"This superb cast was brought from the South Kensington Museum, London, and consists of 46 pieces. Similar casts at Philadelphia and at the Yale College school of art are the only ones on this continent, and it is said the Italian government has interdicted any more to be taken from the original. Ghiberti was a goldsmith, and from the goldsmiths' guild arose the great sculptors in bronze. . . . The cast of this gate as it stands is 18 feet 2 inches high by 12 feet 6 inches wide exclusive of the walnut frame, which makes it altogether 19 feet 7 inches high by 14 feet 6 inches wide." [P. 7-8; excerpted from two page commentary on iconography and criticism of panels.]
Catalogue of the Paintings, Statuary, Casts, Bronzes, &c. of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C. Gibson Brothers, Printers, 1874.