The papers of sculptor and portrait painter Henry Kirke Brown measure 1 linear feet and date from 1836 to 1893. The collection includes Brown's correspondence with his wife, Lydia Louise Udall, his nephew, Henry Kirke Bush-Brown, and other family members. Also included are letters from artists George Catlin, George Fuller, Sanford R. Gifford, James Reid Lambdin, Louis Lang, Erastus Dow Palmer, Hiram Powers, Horatio Stone, and others; five news clippings; and miscellaneous notes.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of sculptor and portrait painter Henry Kirke Brown measure 1 linear feet and date from 1836 to 1893. The collection includes Brown's correspondence with his wife, Lydia Louise Udall, his nephew, Henry Kirke Bush-Brown, and other family members. Also included are letters from artists George Catlin, George Fuller, Sanford R. Gifford, James Reid Lambdin, Louis Lang, Erastus Dow Palmer, Hiram Powers, Horatio Stone, and others; five news clippings; and miscellaneous notes.
Brown's lengthy letters to his wife reveal his devotion to her and the conflict he felt between his art and his personal life. He discusses his work, including progress on his statue of George Washington, located in Union Square, New York City. Letters to his family from Rome and Florence allude to his awe of Italy's monuments. Also included are letters from Washington, D.C. during Brown's tenure as a member of the U.S. Art Commission in the 1860s.
Arrangement:
Due to the small size of this collection the papers are arranged as one series.
Biographical / Historical:
Henry Kirke Brown (1814-1886) was an American sculptor and portrait painter born in Leyden, Massachusetts and died in Newburgh, New York.
Provenance:
The Henry Kirke Brown papers were donated to the Archives of American in 1981 by Dorothy Young, who acquired the papers from her husband, an art dealer.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center.
A letter to Robert W. de Forest of New York City from Elinor L. P. Lyon of Norwalk, Conn., stating her interest in the "Eagle picture" and making an offer to buy it (reel 2803); and
two letters to James Reid Lambdin from Samuel Putnam Avery, discussing paintings, frames, dealers, etc. (reel 3091).
Biographical / Historical:
Art dealer.
Other Title:
Robert W. de Forest papers (microfilm title).
James Reid Lambdin papers (microfilm title).
Provenance:
These letters were originally catalogued under the names of their recipients.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C., Research Center. Microfilmed materials must be consulted on microfilm. Contact Reference Services for more information.
Ca. 850 pages of selected art related excerpts from Sill's diaries. The diaries date from 1832 to 1854 and document his own painting activities, his association with the Artists and Amateurs Association, Artists' Fund Society, and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He gives his reactions to the work of other artists as seen in exhibitions in Philadelphia and New York, especially at the National Academy of Design, as well as in private collections. He writes about panoramas shown in Philadelphia, purchases of works of art for himself and others, commissions to artists to paint pictures for him, etc. In particular he writes frequently of his friend, the collector and patron Edward L. Carey, and of Carey's collection. He often mentions John Sartain, James R. Lambdin, Peter F. Rothermel, Daniel Huntington, Thomas Sully, William H. Furness, Emanuel Leutze, George L. Saunders, Samuel B. Waugh, Paul Weber, William J. Hubard, Monachesi, and John Neagle. He tells of the founding and subsequent activities of the Art-Union of Philadelphia; the sale of Joshua Shaw's paintings and his misfortunes; the work and ill natured personality of William Page; meeting with and a drawing and description of John J. Audubon; a controversy between Robert W. Weir and Samuel F. B. Morse about who will paint the Mayflower Compact; V. G. Audubon's efforts to get subscribers for his father's book; and Bowen's lithographic shop.
He characterizes Edward Watmough and William E. Winner.
Biographical / Historical:
Collector, amateur painter; Philadelphia, Pa.
Provenance:
Microfilmed for the Archives of American Art in 1955 by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Diaries donated to the Society by Edward Madiera.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Wylie, Samuel B. (Samuel Brown), 1773-1852 Search this
Extent:
2 Reels (ca. 150 items (on 2 partial microfilm reels))
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Reels
Date:
1760-1935
Scope and Contents:
Letters, mainly from artists, and documents selected from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's miscellaneous manuscript collection (Society Collection). Letters are to various people; 46 of them are to Townsend Ward and a few are to John A. McAllister, photographer. Many of the letters refer to paintings, portraits, commissions, and awards.
