Palestine Exhibition
Company
"JERUSALEM ON
THE DAY OF THE CRUCIFIXION panorama by
Heine & Lohr, William Wehner studio,
Milwaukee
Lawrence Earle was associated with the
Palestine Exhibition Company and also
served as a Director of the company
beginning June 1887. The certificate
below was signed by L. C. Earle in 1888
and represented 5 shares at $100.00
each.
Earle was specifically associated with
the panorama named Jerusalem on the
Day of the Crucifixion, 1887 [based
upon the Munich original by Piglhein,
Frosch & Krieger] - by Heine & Lohr,
Milwaukee/William Wehner, No. 425 La
Salle Av., Chicago, Ill.
What follows is provided by Gene Meier
genemeier@frontier.com.
I am writing the first book from the
American point of view about 19th
century rotunda panoramas. These were
the biggest paintings in the world, 50 x
400=20,000 square feet, housed in their
own rotundas which were 16-sided
polygons. Chicago in 1893 had 6 panorama
companies and 6 panorama rotundas.
Gene has a set of corporation papers for
the Palestine Exhibition Company. One
page dated May 25, 1887 documents L. C.
Earle as having purchased 1 share @
$100. Another page dated June 8, 1887
documents L. C. Earle as a Director for
one year.
Attached are two images that were found
several years ago in a cache of some 150
glass plate negatives in a basement
behind a furnace in Cedarburg,
Wisconsin. The photos were made by
panorama artist Bernard Schneider
(1843-1907) by Ms Christine La Joice.
She took the glass plates to a
photographer who cleaned them up with
FOTOSHOP. Then she went to Museum of
Wisconsin Art to identify the images.
MWA would host "The Path of Discovery:
The Christine LaJoice Collection of
Bernhard Schneider Photographs January
9-March 30, 2007" I attended the
opening, walked up to the two attached
photos and recognized my great aunt,
Mathilde Georgine Schley (1864-1941),
the girl on the left in both images. The
young people are dressed as gypsies and
posed in tableau vivant, lending their
human scale to the panorama JERUSALEM ON
THE DAY OF THE CRUCIFIXION, one of four
units made in the studio of William
Wehner (1847-1928), who ran his studio
from September 1885 through September
1888, then removed to California to
jump-start the white wine industry.
MEANWHILE, I am writing the first book
from the American point of view about
19th century rotundas, the biggest
paintings in the world, 50 x 400=20,000
square feet, housed in their own
rotundas which were 16-sided polygons.
Oil by Alison
Skinner Clark, recorded in THE ANNUAL
EXHIBITION RECORD OF THE ART INSTITUTE
OF CHICAGO 1888-1950 by Peter Hastings
Falk, 1916,#72 "The Panorama"
Brief Biography: Gene Meier is a museum
field historian, and biographer of his
great aunt, Mathilde Georgine Schley
(1864-1941), an artist/model at William
Wehner’s panorama studio in downtown
Milwaukee.
