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 176 items.
Page 1 of 18
Portrait of Louis XVI
- Description
- Louis XVI, King of France from 1774 to 1792, was an important American ally during the American Revolution. His full-length oil portrait by the painter Antoine Callet was engraved by Charles Clement Balvay, known as Bervic, in 1790. This print has been described as the best reproductive engraving of its time, and Bervic was credited with making an admirable image from a rather ordinary painting. Jean-Baptiste Ternant, the first French ambassador to the new United States, gave a copy of this engraving to George Washington in 1791. It descended in the Washington family, and eventually came back to the collection now at Mount Vernon.
- The Museum's copy of this engraving has a more complicated history. During the upheaval of the French Revolution in the early 1790s, portraits of the deposed king were not only unpopular, they were something of a liability. Bervic cut his engraved copper plate in half, perhaps intending to use the reverse for two smaller, and presumably safer, prints. After the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1815, however, he rejoined the two halves and issued a second edition of the late king's portrait. The line across the center of the plate is not as easy to see as the impressions in the margins of the nails that held the divided plate securely on a support for printing.
- Bervic (1756–1822) was a talented and influential engraver who was elected to the French Royal Academy and the Institut de France, as well as to many other European art academies. He worked only with the burin, an engraver's tool, to cut the lines of the image into the surface of the copper plate. The Museum owns another of his important engravings, the Education of Achilles (1798) after Jean-Baptiste Regnault, a print which remained popular with collectors well into the 19th century.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1790
- printed
- ca 1815
- depicted
- Louis XVI King of France
- original artist
- Callet, Antoine
- engraver
- Bervic, Charles-Clement
- ID Number
- 1989.0115.013
- accession number
- 1989.0115
- catalog number
- 1989.0115.013
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
The Rocky Mountains, etched proof
- Description
- Albert Bierstadt's (1830–1902) large painting, The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, completed in 1863, presented the drama of the American West to audiences in the Eastern United States. The Rocky Mountains was Bierstadt's first big success, and he quickly developed a marketing strategy to promote his work. He contracted with engraver James Smillie (1807–1885) to produce a large black-and-white reproductive print. Then he sent the painting on tour, to be exhibited in art galleries in several eastern cities, accompanied by a subscription book and promotional flyers describing the engraving. It was available in four versions, from a limited number of artists' proofs priced at $50 each to an unlimited edition of plain proofs at $10 each.
- Public exhibitions in commercial galleries, together with the growth of the print trade, expanded opportunities for people to see paintings and purchase reproductions. Publishing prints enhanced an artist's reputation and added significantly to his income, but engraving on steel was a slow and painstaking process. It took Smillie more than three years to complete his work, in part because the painting was unavailable for him to copy. First Smillie drew the details of the image with a needle on a large steel plate, measuring 43 by 70.5 centimeters. This background image was etched in acid, and the Museum's copy is an early stage proof made "off the acid" to check Smillie's progress with the design. Several areas of the print remain to be completed. They were finished by hand with the engraver's cutting tool called the burin.
- In 1888 Smillie's son George donated this proof, which had been signed and dated by his father in 1865. Bierstadt also donated a signed impression of the final state of the print. Both states were exhibited together to demonstrate the process of engraving.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1865
- engraver
- Smillie, James
- original artist
- Bierstadt, Albert
- ID Number
- GA*00730
- catalog number
- 00730
- accession number
- 20355
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
The Rocky Mountains, final proof
- Description
- Albert Bierstadt's (1830–1902) large painting, The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, completed in 1863, presented the drama of the American West to audiences in the Eastern United States. Although it was more than a decade after the Gold Rush drew settlers to California, most people still had not seen many images of the West. Bierstadt specialized in these landscapes, and he produced impressive paintings of Yosemite and other Western scenes.
- The Rocky Mountains was Bierstadt's first big success, and he quickly developed a marketing strategy to promote his work. He contracted with engraver James Smillie (1807–1885) to produce a large black-and-white reproductive print. Then he sent the painting on tour, to be exhibited in art galleries in several eastern cities, accompanied by a subscription book and promotional flyers describing the engraving. It was available in four versions, from a limited number of artists' proofs priced at $50 each to an unlimited edition of plain proofs at $10 each. The painting was shown in 1864 at Civil War Sanitary Commission fairs in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, before being sold to an English businessman. Since 1907 it has been in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Public exhibitions in commercial galleries, together with the growth of the print trade, expanded opportunities for people to see paintings and purchase reproductions. Throughout his career, Bierstadt issued prints after his paintings, using many different graphic processes. Publishing prints enhanced an artist's reputation and added significantly to his income, but engraving on steel was a slow and painstaking process. It took Smillie more than three years to complete his work.