Writers of letters include: Edwin Austin Abbey, Mary Gertrude Abbey, F.W. Bayley, Albert Bierstadt, George Catlin, Joseph Ceracchi, John Gadsby Chapman, John Cheney, James Claypool, James Cox, F.O.C. Darley, Joseph Delaplaine, Humphrey Donnehue, William Dunlap, Pierre Eugene Du Simitiere, S. Eliot, Charles Fevret De Saint-Memin, Charles Dana Gibson, Harold Edgar Gillingham, Horatio Greenough, George Harding, Levi Hollingsworth, William Morris Hunt, Daniel Huntington, Henry Inman, Horatio Gates Jones, James Reid Lambdin, Will Hicok Low, Edward Dalton Marchant, William Henry Moody, John Neagle, Albert Newsam, Bass Otis, Thomas Paine, Charles Willson Peale, Franklin Peale, James Peale, Jr., Mary Jane Peale, Rembrandt Peale, Titian Ramsay Peale, Joseph Pennell, Clement Penrose, Robert Piggot, Thomas Buchanan Read, William Trost Richards, Thomas Prichard Rossiter, Peter Frederick Rothermel, William Rush, John Sartain, Stephen Alonzo Schooff (to Townsend Ward), Russell Smith, Charles H. Stephens, Thomas Sully, Philip Syng, John Vanderlyn, N.P. Willis, Alexander Wilson and Patience Wright.
Among the recipients of letters are Archibald Alexander, David S. Brown, William Belcher, Col. Brodhead, B. Burrell, Carey & Hart, Edward L. Carey, Henry C. Carey, Miss Clarke, Mr. Curren, Joseph Delaplaine, John Dickinson, Dr. Dickson, William Dillwyn, William Duane, James B. Elliott, Mrs. Langdon Elwyn, Mantle(?) Fielding, John W. Francis, Charles P. Hayes, David Hosack, Mr. Howell, Major William Jackson, Horatio Gates Jones, John W. Jordan, H.H. Kjmball, C.G. Leland, Joseph Leidy, J.B. Lippincott, George Livermore, James Madison, J. Hill Martin, John McAllister, James McMurtrie, James Monaghan, J. Murray, Albert Cook Myers, Rebecca and Isabella Nathans, John Neagle, C.S. Ogden, John Paca, Charles Willson Peale, Rembrandt Peale, David Rittenhouse, Albert Rosenthal, John Sartain, Jacob Schreiner, James Shrigley, James Ross Snowden, W.D. Snyder, Dr. Sommerville, J.C. Stanbridge, F.D. Stone, Henry Troth, Mr. Vaux, Townsend Ward, William Hill Wells, G.M. Wharton, Thomas Wharton, Henry J. Williams, and Samuel B. Wylie.
Other items include a sonnet of S.T. Coleridge by Washington Allston; business card of Pennel Beale; catalog of medals and coins of silver in the possession of Hon. John Smith compiled by Du Simitière, 1772; printed address by Mrs. John C. Montgomery soliciting donations for the repair of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, destroyed by fire, 1845; William Morris Hunt's admission ticket to Peale's Museum, 1836, stating his height and weight; description of objects on display at the Peale Museum, 1820; a photograph and business card of Benjamin Randolph; invitations and notes to Gilbert Stuart; typescript by Frank H. Taylor on lithography, 1923; subscription book for engravings of paintings by John Trumbull; and a page from John Archibald Woodside's daybook, 1802-1803.
Provenance:
Microfilmed by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania for the Archives of American Art, 1955.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Pamphlets, speeches, transactions, reviews, auction and exhibition catalogs, and other printed materials relating to art and art organizations mainly in the Philadelphia area, but also including New York, Boston, Baltimore, Louisianna, Europe and elsewhere. Among the societies represented are the National Academy of Design, National Art Association, Artists' Fund Society, Philadelphia Museum Company, Northern Society of Painters in Watercolor, American Art Union, Apollo Association, Columbian Society of Artists and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; correspondence between committees of the Artists Fund Society, headed by John Sartain, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; and charters and by-laws of the Artists Fund Society.
Biographical / Historical:
Portrait and miniature painter. Born in Pittsburgh, Pa. and studied art in Philadelphia under Edward Miles and Thomas Sully. Upon his return to Pittsburgh, he was a proprietor of a museum and oversaw his own art gallery. He later spent many years as an officer of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before his death in Philadelphia.
