The Mainstream Media and the “Shocking Bad Art” from Cyprus

Abstract

Over the course of four years in the 1870s, the recently incorporated Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired nearly twenty thousand Cypriot antiquities from Luigi Palma di Cesnola, amassed while he served as American consul on Cyprus. In 1878, Cesnola moved to New York and was appointed the first director of the museum. This article uses the lens of contemporary local newspaper articles responding to the Cypriot antiquities and Cesnola to investigate early public reaction to this vast and unusual antiquities collection. Most found the actual objects (especially the sculpture) unattractive and worthless from an artistic standpoint, but such deficits—while often mentioned—were eclipsed by Gilded Age appreciation for a compelling personal narrative, shrewd business acumen, and a growing interest in consumerism. Cesnola and the acquisition of his antiquities delivered for New Yorkers on all counts.

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