Monsieur A. Harrisse was
a French amateur artist who drew in New York, on February 11, 1878, with black
and white pencils, the first known portrait of Master Morya.
Blavatsky was introduced to him
by a mutual friend in New York who has not been identified. She wrote:
« "You could not have been presented by a more welcome friend than
our lighthearted sneering little French “BulBul,” my beloved “petite vielle”
[Fr. little old woman] A. Harrissee[.] His introduction was not required
though, to make me know a name which the zephyrs of social fame had long since
wafted to the four quarters of the world. »
(This is an
excerpt from a letter from Blavatsky to an unknown correspondent. January 31, 1882. She was
writing from Bombay. This letter was transcribed from a photocopy in Vault MSS
2, box 6 folder 45; Fred A. Rosenstock autograph collection; L. Tom Perry
Special Collections; 19th Century Western & Mormon Manuscripts; 1130 Harold
B. Lee Library; Brigham Young University; Provo, Utah 84602. Discovered there
by Daniel Caldwell. The original was sold by the library and its current
whereabouts are unknown.)
About this event, Colonel Olcott narrated the following in his diary:
« M. Harrisse, our French friend, was a bit of an artist, and one evening
when the conversation turned upon India and Rajput bravery, H.P.B. whispered to
me that she would try to get him to draw our Master’s portrait if I could
supply the materials.
There were none in the house, but I went to a shop
close by and purchased a sheet of suitable paper and black and white crayons.
The shopkeeper did up the parcel, handed it me across the counter, took the
half-dollar coin I gave him, and I left the shop.
On reaching home I unrolled my parcel and, as I
finished doing it, the sum of half a dollar, in two silver pieces of a
quarter-dollar each dropped on the floor! The Master, it will be seen, meant to
give me his portrait without cost to myself.
Harrisse was then asked by H.P.B. to draw us the head
of a Hindu chieftain, as he should conceive one might look. He said he had no
clear idea in his mind to go upon, and wanted to sketch us something else; but
to gratify my importunity went to drawing a Hindu head.
H.P.B. motioned me to remain quiet at the other side
of the room, and herself went and sat down near the artist and quietly smoked.
From time to time she went softly behind him as if to watch the progress of his
work, but did not speak until it was finished, say an hour later.
I thankfully received it, had it framed, and hung it
in my little bed-room. But a strange thing had happened. After we gave the
picture a last glance as it lay before the artist, and while H.P.B. was taking
it from him and handing it to me, the cryptograph signature of my Guru came
upon the paper; thus affixing, as it were, his imprimatur upon, and largely enhancing
the value of his gift.
But at that time I did not know if it resembled the
Guru or not, as I had not yet seen him. When I did, later on, I found it a true
likeness and, moreover, was presented by him with the turban which the amateur
artist had drawn in the picture as his head-covering. Here was a genuine case
of thought-transference, the transfer of the likeness of an absent person to
the brain-consciousness of a perfect stranger.
Was it or was it not
passed through the thought of H.P.B.?
I think so. »
(Old Diary Leaves I, p.370-372)
Jirah Dewey Buck was one of the first members of the Theosophical
Society, he worked closely with William Judge and about this portrait he wrote
the following:
« Nearly twenty years ago [1893?] an acquaintance at Jamestown, N.Y.,
showed me a photograph of this Master, accompanying one of H.P.B. which he had
procured from a Photographer at Schenectady, N.Y., and he gave me the address
of the artist.
I thereupon obtained some copies,
after which he informed me that he had the original negative and that it was
obtained from H.P.B. while she was a guest at his house, about 1876, or '77.
I bought the negative, because I
disliked to see copies sold about the country indiscriminately.
Later, Mr. Judge told me that he
was present at the Lamasery
(as they called H.P.B.'s New York residence) when the artist drew this likeness
on a piece of Manila paper, under H.P.B.'s telepathic
gaze; thus conveying to the artist's vision the image of the
reality in her own mind.
No one familiar with the pictures
[of the Masters M. and K.H.], made in oil by another artist [Hermann
Schmiechen] in London in the same way many years later [1884], will fail to
note the resemblance. »
(Modern World Movements, Chicago, 1913,
p.141)
No comments:
Post a Comment