- In 1888 the Museum received this final state of the print directly from Bierstadt, and Smillie's son George donated an early etched proof. Both states were exhibited together to demonstrate the process of engraving.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1866
- copyright holder
- Bierstadt, Edward
- engraver
- Smillie, James
- publisher
- Bierstadt, Edward
- original artist
- Bierstadt, Albert
- originator
- Bierstadt, Albert
- ID Number
- GA*00731
- accession number
- 20356
- catalog number
- 00731
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of Andreas Vesalius
- Description
- Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564), an early European physician and professor of medicine, wrote an important treatise on the human body, published in 1543. He provided detailed illustrations that demonstrated muscle structure and other features of human anatomy, based on his work dissecting cadavers. Vesalius's work revolutionized the teaching of anatomy and remained influential for generations.
- In Vesalius's time, dissection was discouraged by religious and cultural forces that misunderstood its potential contributions to science. Edouard Hamman's 1849 painting, reproduced as a lithograph by Adolphe Mouilleron in the early 1850s, suggests Vesalius's conscientious struggle with religion as he pursed his anatomical studies through dissection. He stands beside a cadaver laid out on the table, and his dissecting tools are at hand. He is pictured as if paused in thought, looking at a crucifix on the wall to his right. A skull and several large books suggest his research materials.
- Lithography offered artists a medium for literally drawing on stone that was used for high-quality reproductive prints in 19th-century France. Mouilleron, an accomplished lithographer, was not only a superb draftsman, but it was said that in his hand the lithographic crayon took on the characteristics of color as used by painters. His larger prints, like this portrait of Vesalius, have rich tonal variations that convey the color values of the original painting in shades of black and white. Many American artists like Philadelphian Stephen J. Ferris (1835–1915), whose family donated this print to the Smithsonian, avidly collected and studied French prints of all periods.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1850
- subject
- Vesalius, Andreas
- graphic artist
- Mouilleron, Adolphe
- original artist
- Hamman, Edouard Jean Conrad
- publisher
- Bertauts
- ID Number
- GA*15366
- catalog number
- 15366
- accession number
- 94830
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
A Chief of Roanoke
- Description
- Theodor de Bry (1528–1598) was an engraver, bookseller, and publisher active in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1590 de Bry published Thomas Hariot's account of the English attempt to colonize the New World, the ill-fated Roanoke Colony. De Bry engraved several plates for this work based on watercolors made by John Smith, another member of the 1585 expedition. He went on to publish an ambitious and complicated series of illustrated volumes describing exploration in North and South America, based on a number of European sources. This work, known as the Great Voyages series or de Bry's America, was issued in several editions that continued to be produced by de Bry's widow and his heirs after his death.
- The engraved plates in the series represent indigenous people, plants, and animals. They offered Europeans one of the earliest and most accurate visual representations of the inhabitants and environment of the New World. The illustrations circulated widely and were frequently copied and reproduced. For his later editions, For his later editions, De Bry revised his own engravings of John Smith's Virginia subjects that he had published in the 1590 Hariot account, and he used the work of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, a French artist, for the Florida subjects.
- A Chief of Roanoke illustrates part one of the Virginia series. It is plate 6 from the second German edition published in 1600.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1600
- maker
- de Bry, Theodore
- original artist
- White, John
- ID Number
- GA*24475
- catalog number
- 24475
- accession number
- 1977.0425
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Shakespeare's King Lear, final proof
- Description
- Shakespeare's plays have engaged audiences for centuries, and his theatrical subject matter has influenced the visual arts as well. In the 1790s, London publishers John and Josiah Boydell opened the "Shakspeare Gallery" filled with paintings they commissioned to depict scenes from the plays. One hundred of these images were engraved as large prints and proved to be so popular that several editions were published, including an American edition in the 1840s.
- King Lear, showing Lear in the storm from Act III, Scene IV, was engraved in 1793 by William Sharp (1749–1824) after the painting by Benjamin West (1738–1820). This dramatic scene was considered a powerful moral lesson representing energy of thought and action. The painting came to the United States in 1807, part of the collection of engineer Robert Fulton (1765–1815). It was exhibited in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York and is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
- Many collectors considered Sharp's engraving of King Lear the finest of the prints in Boydells' Shakspeare Gallery series. Vermont Congressman George Perkins Marsh and President Thomas Jefferson owned prints from the Shakspeare Gallery. This impression from the original English edition came to the Museum in 1979 as a bequest from the family of American artist Stephen Alonzo Schoff (1818–1904), a bank-note engraver who also produced prints in larger formats. Schoff studied art in Europe between 1839 and 1841, and he acquired a significant collection of European and American prints to serve as his working visual library. He owned a preliminary etched proof prepared in an acid bath and this final state of the print finished by hand with the burin, an engraver's cutting tool.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1793
- referenced
- Shakespeare, William
- original artist
- West, Benjamin
- publisher
- Boydell, John
- Boydell, Josiah
- maker
- Sharp, William
- ID Number
- 1979.0114.166
- accession number
- 1979.0114
- catalog number
- 1979.0114.166
- 79.0114.166
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Shakespeare's King Lear, early proof
- Description
- Shakespeare's plays have engaged audiences for centuries, and his theatrical subject matter has influenced the visual arts as well. In the 1790s, London publishers John and Josiah Boydell opened the "Shakspeare Gallery" filled with paintings commissioned
- to depict scenes from the plays. One hundred of these images were engraved as large prints and proved to be so popular that several editions were published, including an American edition in the 1840s.