Provenance:
This collection was compiled by Lambdin and housed at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Lent for microfilming, 1955, by the PAFA.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Art, American -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia Search this
Photographs of 19th century artists, including Thomas Sully, Rembrandt Peale, Frederick de Bourg Richards, Edward Moran, John Moran, William Trost Richards, Edmund Darch Lewis, George Bacon Wood, Isaac Williams, James Reid Lambdin, Samuel Bell Waugh, Peter Frederick Rothermel, the Sartain family, the Sartain home, John Sartain, Samuel Sartain, William Sartain, Emily Sartain, Thomas Buchanan Read, Thomas Eakins's motion studies, the Pennsylvania State Capitol, group portraits of women from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Artists Fund Society, James S. Earle and Son, and the Fine Art Gallery at the Great Sanitary Fair.
Biographical / Historical:
Archive repository; Philadelphia, Pa.
Provenance:
Microfilmed in 1986 as part of AAA's Philadelphia Arts Documentation Project. Photographs were compiled from various collections of the Print Dept. of the Library Company of Philadelphia.
Restrictions:
The Archives of American art does not own the original papers. Use is limited to the microfilm copy.
Topic:
Photograph collections -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- Photographs Search this
Photography -- Early works to 1900 -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- Photographs Search this
Artists -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia -- Photographs Search this
These records are the official minutes of the Board. They are compiled at the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian, who is also secretary to the Board, after
approval by the Regents' Executive Committee and by the Regents themselves. The minutes are edited, not a verbatim account of proceedings. For reasons unknown, there are no
manuscript minutes for the period from 1857 through 1890; and researchers must rely on printed minutes published in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution instead.
Minutes are transferred regularly from the Secretary's Office to the Archives. Minutes less than 15 years old are closed to researchers. Indexes exist for the period from
1907 to 1946 and can be useful.
Historical Note:
The Smithsonian Institution was created by authority of an Act of Congress approved August 10, 1846. The Act entrusted direction of the Smithsonian to a body called
the Establishment, composed of the President; the Vice President; the Chief Justice of the United States; the secretaries of State, War, Navy, Interior, and Agriculture; the
Attorney General; and the Postmaster General. In fact, however, the Establishment last met in 1877, and control of the Smithsonian has always been exercised by its Board of
Regents. The membership of the Regents consists of the Vice President and the Chief Justice of the United States; three members each of the Senate and House of Representatives;
two citizens of the District of Columbia; and seven citizens of the several states, no two from the same state. (Prior to 1970 the category of Citizen Regents not residents
of Washington consisted of four members). By custom the Chief Justice is Chancellor. The office was at first held by the Vice President. However, when Millard Fillmore succeeded
to the presidency on the death of Zachary Taylor in 1851, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney was chosen in his stead. The office has always been filled by the Chief Justice
since that time.
The Regents of the Smithsonian have included distinguished Americans from many walks of life. Ex officio members (Vice President) have been: Spiro T. Agnew, Chester A.
Arthur, Allen W. Barkley, John C. Breckenridge, George Bush, Schuyler Colfax, Calvin Coolidge, Charles Curtis, George M. Dallas, Charles G. Dawes, Charles W. Fairbanks, Millard
Fillmore, Gerald R. Ford, John N. Garner, Hannibal Hamlin, Thomas A. Hendricks, Garret A. Hobart, Hubert H. Humphrey, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, William R. King, Thomas
R. Marshall, Walter F. Mondale, Levi P. Morton, Richard M. Nixon, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Theodore Roosevelt, James S. Sherman, Adlai E. Stevenson, Harry S. Truman, Henry A.
Wallace, William A. Wheeler, Henry Wilson.
Ex officio members (Chief Justice) have been: Roger B. Taney, Salmon P. Chase, Nathan Clifford, Morrison R. Waite, Samuel F. Miller, Melville W. Fuller, Edward D. White,
William Howard Taft, Charles Evans Hughes, Harlan F. Stone, Fred M. Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren E. Burger.
