Pilaster Capital, One of Six, from the Bayard-Condict Building, 65 Bleecker Street, NYC
American Art
These capitals once graced the upper story of the Bayard-Condict Building, still standing in Manhattan and the only structure in New York City designed by the renowned architect Louis H. Sullivan. Completed in 1898 or 1899, the façade of the thirteenth-story commercial building is still embellished with an exuberant array of Art Nouveau ornament in the form of angels, lions, and plant life. These capitals, removed in a 1964 remodeling of the façade, are also highly organic, with energetically spiraling vine-like tendrils entwined with leaves.
MEDIUM
Terracotta
DATES
1898
DIMENSIONS
28 x 36 x 36 in. (71.1 x 91.4 x 91.4 cm)
(show scale)
ACCESSION NUMBER
64.260.3
CREDIT LINE
Gift of Anonymous Arts Recovery Society
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION
Pilaster capitals, set of six. The capitals, which consist of clustered and intertwining scrolls, leaves, grapes, etc., originally topped octagonal columns on the storefront level and seemed to pierce the angled glass panels that formed the top of the show window. There were originally twelve capitals in all, four on each of the three columns. The glass storefront was mostly covered up by cinderblock and plaster in the 1940s (apparently in order to weatherproof the glass storefront), and then completely removed during a 1964 renovation, with six of the twelve capitals coming to the Brooklyn Museum. In 2002 the glass storefront facade was restored with reproductions of the original capitals produced by Boston Valley Terra Cotta of Hamburg, NY.
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
CAPTION
Louis Henry Sullivan (American, 1856–1924). Pilaster Capital, One of Six, from the Bayard-Condict Building, 65 Bleecker Street, NYC, 1898. Terracotta, 28 x 36 x 36 in. (71.1 x 91.4 x 91.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Anonymous Arts Recovery Society, 64.260.3. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: , 64.260.1-.6_component.jpg)
IMAGE
group, 64.260.1-.6_component.jpg.
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
RIGHTS STATEMENT
Creative Commons-BY
You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a
Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply.
Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online
application form (charges apply).
For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the
United States Library of Congress,
Cornell University,
Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and
Copyright Watch.
For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our
blog posts on copyright.
If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact
copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
RECORD COMPLETENESS
Not every record you will find here is complete. More information is available for some works than for others, and some entries have been updated more recently. Records are frequently reviewed and revised, and
we welcome any additional information you might have.
