Art

The National Museum of American History is not an art museum. But works of art fill its collections and testify to the vital place of art in everyday American life. The ceramics collections hold hundreds of examples of American and European art glass and pottery. Fashion sketches, illustrations, and prints are part of the costume collections. Donations from ethnic and cultural communities include many homemade religious ornaments, paintings, and figures. The Harry T Peters "America on Stone" collection alone comprises some 1,700 color prints of scenes from the 1800s. The National Quilt Collection is art on fabric. And the tools of artists and artisans are part of the Museum's collections, too, in the form of printing plates, woodblock tools, photographic equipment, and potters' stamps, kilns, and wheels.

Ink wash on white paper mounted on white card stock. Loose white card stock frame covers the piece. This sketch is a portrait of a French soldier in profile view. The soldier is wearing a French steel helmet and is carrying a cane or stick.
Description
Ink wash on white paper mounted on white card stock. Loose white card stock frame covers the piece. This sketch is a portrait of a French soldier in profile view. The soldier is wearing a French steel helmet and is carrying a cane or stick. There are three chevrons visible on his left sleeve, which symbolize war service. The soldier is also carrying some sort of bag on his shoulder.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1918
associated date
1917 - 1918
associated person
War Department
Townsend, Harry
artist
Townsend, Harry
ID Number
AF.26120
catalog number
26120
accession number
64592
Minna Citron (1896-1991) was an American printmaker, whose style dramatically transformed from representational to abstract art in the 1940s.
Description (Brief)
Minna Citron (1896-1991) was an American printmaker, whose style dramatically transformed from representational to abstract art in the 1940s. She became a member of Atelier 17, a renowned avant-garde print studio in New York, and was known for her experimental printmaking techniques.
"Slip Stream" is an etching and aquatint printed in 1956. The creation of "Slip Stream" and similar prints, collectively known as the series "The Uncharted Course," grew out of Citron's interest in the relationship between spontaneity and control. She embraced the inherent mishaps of printmaking and found inspiration in the accidental forms they produced. This is an example of the first state of the etching in blue.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1956
maker
Citron, Minna
ID Number
GA.21149
catalog number
21149
accession number
240678
Minna Citron (1896-1991) was an American printmaker, whose style dramatically transformed from representational to abstract art in the 1940s.
Description (Brief)
Minna Citron (1896-1991) was an American printmaker, whose style dramatically transformed from representational to abstract art in the 1940s. She became a member of Atelier 17, a renowned avant-garde print studio in New York, and was known for her experimental printmaking techniques.
"Slip Stream" is an etching and aquatint printed in 1956. The creation of "Slip Stream" and similar prints, collectively known as the series "The Uncharted Course," grew out of Citron's interest in the relationship between spontaneity and control. She embraced the inherent mishaps of printmaking and found inspiration in the accidental forms they produced. This is an example of the second state of the etching in green.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1956
original artist
Citron, Minna
ID Number
GA.21150
catalog number
21150
accession number
240678
Charcoal sketch on white paper of American soldiers American soldiers huddled in a trench, presumably getting ready for battle and preparing for a gas attack. Some soldiers are wearing gas masks, while others peek over the trench walls.
Description
Charcoal sketch on white paper of American soldiers American soldiers huddled in a trench, presumably getting ready for battle and preparing for a gas attack. Some soldiers are wearing gas masks, while others peek over the trench walls. In the background at right there is an overturned tank behind a dead horse. There is barbed wire in the background on the left. Toxic gasses, such as chlorine and mustard gas, were used in World War I by enemy armies as part of chemical warfare. When gas was detected, an alarm was raised and soldiers would put on their gas masks to avoid injuries, such as chemical burns and blindness, or death.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1918
associated date
1917 - 1918
associated person
War Department
Townsend, Harry
artist
Townsend, Harry
ID Number
AF.26115
catalog number
26115
accession number
64592
Henrietta Shore (1880-1963) was an early pioneer of the Modernism movement of art on the West Coast. She discovered lithography while traveling in Mexico, and took inspiration from the southern landscape and indigenous traditions.
