The French Franciscan Cloister in New York

The Cloisters incorporates significant sculptural ensembles from medieval cloisters from the south of France, traditionally identified as coming from four sites: Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, Trie-en-Bigorre, and Bonnefont-en-Comminges. (Ensembles from a fifth French medieval cloister come from Froville, in northern France.) Bonnefont Cloister includes two galleries that frame a beautiful medieval garden overlooking the Hudson River. (See The Medieval Garden Enclosed for more about The Cloisters gardens.) The gothic capitals carved with foliate ornaments echo the lush medieval plantings of the garden.

Fig. 1: Bonnefont cloister; Fig. 2: A capital from the Franciscan monastery of Tarbes in the Barnard museum, 1925

The sculptural elements were acquired1 early in the twentieth century by George Grey Barnard, a well-known American sculptor and collector, during his travels in France. The Metropolitan purchased them from Barnard in 1925. In the first published guide of The Cloisters, curator Joseph Breck wrote: "These capitals form part of a series from the cloister of a destroyed monastery at or near Saint-Gaudens (Haute-Garonne) in southern France."2 This supposed provenance conformed to information found in Barnard's own inventory records.3 However, in 1927, for the third edition of the guide, Breck revised the information to say that the elements came "presumably from the cloister of the destroyed Cistercian abbey at Bonnefont-en-Comminges."4 This attribution ostensibly came from Barnard himself, during an informal discussion with Breck that same year.5 The belated and unique association of this cloister with the Cistercian abbey of Bonnefont is very surprising, with little historical, stylistic, or archaeological evidence to support it.

The abbey of Bonnefont has been widely published, beginning in the late nineteenth century. Aware of these publications, in 1938, James J. Rorimer, curator of The Cloisters (and later Director of the Metropolitan), proposed other possible provenances for The Cloisters ensemble, basing his observations on comparable pieces still in France. Yet the association of the cloister in New York with Bonnefont has persisted over the years. Thanks to a fellowship from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Annette Kade Fellowship), I was granted the opportunity to focus on the history and origin of the "Bonnefont" cloister.6 By following the lead of one of the local antiquarians who did business with Barnard, I was able to discover the origin of some of the Cloisters' capitals that had been traditionally—and mistakenly—associated with Bonnefont. Our investigation takes us back in time and into the Pyrenees Mountains.

The search begins with the records of George Grey Barnard. Eight photographic negatives from the early twentieth century,7 preserved in the archives of Philadelphia Museum of Art,8 present the remains of an original cloister, with its capitals, columns and base in situ. Alas, no date or location is mentioned, but among these remains, five capitals in the "Bonnefont" cloister can be distinguished (figures 3–7).

In a separate folder from the same archives,9 Emile Liau, "antiquarian"10 at Tarbes11 proposed, on October 26, 1911, to sell to George Grey Barnard some pieces of the Franciscan cloister of Tarbes (around fifteen pieces). In a second letter dated February 13, 1912, Emile Liau confirmed that George Grey Barnard had agreed to buy these elements.12

Research in French archives and websites has allowed us to match the photographs with this correspondence. Photographs of the monastery, taken prior to its complete destruction in 1907–08 include an image of the cloister still standing (figure 7a).13 In comparing this last photograph with those preserved in the Barnard's papers (figure 8),14 we recognized immediately the arches of the same cloister, confirming that some pieces preserved at the Cloisters museum came from the Franciscan monastery of Tarbes and not from the abbey of Bonnefont.

According to Emile Liau's correspondence, it was only in 1912 that the pieces were purchased by George Grey Barnard, that is to say, around four years after the complete demolition of the building. We can suppose that the remains of the cloister, particularly the sculptures, were dismantled and preserved by the owners before being sold. Moreover, in his letter dated February 13, 1912, Emile Liau added that the owner was in Tarbes for a few days, which indicates that she did not actually live in Tarbes; perhaps the sculptures were moved into her house or to another warehouse before the Barnard acquisition.

