Figure 1. “Knight Rescuing His Lady,” The Spanish Forger, 248 x 191 mm. (Source: Caramoor)
From the New Wing of the Rosen House, if you glance quickly down the dimly lighted hall toward the Theremin Room, you may catch a glimmer of gold. The glint is from six “illuminations” in gold frames that hang on the wall, protected from fading by the gloom. Their creator remains a mystery.
"Illuminations” are miniature paintings created between 1100 and 1600 C.E. to embellish text and music scores in manuscripts. They were typically painted on parchment by monk-scribes, often with highlights in gold, and usually depict religious scenes or courtly life. Illuminations were highly collectible in the early 20th century – both J.P. Morgan and Walter Rosen owned them.
The six rectangular images in the hall, as well as two nearly square images of musicians under Lucie Rosen’s portrait in the Music Room, are now attributed to an unknown artist, likely Parisian, who worked from the late 1800s until the mid-1920s. This artist misrepresented his work as being from the late Medieval and Renaissance periods (ca. 1400 – 1600 C.E.)
His fraud was first exposed in 1930 by Belle da Costa Greene, Director of the Morgan Library. Over the next decade, Belle discovered 14 more works by this artist, whom she named “The Spanish Forger.”
Figure 2. Belle da Costa Greene. (Source: Theodore C. Marceau/Biblioteca Berenson, I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies)
While working in the Princeton University library, Belle da Costa Greene was encouraged by Junius Spencer Morgan II, J.P. Morgan’s nephew, to interview for a position at the (then private) Morgan Library in New York City. She became the personal librarian, and sometime secretary, friend, and confidante of J.P. Morgan, and later his son, “Jack” Morgan. She was affiliated with the Morgan Library from 1905 until 1948 (two years before her death), becoming its director when it became a public institution in 1924. Under her leadership, the library became a world-renown resource for scholars and the public. An influential expert on illuminated manuscripts, she was one of the first woman members of the Medieval Society of America, and the most highly paid librarian in the country.
Far from the stereotypical “prim” librarian, Belle da Costa Greene (1879 – 1950) was a vivacious, charismatic, and glamorous socialite. (She is quoted as saying “Just because I’m a librarian doesn’t mean I have to dress like one.”) She found friends in diverse groups, including some familiar names: Reginald and Cathleen Vanderbilt (collectors), Bernard Berenson (scholar), Eugene and Agnes Meyer (banker and local residents), Charles Freer (collector), Maurice Stern (artist), Carl Van Vechten (novelist and photographer), Alfred Stieglitz (gallerist), Sarah Bernhardt and Ellen Terry (actors), and Walter and Lucie Rosen.
Figure 3. Pages from Lucie Rosen's 1925 datebook. (Source: Caramoor)
Lucie’s datebooks from the 1920s and ‘30s list forty or so social engagements with Belle, including lunch at the Plaza Hotel and sharing a box at the opera. (Did they ever discuss The Spanish Forger’s works in the Rosens’ collection? They were thought to be 16th-century works when acquired in the 1930s and ‘40s.)
Lisa Fagin Davis, an expert on medieval manuscripts (her blog is at https://manuscriptroadtrip.wordpress.com), discusses characteristics of The Spanish Forger’s works: “The Forger’s style is easy to recognize. His faces often have a pronounced tilt, certainly, but one feature is particularly distinctive; the ladies in his noble settings display a prominent décolletage that would never have been found in an authentic medieval painting. Technical features of his work also give him away. In a genuine medieval manuscript, the gold leaf would have been applied before the colors. The Forger tended to apply his gold as a final step; a close examination of his work often finds gold overlapping the color rather than the (correct) other way around…[T]he subjects of his miniatures rarely relate to the text they accompany…[their] placement [is] totally at odds with medieval page-layout practices."
After Belle’s discovery, later researchers found blue and green pigments in the works that didn’t exist before the late 18th century, and designs that copied late 19th-century illustrations of medieval and Renaissance life by Paul Lacroix.
Illuminations by the Spanish Forger (some two hundred have been identified so far) are represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The University of Pennsylvania, Reed College, Columbia University, the Morgan Library, and Caramoor. The Victoria and Albert Museum acquired known forgeries, choosing to display them for their artistry. His works still appear at auction.
Belle da Costa Greene never married. She destroyed her personal papers shortly before her death, complicating the work of biographers. Her ashes are buried at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla
She is the subject of an exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum celebrating their centennial: “Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy,” which runs until May 4, 2025. Go see it if you can. And next time you are touring or having tea at the Rosen House, take a closer look at the works by the Spanish Forger near The New Wing and in the Music Room. Let us know what you think about them!
This blog post is by docent and guest contributor Randy Hans.