Description (Brief)
Henrietta Shore (1880-1963) was an early pioneer of the Modernism movement of art on the West Coast. She discovered lithography while traveling in Mexico, and took inspiration from the southern landscape and indigenous traditions. On returning to California in 1928, Shore began working in the Los Angeles lithography workshop of master printer Lynton Kistler making her one of the first women lithographers working in California. "Water Carrier" was one of the prints produced during her time there.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1928
original artist
Shore, Henrietta
graphic artist
Kistler, Lynton R.
ID Number
1978.0650.1746
accession number
1978.0650
catalog number
1978.0650.1746
Colored print of a view of Boston with Boston Common in the foreground and the bay in the background. Houses, churches, warehouses and industrial buildings are depicted. The bay is filled with sailing ships.
Description (Brief)
Colored print of a view of Boston with Boston Common in the foreground and the bay in the background. Houses, churches, warehouses and industrial buildings are depicted. The bay is filled with sailing ships.
Date made
1850
maker
Bachmann, John
Sarony & Major
ID Number
DL.60.3745
catalog number
60.3745
Black and white print; half length portrait of a man (R. Walsh Jr.) with his head resting on his hand and his elbow resting on an open book.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black and white print; half length portrait of a man (R. Walsh Jr.) with his head resting on his hand and his elbow resting on an open book.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
maker
Sully, Thomas
Childs, Cephas Grier
ID Number
DL.60.3135
catalog number
60.3135
accession number
228146
This chalkware statue of American jazz trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) was made by Esco Products, Inc. in New York, circa 1972.
Description

This chalkware statue of American jazz trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) was made by Esco Products, Inc. in New York, circa 1972. The statue depicts Armstrong in a burgundy jacket with white shirt, black bowtie, pants and shoes, holding a trumpet in his right hand and a handkerchief in his left hand. As in many of Esco’s celebrity statues, the heads are exaggerated in size.

The statue was given to American jazz vocalist Ella Fitzgerald and is inscribed on the bottom of the statue, “FROM PHOEBE.”

Location
Currently not on view
manufacturing date
ca 1972
depicted
Armstrong, Louis
ID Number
1996.0342.062
accession number
1996.0342
catalog number
1996.0342.062
TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea service (Hausmalerin)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowls: H. 1¾" 4.5 cmChocolate cup: 3⅛" 8 cmSaucer: D. 5⅛" 13.1 cmTeapot: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea service (Hausmalerin)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowls: H. 1¾" 4.5 cm
Chocolate cup: 3⅛" 8 cm
Saucer: D. 5⅛" 13.1 cm
Teapot: H. 5" 12.8 cm
OBJECT NAME: Part of a tea service
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1730
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896. 34 A,B; 36 a,b; 37 a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 227 A,B; 228 a,b; 229 a,b
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue, except chocolate cup, which is unmarked.
PURCHASED FROM: Minerva Antiques, New York, 1943.
Thw teapot is from parts from a tea service in the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
The parts of this tea service were made in the Meissen manufactory but painted outside by independent artists. Hausmalerei is a German word that means in literal translation ‘home painting’, and it refers to the practice of painting enamels and gold onto the surface of blank ceramics and glass in workshops outside the manufactory of origin. Beginning in the seventeenth century the work of the Hausmaler varied in quality from the outstanding workshops of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), to the less skilled efforts of amateur artists. Early Meissen porcelain was sought after for this purpose, and wealthy patrons of local enameling and gilding workshops purchased undecorated porcelain, often of out-moded or inferior quality, which was then enameled with subjects of their choice. Hausmalerei was at first acceptable to the early porcelain manufactories like Meissen and Vienna, and Meissen sent blank porcelain to Augsburg workshops for decoration, but as the market became more competitive they tried to eradicate the practice. It was a temptation for Meissen porcelain painters to take on extra work as Hausmaler to augment their low pay, and the manufactory cautioned or even imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
The tea service was painted in Augsburg in the 1720s.Two hundred years earlier Augsburg was the center of international merchant banking, and it is no coincidence that it was also a center for goldsmithing work of exceptional quality. Although no longer a powerful city in the eighteenth century, Augsburg was still renowned for its high quality artisan trades in precious metals, book production, and textiles. Hausmalerei was one among many subsidiary trades that met demands from other workshops, individual clients, and new manufactories like that of Meissen.