The six capitals in the photographs serve as points of reference allowing us to identify a total of twelve, which, because of the common shape (of their impost, their basket, and their astragal), their common dimensions, the shared structure (the number of tiers), and their ornamentation, must also come from the Franciscan cloister (location in the Cloister museum—figures 9–10): capitals 25.120.741, 25.120.743, 25.120.744, 25.120.745, 25.120.746, 25.120.747, 25.120.749, 25.120.755, 25.120.756, 25.120.758, 25.120.761 (some of them are in the storerooms).

Location: The capitals from the Franciscan monastery of Tarbes at the Cloisters

But how had the Franciscan monastery at Tarbes fallen into ruins and become subject to sale?

II. The Franciscan Monastery from its foundation to its destruction

The first mention of the Franciscans monastery of Tarbes, an important city under the control of the counts of Bigorre and its bishop, dates from 1285.15 Probably, the community of the monks came in Tarbes around 1260, when the Franciscan movement expanded in the region.16 The monastery was located outside the walls of the city, in the modest faubourg of Maubourguet, and encircled by two channels.17

Though the mission of the Franciscan friars focused on the poor, we know that members of the powerful viscounts of Lavedan family18 were the benefactors of the monastery and were buried in its church.19

During the Wars of Religions,20 particularly between 1567 and 1594, Tarbes, at the border of the protestant Bearn and the catholic Gascony21 was besieged more than four times. In 1569, Gabriel I, count of Montgomery, and his army used the church of the Franciscans for protestant worship,22 but when they left, the protestant troops burned the monastery and other religious institutions of Tarbes. In 1577, the Franciscans received funds from the County of Bigorre for the restoration of their monastery.23 Judging from a description of 1644 from Leon Godeffroy, the cloister had survived the fire.24

Even before the French Revolution, the monastery began to be used for public gatherings. In 1789, the monastery was acquired by the General Council of the Department (regional government) and was used as tribunal.25 In 1792 the monastery was sold to a private citizen, M. Lacay, and the church was transformed into a stable.26 A year later the monastery served as a jail,27 and later that year was again transformed into a weapons' foundry.28 A few years later, it reverted to private hands. Then, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the monastery seems to have been used by a garrison. In 1822, John-Claude Nattes, an English draughtsman,29 drew the remains of the Franciscan monastery: the church and the cloister still standing with its open arcade. (figures 11–12).30

Later, the monastery was acquired by the Colomes de Juillan family who used the church as a stable (figure 13) and the monastery as a warehouse for the Carrere Hotel. In the photographs we can observe that the arches of the cloister were still standing and, meanwhile, filled.

Figure 13: The nave Church used as a stable

The owners sold the land in 1907 to a hotel company and the remains of the monastery were completely destroyed in order to allow space for the Hotel des Ambassadeurs (figure 14). Barnard's purchase occurred five years later, in 1912.

The successive changes that the monastic complex underwent in times of religious and political strife over the centuries brought about the gradual abandonment and loss of its cloister. Private owners adapted the building to purely pragmatic purposes, with no sense of its historic importance. With his acquisition, Barnard gave new life to the rich and tragic history of the Franciscan cloister of Tarbes. Preserved, studied, and restored, it finds its place again as a treasure of French medieval architecture at The Cloisters.

[13] Collected by Louis Caddau, architect of the historical monuments. Louis Caddau realized works, researches and publications about many monasteries of the region and particularly Larreule, Trie-en-Bigorre, Saint-Sever-de-Rustan abbeys, some of whose remains are preserved in the Cloisters museum.

[18] At the beginning of the tenth century, the viscunty of Lavedan was created by the Count of Bigorre for his sons. See Guillaume Mauran, Sommaire description du païs et comté de Bigorre: chronique inédite. Publiée pour la Société historique de Gascogne par Gaston Balencie. H. Champion. Paris, 1887.