Miss America and Her Sisters:

PERSONIFICATIONS OF
THE FOUR PARTS OF THE WORLD

by CLARE LE CORBEILLER CuratorialAssistant,Post-Renaissance

Art

The reasons for collecting are various: one is people-some on foot, others drawn in chariots
interested in an artist, or an object, or a medium, or on floats-costumed as allegories. The city
or a subject. It is this last form of addiction that itself was decorated with flags, fountains, and,
occasions the present article. The collection of especially in Flanders and France, street theaters
the late James Hazen Hyde was entirely due to and triumphal arches. These last were some-
Mr. Hyde's interest in the personifications of times simply painted with allegorical figures and
Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. He sought coats of arms, but more often were fitted with a
and found the Four Continents in prints, metal- stage, set in above the opening of the arch, for
work, paintings, glass, textiles, drawings, and tableauxvivantsin which "living" allegories were
ceramics. Mr. Hyde's executors, in accordance unveiled at each turn of the royal route. The
with the terms of his will, have presented to the subjects of these allegories were chosen primarily
Metropolitan Museum some one hundred fifty to enhance the prestige of the royal visitor: Re-
items from his extensive collection; we hope ligion and the Virtues accompanied him in the
to suggest their variety this month in the Recent procession, while allegories of classical heroes-
Accessions Room, and in these pages. in whose deeds were symbolized his own-were
It is quite possible that the Renaissance ac- presented as tableauxvivants.Political allusions
quired its first visual ideas about the Four Con- were especially popular, and it was not long
tinents through a love of parades. Throughout before the Four Continents regularly acknowl-
the sixteenth century, cities from Rome to edged the supremacy of the visiting prince.
Antwerp echoed with the sound of trumpets When Prince Philip, heir to the Spanish
heralding the entry within their gates of royal throne, rode into Antwerp in I549 "the three
personages. The king or duke or princess rode principal parts of the world"-Asia, Africa, and
into the city at the end of a cortege of hundreds Europe-knelt, in a tableauvivant, to pay him
of musicians, city officials, and actors and towns- homage. In Rouen, a year later, a house repre-
senting the Isle of Brazil was built to honor
America. German(Fulda), about
FRO N T I S P I ECE: Henry II and Catherine de Medicis. By the end
1780-z788. Hard-paste porcelain, height g 4 inches
Unless otherwise noted the objects illustrated in this
article are gifts of the Estate of James Hazen Hyde, Contents APRIL I 96
1959
Miss America and Her Sisters
ON THE COVER: Detail of Europe, by Dirk By ClareLe Corbeiller 209
Barentsz, as engravedby Johannes Sadeler. Flemish,
i581. Statuette of Europe. German (Fulda), about The Problems of the Splendid Century
1780-1788. Hard-paste porcelain, height g9 inches By Michael Thomas 224

209

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin ®
www.jstor.org
 _____YW
!B sW;Q r 5iAL
t P ,S .

sD,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
x.le
.:::::

; Ea _ f 1 S' E 1 _ zii __ _~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

:-::::i-; ::
 I,

?I

I:;I 6-&"::1

51I"i :P

L.-i.
;a::

-i;ii *aqx
":)"

_ab,,,,,,:
-a?l
I
?i.

::I
s$iI_ :
?I:
.31

?:?:?

n?.:l
1

I:li
ijil:
*??i-.:
i?:::::--???? I a: ?i,`4
,"f

i"-i:6
:la r:l:,i

g113?
"'?I:

i:;
-X":-
ia,
o:
i;:% ?--.i.
? ,,??:
:??::"".II:

I-Li. `a8bSijF8 '"r:?d-;:?-;;?;.;