This Meissen tea service was probably painted by Anna Elizabeth Wald (b. 1696), and perhaps by her sister Sabina Hosennestel (1706-1782) as well. The two women were the daughters of the gold worker and Hausmaler Johann Aufenwerth (d.1728) but it is difficult to distinguish their styles one from the other. Another sister, Johanna Warmberger (1693-1772), also worked in the family business. The sisters specialized in decorative gilding and enamel painting of chinoiseries like the images seen here of two gentlemen smoking and taking tea in a garden.
Sabina Hosennestel married the tradesman and coffee-house owner, Isaac Hosennestel in 1731. It is thought that some of the porcelain vessels painted by the Aufenwerth sisters were intended for use in the coffee-house alongside Chinese and Japanese imported porcelain, especially the tea bowls. There were five other coffee-houses in Augsburg in the first half of the eighteenth century.
Other pieces from this service are in the Forsythe Wickes Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. Numbers 65.2076-65.2080).
Ducret, S., 1971, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, Band 1 Goldmalereien und bunte Chinoiserien.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 506-507.
Location
Currently on loan
date made
ca 1720-1725
1720-1725
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.37ab
catalog number
1987.0896.37ab
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
229
TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea service (Hausmalerin)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowls: H. 1¾" 4.5 cmChocolate cup: 3⅛" 8 cmSaucer: D. 5⅛" 13.1 cmTeapot: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea service (Hausmalerin)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowls: H. 1¾" 4.5 cm
Chocolate cup: 3⅛" 8 cm
Saucer: D. 5⅛" 13.1 cm
Teapot: H. 5" 12.8 cm
OBJECT NAME: Part of a tea service
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1730
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896. 34 A,B; 36 a,b; 37 a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 227 A,B; 228 a,b; 229 a,b
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue, except chocolate cup, which is unmarked.
PURCHASED FROM: Minerva Antiques, New York, 1943.
These tea bowlsare from parts of a tea service in the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
The parts of this tea service were made in the Meissen manufactory but painted outside by an independent artist. Hausmalerei is a German word that means in literal translation ‘home painting’, and it refers to the practice of painting enamels and gold onto the surface of blank ceramics and glass in workshops outside the manufactory of origin. Beginning in the seventeenth century the work of the Hausmaler varied in quality from the outstanding workshops of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), to the less skilled efforts of amateur artists. Early Meissen porcelain was sought after for this purpose, and wealthy patrons of local enameling and gilding workshops purchased undecorated porcelain, often of out-moded or inferior quality, which was then enameled with subjects of their choice. Hausmalerei was at first acceptable to the early porcelain manufactories like Meissen and Vienna, and Meissen sent blank porcelain to Augsburg workshops for decoration, but as the market became more competitive they tried to eradicate the practice. It was a temptation for Meissen porcelain painters to take on extra work as Hausmaler to augment their low pay, and the manufactory cautioned or even imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
The tea service was painted in Augsburg in the 1720s.Two hundred years earlier Augsburg was the center of international merchant banking, and it is no coincidence that it was also a center for goldsmithing work of exceptional quality. Although no longer a powerful city in the eighteenth century, Augsburg was still renowned for its high quality artisan trades in precious metals, book production, and textiles. Hausmalerei was one among many subsidiary trades that met demands from other workshops, individual clients, and new manufactories like that of Meissen.
