The Provenance of a Gothic Head
Eleanor S. Greenhill
In 1944 the Art Institute, Chicago, acquired from collection of late Dr. Jacob Hirsch a monumental limestone head prophet or apostle,1 about which nothing is known beyond fact that it was exhibited in 1940 at Museum Fine Arts, Boston.2 Even brief statement contained catalogue Boston show (“Found Paris, 1852. Ile de France, 13th century”) supported by no documentary evidence. Probably rested on information verbally transmitted Hirsch, for agrees essence with an observation notes Oswald Goetz, formerly Curator Decorative Arts may go back to same source: “The excavated during building boulevards fifties. originally belonged one figures Notre Dame, Paris.” Goetz must have meant “on Dame,” Institute has always regarded as coming portal sculpture, though connection Notre-Dame remains, course,...
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