The Ferris Collection of Prints - Introduction
The Museum’s Graphic Arts Collection, the oldest print-collecting unit in the Smithsonian, focuses on the technical and social history of printmaking to document how prints are made and used. Smithsonian art museums collect works on paper selected for aesthetic reasons, but the National Museum of American History (formerly the Museum of History and Technology) takes a broad view of visual culture.
Our prints illustrate technical developments and cultural changes. They represent all kinds of graphic works that have influenced American society. The collection has always included examples from many periods and countries, fine-art prints as well as popular and commercial graphic art, together with the plates, blocks, and tools used to produce prints. In 1996 the Museum presented an exhibition on 150 years of Smithsonian print collecting, Building a National Collection.
One of the largest print collections ever received by the Smithsonian was donated by the Ferris family between 1927 and 1932. Stephen James Ferris (1835–1915), a Philadelphia painter and etcher, collected over 2,000 European and American prints, both reproductive and original, representing old master and contemporary printmakers. The collection incorporated a variety of artistic subjects, compositions, and styles. Ferris may well have mined it for inspiration for his own work, but he was also deeply interested in art for its own sake. He and his family and friends would have simply enjoyed studying the images.
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"The Ferris Collection of Prints - Introduction" showing 8 items.
S. J. Ferris Self-portrait
- Description
- The Philadelphia Society of Etchers commissioned this self-portrait of Stephen James Ferris in 1880. Ferris was a founding member of the society, which formed the same year, three years after the founding of New York Etching Club, the first in the United States. Ferris had seen the etching process demonstrated in 1860 by John Sartain, an engraver. In 1875 Ferris produced one of his earliest etchings to be commercially published in the United States, a portrait of Mariano Fortuny (1838–1874).
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1880
- graphic artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*14388
- accession number
- 94830
- catalog number
- 14388
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of William Baker
- Description
- Stephen Ferris etched the portrait of distinguished Philadelphian William Spohn Baker in 1882. Baker (1824–1897), a critic and author, wrote several books, including American Engravers and Their Works and The Origin and Antiquity of Engraving. An antiquarian who specialized in George Washington, he collected medals, biographies, and engraved portraits of the first president, and wrote about these subjects. Baker was an active member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, serving as a vice president from 1892 and also as a director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1882
- graphic artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*14536.16
- catalog number
- 14536.16
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Spanish Gypsy's Home
- Description
- Stephen Ferris etched Home of Mariano, Gypsy King in Granada, Spain, during his 1881 visit to sites associated with Mariano Fortuny, a Spanish artist he deeply admired. In a letter from Granada to art editor Sylvester R. Koehler, Ferris told of his fascination with gypsy cave dwellings. He described them as “most picturesque and weird, overgrown with vines, cactus, and aloes . . . . I have made several drawings of Gitanos [gypsy] caves and of one especially a favorite model of Fortunys [sic] a Gitano prince in splendid costume. We bought his dress and I intend to paint and etch my picture when I get time.” Ferris etched the gypsy’s portrait in costume separately and included it, slightly altered, on the right in this print showing the family and animals assembled in front of their cave. Ferris noted in pencil on the print that it was etched directly from life.
- Gypsies or gitanos still live in caves in the Sacromonte(Holy Mountain) area of Granada. Today the number of cave dwellers has dwindled, but the area remains famous for flamenco singing and dancing.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1881
- graphic artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*14404.03
- accession number
- 94830
- catalog number
- 14404.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Roman Chariot Race
- Description
- Stephen Ferris collaborated with his brother-in-law Peter Moran in 1875 to make this large 22 x 57cm reproductive etching of Alexander von Wagner’s stirring painting Chariot Race in the Circus Maximus, Rome in the Presence of the Emperor Domitian. The scale of the etching required an oversized copper plate, which was difficult to find. Ferris and Moran fabricated one from the bottom of a copper boiler. According to one source, Moran, who would later specialize in farm animals, etched the horses, the archway in the background, and the roadway. Ferris, later known for his portraits, etched the figures and the rest of the architecture. At the time this etching was one of the largest made in the United States. The print was well received; the New York Times noted: “Of the style of execution we can speak only in the highest terms.”
- Alexander von Wagner (1838–1919), a Hungarian artist active in Germany, also enjoyed considerable success when he exhibited the painting Chariot Race in Europe in 1872. Wagner painted other versions; one was shown to critical acclaim at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. The Manchester Art Gallery in England owns a version, which may be seen on its website. It was not unusual at that time for an artist to paint several replicas of a popular subject in different sizes.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1882
- 1875
- graphic artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- original artist
- Wagner
- graphic artist
- Moran, Peter
- publisher
- J. C. McCurdy & Co.
- ID Number
- GA*14534
- catalog number
- 14534
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
View in the Alhambra, Spain
- Description
- Stephen Ferris sketched and painted this pencil and watercolor view of buildings in the Alhambra complex of Granada, Spain, in 1881. This is not a finished view but a work in progress. The people rendered in pencil outline have not been colored, and there are many second thoughts like the tree at left, which has been enlarged. While in Granada, Ferris wrote a friend that he and his son were busy making sketches “much in memorandum for future use in pictures.” So captivated were they by the city that they spent more than half their Spanish visit there.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1881
- graphic artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*14545
- catalog number
- 14545
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Moorish Gate, Granada
- Description
- Stephen Ferris’s watercolor view Justicia, Granada shows the Alhambra’s Gate of Justice (Puerta de la Justicia) painted during the artist’s 1881 visit to Spain. In a letter to Sylvester R. Koehler, later Curator of Graphic Arts at the Smithsonian, Ferris, deeply moved by his experiences, observed: “‘See the Alhambra and die’ seems a very appropriate expression. I feel it and have more reverence for the Arabs [sic] art than any other school.”
- Today the Gate of Justice is the main entrance to the Alhambra complex, which was completed by the Moors in the fourteenth century. The Spanish, who defeated the Moors in 1492, made later additions.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1881
- graphic artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*14548
- catalog number
- 14548
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of Curator of the Alhambra
- Description
- Stephen Ferris made this pencil sketch of a distinguished, pensive older man he called the “Curator of the Alhambra” during his two-month stay in Granada, Spain, in 1881. A watercolor in the NMAH Ferris Collection of an almost identical gentleman is identified as the “Keeper of the Tore de la Vela,” the watchtower of the fortified citadel in the Alhambra complex. While Ferris, a portrait artist, was exploring the wonders of the Alhambra, he was also busy sketching people he met.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1881
- original artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*16683
- accession number
- 119780
- catalog number
- GA*16683
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of a Mexican Girl
- Description
- In 1881 Stephen Ferris and his son, Gerome, sailed to Spain aboard the S. S.Washington to visit places associated with Spanish painter Mariano Fortuny. During the journey, Stephen Ferris, a portrait artist by profession, claimed he had sketched everyone on board. Although many of these drawings had been pronounced “excellent,” he discarded all but this one in pencil of Srta. Delores Arrojo de Mexico, “a Mexican Indian girl, a real picturesque subject which I intend to paint sometime with fruit and flowers and a good size in oil then etch it.” We do not know whether Ferris ever etched or painted her.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1881-05-16
- 1881
- original artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*16685
- catalog number
- GA*16685
- accession number
- 119,780
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center