:ntil:_jJ: ,Si: 7X*:
*:?:
i:a

8%
r4l

s
of the century the Four Continents were familiar collection of engravings published in the early
attendants of royal entries, and nowhere were I58os that included, as well, the "discoveries"
they more popular than in Antwerp. For there- of windmills, spectacles, and oil colors. Sur-
the largest and most active port city in Europe rounding America are some of her fauna and
-foreign merchants swelled the city's coffers flora: an anteater burrows in the foreground; a
with their trade; there some of the earliest travel sloth clings to the tree, at the base of which is a
books were illustrated and printed. Antwerp pineapple plant; a tapir hovers in the back-
was the city that could best afford to hire the ground. Stradanus was well informed. One of
hundreds of painters and carpenters and actors the earliest collections of voyages, most of them
needed for the entertainment of the sovereigns to America, had been compiled by Fracan da
who made their entries into the city-among Montalbaddo in I507: the Paesi novamentere-
them Charles V, Philip, and the Archduke trovatihas been described by the historian Boies
Ernest of Austria. It is thus not surprising that Penrose as the "book par excellence by which
personifications of the Four Parts of the World the news of the great discoveries-east and
in the sixteenth century should occur predom- west-was disseminated throughout Renais-
inantly in Flemish art. sance Europe." It was followed, every few years
We can trace their iconography in the graphic throughout the century, by new voyages and
arts of that country. For most of the century the descriptions. In I526 Fernandez de Oviedo y
personificationsfollowed no set pattern. America Valdes published La naturalhistoriade la Indias
was usually envisioned as a rather fierce savage which made detailed information about the
-only slightly removed in type from the medie- Indians and American fauna and flora generally
val tradition of the wild man-while Asia and available for the first time. It was such printed
Africa appeared in a variety of Oriental cos- sources, and presumably manuscripts and first-
tumes. Europe herself was simply an elegantly hand sketches that have not yet come to light,
dressed woman of the nobility who could as that documented Stradanus's vision of the
well have symbolized Minerva or Spring. New World.
Marking the transition between the allegorical Although Vespucci's claim to discovery of the
tableau vivant and the more abstract idea of American mainland in I497 is now discredited,
personification is a drawing (Figure i) of about the fact that Central and South America were
I575 by the Italo-Flemish artist Johannes the first parts of the hemisphere to be explored
Stradanus (Jan van der Straet, I523-1605). In in the sixteenth century determined from the
this drawing Stradanus commemorates the outset the personification of the New World as
much-disputed discovery of America in 1497 by a tropical country. Scantily clad in a feather
Vespucci who is seen rousing her from a "ham- skirt and headdress, with jeweled anklets and
aca." In the center her name appears in reverse: long hair, America was always to be represented
this was the final drawing used by Theodore as Stradanus drew her. Later the club leaning
Galle of Antwerp who engraved it as the open- against the tree would be replaced by a bow and
ing illustration of NovaReperta(New Discoveries),a arrow, and one of the "venimous beasts, as
crocodiles" would become the standard symbol
of American fauna. But Stradanus has omitted
something. The one aspect of the American
The MetropolitanMuseum of Art B U L L E T I N Indian that astonished voyagers was his painted
skin. In personifying the continent as a woman,
VOLUME XIX, NUMBER 8, APRIL 1961
Stradanus-and artists after him-must have
Published monthly from October to June and quarterly from discarded this picturesque feature as being in-
July to September. Copyright I96I by The Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art, Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, New York 28, N. Y. appropriate to the fair sex; only in the documen-
Re-entered as second-class matter November I7, I942, at the
Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of August 24, tary drawings of such artist-travelersas Jacques
1912. Subscriptions $5.00 a year. Single copies fifty cents. Sent le Moyne de Morgues and John White do we
free to Museum Members. Four weeks' notice required for find Indians painted "with curious knots, or
change of address. Editor: Rosine Raoul; Assistants: Anne M.
Preuss, Katharine H. B. Stoddert; Designer: Peter Oldenburg. antike worke."

210
 Fig. i. The Discovery of America, by Jan van der Straet (Stradanus). Flemish, about I575. Pen and bistre
heightenedwith zuhite, 7 s x 1O 12 inches

Contemporary with Stradanus were artists and German art until the nineteenth century:
whose independent symbolism wove different the female figure astride her characteristic
threads into the fabric of personifications. In animal and carrying her attributes.
the designs of Dirk Barentsz (1534-1592) two The subject of the Continents, made popular
attributes were introduced that, thanks to the by the graphic arts, was adapted to the decora-
popularity of the engravings by Johannes tive arts almost immediately. Of great interest
Sadeler (Figures 3, 5), were retained long after- for their rarity and their early date are four
ward: the parrot in the tree behind America, lead plaques (Figures 6, 9), all part of Mr.
and the hat (later changed to a parasol) worn Hyde's collection, which the Museum has been
by Africa to protect her from the heat of the fortunate in acquiring at this time. Executed
day. The influence of his designs extended well by an unknown German artist, they were in-
beyond Barentsz's own generation. Sadeler's en- tended to serve as a goldsmith's model, possibly
gravings were copied with a few variations by for the shallow bowl of a cup or tazza. The
Cornelis van Daten in the seventeenth century; animals that surround each Continent reflect
these in turn were copied still later onto a set of the influence of De Vos-active chiefly in the
Frankfort earthenware plates (Figures 2, 4). I58os-while Europe's costume is also worn by
The personifications of Martin de Vos (I532- other ladies in the same decade. The feather
I603; Figures 7, 8), who sketched similar figures bustle in which "Miss America" strides across
of the Continents for the entry of the Archduke her continent can be traced to about I505, in a
Ernest of Austria into Antwerp in I549, popu- woodcut based on Vespucci's narrative of his
larized a type that recurs throughout Flemish voyages; its appeal is evident from the fact that