This Meissen tea service was probably painted by Anna Elizabeth Wald (b. 1696), and perhaps by her sister Sabina Hosennestel (1706-1782) as well. The two women were the daughters of the gold worker and Hausmaler Johann Aufenwerth (d.1728) but it is difficult to distinguish their styles one from the other. Another sister, Johanna Warmberger (1693-1772), also worked in the family business. The sisters specialized in decorative gilding and enamel painting of chinoiseries like the images seen here of two gentlemen smoking and taking tea in a garden.
Sabina Hosennestel married the tradesman and coffee-house owner, Isaac Hosennestel in 1731. It is thought that some of the porcelain vessels painted by the Aufenwerth sisters were intended for use in the coffee-house alongside Chinese and Japanese imported porcelain, especially the tea bowls. There were five other coffee-houses in Augsburg in the first half of the eighteenth century.
Other pieces from this service are in the Forsythe Wickes Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. Numbers 65.2076-65.2080).
Ducret, S., 1971, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, Band 1 Goldmalereien und bunte Chinoiserien.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 506-507.
Location
Currently on loan
date made
ca 1720-1725
1720-1725
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.34
catalog number
1987.0896.34
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
227A
Black and white print; bust portrait of a man (Henry Inman). Facsimile of sitter's signature is below the image.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black and white print; bust portrait of a man (Henry Inman). Facsimile of sitter's signature is below the image.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
depicted
Inman, Henry
maker
Prevost, Victor
Nagel, Louis
original artist
Lazarus
ID Number
DL.60.3127
catalog number
60.3127
accession number
228146
Black and white print; oval bust portrait of a man (Alois Senefelder).Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black and white print; oval bust portrait of a man (Alois Senefelder).
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
depicted
Senefelder, Alois
maker
Waldeck, Franz
ID Number
DL.60.3124
catalog number
60.3124
accession number
228146
Black and white print of a small town in hilly wooded area.
Description (Brief)
Black and white print of a small town in hilly wooded area.
Date made
1853
associated date
1853
maker
Britton & Rey
artist
Goddard, George Henry
ID Number
DL.60.3817
catalog number
60.3817
Color print of two steamboats (the "Diana" and the "Baltic") travelling at full speed with smoke pouring from their double stacks. Other steamboats are in the background and a flatboat with several men is in the right foreground.
Description (Brief)
Color print of two steamboats (the "Diana" and the "Baltic") travelling at full speed with smoke pouring from their double stacks. Other steamboats are in the background and a flatboat with several men is in the right foreground.
Date made
1859
maker
Fuller, George F.
Weingartner, Adam
ID Number
DL.60.3292
catalog number
60.3292
Color print of a whaling scene. Huge whale in the foreground is being harpooned by a whaler while five others steady the boat. In the background is a whale boat that is being capsized by a whale and three whaling vessels.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Color print of a whaling scene. Huge whale in the foreground is being harpooned by a whaler while five others steady the boat. In the background is a whale boat that is being capsized by a whale and three whaling vessels.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1862
copyright holder; publisher
Charles Taber & Co.
maker
Endicott and Company
original artist
Gifford, Robert Swain
Beest, Albert Van
Russell, Benjamin
ID Number
DL.60.3249
catalog number
60.3249
Black and white print of whaling ships and small whaling boats. The whaling ships are receiving the captains, officiers and crews of the abandoned whalers. The seven whaling ship names are listed below the image and above the title.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black and white print of whaling ships and small whaling boats. The whaling ships are receiving the captains, officiers and crews of the abandoned whalers. The seven whaling ship names are listed below the image and above the title.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1872
maker
Bufford, John Henry
Newell, J.P.
