Art - Overview
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.
"Art - Overview" showing 132 items.
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North African Pirate
- Description
- Deeply impressed by the art of Mariano Fortuny, Stephen Ferris etched reproductions of Fortuny’s paintings and a few of his prints. Ferris made this etching, Riff Pirate, after a painting dated 1871. These pirates preyed on shipping off the North African coast. The Philadelphia Museum of Art owns a related painting, which may be seen on its website.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1871
- original artist
- Fortuny y Carbo, Mariano
- graphic artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*14379.01
- accession number
- 94830
- catalog number
- 14379.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Christopher Columbus Dying
- Description
- Sixteen-year-old Gerome Ferris etched this print in 1879 after his own painting of the dying Christopher Columbus, 1506 Last Days of C. Columbus at Vallodolid. The current location of the painting is unknown, but the choice of topic anticipates Gerome’s future as a history painter, focusing on American narrative subjects.
- After death, Christopher Columbus’s journeys were not over. His remains traveled from Vallodolid to Seville and in 1542 were taken to the island of Hispaniola, now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, colonized by Columbus after 1492. After a move to Havana, Cuba, they returned to Seville cathedral in 1898 where they are today.
- The etching was printed on chine-collé, a very thin sheet of paper that accepts the image in passing through the press with a heavier sheet of backing paper to which is it glued during the printing.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1879
- graphic artist
- Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
- ID Number
- GA*14450
- accession number
- 94830
- catalog number
- 14450
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of Samuel P. Avery
- Description
- Samuel Putnam Avery (1818–1904), a New York-based art dealer and print collector, made annual buying excursions to Europe from 1867 to 1882 to look for decorative arts and paintings, some of which he commissioned directly from the artists. He also searched for prints to add to his own collection, seeking not just the original etchings valued today but also reproductive works by artists like Flameng, Jacquemart, and Rajon. French prints made up the core of his collection, almost 18,000 of which are now in the New York Public Library. Léopold Flameng etched this portrait of Avery in 1876 after a painting by Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta. The Avery family gave the painting to the Metropolitan Museum in 1904. Madrazo (1841–1920) was a fashionable portrait and genre painter, resident in New York and Paris, who was promoted by Avery.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1876
- original artist
- Madrazo y Garreta, Raimundo de
- graphic artist
- Flameng, Léopold
- ID Number
- GA*14576
- catalog number
- 14576
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Dock Scene, Massachusetts
- Description
- Robert Swain Gifford’s etching Coal Pockets at New Bedford shows a grimy Massachusetts dock scene with a coal storage facility and a chimney belching smoke. Gifford pictured the southeastern Massachusetts coast, where he had lived as a boy, in many of his prints. As Sylvester R. Koehler noted in the American Art Review, which published the print in 1880, “The artist lifts the commonplace into the ideal, and teaches us to see beauty where our unguided eyes would have failed to discover it.” The print continued to be popular and was republished several times. In later impressions like this one, the date “-79’’ at bottom right has almost disappeared. Probably the publishers did not want the print to seem out of date.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1879
- graphic artist
- Gifford, Robert Swain
- maker
- Gifford, Robert Swain
- ID Number
- GA*14871.02
- catalog number
- 14871.02
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
First Love Letter
- Description
- Camille Piton made this etching to illustrate a catalog for an auction of works from the collection of J. C. Runkle, which was held in New York on March 8, 1883. Samuel P. Avery, art dealer and himself a collector, organized the sale and the catalog. The New York Times judged Piton’s effort as “handsomely etched.” Ludwig Knaus (1829–1910), the original artist of First Love Letter, was a German painter of sentimental genre scenes which were very popular in his day. Originally titled in German, his painting was known by its English title because it had been purchased by an American.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1879
- original artist
- Knaus, Ludwig
- graphic artist
- Piton, Camille
- ID Number
- GA*14885
- catalog number
- 14885
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of Frank Duveneck
- Description
- In 1879 William Unger, a Vienna-based artist, etched this reproduction of William Merritt Chase’s 1876 portrait of friend and fellow painter Frank Duveneck, titled The Smoker. Duveneck is wearing a Dutch-style hat and smoking a long Dutch clay pipe as he holds a portrait print after Frans Hals. Unger etched many prints after Hals and other old masters as well as after contemporary artists like Chase. His etchings were published widely in both Europe and the United States. Some appeared loose in portfolios so that they could be framed or set up on an easel for study.
