Print shows Eugene Delacroix's interpretation of the execution of the Venetian Doge (chief magistrate) Marino Faliero in 1355. The original painting is in the Wallace Collection, London, England.
French artist Paul Delaroche (1797–1856) painted several subjects from English history that were published as popular prints. He incorporated the realistic detail of genre painting into dramatic historical scenes suited to the taste of the time. His painting, The Children of Edward IV, completed in 1831 and now in the Louvre Museum, pictures Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York, in the Tower of London awaiting Edward's coronation – or possibly another fate. In an emotional moment, they hear footsteps. Listening carefully, Richard thinks they are saved, but Edward understands that they are still in danger. The traditional view, based on Shakespeare's play Richard III, is that the princes were murdered in the Tower. Some historians blame their uncle, who succeeded to the English throne as Richard III, while others suspect his successor Henry VII who actually had more to gain from their deaths. New research suggests there may have been another factor, such as a terminal illness, which has been overlooked due to the dramatic power of Shakespeare's text.
Interest in Delaroche's painting inspired a new play by Casimir Delavigne (1793–1843), The Children of Edward. First performed in Paris in 1833, the play in turn inspired a suite of prints titled The Sons of Edward that were printed by the relatively new process of lithography. Lithography, literally drawing on stone, allowed artists to reproduce works more quickly than traditional engraving. Speed was important to capture the market created by the production of Delavigne's play, and lithography offered excellent contrasts of dark and light to heighten the suspense in the picture. The lithograph was designed by Octave Tassaert (1800–1874), an artist known for prints and paintings that conveyed a psychological approach to emotions, which is visible in the brothers' expressions. It was drawn by Hippolyte Garnier (1802–1855) and printed by Delaunois. Theatrical scenes have always been popular as prints, and an American collector donated this print and another from the series to the Museum in 1920.
This lithograph, Passage de l’armé française à; l’hospice du Mont Saint-Bernard 15 Mai 1800 by Hippolyte Bellangé, shows Napoleon’s daring crossing of the Alps via the Great St. Bernard Pass on the Italian-Swiss border with his army of 40,000 men. It was published with eleven other military views, including the Battle of Marengo, in a portfolio. Entitled Souvenirs militaires de la Republique, du Consulat et de l’Empire (Military Memories of the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire), the firm of Gihaut introduced the album in 1834. It was the last but one in an annual series that Bellangé inaugurated in 1823. The prints in these portfolios included military views and some genre scenes.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
ID Number
1979.0735.11
accession number
1979.0735
catalog number
1979.0735.11
Description
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded in 1909. The organization created the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963.
Program for 1946's first Negro League East-West All-Star Game, held on August 15 at Griffith Park, Washington DC, home of the Homestead Grays. There would be a second East-West Game held three days later at Chicago's Comiskey Park.
The game was won by the Eastern stars by a score of 6-3. The start of the contest was delayed by the National League players refusal to play due to a financial dispute. Theor strike lasted 15 minutes before being settled behind the scenes.
Newark Eagle Larry Doby had two hits and two runs scored along with a stolen base. The next year, Doby became the second African American in Major League Baseball, and first in the American League, joining the Cleveland Indians following Jackie Robinson's breaking of the League's infamous color barrier.
Convention badge worn by Nannie Helen Burroughs. Burroughs was an officer of the Women’s Convention, Auxiliary to the National Baptist Convention, for over forty years.
Baseball, signed by various Negro League stars. These players played the majority of their careers between 1935-1950.
Autographs include Jimmie Crutchfield; Monte Irvin; Buck Leonard; Quincy Troppe; Chico Renfroe; Buck O'Neil; Connie Johnson; Chet Brewer; Pat Patterson; Satchel Paige; Joe Black; Minne Minoso; Judy Johnson; Andy Porter; Sammy T. Hughes; Hilton Smith; Newton Allen.
Baseball awarded to Walter Fenner "Buck" Leonard (1907-1997), star first baseman of the Negro League's Homestead Grays, while playing winter baseball in Puerto Rico in 1941.
Baseball awarded to Walter Fenner "Buck" Leonard (1907-1997), star first baseman of the Negro League's Homestead Grays, while playing winter baseball in Mexico in 1953.
Baseball awarded to Walter Fenner "Buck" Leonard (1907-1997), star first baseman of the Negro League's Homestead Grays, while playing winter baseball in Cuba in 1949.
A poster highlighting Fannie Lou Hammer, 1917-1977. Hammer was a community organizer, and voting and women's rights activist. She was a co-founder and vice chair of the Freedom Democratic Party and a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus.
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.
This is a round collegiate button that is white with blue printing stating, "Bates Must Play! N.Y.U. - Mo Game." This is a button from the 1940 student lead protest of the N.Y.U. football program and N.Y.U. administration for holding star fullback, Leonard Bates, out of the coming contest against the University of Missouri. The student leaders of the protest (known as the Bates Seven) were suspended from N.Y.U. for three months due to the protests.
While it is well documented that southern football teams and institutions of higher education barred African Americans from participation, it is often forgot that northern schools played a role in this as well. Bates was being held out of the game due to a "Gentlemen's agreement" that black players would not play against teams that had rules against black athletes. Despite the signatures of 4,000 students and the presence of 2,000 students in a picket line, N.Y.U. leadership would not allow Bates to participate in the contest. N.Y.U. would lose to Missouri 33-0. The suspension would cause the students to take extra courses in order to graduate on time, although two of them would never get their degree (one due to the fact he returned home to England to fight in World War II). Many of the northern schools that participated in the so-called “Gentlemen’s Agreement” would stop bending to southern whims as pressure from politicians and students mounted after World War II.
N.Y.U. football began play in 1873 but the program ended permanently in 1952. However, N.Y.U. has left a permanent mark on college football as the Heisman Trophy is modeled after N.Y.U. running back Ed Smith. The Downtown Athletic Club honored Smith with his own honorary Heisman Trophy in 1985.