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

Le Soldat et la Fillette Qui Rit is the only painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) that Jules Jacquemart etched. His first attempt to etch a painting in 1861 was a failure, as apparently he had been unable to work directly from the subject.
Description
Le Soldat et la Fillette Qui Rit is the only painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) that Jules Jacquemart etched. His first attempt to etch a painting in 1861 was a failure, as apparently he had been unable to work directly from the subject. Not until five years later in 1866 did he make a second attempt at etching a painting, this print after Vermeer. It was considered to be one of the best reproductive etchings of the time. The Vermeer painting now hangs in the Frick Collection, New York. But when Jacquemart etched it for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, it was in the collection of Léopold Double, a French artillery officer, bibliophile, and art collector.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1866
original artist
Vermeer, Jan
graphic artist
Jacquemart, Jules
printer
Delâtre
publisher
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
ID Number
GA.14601
catalog number
14601
accession number
94830
Jules Jacquemart reproduced these jewels in Bijoux Antiques (Musée Campana), working directly from the objects. He started by making detailed drawings or watercolors of the objects, but sometimes he etched them directly on the plate.
Description
Jules Jacquemart reproduced these jewels in Bijoux Antiques (Musée Campana), working directly from the objects. He started by making detailed drawings or watercolors of the objects, but sometimes he etched them directly on the plate. This print was considered a still life by Jacquemart’s contemporaries. One enthusiastic author even praised him as “the most marvellous etcher of still-life who ever existed in the world. In the power of imitating an object set before him he has distanced all past work and no living rival can approach him.” This etching originally appeared in 1863 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, which first published one of his etchings in 1859. Of the almost 400 prints Jacquemart made, about two-thirds reproduce objects.
The Museo Campana housed the art collection of the Marchese Giovanni Pietro Campana in Rome. When the collection was disbursed in 1861, France acquired a large part of the jewelry, which comprised mainly Etruscan, Greek, and Roman pieces, as well as some 19th-century work. The jewels were exhibited in Paris from 1862 and helped start a fashion for archeological jewelry. They can be viewed today in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1863
graphic artist
Jacquemart, Jules
printer
Delâtre
publisher
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
ID Number
GA.14602.01
catalog number
14602.01
accession number
94830
Louis-Pierre Henriquel-Dupont’s etching reproduces an 1825 drawing by J. A. D. Ingres (1780–1867) of Pierre-Alexandre Tardieu (1756–1844). The print appeared in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1860.
Description
Louis-Pierre Henriquel-Dupont’s etching reproduces an 1825 drawing by J. A. D. Ingres (1780–1867) of Pierre-Alexandre Tardieu (1756–1844). The print appeared in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1860. Tardieu came from a dynasty of distinguished graphic artists, which dated back to the beginning of the 18th century. He was especially known for his engraved portraits. Henriquel-Dupont, like the subject of his print, also was famous for his engravings and was considered by some the most celebrated engraver of 19th-century France.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1860
original artist
Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique
graphic artist
Henriquel-Dupont, Louis-Pierre
printer
Drouart
publisher
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
ID Number
GA.14902
catalog number
14902
accession number
94830
Paul Rajon’s print of Le Serment de Vargas is made after a watercolor of the subject by Louis Gallait (1810–1887), not from the oil painting that is now in the Wallace Collection in London.
Description
Paul Rajon’s print of Le Serment de Vargas is made after a watercolor of the subject by Louis Gallait (1810–1887), not from the oil painting that is now in the Wallace Collection in London. Juan de Vargas is swearing an oath before the Duke of Alva, who was a governor of the Netherlands in the 16th century during the long struggle by the Dutch for independence from Spain, achieved at last in 1648. He pursued a bloody campaign against the Dutch Protestants. Louis Gallait was a Belgian painter of history, portraits, and genre.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
19th century
original artist
Gallait, Louis
graphic artist
Rajon, Paul-Adolphe
printer
Salmon, A.
publisher
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
ID Number
GA.14912
catalog number
14912
accession number
94830
This etching by Léopold Flameng is known as either Un Rabbin or Un Vieux (An Old Man). The painting by Rembrandt hangs in the Musée Bonat, Bayonne, France.
Description
This etching by Léopold Flameng is known as either Un Rabbin or Un Vieux (An Old Man). The painting by Rembrandt hangs in the Musée Bonat, Bayonne, France. The print was etched for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, a publication started in Paris by Charles Blanc in 1859, which ceased only recently. Flameng had met Blanc in the studio of a well-known engraver, Luigi Calamatta, and became one of two graphic artists on the new publication. He etched no fewer than 100 plates for the Gazette and some forty plates for Blanc’s book on Rembrandt’s work, published in 1859. Flameng’s etchings after Rembrandt were highly regarded by collectors in this period.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
19th century
original artist
Rembrandt van Rijn
graphic artist
Flameng, Léopold
publisher
Gazette des Beaux-Arts
ID Number
GA.14958
catalog number
14958
accession number
94830

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