The Ferris Collection of Prints

S. J. Ferris Self-portrait

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

Snake Charmer

Given his father’s interest in North African subjects painted by artists like Mariano Fortuny, it is not surprising that the region inspired young Gerome Ferris’s 1877 etching Arab Snake Charmer. Fourteen-year-old Gerome learned to etch from his father.
Description
Given his father’s interest in North African subjects painted by artists like Mariano Fortuny, it is not surprising that the region inspired young Gerome Ferris’s 1877 etching Arab Snake Charmer. Fourteen-year-old Gerome learned to etch from his father. He later entered the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at the age of sixteen.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1877
graphic artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.14438.03
accession number
94830
catalog number
14438.03

Christopher Columbus Dying

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.
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

Girl Holding Lamb

Gerome Ferris etched this print after French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s (1825–1905) New Born Lamb, painted in 1873. Ferris’s print appeared in the catalog for the 1887 New York auction of the A. T.
Description
Gerome Ferris etched this print after French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s (1825–1905) New Born Lamb, painted in 1873. Ferris’s print appeared in the catalog for the 1887 New York auction of the A. T. Stewart collection, as a reproductive etching advertising the painting for sale.
Gerome Ferris had studied with Bouguereau in Paris in 1884 at the Académie Julian, a co-ed art school with no entrance exams and low fees. An academic-style painter, Bouguereau’s work was highly regarded in his day.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1887
original artist
Bouguereau, William-Adolphe
graphic artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.14560
catalog number
14560
accession number
94830

Egyptian Street Scene

James David Smillie etched Frederick Arthur Bridgman’s painting of a Middle Eastern street scene Lady of Cairo Visiting for the American Art Review issue of June 1881.
Description
James David Smillie etched Frederick Arthur Bridgman’s painting of a Middle Eastern street scene Lady of Cairo Visiting for the American Art Review issue of June 1881. Commenting on the issue, the New York Times noted that Smillie had been “particularly happy in his drawing” of the donkey, which appears prominently in the print.
A catalogue raisonné of Smillie’s prints has estimated that about 10,000 impressions of this scene were made, primarily for use as art magazine illustrations. To produce such a large number of prints from a copper plate, a soft metal that deteriorates with use, the publishers would have had to face the copper by electroplating. In this process (known as “steel facing”), a thin layer of iron is deposited on the copper plate.
Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847–1928) trained with Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris and later was known as “the American Gérôme.” He made a number of trips from his Paris base to North Africa and Egypt to sketch and collect artifacts for his paintings of Egyptian and Algerian subjects.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1881
original artist
Bridgman, Frederick Arthur
graphic artist
Smillie, James David
ID Number
GA.14802
catalog number
14802
accession number
94830

Maine Coast

James David Smillie etched Old Cedars, Coast of Maine, one of his best known prints, for the American Art Review, which published it in October 1880.
Description
James David Smillie etched Old Cedars, Coast of Maine, one of his best known prints, for the American Art Review, which published it in October 1880. The print reproduced his own watercolor, painted while on holiday in the summer of 1879 in Kennebunkport.
For this print, as detailed in his journal, Smillie made a drawing of the watercolor and transferred it to a prepared plate. Originality was not an issue at this time. Artists sometimes etched replicas after their own work in other media. Most highly valued, however, were the etchings conceived and then drawn directly on the plate.
The popularity of Old Cedars is indicated by the attempt of German painter-etcher Hans Friedrich Emanuel Schennis (1852–1918) to pass off his copy in reverse as the original print. However, Schennis’s fraud was exposed and the fake and the original were shown together in a New York exhibition in 1885.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1880
graphic artist
Smillie, James David
ID Number
GA.14869
catalog number
14869
accession number
94830

Dock Scene, Massachusetts

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.
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

Farm in Winter

Stephen Parrish etched November in February 1880, not long after his first lesson in the art from painter-etcher Peter Moran in November 1879. It was the first print that Parrish sold. Sylvester R.
Description
Stephen Parrish etched November in February 1880, not long after his first lesson in the art from painter-etcher Peter Moran in November 1879. It was the first print that Parrish sold. Sylvester R. Koehler selected the etching for publication in the American Art Review, where it appeared in the November 1880 issue. (It reappeared in several subsequent publications.) Parrish was prepared to take great pains over many months to rework the print to satisfy Kohler. Parrish felt “my bow to the public through the medium of the Review is, to me, a very important matter.”
The print shows a farm in winter in the Adirondack region of upstate New York. The area was extremely popular with American landscape artists who focused on its scenic beauty. Parrish, however, chose a bleak view of a local farm for his subject.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1880
1880-02
graphic artist
Parrish, Stephen
ID Number
GA.14892
catalog number
14892
accession number
94830

