The Ferris Collection of Prints

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.

More about the collection
More about the artists

The 1876 Centennial Exposition brought people and exhibits from around the world to Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. Stephen Ferris, a resident of the city, visited the site on August 7 and recorded in pencil the face of this man, whom he called Maure [Moor].
Description
The 1876 Centennial Exposition brought people and exhibits from around the world to Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. Stephen Ferris, a resident of the city, visited the site on August 7 and recorded in pencil the face of this man, whom he called Maure [Moor]. The man may have been one of the workers associated with an exhibit from Tunisia or Morocco. Ferris was very interested in North African subject matter at this time, due to his fondness for the works of Mariano Fortuny.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1876
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16664
catalog number
GA*16664
accession number
119,780
Stephen Ferris made this pencil portrait of his mother from memory in 1890. She had died in 1848 near Yorkville, Illinois, after the birth of her fourteenth child, when Ferris was a boy of thirteen.
Description
Stephen Ferris made this pencil portrait of his mother from memory in 1890. She had died in 1848 near Yorkville, Illinois, after the birth of her fourteenth child, when Ferris was a boy of thirteen. Contrary to a contemporary biography’s claim that he was orphaned at ten, Ferris belonged to a large family which became even larger with his father’s remarriage. As a boy Ferris lived with a maternal uncle who offered him a chance to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia from the age of seventeen.
date made
1898
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16646
catalog number
16646
accession number
119780
Stephen Ferris drew this pencil portrait of his wife, Elizabeth Anastasia Moran Ferris, in 1878. Ferris probably met Elizabeth through his friendship with her brothers, artists Thomas and Peter Moran. The couple married in 1862.
Description
Stephen Ferris drew this pencil portrait of his wife, Elizabeth Anastasia Moran Ferris, in 1878. Ferris probably met Elizabeth through his friendship with her brothers, artists Thomas and Peter Moran. The couple married in 1862. Their son, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, a history painter and etcher, was born in 1863 and their daughter, May Electa Ferris, a landscape painter and etcher, in 1871.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1878
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16649
catalog number
GA*16649
accession number
119,780
Stephen Ferris made this pencil portrait of his son Gerome’s new wife, Annette Ryder Ferris, in 1894. They were married in May of that year. Mrs.
Description
Stephen Ferris made this pencil portrait of his son Gerome’s new wife, Annette Ryder Ferris, in 1894. They were married in May of that year. Mrs. Ferris later donated prints, drawings, and photographs that had belonged to her father-in-law and her husband to the Smithsonian in 1932. Gerome Ferris had made an initial donation in 1927.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1894
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16651
catalog number
GA*16651
accession number
119,780
Stephen Ferris sketched his sleeping four-year-old son Gerome in October 1867. He used this pencil drawing as a model for the sleeping child in his painting Grandma’s Spinning Wheel, also completed in 1867.
Description
Stephen Ferris sketched his sleeping four-year-old son Gerome in October 1867. He used this pencil drawing as a model for the sleeping child in his painting Grandma’s Spinning Wheel, also completed in 1867. At a later date, Gerome Ferris came across this sketch and noted in pencil: “I have seen no drawing better than this past or present JLGF," but, of course, he was the subject and possibly prejudiced
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1867
1867-10-24
depicted (sitter)
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16653
catalog number
GA*16653
accession number
119780
Stephen Ferris drew this pencil portrait of his son Gerome as a Christmas present for his new daughter-in-law, Annette Ryder Ferris, in 1894.
Description
Stephen Ferris drew this pencil portrait of his son Gerome as a Christmas present for his new daughter-in-law, Annette Ryder Ferris, in 1894. Gerome and Annette were married in May of that year.
In 1927 Gerome Ferris made the first donation to the Smithsonian of prints, drawings, and photographs that he and his father had collected, and his widow made a second donation in 1932.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
Christmas, 1894
1894
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16656
catalog number
GA*16656
accession number
119780
In 1876 Stephen Ferris made several pencil studies, showing his brother-in-law, artist Thomas Moran. The two men had known each other before Ferris’s marriage to Moran’s sister, Elizabeth Anastasia Moran, in 1862.
Description
In 1876 Stephen Ferris made several pencil studies, showing his brother-in-law, artist Thomas Moran. The two men had known each other before Ferris’s marriage to Moran’s sister, Elizabeth Anastasia Moran, in 1862. Ferris had arrived in Philadelphia in 1856 and was recorded in 1861 as sharing a studio with Thomas Moran and Samuel Sartain, whose father, John Sartain, demonstrated the technique of etching for Moran and Ferris.
Thomas Moran’s etched work and that of his wife, Mary Nimmo Moran, is well represented in the NMAH Graphic Arts collection. A number of their prints came as gifts from the Ferris family.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1876
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16662
catalog number
GA*16662
accession number
119,780
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.
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
In 1875 on a visit to Rock Island, Illinois, Stephen Ferris sketched his niece Abigail (or Abbie) in pencil. Abbie was one of five siblings in the family of Ferris’s sister, Althea Ferris Dean. Abbie continued to live in Rock Island, remained single, and taught school.
Description
In 1875 on a visit to Rock Island, Illinois, Stephen Ferris sketched his niece Abigail (or Abbie) in pencil. Abbie was one of five siblings in the family of Ferris’s sister, Althea Ferris Dean. Abbie continued to live in Rock Island, remained single, and taught school. In one census, she was listed as a drawing teacher. Ferris himself taught for many years at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design).
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1875-08-05
1875
original artist
Ferris, Stephen James
ID Number
GA.16684
catalog number
GA*16684
accession number
119,780
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.
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
Gerome Ferris recorded his painting The Bonapartes, 1804 in detail in this ink drawing. We do not know whether he made the drawing before the painting as a guide or afterward as a record, and the current location of the painting is unknown.
Description
Gerome Ferris recorded his painting The Bonapartes, 1804 in detail in this ink drawing. We do not know whether he made the drawing before the painting as a guide or afterward as a record, and the current location of the painting is unknown. He researched the historic details in depth to ensure his picture was accurate. He took pride in his chosen calling, painter-historian, which he seriously pursued from about 1900.
The drawing shows Jerome Bonaparte, Napoleon Bonaparte’s youngest brother, and his American wife, Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore, at an inn during their travels in the United States. Jerome Bonaparte had taken refuge here during the Napoleonic Wars and married during his stay in this country. A furious Napoleon rejected Jerome’s American wife, who returned to the United States. Jerome married again to support his brother’s dynastic ambition.
Location
Currently not on view
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16616
catalog number
16616
accession number
119780
Gerome Ferris made this ink drawing in 1882 while on a trip to southern Spain with his father. The drawing demonstrates a sure hand.Currently not on view
Description
Gerome Ferris made this ink drawing in 1882 while on a trip to southern Spain with his father. The drawing demonstrates a sure hand.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1881
1882
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16622.02
catalog number
16622.02
accession number
119780
In 1858 the painter Christian Schussele gave his friend Stephen Ferris this watercolor design for the title page of Jacob Abbott’s book Margaret of Anjou published in 1861. Ferris and his son Gerome studied with Schussele.Currently not on view
Description
In 1858 the painter Christian Schussele gave his friend Stephen Ferris this watercolor design for the title page of Jacob Abbott’s book Margaret of Anjou published in 1861. Ferris and his son Gerome studied with Schussele.
Location
Currently not on view
original artist
Schussele, Christian
ID Number
GA.16640
catalog number
16640
accession number
119780

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