211
 Figs. 2, and 4 (opposite). Africa, and America.
Earthenwareplates, with painted decorationcopied
from engravingsby Cornelis van Daten the Younger
(r638-I664) of designs by Dirk Barentsz. German
(Frankforton the Main), late xvII or XVIII century.
Diameters 8 4 inches
Figs. 3 (opposite), and 5 (below). Africa, and
America,by Dirk Barentsz, as engravedby Johannes
Sadeler. Flemish, I581. 7 6 x 9 6 inches
Figs. 6, and 9 (opposite, below). America,
and Europe. German,about I580-i50o. Lead
plaques, diameters6 8 inches
Rogers Fund, 1960

,
rVAeif&WS eetwXtratts MfAman,- m
yste AMS LICA
i e0
00E
Iqfir
00A;II
Figs. 7 (opposite, below), and 8 (above).
America, and Europe, by Martin de Vos, as
engravedby Adrien Collaert II (active about
1560-I618). Flemish, about I595. 8~ x io
1 6
and 8 18 x Io V inches

215
 Figs. 1o-13. The Four Continents. Woodcutsfrom
the first illustrated edition of Iconologia by Cesare
Ripa. Italian (Padua), 1603. Approximatedimen- -
sions 4 4 x 4 4 inches

it reappeared in costume books of the middle of

the century.
Like the graphic arts of the period, the per-
sonifications on our plaques are a curious mix-
ture of genuine documentation, details copied :
from classical sources, and a fertile imagination.
The Renaissance inherited a tradition of mythi-
cal geography that was rooted in the fanciful
narratives of Ctesias in the fourth century B..,
and that was embellished in turn by Pliny, Gaius
Solinus, and a fourteenth century Fleming, Jean
d'Outremeuse (who wrote under the unlikely
name of Sir John Mandeville). Among them-
selves, they created a world of men with enor-
mous ears (their only clothing, we are told), of
sheep who were "weak in the head, and [who] i
consequently must be made to graze with their
backs to the sun," of dog-headed people who t::i a
were "reasonable and of good understanding."

':;f~'~;L~ 'As
!:^^^^ the Renaissance outgrew these stories their
~
:,^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^place was taken by others with direct social
implications. Christianity was threatened by the
evil Gog and Magog, and glorified by the elusive
Prester John; gold from the hoards of El Dorado
was to enrich Europe as never before. Such
fables were as compelling reasons for voyages as
were the more rational searches for good trade
routes. While the dream of El Dorado persisted,
*. :i America was sometimes personified, as she is on
^1^^^&
our plaque, with vessels of gold and jewelry
;' ......
~rl "heaped at her feet. But it was Asia with her
pearls and silks and spices that was the real
symbol of wealth to the Europeans, and in
personifications she is usually dressed as sump-
tuously as Europe. The luxury of Persian court
life, the fruitfulness of Persian gardens, the
elephants and horses and camels with their gold
trappings never failed to impress the Western
merchants and ambassadors. "They are a very
pompous nation," wrote the Venetian traveler,
Ambrogio Contarini, about 1475, "and their
camels are so well caparisoned that it is a pleas-
ure to look at them. Few are so poor as not to

216
possess at least seven camels." Symbol of com-
merce and transportation as well as luxury, the
camel by which the Romans had signified the
East on their coins-was naturally adopted as
Asia's animal in personifications. Chief among | :,
her other attributes was an incense burner that
recalled her spices and incense-laden rituals. :'K| .
On her head a garland of flowers and fruits
symbolized her temperate climate which pro-
duced "delightful Things necessary for human
Life," although a more popular headdress came
to be a turban signifying Islam.
Though Europe was sometimes acknowledged
to be Asia's younger sister, she was presented in
greater glory. As ruler of all the Continents she
appears with the traditional attributes of power:
a crown symbolizes her role as queen, a scepter
her temporal power. In her hand she sometimes
carries a small temple to signify the domain of
the "true and perfect religion," but the orb
symbolizing the rule of Christianity over the
entire globe is found much more frequently.
Surrounding Europe are books and musical in-
struments to denote her accomplishments,