original artist
Russell, Benjamin
ID Number
DL.60.3260
catalog number
60.3260
Color print of a whaling scene. Two whale boats, each with four oarsman, a steersman, and a spearman, chase a whale in the foreground. Other chases take place in the background. Three whaling vessels in full sail are in the distance.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Color print of a whaling scene. Two whale boats, each with four oarsman, a steersman, and a spearman, chase a whale in the foreground. Other chases take place in the background. Three whaling vessels in full sail are in the distance.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1859
publisher; copyright holder
Charles Taber & Co.
maker
Endicott and Company
original artist
Beest, Albert Van
Gifford, Robert Swain
Russell, Benjamin
ID Number
DL.60.3248
catalog number
60.3248
Black and white print of whaling ships; three whaling vessels are anchored in the ice while one, the bark Roman, is trapped and sinking. Men are escaping to the other ships. All the ships names are listed below the image and above the title.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black and white print of whaling ships; three whaling vessels are anchored in the ice while one, the bark Roman, is trapped and sinking. Men are escaping to the other ships. All the ships names are listed below the image and above the title.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1872
maker
Bufford, John Henry
original artist
Russell, Benjamin
maker
Newell, J.P.
ID Number
DL.60.3256
catalog number
60.3256
Color print of a whaling scene; one large whaling vessel in foreground and one in the background are anchored awaiting men in smaller boats who are attacking whales.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Color print of a whaling scene; one large whaling vessel in foreground and one in the background are anchored awaiting men in smaller boats who are attacking whales.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
n.d.
maker
Baillie, James S.
ID Number
DL.60.3255
catalog number
60.3255
Color print depicting a river with several small sailboats and a large steamship labeled "Walk in the Water" in the foreground. Far shore contains a small settlement.
Description (Brief)
Color print depicting a river with several small sailboats and a large steamship labeled "Walk in the Water" in the foreground. Far shore contains a small settlement.
Date made
n.d.
maker
Calvert Lithographing and Engraving Company
ID Number
DL.60.3796
catalog number
60.3796
Black and white print of a frigate (Mississippi) almost totally swamped by high seas on her passage from Simoda, Japan to the Sandwich Islands on the 7th of October 1854.
Description (Brief)
Black and white print of a frigate (Mississippi) almost totally swamped by high seas on her passage from Simoda, Japan to the Sandwich Islands on the 7th of October 1854.
Date made
1854
maker
Brown, Eliphalet Jr.
Britton & Rey
original artist
Heine, W
ID Number
DL.60.3287
catalog number
60.3287
Color print depicting a varied group of individuals along the banks of a river performing tasks related to gold mining; digging, sifting, washing, etc.
Description (Brief)
Color print depicting a varied group of individuals along the banks of a river performing tasks related to gold mining; digging, sifting, washing, etc.
Date made
n.d.
distributor
Ensign, Thayer and Company
maker
Kelloggs & Comstock
ID Number
DL.60.3829
catalog number
60.3829
Color print of a whaling scene; five rigged whaling vessels wait while men in two smaller vessels engage in a variety of activities. Captions below the image identify the activities. Walrus on ice on left and right foreground.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Color print of a whaling scene; five rigged whaling vessels wait while men in two smaller vessels engage in a variety of activities. Captions below the image identify the activities. Walrus on ice on left and right foreground.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1871
maker
Bufford, John Henry
original artist
Russell, Benjamin
ID Number
DL.60.3252
catalog number
60.3252
Pencil and watercolor sketch on paper. The sketch shows an American soldier standing in the foreground on the left. He is next to an elaborate cross on a hill, looking out over a village, which is in the background on the right.
Description
Pencil and watercolor sketch on paper. The sketch shows an American soldier standing in the foreground on the left. He is next to an elaborate cross on a hill, looking out over a village, which is in the background on the right. The Argonne forest was the site of a major battle during World War I.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1918-11
artist
Smith, J. Andre
ID Number
AF.26063
catalog number
26063
accession number
64592

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