (no. 157): Cesnola told him one day a party was coming and that he should let all in except the Frenchman Feuardent; Feuardent and two others came by another door and handled the statuette; afterwards the table was wet and the mirror looked fresh; he tried it with his knife, found it plaster, and hid the scratch with tobacco juice, a trick he had seen Balliard use. On the Sunday after the Art Amateur's article Balliard took the statuette away and brought it back on Monday with the mirror less clumsy and differently coloured; on a later Sunday Alley found the mirror no longer plaster but cut into the stone, the drapery thinner. He told Balliard, jokingly, that the best way out of the scrape was to do this very carving.
New YorkThe Feuardent-Cesnola Trial 1883, p. 24The Feuardent-Cesnola Trial (Editorial… 1883, p. 4a-4b
- October–December 1883Cross-examination and the photograph album: Alley said he held all the photographs on sale and none showed the priest with hand and patera detached; after The Times article he found a proof of that picture in the catalogue of negatives, the bookkeeper took the catalogue at noon and returned it three hours later with the proof removed and the leaf torn from the album; next day Henkel brought the waste basket and the torn photographs, which Alley told him to keep. Cesnola had told him to watch and keep out Feuardent and had charged him with giving information to 'that Frenchman'; 'a man named Rooney' had insinuated the same; Alley wrote a note denying it.
- December 1883 – January 1884Further cross-examination (Jan. 1884 report): his testimony 'was not shaken' by the defendant's lawyers (not named); he saw Prime on one occasion brush the hand and patera of the priest with a sponge and pail of water to show it was one piece, without trying to separate the bits of stone and without removing the wash; the committee soaked only one figure, no. 40; he, Henkel and Lennon were not called before the committee; Prime and Cesnola managed the investigation to suit themselves.
- October 1883 – January 1884NamedWitness for the plaintiff in Feuardent v. Di Cesnola; not a party.
The Feuardent-Cesnola Trial 1883, p. 24The Feuardent-Cesnola Trial 1884, p. 55
Connections
9 peopleDisputes & the law
- Testified about Charles Balliard1883–1884
- Testified about Gaston Louis Feuardent1883–1884
- Testified about Luigi Palma di Cesnola1883–1884
- Testified about William Cowper Prime1883–1884
Colleagues & contacts
- Worked with Henry G. Hutchins1877
- Worked with Charles Balliard1880
- Connected with Alexander D. Savage1881
- Worked with Charles Henkel1881
- Connected with Rooney1883
- Worked with Lennon
Sources
- 1. (1883). “The Feuardent-Cesnola Trial”. The Art Amateur 10, 23-24. Online
- 2. (1884). “The Feuardent-Cesnola Trial”. The Art Amateur 10, 55-56. Online
- 3. (1883). “The Feuardent-Cesnola Trial (Editorial Supplement)”. The Art Amateur 10, 4a-4b. Online