More rhymes in paintings

I just spent a delightful Saturday at the Art Institute of Chicago. I'm on travel today (Monday), so I'll auto-post at least one painting rhyme inspired by work I saw at the AIC.

First up is the juxtaposition of an 1887 trompe l'oeil painting by George Cope titled Civil War Regalia of Major Levi Gheen McCauley. The major was a prominent businessman in West Chester, Pa. -- which I'll get back to in a minute -- who commissioned Cope to make this painting of his Civil War gear. (McCauley was also a Civil War hero of some sort and it was became commonplace in the 1880s for Republican businessman to commission this kind of self-promoting painting. Lacking Scott Sforza, McCauley made do with Cope.)

Cope's painting of McCauley's gear was almost immediately exhibited to much notice and acclaim in Philadelphia. While I haven't seen the painting's exhibition history, it wouldn't surprise me if it was exhibited up and down the east coast in the 1880s and 1890s: It was an important painting for both the hero-in-claiming McCauley and for the painter-on-the-make Cope.

I wonder if Marsden Hartley ever saw it. Hartley was born in 1877, began his art training in Cleveland in 1892, and moved to New York in 1899.

Hartley's great 1914 Portrait of a German Officer, which is in the Met's collection, has several notable details in common with Cope's painting. (Portrait is Hartley's homage to his lover, Karl von Freyburg, who was killed in World War I.)

The black cross at the top of the Hartley echoes the cross on the cap at the top of the Cope. Two stars flank said cap and abstracted medals or such seem to flank the cross in Hartley's painting. Cope features the number seven, his regiment number, prominently on a canteen; Hartley features von Freyburg's regiment number at the bottom of his painting as well. Two tassels hang off of McCauley's swords, and two tassels hang at the lower-right of Hartley's homage.

Related: The Cope is not available for more detailed viewing on the AIC's webpage. More on the Hartley is on the Met's website here.