Outstanding Academic Title, Choice, 2015 Winner, Ewell Newman Award of the American Historical Print Collectors Society, 2016 In 1849 the Smithsonian purchased the Marsh Collection of European engravings. Not only the first collection of any kind to be acquired by the new Institution, it was also the first public print collection in the nation, and it presented an important symbol of cultural authority. The prints formed part of the library of Vermont Congressman George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882), a member of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents. The uncertainty of the Smithsonian's mission in the early years complicated its motivation for purchasing the collection, especially given Marsh’s position as a Regent in financial difficulty. After a serious fire in 1865, portions of the collection were deposited at the Library of Congress and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Efforts to reclaim it began in the 1880s, as a new generation of Smithsonian staff expanded the National Museum, but they achieved only mixed success. Through the story of the Marsh Collection, the book explores the cultural values attributed to prints in the 19th century, including their prominent role in expositions and their influence on visual culture at a time when collecting styles were moving from an individual’s private contemplation of artworks to wider public venues of exposition in museums and reception by multiple audiences. The history of this first Smithsonian collection enlivens an important stage in the development of American cultural identity and in the formation of the Smithsonian as a national institution.

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1849 edition. Excerpt: ...panel--a characteristic and good specimen. RAPHAEL, (Rafaele Sanzio, or Santi, ) born at TTrbino in 1483. "It is as difficult to characterize thia wonderfully endowed painter as it is to "characterize Shakspeare; he takes the same rank in Art that Shakspeare takes "in literature. Standing quite alone in the versatility, as well as the greatness "of his powers--unequalled in poetical dignity, grace and expression, as in fer"tility of invention--.one is as tired of tacking epithets to his name as to that of "Shakspeare, and the ' divine, ' and the ' immortal, ' are words which rather ex"press our own adoration than his desert;--add the personalqualities of the man "--his bright, gentle, generous spirit--his modesty, his beauty of person, his "young life crowned with glory, and his early death in the blaze of his fame, "which still shines on without dimness or eclipse, and shall do so while the "universe endures." Extract from Fuseli's Lectures. "If, separately taken, the line of Raphael has been excelled in correctness "elegance and energy; his colour far surpassed in tone, and truth and harmony "his masses in roundness, and his chiaro-oscuro in effect, --considered as instru"ments of pathos, they have never been equalled; and in composition, inven"tion, expression, and the power of telling a story, he has never been approached.'" No. 12.--RAPHAEL'S AMASIA, commonly called LA FOR NARINA--on panel--' the history of this person, to whom Raphael was attached "even to his death, is obscure, nor are we very clear in regard to her likenesses "In the Tribune, at Florence, there is a portrait, inscribed with the date 1512, of "a very beautiful...