weapons to emphasize her military strength. In

a gesture to an older tradition our plaque repre-
sents her with a bull, but the horse figures as a
more appropriate animal because it connoted
L v JS~ ^her warlike nature. The horse may perhaps also
be taken as a symbol of Europe's agricultural
development.
~~;0~~~~~~
_i^g~j~ F~ \'b ~ The personification of Africa, alone of the
Four Continents, was copied from Roman
sources: her appearance on Hadrianic coins
(dating about A.D. 138) was well known in the
Renaissance and surely accounts to some degree
for the popularity of the Continents as an icon-
ological subject. On the coins, she is commonly
*,0 _ E/
:<^^^^~ |shown with a sheaf or basket of cornstalks, the
North African lands being an important source
of that staple of the Roman diet. In the Renais-
sance, the cornstalks are usually replaced by a
:
:IIB\ ~\ t [ cornucopia, which had been the general symbol
4: ' <*
-* " of plenty ever since Zeus, in the Greek myth,
I:::;f:
M M ^^^^^had
1- placed the horn of Amalthea among the
stars. Indeed, as can be seen from the accom-
panying illustrations, the image makers, not to
^.-"^?^^
:T~b:4 ^ !slight the pretensions of any continent, endowed

217
each with exceptional fertility: the cornucopia frequently accompanied Africa. Deposited all
is found as an attribute of them all. along her Mediterranean coast, its magical
Under the serenity of this agrarian image attributes made it much sought after for jewelry.
lurked one of a darker Africa, a mysterious land In 1593 the first modern book on the science of
inhabited by savage monsters. Already on images was published. The work of a Perugian
Roman coins, as on our lead plaque, lions and compiler named Cesare Ripa, the Iconologia (the
reptiles were her fauna. Sometimes she held a English language gained a word from its title)
scorpion in her hand in a picturesque gesture was chiefly concerned with the "things which
not picked up again until the eighteenth century are in man himself and inseparable from him;
when the quest for the authentic source became like ideas, thoughts and customs which occasion
earnest. Another feature of ancient derivation particular actions." But Ripa nevertheless per-
was her headdress, composed of the hide of an petuated the existence of such classical divinities
elephant's head and trunk. Although first en- as Flora, Oceanus, Aether, and Zephyrus in a
countered by the Romans in Asia, the elephant section devoted to the seasons, elements, winds,
came to be considered characteristically African; rivers-and the Parts of the World. In contrast
the coiffure possessed an exotic quality that, to the personifications of the Continents we
again, appealed mostly to eighteenth century have seen, which were the result of personal
artists. Going back only to the Renaissance is the interpretations, those of Ripa were drawn,
tradition of the basket or branch of coral which whenever possible, from classical symbolism as

Fig. 14. The Four Continents.English, 1651. Panel with beadwork decorationon satin, i814 x 22 78 inches

218
known from ancient books, coins, and sculpture,
for, he warned, "one works in vain without
these originals." The Iconologia, as first illus-
trated in I603 (Figures I0-I3), became a stand-
ard source for later artists; in culling from all the
"right" sources, Ripa established a type of per-
sonification of the Continents that was to in-
fluence artists for nearly two centuries.
But though Ripa was the chief source for
artists he was not the only one; the theatrical
presentation of the Continents flourished in the
seventeenth century, tempering Ripa's some-
what dry analysis. In the Netherlands, the
triumphal arches adorned with figures of the
Parts of the World survived as the title pages of
atlases and geographical histories. In France,
Louis XIII starred as Asia in a comic ballet of
the Continents in 1626, while in London, in
1672, the investiture of the Lord Mayor was
celebrated by America, "a proper masculine
woman, with a tawny face." The courtly figures
in their chariots which grace a set of playing
cards are clearly an allusion to royal progresses.
Four of a pack of fifty-two geographical cards-
the others personify individual countries-they
were designed in I644 by Stefano della Bella
at the behest of Cardinal Mazarin as an in-
structive amusement for the young Louis XIV.
Mazarin was probably inspired by the Iconologia
which appeared in a second Paris edition that
year, following upon one of half a dozen years
before.
Uninfluenced by Ripa, whose work was not
published in London until I709, the English
enjoyed a certain iconographical independence.
The seated figures of the Continents on an em-
broidered and beadwork panel (Figure I4)
dated I65I are familiar in type, but the neat
Puritan costume of Africa is wonderfully insular.
And, as was quite common, the attributes of
Africa and America have been confused. Both
countries were tropical, both savage. For some
time they shared the lizard and the palm tree; Fig. I5. Africa. German (Fulda), about I780-1788.
the lion and crocodile were interchanged; and Hard-paste porcelain, height g 4 inches
Africa-who like Asia had not been endowed
by iconologists with weapons of her own- By the eighteenth century the active excitement
occasionally borrowed America's bow and of discovery had been transfigured into the
arrows. passive dream of Arcadia; the Amazons of our
The vigor of sixteenth century personifications lead plaques have become four young girls of
of the Continents gradually became subdued. winsome grace delicately modeled in white por-

