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150 Years
of Print Collecting at the Smithsonian
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Two Early Collectors
Marsh and Cranch present two patterns of print collecting before the Civil War. Both
men bought European engravings primarily, together with a few American prints.
Certain prints are represented in both collections, and both include English, Flemish,
and Italian engravings. Cranch held fewer examples from Northern Europe, and he
owned no prints by Dürer or Rembrandt, two master printmakers often represented in
collections formed during this period.
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George Perkins Marsh |
Marsh built his collection to illustrate progressive stages in the history of engraving.
He purchased all of his prints in the United States before 1849, a remarkable effort for
the time. He bought mainly from dealers in New York and their foreign agents. Fluent
in several languages, he studied European collectors' manuals and bibliographic
reference books to gain knowledge about what prints to buy. Although the prints that
survive from his collection are not impressions of the highest quality, he did manage to
acquire examples from many important printmakers. He did not travel abroad until
after he sold the collection to the Smithsonian, at which time he visited the print
cabinet at the Louvre in Paris and saw firsthand some superb old master prints.
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John Cranch |
As an artist, Cranch presumably acquired his collection for inspiration, although it
served as a reminder of his student years in Italy. Like Cranch, most Americans who
bought European prints in this period acquired them abroad. Cranch bought many
engravings after Raphael's and Michelangelo's works--traditional sources for artists
studying these giants of art history--that would not be available to him back home in
any significant number. His diary mentions the purchase of a skeleton, and he owned
engravings illustrating the muscles of the human body, presumably for anatomical
reference in his portrait work. The collection also contains American portrait prints
dating into the 1850s, suggesting that he acquired some contemporary work after his
return to the United States.
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