Regents on the part of the Senate have been: Clinton P. Anderson, Newton Booth, Sidney Breese, Lewis Cass, Robert Milledge Charlton, Bennet Champ Clark, Francis M. Cockrell,
Shelby Moore Cullom, Garrett Davis, Jefferson Davis, George Franklin Edmunds, George Evans, Edwin J. Garn, Walter F. George, Barry Goldwater, George Gray, Hannibal Hamlin,
Nathaniel Peter Hill, George Frisbie Hoar, Henry French Hollis, Henry M. Jackson, William Lindsay, Henry Cabot Lodge, Medill McCormick, James Murray Mason, Samuel Bell Maxey,
Robert B. Morgan, Frank E. Moss, Claiborne Pell, George Wharton Pepper, David A. Reed, Leverett Saltonstall, Hugh Scott, Alexander H. Smith, Robert A. Taft, Lyman Trumbull,
Wallace H. White, Jr., Robert Enoch Withers.
Regents on the part of the House of Representatives have included: Edward P. Boland, Frank T. Bow, William Campbell Breckenridge, Overton Brooks, Benjamin Butterworth,
Clarence Cannon, Lucius Cartrell, Hiester Clymer, William Colcock, William P. Cole, Jr., Maurice Connolly, Silvio O. Conte, Edward E. Cox, Edward H. Crump, John Dalzell, Nathaniel
Deering, Hugh A. Dinsmore, William English, John Farnsworth, Scott Ferris, Graham Fitch, James Garfield, Charles L. Gifford, T. Alan Goldsborough, Frank L. Greene, Gerry Hazleton,
Benjamin Hill, Henry Hilliard, Ebenezer Hoar, William Hough, William M. Howard, Albert Johnson, Leroy Johnson, Joseph Johnston, Michael Kirwan, James T. Lloyd, Robert Luce,
Robert McClelland, Samuel K. McConnell, Jr., George H. Mahon, George McCrary, Edward McPherson, James R. Mann, George Perkins Marsh, Norman Y. Mineta, A. J. Monteague, R.
Walton Moore, Walter H. Newton, Robert Dale Owen, James Patterson, William Phelps, Luke Poland, John Van Schaick Lansing Pruyn, B. Carroll Reece, Ernest W. Roberts, Otho Robards
Singleton, Frank Thompson, Jr., John M. Vorys, Hiram Warner, Joseph Wheeler.
Citizen Regents have been: David C. Acheson, Louis Agassiz, James B. Angell, Anne L. Armstrong, William Backhouse Astor, J. Paul Austin, Alexander Dallas Bache, George
Edmund Badger, George Bancroft, Alexander Graham Bell, James Gabriel Berrett, John McPherson Berrien, Robert W. Bingham, Sayles Jenks Bowen, William G. Bowen, Robert S. Brookings,
John Nicholas Brown, William A. M. Burden, Vannevar Bush, Charles F. Choate, Jr., Rufus Choate, Arthur H. Compton, Henry David Cooke, Henry Coppee, Samuel Sullivan Cox, Edward
H. Crump, James Dwight Dana, Harvey N. Davis, William Lewis Dayton, Everette Lee Degolyer, Richard Delafield, Frederic A. Delano, Charles Devens, Matthew Gault Emery, Cornelius
Conway Felton, Robert V. Fleming, Murray Gell-Mann, Robert F. Goheen, Asa Gray, George Gray, Crawford Hallock Greenwalt, Nancy Hanks, Caryl Parker Haskins, Gideon Hawley,
John B. Henderson, John B. Henderson, Jr., A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Gardner Greene Hubbard, Charles Evans Hughes, Carlisle H. Humelsine, Jerome C. Hunsaker, William Preston
Johnston, Irwin B. Laughlin, Walter Lenox, Augustus P. Loring, John Maclean, William Beans Magruder, John Walker Maury, Montgomery Cunningham Meigs, John C. Merriam, R. Walton
Moore, Roland S. Morris, Dwight W. Morrow, Richard Olney, Peter Parker, Noah Porter, William Campbell Preston, Owen Josephus Roberts, Richard Rush, William Winston Seaton,
Alexander Roby Shepherd, William Tecumseh Sherman, Otho Robards Singleton, Joseph Gilbert Totten, John Thomas Towers, Frederic C. Walcott, Richard Wallach, Thomas J. Watson,
Jr., James E. Webb, James Clarke Welling, Andrew Dickson White, Henry White, Theodore Dwight Woolsey.
L. R. (Louis Remy) Mignot. L. R. (Louis Remy) Mignot, New York, N.Y. letter to James Reid Lambdin, Philadelphia, Pa., 1857 December 31. Charles Henry Hart autograph collection, 1731-1918. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