219
 Figs. 6, and 1 (below). Africa, and Europe, by Gotfred Bernhard Goetz. German, second quarter
of the xviii century.Black chalk drawings, 9 x 13%8 and9g x I3 4 inches

220
celain (Frontispiece, Figure I5). This pastoral surely this very ignorance of the interior of the
vision was chiefly centered in the classical past; continent that accounts for the reliance, in
but to a century that admired Nature and Sim- personifications, on Ripa and classical prece-
plicity from the warm comforts of its firesides, dent. In a splendid drawing (Figure 16) by
the savage, like the ancient Greek, was at once Gottfried Bernhard Goetz (I708-I774) Africa is
noble and picturesque. As early as 1584, Sir shown with an unusually complete set of at-
Walter Raleigh had found the Virginian Indians tributes, including the coral and parasol. The
"most gentle, loving and faithfull, voide of all added details of the landscape, and the attend-
guile and treason, and such as live after the ants with their bizarre headdresses suggest that

Fig. I8. Detail showing Africa, from a hard-pasteporcelain dish. German (Meissen), about 1740

manner of the golden age." Even the most Goetz sketched this for a painting or even as a
adverse accounts of intervening centuries had setting for a ballet or festival. Two other re-
not dispelled the vision of America as a country lated sketches by him are known: that of
of green plains and clear rivers, of "birds of Europe (Figure I 7), riding triumphantly through
all colours, some carnation, some crimson, the countryside while her regal attributes are
orenge tawny, purple, greene," of docile natives borne aloft by putti, is also in the Hyde Collec-
adorned with "fayre plumes of fethers." tion; the drawing of America was formerly in the
The vogue for faraway places included Africa collection of Sir Robert Mond. Whatever the
and Asia as well. Africa was almost wholly original purpose of these drawings it appears
ignored by eighteenth century explorers. It is that Goetz, who was a designer for the Meissen

221
 Figs. I9,and 21 (opposite). Asia, and Europe.
Detailsfrom a damaskpanel. German,1787

factory, adapted them to other uses. Africa

appears, copied with but few variations, on a
large painted Meissen dish (see Figure 18) of
about 740; on the same dish America is
copied from the Mond drawing. A large sculp-
tural group of Africa in the part of the Hyde
Collection that was given to the Cooper Union
Museum for the Arts of Decoration has the same
variations from the Goetz drawing as the
painted figure; a smaller figure of Europe in the
same collection corresponds closely to our other
sketch but in reverse. The figure of Asia on our
plate can be ascribed to Goetz on the basis of
engravings of this whole series by Balthasar
Sigmund Setletzky. Only the source for Europe
has not been discovered.
In the treatment of the Continents during the
eighteenth century, the image of Asia was the
one least bound by convention. It reflects cen-
turies of trade, travel, and even closer contact:
the Janizary music that Mozart heard at the
city gates of Prague is still heard in the Abduction
from the Seraglio, the theme of which held a
particular fascination for monogamous Euro-
peans. After the middle of the century we can
expect to see Asia personified as a turbaned
potentate. On a German damask panel of I787
the sultan (Figure 19) is presented in all his
Oriental splendor. In a porcelain figure (Figure
20) probably made at Niderviller about I775,
the emphasis is rather on commercial relations
with the Near East: Asia is a merchant, thought-
fully leaning on his bundle.
This figure and its two companions, all
painted in rosy pastel colors, offer a complete
break with the customary types of personifica-
tions. In a surprising sexual metamorphosis,
Africa has now become an awkward young man
clearly unused to his role as a savage Continent,
while Europe (Figure 22) is a timid soldier
striking a tentative pose beside his horse. They
are far removed from the personifications on
our German damask panel. With her globe and
parasol, with the blazing sun above her, Africa
reigns supreme over her torrid lands. Reflecting
a somewhat parochial view of continental
grandeur, Europe (Figure 21) appears as a
German princess: above her, a double-headed
eagle supports the arms of Lorraine and the
Medici family; they probably refer to Joseph II,
ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1765 to
i790. But Europe's domain is larger than that
small territory; regally crowned, bearing her
scepter and temple, she is-as artists always
intended her to be-queen of the Four Parts
of the World.

Figs. 20 (opposite), and 22. Asia, and Europe.

French (probably Niderviller), about I775. Soft-
paste porcelain, heights5 7 and 6 inches