Arthur Kingsley Porter


Arthur Kingsley Porter was an American archaeologist, art historian, and medievalist. He was chair of Harvard University's art history department, and was the first American scholar of Romanesque architecture to achieve international recognition. Porter disappeared in 1933. His most significant scholarly contributions were his revolutionary studies and insights into the spread of Romanesque sculpture. His study of Lombard architecture also remains the first in its class. He left his Cambridge mansion, Elmwood, to Harvard University, where it has served as the official residence of Harvard's president since 1970.

Early life

Porter was born on February 16, 1883, in Darien, Connecticut, the third son born to a wealthy family that also kept a residence in New York City. Porter prepared at the Browning School in New York City, alongside classmate John D. Rockefeller Jr. He then attended Yale University, as had his two older brothers, Louis Hopkins Porter and Blachley Hoyt Porter, his father, Timothy Hopkins Porter, several uncles and cousins. Porter had intended to study law. In 1904, while traveling in France, seeing Coutances cathedral inspired an interest in architecture. After graduating fourth in his class at Yale that year, he began a two-year study of architectural practice as a special student at Columbia University from 1904 to 1906.

Family

Arthur Kingsley Porter was the son of Timothy Hopkins Porter, a banker, and Maria Louisa Hoyt, one of the first women to graduate from Vassar College. When his parents married in 1870 they merged two of Connecticut's oldest and most influential families, both groups of ancestors having arrived in Connecticut in the early 1600s.
In a biography of Porter's life, it was said of the Porters:
And of the Hoyt family:
The Porter family was known for being understated and private with matters having to do with the extent of their wealth. A New York Times report in October 1924 listed the largest taxpayers in lower Manhattan, and the names of Arthur Kingsley Porter and his brother Louis are listed in the table. The piece revealed that Louis Hopkins Porter had paid more taxes in 1923 than the estate of John Jacob Astor IV, some Rockefeller family members, and the same amount as William Randolph Hearst.
He married Lucy Bryant Wallace in 1912 in New York City. She acted as chief photographer for the pair from 1919 onward. They eventually traveled for long stays in Italy, Greece and Spain, and finally to Ireland.

Disappearance

Porter disappeared at age 50, in July 1933. He was outside during a storm on Inishbofin Island, near Glenveagh Castle, his home in Ireland, and was presumed drowned. His wife later told the coroner of her six-hour search with two local fishermen. The inquest concluded that he had probably died from misadventure.

Notable relatives

Yale and Harvard professorships

Porter taught as a lecturer at Yale University in 1915, and was named Assistant Professor in the History of Art in 1917. In January 1916, he proposed giving the University $500,000 in order to establish a department of art history. Porter laid out the very specific purposes for which the money was to be used
o provide salaries for professors or instructors in the history of art in the academic department, as might be required. To provide for the running and overhead expenses of such a department, the purchases of equipment, slides, photographs, books, etc. Any residue to be used for the purchase of additional works of art to add to the collection of the Art School, and for the proper maintenance and housing of the same.

The University declined the offer, which could only be used for the purposes he set out.
Porter became frustrated at Yale's lack of openness to having a full department dedicated to the study of the history of art and architecture. In 1918 he left Yale to lead architectural preservation efforts by the French government caused by war damage, as the only foreigner invited to join said commission.
Porter began teaching at Harvard University in 1921. He and his wife bought Cambridge mansion Elmwood that same year. He was appointed to the newly established William Dorr Boardman Memorial Professorship of Fine Arts in January 1925. In 1923 and 1924 he taught as an exchange professor in France and visiting professor Spain. Porter taught at Harvard until his disappearance in 1933.
Porter left Elmwood to Harvard University in his will, as well as a trust for its maintenance. His widow, Lucy, left the University an additional $1,000,000 in her will to endow a chair to be called the A Kingsley Porter Chair Professorship. The medievalist Ernst Kitzinger was appointed in 1967 as the chair's first professor.

Indiana Jones persona and the Sahagún sarcophagus

Porter has been called a ‘real-life Indiana Jones’. He was unique in the academic community, given he was a multimillionaire in his own right, with his own European castle, and the means to travel extensively, often for more than a year at a time. He was so respected that the University let him do so.
Sarcophagus curse
While his overall station and manner of teaching, exploring, researching and writing certainly fit this "Indiana Jones" profile, perhaps nothing made this a more fitting comparison than the incident with the sarcophagus commissioned by Count Pedro Ansùrez in 1093 for his young son Alfonso.
Porter came into possession of the sarcophagus, and took it to Harvard as a gift to the university's Fogg Museum, where it was prominently displayed. The sarcophagus enabled Porter to prove his theory on the spread of Romanesque sculpture:
In 1931, Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart, the 17th Duke of Alba, discovered the sarcophagus had been removed from Lèon and brought to Harvard by Porter. The Spanish government became involved with the negotiations with Harvard, but before any deal was reached, Alfonso XIII of Spain was overthrown by a revolution, and so the slab remained on display at Harvard in 1931. Negotiations resumed in 1933, and Porter consented for the sarcophagus lid to be returned to Léon on 8 July 1933.

Residences

  • Blachley Lodge, on Noroton Hill, Darien, CT, where Porter was born
  • Elmwood
  • *Porter's Cambridge Mansion, Elmwood, had been previously occupied by Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the US Declaration of Independence and Vice President of [the United States] under President James Madison. Poet James Russell Lowell was born at Elmwood and lived there most of his life. Lowell's friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about the house entitled “The Herons of Elmwood”
  • *Porter purchased Elmwood from Lowell's heirs in 1920, and put significant resources into improving it while honoring the home's history.
  • *Porter often held class at Elmwood and allowed students to see relics from his travels.
  • *Elmwood became the official residence of Harvard University's President in 1970, and remains so today.
  • Glenveagh Castle, Ireland
  • *Porter purchased Glenveagh Castle and its surrounding 30,000 acres in 1929. He further restored a fisherman's cottage on nearby Inishboffin Island. In 1937, Lucy Porter sold the property to Henry Plumer McHilhenny, one of Porter's former students from Harvard. It briefly became a retreat for Hollywood stars such as Greta Garbo and Charlie Chaplin.

Achievements and selected works

Porter wrote 293 works that were published in 934 publications, in seven languages, with 7,452 library holdings. Porter's photographic collection contains 35,000 photographs and 11,700 negatives, pertaining to every aspect of medieval art. Photographs taken by Porter are held in the Conway Library of art and architecture at The Courtauld Institute in London.
  • Medieval Architecture: Its Origins and Development, with Lists of Monuments and Bibliographies
  • The Construction of Lombard and Gothic Vaults
  • Lombard Architecture
  • The Seven Who Slept
  • Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads – "his most well known and contentious work"
  • Spanish Romanesque Sculpture, based on lectures at the Sorbonne.
  • The Crosses and Culture of Ireland, based on five lectures delivered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in February and March 1930.