Two Women Seated

Sallie Rayen made this poignant etching, showing a tearful young woman and her sympathetic companion, under the supervision of Stephen Ferris in March 1880. She dedicated it: “To Mr.
Description
Sallie Rayen made this poignant etching, showing a tearful young woman and her sympathetic companion, under the supervision of Stephen Ferris in March 1880. She dedicated it: “To Mr. Ferris with compliments of his pupil Sallie Rayen.” Ferris generously helped artists with their etching technique.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1880-03-25
1880
graphic artist
Rayen, Sallie
ID Number
GA.14931
catalog number
14931
accession number
94830

The Bonapartes at an Inn

Gerome Ferris recorded his painting The Bonapartes, 1804 in detail in this ink drawing. We do not know whether he made the drawing before the painting as a guide or afterward as a record, and the current location of the painting is unknown.
Description
Gerome Ferris recorded his painting The Bonapartes, 1804 in detail in this ink drawing. We do not know whether he made the drawing before the painting as a guide or afterward as a record, and the current location of the painting is unknown. He researched the historic details in depth to ensure his picture was accurate. He took pride in his chosen calling, painter-historian, which he seriously pursued from about 1900.
The drawing shows Jerome Bonaparte, Napoleon Bonaparte’s youngest brother, and his American wife, Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore, at an inn during their travels in the United States. Jerome Bonaparte had taken refuge here during the Napoleonic Wars and married during his stay in this country. A furious Napoleon rejected Jerome’s American wife, who returned to the United States. Jerome married again to support his brother’s dynastic ambition.
Location
Currently not on view
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16616
catalog number
16616
accession number
119780

Donkey Shearing, Seville

Gerome Ferris made this ink drawing in 1882 while on a trip to southern Spain with his father. The drawing demonstrates a sure hand.Currently not on view
Description
Gerome Ferris made this ink drawing in 1882 while on a trip to southern Spain with his father. The drawing demonstrates a sure hand.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1881
1882
original artist
Ferris, Jean Leon Gerome
ID Number
GA.16622.02
catalog number
16622.02
accession number
119780

Marguerite of Anjou

In 1858 the painter Christian Schussele gave his friend Stephen Ferris this watercolor design for the title page of Jacob Abbott’s book Margaret of Anjou published in 1861. Ferris and his son Gerome studied with Schussele.Currently not on view
Description
In 1858 the painter Christian Schussele gave his friend Stephen Ferris this watercolor design for the title page of Jacob Abbott’s book Margaret of Anjou published in 1861. Ferris and his son Gerome studied with Schussele.
Location
Currently not on view
original artist
Schussele, Christian
ID Number
GA.16640
catalog number
16640
accession number
119780

Arab Mourning

Mariano Fortuny captured the intense grief of an Arab mourning a dead friend in this stark 1866 etching Arabe Veillant le Corps de son Ami.Fortuny had witnessed Moroccan life at first hand during several visits, the first in 1859, when he accompanied the troops of Spanish General
Description
Mariano Fortuny captured the intense grief of an Arab mourning a dead friend in this stark 1866 etching Arabe Veillant le Corps de son Ami.
Fortuny had witnessed Moroccan life at first hand during several visits, the first in 1859, when he accompanied the troops of Spanish General Juan Prim. A nineteenth-century critic praised Fortuny’s scratchy (egratigné) and gritty (grignoté) etching technique as very original and of the greatest interest. Another critic commented on the remarkable effect of color in the print. Even in black and white, Fortuny’s much admired sense of color is evident.
This print is one of twenty-eight Fortuny etchings issued by the Parisian publisher Goupil after the artist’s death in Rome at age thirty-six. Stephen Ferris, a great admirer of Fortuny, owned impressions of many of his prints.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1866
original artist
Fortuny y Carbo, Mariano
publisher
Goupil & Cie.
graphic artist
Delatre
ID Number
GA.16763
catalog number
16763
accession number
119780

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