Catalogue of the Paintings, Marble and Plaster Statuary and Engravings Comprised in the Collection of the Boston Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts, Corner of Tremont and Bromfield Streets.

“Admission to Museums and Gallery 25 cts. Catalogues 6¼ cents…”

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Scarce 1841 catalogue from the Boston Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts on Tremont Street, issued the same year the institution opened under the proprietorship of Moses Kimball. Admission to the Museum was 25 cents, with catalogues sold for 6¼ cents. Founded as a hybrid institution combining art display, public instruction, and popular entertainment, the Boston Museum quickly became a cultural landmark, predating the establishment of the Museum of Fine Arts by three decades.

The booklet lists just over 300 works of paintings, engravings, and marble and plaster statuary—representing an ambitious blend of fine art and patriotic commemoration in antebellum Boston.

The catalogue presents this early American museum collection, featuring works by prominent and unspecified artists of America and Europe. The museum’s collection held portraits of national figures, vernacular portraits, popular still life themes of the period, ......

Among the paintings and engravings are Washington’s family by E. Savage, Washington by Stuart, a self portrait by Benjamin West, a landscape by Brughel, Death of Absalom by Velasquez, Fruit Piece by Carravagio, several works by Copley, the Duke of Wellington by Charles Wilson Peale, various works by E. Savage, David Rittenhouse by Charles Wilson Peale, John Adams by Wm Stanley, Lt. Gov Gill and Wife by Copley,

Historical compositions include Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence, Benjamin West’s Death of General Wolfe, Battle of the Boyne, and Alfred dividing his Loaf with the Pilgrim, and John Singleton Copley’s dramatic Rescue of Brooke Watson from a Shark at Havana, Landing of Columbus by E. Savage. There is a long description of the painting Passage of the Delaware by T. Sully.

Other examples include portraits of Pocahontas (after Thomas Sully), a Choctaw warrior presented by Col. J. Jenkins, and the tragedian Thomas A. Cooper as Hamlet, “painted at 30 years of age.”

Landscapes and genre subjects include Mount Vesuvius in Eruption by F. Savage, Ship Yard at South Boston, with a distant View of the City (1830), Old Man Warming Himself by H. Inman, and a series of Grecian and domestic scenes.

The “Statuary, Busts, and Plaster Casts” section details the museum’s holdings included depictions of: Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Dr. Warren, Listening Slave, and Voltaire, alongside classical figures such as Apollo, Bacchus, Venus de Medici, Telemachus and Mentor, and Milton.

[[[[ :::::::DELETE this bullllll :::: [[These pairing of American patriots with European figures suggest the Museum’s attempt to place national heroes within the tradition of classical and Enlightenment ideals.xxxxx]]]]]]]]

Price: $150.00