Bertha Palmer

In 1922, the Art Institute of Chicago acquired much of the collection of Bertha Palmer (1849–1918; fig. 1 ) and her husband, Potter Palmer (1826–1902; fig. 2 ). The core of their collection was their Impressionist paintings, which included works by artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Edgar Degas. Many of these paintings are now among the highlights of the museum’s permanent collection; when the Palmers began collecting Impressionist art in the 1890s, however, it was considered radical, even controversial. It is due to Mrs. Palmer’s forward thinking, influence, and willingness to pursue her own taste rather than follow trends that Chicago is home to one of the greatest collections of Impressionism in the world. Bertha Mathilde Honoré moved to Chicago at the age of six, when her family left their native Kentucky. On July 29, 1870, she married Potter Palmer, the merchant magnate who had created the dry goods store Potter Palmer & Company and would soon become the largest landowner in Chicago.1 They honeymooned in Europe, but did not visit Paris due to the ongoing Franco-Prussian War. As a “gift” to his bride, Mr. Palmer built the opulent Palmer House Hotel (completed in 1871), which included a suite where the couple would live (fig. 3 ).2 The Palmers moved in and began raising a family: their sons Honoré and Potter, Jr., were born on February 1, 1874, and October 8, 1875, respectively. Eventually the bustle of living downtown became too much for the Palmers, and in the early 1880s they began looking for somewhere to move. At the time, the most fashionable neighborhood in the city was on the South Side, on Prairie Avenue, but the Palmers instead decided to move to an undeveloped area on the North Side. Before the end of the decade, the wealthiest Chicagoans followed the Palmers to the neighborhood that became known as the Gold Coast. In 1885 the Palmers’ house on Lake Shore Drive was completed after two years of construction and a reported cost of $1 million.3 Due to both its composite Romanesque–English Gothic architectural style and its opulence, the house earned the nickname “The Castle” throughout Chicago (fig. 4 and fig. 5 ). One contemporary described the decadent interior in detail: “In the end, the Palmers had the largest, finest, costliest home in Chicago. It had a great tapestried hall, an eighty-foot tower reached by a spiral staircase, marble mosaic floors, a Louis XVI drawing room and a grand staircase of carved oak with newel posts bearing the Honoré coat of arms. Bertha Palmer’s Moorish bathroom was ebony and gold; her dressing room contained a sunken tub shaped like a swan. She slept in a Louis XVI bed and washed her face in a mother-of-pearl basin.”4 By the time she moved to the Gold Coast, Mrs. Palmer had become the reigning queen of Chicago high society. Her charity balls and New Year’s Day parties were considered the events of the season. She was actively involved in many clubs and associations throughout the city, including the Chicago Woman’s Club and the Saddle and Cycle Club, and she was a founding member of the Chicago Society of Decorative Arts, which in 1889 changed its name to the Antiquarian Society of the Art Institute. When Chicago won the right to host the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, Mrs. Palmer was named the president of the Board of Lady Managers and oversaw the creation of an entire building devoted to women (fig. 6 ). She also hosted several events and parties at her home as fundraisers before, and celebrations during, the fair. Not without reason did she consider herself “the nation’s hostess and the nation’s head woman servant.”5 Most of Mrs. Palmer’s collection of Impressionist paintings was purchased in 1891 and 1892, while she was traveling Europe to help organize the World’s Columbian Exposition. But the Palmers’ interest in the arts and collecting dates to much earlier. In 1873, Mr. Palmer met Sarah Tyson Hallowell, secretary of the art de