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 3 items.
Goose Pond, East Hampton
- Description
- Mary Nimmo Moran chose The Goose Pond, Easthampton as her diploma work when the recently formed Royal Society of Painter-Etchers in London elected her a Fellow in 1881, the only woman among the sixty-five original Fellows. When she exhibited four etchings in the Society’s show, the New York Herald commented on a review in a London paper, ‘“Mrs. Moran’s work is so masculine [sic] that the Daily News critic takes it for that of a man.”’ Her vigorous etching style has been frequently noted along with her preference for working outdoors directly on a prepared plate, before the subject.
- The print shows a pond, now known as Town Pond, and Gardiner’s Mill, which still stands in the town of East Hampton, where the Morans spent many summers. Landscape and in particular the landscape around East Hampton was the subject of many of Mary Nimmo Moran’s etchings.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1881
- graphic artist
- Moran, Mary Nimmo
- ID Number
- GA*14566
- catalog number
- 14566
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Landscape in Normandy
- Description
- This signed and titled print, Prés Houlgate (Calvados) by Maxime Lalanne, was published in a portfolio of etchings titled Divertissements sur cuivre, 12 croquis (Entertainments on Copper, Twelve Sketches) in 1869. Houlgate is in Normandy in northwestern France. While Lalanne etched many views of the countryside, it was his city views that made his reputation.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1869
- graphic artist
- Lalanne, Maxime
- publisher
- Cadart et Luce
- ID Number
- GA*14595
- catalog number
- 14595
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Cows by a Stream
- Description
- This print, On the Neshimaney, which shows cows on a still, warm afternoon standing by a creek, is typical of the views of rural Pennsylvania that were the specialty of Peter Moran. He took pains to make the landscape details appear natural. French artists who depicted the rural landscape, such as Constant Tryon (1810–1865) and Charles Jacque (1813–1894), were important to Moran’s artistic development.
- Somewhat confusingly, Peter Moran exhibited three etchings with the title On the Neshaminey in his one-man show in 1887 and 1888 at Frederick Keppel’s New York gallery. This print is the largest and last of the Neshaminey series. Philadelphia book dealer Robert M. Lindsay commissioned the print from Moran and published it in an edition of 100 in late October 1886.
- This print is signed in the image and in pencil at lower left below the image, “P Moran.” It also has a remarque (small design) of a cow’s head at left in the lower margin. Remarques are of special interest to collectors as they are used on prepublication prints and then removed from the plate before the edition is printed.
- The Neshaminey Creek in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, runs north of Philadelphia through what are today mostly suburban areas, although some farmland does remain. The area shown in the print is probably near either New Britain or Edison. Peter Moran and his family spent some summers in the area.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1886
- graphic artist
- Moran, Peter
- publisher
- Lindsay, Robert
- ID Number
- GA*14769
- catalog number
- 14769
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center