- Frank Duveneck (1848–1919), son of German immigrants, began his art studies in the United States. Dissatisfied with the experience, he went to Munich in 1870 to attend classes at the Bavarian Royal Academy, where he met William Merritt Chase in 1872. He and Chase became close friends and Chase made several portraits of Duveneck during their years in Munich.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1879
- original artist
- Chase, William Merritt
- graphic artist
- Unger, William
- ID Number
- GA*14974
- catalog number
- 14974
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Prescription Label, am Markt
- Description (Brief)
- The Bristol-Myers Squibb Collection has over two hundred early prescription labels from dozens of apothecaries across Germany and Austria. Early labels were plain and without adornment. Later embellishments included decorative borders, images of animals such as stags, lions, or elephants associated with the name of the apothecary.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1871
- ID Number
- 1991.0664.1129
- catalog number
- 1991.0664.1129
- accession number
- 1991.0664
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Painting, Indiana
- Description
- The Indiana was built in 1872 by Wm. Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia, PA. The ship measured 375 feet in length, 43 feet 8 inches in beam, and 3,126 tons. Indiana was one of the first four iron trans-Atlantic ships built in the United States. Indiana's sister ships include Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. The ship was owned by the American Line and was in service between Europe and America.
- The Indiana was insured by INA. The painting shows a starboard view of the steamship sailing in rough water. There is a keystone painted on its stack representing the Pennsylvania Railroad, which partly owned the American Line. The ship is driven by both sail and steam, with the sails helping to keep the ship steady. The CIGNA collection has a painting of Indiana's sister ship Pennsylvania.
- Samuel Walters (1811-1882) was a British marine painter. The painting style is typical of his later seascapes. It is painted with a broad brushstroke and has a wet appearance. Also, it is the typical angle of his ships at this time.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1875
- maker
- Walters, Samuel
- ID Number
- 2005.0279.013
- accession number
- 2005.0279
- catalog number
- 2005.0279.013
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Painting, Wool Clipper Ship Parramatta
- Description
- Parramatta was built in 1866 by James Laing in Sutherland, England for Devitt and Moore's passenger trade run to Sydney, Australia. The ship measured 231 feet in length and 1,521 tons. According to an inscription on the back of the painting, the ship was one of the wool fleet from 1875-1876, going from Sydney to London in 79 days. Captain J. Swanson commanded the ship until 1874, when Captain Goddard took over until the ship’s sale in 1888 to J. Simonsen of Norway. In January 1898, Parramatta sailed from Galveston, TX headed for King's Lynn, Norfolk, England and disappeared along the way. Parramatta was a Blackwall frigate. Blackwall frigates were three-masted merchant ships originally built to replace British East Indiamen in the trade between England and India. However, many Blackwell frigates, including Paramatta, became active in the trade between England and Australia. It was the second fastest of the Blackwall frigates after the Tweed. The painting shows Parramatta off Sydney Heads, Australia with a view of the coastline in the background. A small flight of steps and some women can be seen on deck. The presence of women is indicative of the Parramatta as a passenger ship, as a group of women would likely not have been on a trading voyage. Other details about the ship include the use of davits to hold up the lifeboats, where earlier they would have been merely tied to ropes and lowered over the side. Leather strips called "brails" used to shorten the sails can be seen running across the sails, and the flags on the lifeboat match the house flag located on the mainmast. Artist Frederick Tudgay (1841-1921) was youngest in a family of marine artists. He and his father, John Tudgay, occasionally worked in collaboration.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1879
- maker
- Tudgay, Frederick
- ID Number
- 2005.0279.046
- accession number
- 2005.0279
- catalog number
- 2005.0279.046
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of Jean-Léon Gérôme
- Description
- Stephen Ferris etched a dapper J. L. Gérôme (1824–1904) in 1899, near the end of Gérôme’s very successful career as painter and sculptor. Ferris had admired the French artist’s work for many years, at least since 1863 when he named his son after him. Although Ferris never actually met Gérôme, the two artists had corresponded. For this print Ferris used a photograph he had received from Gérôme. He then sent Gérôme trial proofs for comments and requested a signature to include in the final impressions, which appears here at lower left.
- Gérôme congratulated Ferris on the portrait as “work done with great care and great talent—the effect is very good and very firm. If I had any criticism to make, I would reserve it for the background, which is a little too even, and for the clothing, which has a little softness in the execution.” Gérôme also suggested that the highlight on the order which appears on his left breast and is not particularly noticeable in the photograph, be less bright. The order remains brightly lit, possibly Ferris’s tribute to Gérôme.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1879
- date made
- 1899
- graphic artist
- Ferris, Stephen James
- ID Number
- GA*14396.01
- accession number
- 94830
- catalog number
- 14396.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center