The Ames Family acquires a painting
The mystery of the large painting over the entrance to the second-floor hall of Oakes Ames Hall begins with the original Edwin Booth Theater in New York. Congressman Oakes Ames held a mortgage on the building to support his friend the great actor Edwin Booth (older brother of John Wilkes Booth). When Booth went bankrupt the theater passed into the hands of future governor Oliver Ames and his brother Oakes Angier Ames.
A succession of managers ran the theater for the Ames family, and one of them, Dion Boucicault, ordered the painting for the space over the proscenium arch during an 1879 renovation. The painting is a copy of “The Human Comedy” painted by the Frenchman Jean-Louis Hamon about 1852. It hung above the American debut of “the divine” Sarah Bernhardt and new performances by former owner Edwin Booth. Almost certainly, the painting was removed from New York and brought to Easton for the dedication of Oakes Ames Memorial Hall in November, 1881.
The mystery of its creation
Today the painting is probably the largest piece of 19th century stagecraft still in existence, but who created it remains a mystery. However, Henry E. Hoyt has emerged, from several possibilities, as the primary candidate for the scene designer in charge. Hoyt, born in Brooklyn in 1836 had “through a long career devoted to art has been more or less connected with all the leading theatres.”
When the last producer took up the lease just before the Ames family sold the theater, Hoyt moved onto Abbey’s New Park Theatre where an ad stated the scenery would be Henry E. Hoyt “late of Booth’s Theatre.” Hoyt eventually became the scenic director of Abbey’s greatest achievement: The Metropolitan Opera. The clincher for our story comes from The Epoch of August 30, 1889:
Henry Hoyt is an American scene-painter, and was born in Brooklyn, in 1838 [sic]. He was first brought prominently before the New York public by his work at Abbey’s Park Theatre in 1878; he was there but a short time, however, when he accepted the position of scenic artist at Booth’s Theatre in West 23rd St. His work at that house made him famous.
Authorship Credit: Edmund Hands, with edits by Fred Ames
Photo Credit: Jonathan Jackson Coe