- King Lear, showing Lear in the storm from Act III, Scene iv, was engraved in 1793 by William Sharp (1749–1824) after the painting by Benjamin West (1738–1820). This dramatic scene was considered a powerful moral lesson representing energy of thought and action. The painting came to the United States in 1807, part of the collection of engineer Robert Fulton (1765–1815). It was exhibited in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York and is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
- Many collectors considered Sharp's engraving of King Lear the finest of the prints in Boydells' Shakspeare Gallery series. Vermont Congressman George Perkins Marsh and President Thomas Jefferson owned prints from the Shakspeare Gallery. This impression from the original English edition came to the Museum in 1979 as a bequest from the family of American artist Stephen Alonzo Schoff (1818–1904), a bank-note engraver who also produced prints in larger formats. Schoff studied art in Europe between 1839 and 1841, and he acquired a significant collection of European and American prints to serve as his working visual library. He owned this preliminary etched proof prepared in an acid bath and a final state of the print finished by hand with the burin, an engraver's cutting tool.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1792
- referenced
- Shakespeare, William
- publisher
- Boydell, John
- Boydell, Josiah
- original artist
- West, Benjamin
- maker
- Sharp, William
- ID Number
- 1979.0114.167
- accession number
- 1979.0114
- catalog number
- 1979.0114.167
- 79.0114.167
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Horned Grebe
- Description
- Robert Havell Jr.'s 1835 engraving for John James Audubon's publication the Birds of America, was published in Britain between 1827 and 1838 as a series of large folio engravings. The Museum's Graphic Arts Collection includes seven of the original copper plates and prints from several editions of the work.
- The Birds of America was published in several formats. The first large folio edition was intended for wealthy patrons or institutions. Later editions, produced in the United States for a more general audience, included text and smaller, less costly lithographic illustrations.
- Audubon introduced new species and new artistic forms. His dramatic images of birds, pictured life-size in animated poses with realistic backgrounds, represented a departure from the conventions of natural history illustration. His artistic ingenuity, as reproduced in engravings and lithographs, won new audiences for the subject of nature study, eventually leading to the organization of Audubon societies.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1835
- referenced
- Havell, Jr., Robert
- Audubon, John James
- original artist
- Audubon, John James
- graphic artist
- Havell, Jr., Robert
- ID Number
- 2006.0021.01
- accession number
- 2006.0021
- catalog number
- 2006.0021.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Portrait of Abraham Lincoln
- Description
- William Pate & Co. of New York published this portrait of Lincoln in 1869. The engraver, Henry Gugler, is best known for his bank-note work. Although the copyright notice below the print indicates the source as an original painting by J. H. Littlefield, who was once a clerk in Lincoln's law office, the image was based on a photograph made in the Mathew Brady studio in 1864. Perhaps Littlefield made a painting after the photograph that Gugler then engraved. The Brady studio photograph of Lincoln also served as the model for the engraving that appeared on the five-dollar bill and for other portrait prints.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1869
- engraver
- Gugler, Henry
- original artist
- Littlefield, J. H.
- artist attribution
- Brady, Mathew B.
- publisher
- William Pate & Co.
- ID Number
- GA*03352
- catalog number
- 03352
- accession number
- 23155
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
Market Plaza Mexico
- Description
- This aquatint, titled Market Plaza by Geoge O. "Pop" Hart, was printed about 1925, a period of peak migration for workers streaming to the United States seeking opportunity in the United States and escape from the chaos of the Mexican Revolution (1910 1921). Many of the married men settled in the United States and brought their wives and families—from 1900 to 1932, the Mexican-born population of the United States grew from 103,000 to over 1,400,000. Other Mexican workers returned to their homes in Jalisco, Guanajuato, or Michoacán, and came north periodically in search of seasonal or temporary work. Replacing recently banned workers from Asia, these men provided cheap labor for the newly irrigated cotton fields of Texas and Arizona, the copper mines of Utah, the fruit processing plants of California, and the railroads that connected all points in between. An abundance of factory jobs also increasingly attracted Mexican migrants to cities like Chicago and Milwaukee. But many of these hard-earned economic opportunities in the United States came to an end during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mexican workers in areas like California had to compete with economic refugees from across the country. Many were targets of discrimination and anti-immigrant violence. Thousands of American citizens were among the 500,000 men, women, and children forcibly and suddenly moved to Mexico on buses and trains from Texas and California during the Great Depression. This print is one of a series of images created by American artists traveling in Mexico.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- ca 1925
- Associated Date
- 20th century
- graphic artist
- Hart, George O. "Pop"
- ID Number
- GA*14183
- catalog number
- 14183
- accession number
- 92987
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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