ROBERT W. WEIR 1803-1889
Saint Nicholas, 1838
Oil on wood panel, 30 x 25" (76.20 x 63.50 cm.)
Signed, lower left
Gift of Mr. Sidney Hill, 962-0-101

Robert W. Weir's Saint Nicholas is filled with arcane iconographical features which attach it to the liveliest cultural group in early nineteenth-century New York, the Knickerbockers. This coterie of artists, writers, and art patrons consciously linked themselves with New York's Dutch heritage and, as part of that heritage, with their chosen patron saint, Nicholas. Although he was not the first to connect Nicholas and the group, Washington Irving gave the legend increased momentum in 1809 when he published his landmark comic history of New York under the pseudonym of Diedrich Knickerbocker.
Weir first executed a horizontal formatted Saint Nicholas (1837, private collection) during a decade when the theme of the saint was enjoying particular attention and there was a conscious formalization of a Knickerbocker self-concept. A prominent Knickerbocker himself, the artist exhibited the work at the National Academy of Design in 1837 and reviews praised it as an illustration of the "children's Christmas friend." Perhaps Weir was insulted by having his work thus described; at any rate, the following year he made his image more arcane in the vertical formatted painting now in the Butler Institute. Weir would replicate this second image of the saint at least four times, but of the entire group of Nicholas paintings, only the Butler lnstitute's is signed and dated. The fact that the overmantel in the Butler Institute version lacks the three golden balls which are Nicholas's traditional Christian symbol and the New York City coat of arms, and which appear in the other vertical versions, suggests it was the first version. Apparently, the artist had not yet decided upon the escutcheon and ball motif.
The painting depicts an impish saint, wearing high boots and a red-hooded cape. As a nod to his Christian heritage, a rosary hangs on his right side. Nicholas stands before a fireplace lined with Delft tiles and prepares to ascend the chimney. He turns to momentarily confront the observer. We, the viewers, are thus engaged in the work, for a sweep of light crossing the floor implies that we have opened a door from the adjoining room. In response, Nicholas places his left index finger next to his nose, a gesture of complicity which both acknowledges our intrusion and asks us to keep his secret.
Nicholas's snapping right hand serves as a compositional device to direct our attention to the accoutrements on the floor. Many of these elements have symbolic content and pay tribute to Nicholas, not as the Christian saint, but as the patron of the Dutch-descended Knickerbockers. In front of the Atlas-figure andirons lies a broken Delft clay pipe, reference to the ceremony of becoming a knight in the order of Saint Nicholas. The half-peeled orange has double meaning: it is both a Christmas delicacy and an allusion to the Dutch House of Orange. Inside the fireplace smoke rises from burning embers; smoke played a significant role in Nicholas's association with New York in the literature of the time. Weir's Nicholas paintings invoke seventeenth-century Dutch genre pictures in the use of a wooden panel as a support, the meticulous handling, and the warm palette. The way in which the still-life elements demarcate the space on wooden floorboards is also reminiscent of Dutch painting.
Most of Weir's Nicholas paintings were purchased by Knickerbockers, which proves how successfully he captured the group's image of their patron saint. The ribald appearance of Weir's Nicholas perfectly matches the droll quality of contemporary Knickerbocker writings and their description of Nicholas in particular. The iconography of Weir's paintings is erudite, complex, and ambitious, expressing the cultural values and aspirations of the Knickerbocker circle, thus the image can truly be seen as a Knickerbocker icon.

LAURETTA DIMMICK