CHARLES BAUM 1812-1877
Boy with Still Life, 1850s or 60s
Oil on canvas, 40 X 30" (101.60 x 76.20 cm.)
Signed, lower right
Museum purchase, 958-0-114
 

When this picture was acquired by the Butler Institute, there was no doubt that the artist who created it was Severin Roesen. Roesen was a German painter from the Rhineland who immigrated to America in 1848, along with many thousands of his countrymen, in the wake of the unsuccessful liberal revolutions in Europe. While Roesen never achieved great renown in his own lifetime, either during his years in New York City, 1848-57, or in his later career living in a number of Central Pennsylvania communities through 1872, most of that period in Williamsport, he was one of the most prolific still-life specialists of his time. Furthermore, he appears to have heralded something of a revolution of his own in the United States in the art of still-life painting, initiating a vogue for monumental pictures of fruit and flowers, or both, around which a room decor could be constructed, rather than the modest pictures which had constituted the genre in this country up to his arrival.
While Roesen's present reputation rests entirely on his still-life painting, tradition also mentions some portraits; three which may be by him are known today.2 While the inclusion of a prominent figure in Boy with Still Life was unusual, the tradition of Roesen's activity in portraiture made the attribution to him acceptable. The profuse still life, with many motifs common to Roesen such as the champagne bottle and glass, the curling grape stems, and the marble support, seemed indisputably his.
The attribution to Roesen, however, was drastically revised when a pendant to Boy with Still Life was discovered in 1971 in a private collection in Richmond, Virginia. Here again is a boy in an elegant costume and white, open-necked shirt, wearing a soft beret, and placed behind a profuse still life of fruit. In the second picture the boys body is turned to the right, and his head turned back toward the viewer, while the wall is now on the right. This painting is clearly signed "Baum." The present owner has reported that the picture was owned by her grandfather in the 1850s, and if Bay with Still Life is, in fact, a mate, then it, too, would date from that decade. On the other hand, Baum exhibited The Fruit Seller at the annual exhibition held at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1864, which suggests that this picture, its mate, or a similar work, was probably painted early that year or in those immediately preceding.
Charles or Carl Baum, like Roesen, was from the Rhineland in Germany, where he had been a schoolteacher; he married a former pupil, Susanna Schneider from Darmstadt. Family tradition has suggested that Baum and his future wife eloped to America, and that they arrived about 1854, but as his Still Life of Fruit was included in the Artists' Sale held by the American Art-Union in New York City at the end of December, 1852, he was certainly in this country by then, and may, in fact, have arrived with the great influx of Germans in 1848-49.3 Subsequently, the Baums moved to Egg Harbor City, New Jersey. This remained Baum's home for the rest of his life, except for a period from 1867-69 when he lived in Philadelphia.
Though little is known about Baum's professional life, he appears to have been fairly versatile; a good number of paintings by him remain in Egg Harbor City in private collections, including some owned by the artist's descendants. Still lifes were his specialty, but animal pictures are known by him, as well as a self portrait. He also painted landscapes, and judging by his admittedly meager exhibition record, his investigation of this theme may have been a later development. Several landscapes appeared in New York City in December, 1871, in the First Annual Exhibition of "The Palette," or The Palette Club, an art society originally, at least, devoted to promoting the work of artists of German descent; Baum, however, seems never to have been a member of that organization.
Baum's still lifes do, indeed, bear a generic similarity to Roesen's but there appear to be a number of fairly clear distinctions. No flower still lifes by Baum have so far come to light, nor any pictures combining flowers and fruits. Baum appears to have preferred a vertical format for his fruit arrangements, perhaps exclusively; and the majority of his known works are presently framed, and probably painted, as ovals. Among Baum's favorite motifs are a bird's nest and a split pomegranate; he appears not to have been attracted to the multiplicity of different fruit which appear in so many of Roesen's pictures. The support for his arrangements appears invariably to be a white marble slab, atop a stone pedestal; consistently, the slab angles forward in the lower center, pushing up to the picture plane. Baum's decorative containers are quite different from Roesen, and include a tall multi-dished metal epergne. Baum's fruit arrangements can appear even more bounteous than Roesen's, so that the metal and ceramic containers are almost hidden in the confusion. And Baum's palette is somewhat different and more restricted than Roesen's; Roesen's palette was not only more diverse but generally warmer. Baum preferred the contrast of greens in the leaves and grapes, with whitish-yellow and vermilions, especially in his emphatically painted peaches, and these coloristic qualities can be found in the still life that appears in Boy with Still Life.
The question arises as to whether or not Baum and Roesen were acquainted; it seems quite likely they were. Baum may have lived for some time in New York City after arriving in the United States and, as a fellow Rhinelander, may well have known Roesen. Roesen was a professional painter before he came to this country; there is no indication that this was true for Baum. In fact, it seems likely that Roesen developed a workshop in New York City, in order to handle the abundant orders for large-scale compositions he appears to have enjoyed. Possibly Baum was one of a number of immigrants who got their artistic start in such a manner, and who subsequently emerged as independent still-life specialists.

WILLIAM H. GERDTS