Selected papers from the Carey and Pennington family papers, and the Henry Carey Baird papers, relating to art, artists, engraving and publishing.
Included are: nine letters from Benjamin Tanner to Mathew Carey, Mar.12, 1794-Dec. 3, 1794, about engraving maps of China and Russia from copper plates for Carey; letters to Henry C. Carey from Thomas Buchanan Read, 1856, inviting Carey to spend an evening with him to meet Frank Goodrich, Paris correspondent of the New York Times; from Rembrandt Peale, 1859, announcing an exhibition of his paintings at his home with a view of disposing of them; from D.H. Mason, 1872, regarding an exchange of portraits and other subjects; from Charles Robert Leslie, 1834-1859 (7 items), about Leslie's position as Drawing Master at West Point, a proposed visit to England, Leslie's opinion of Paris, and other subjects;
from Daniel Huntington, 1850-1870 (5 items), concerning borrowing a printing copies of Carey's paintings; from Thomas Sully, 1862, thanking Carey for his approval of Sully's son's conduct as a soldier; and three receipts to Carey for subscriptions to the Sully Fund for the years 1868, 1869, and 1871, signed by James Claghorn, Treasurer. Edward L. Carey papers include a letter from F.O.C. Darley, April 21, 1845, about designs for "Simon Luggs"; from William Page, Mar. 17, 1843, wishing to exhibit "Young Traders" at the National Academy; and from John Cheney, Nov. 18, 1843, about his brother and the artist Daniel Huntington; an account of Powers' bust of Proserpine once owned by Carey; and a resoultion of the National Academy of Design regarding the death of Carey, June 23, 1845.
Items selected from the Henry Carey Baird papers include: copyright papers and letters to Baird, 1845-1855, relating to the publication of Thomas Bangs Thorpe's book The Mysteries of the Backwoods; two letters from Thomas Sully, July 6, 1856, reminding Baird of the portrait, and Dec. 2, 1857, regarding Baird's paper on the "money panic"; a letter from John Sartain, May 24, 1850, ordering 75 cuts of flowers for some books being prepared; from John Rogers, Nov. 28, 1872, about Carey's "Unity of Law"; from William Mason, June 5, 1851, concerning some drawings of Mason's spinning machine; from Daniel Huntington, May 22 and July 27, 1850 about two paintings loaned by Carey and the delay in returning them; and a letter from P.S. Duval, Jan. 5, 1852, about drawings of 8 plates of flowers, done to test lithography for that type of work.
Two items from the Pennington family section include a clipping of "Penn's Treaty with the Indians" by Benjamin West, owned by Henry Pennington; and a letter to John Pennington from G. McMurtrie, 1853, regarding Thomas Sully.
Biographical / Historical:
Carey, Baird and Pennington families were prominent in publishing, politics, and cultural and economic affairs of Pennsylvania.
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.
Letter from Benjamin West to Samuel Adams, May 12, 1788, about Mathew(?) Carey, and a letter from Samuel West to Henry Carey, 1820, about Benjamin West.
Biographical / Historical:
Publishing Co., Philadelphia, Pa.
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.
The collection of artists' letters compiled by Mary and John McGuigan Jr. measure 0.6 linear feet and date from 1794-1938. The collection is comprised of a group of letters, writings, and signed documents to and from a variety of artists, art administrators, art critics, historians, and art-related organizations assembled from multiple sources. It also includes associated printed material with some documents and a few photographs, including carte de visites and cabinet cards.
Scope and Contents:
The collection of artists' letters compiled by Mary and John McGuigan Jr. measure 0.6 linear feet and date from 1794-1938. The collection is comprised of a group of letters, writings, and signed documents to and from a variety of artists, art administrators, art critics, historians, and art-related organizations assembled from multiple sources. It also includes associated printed material with some documents and a few photographs, including carte de visites and cabinet cards.
Item descriptions included in the container listing were provided by Mary and John McGuigan and illuminate the wide range of artists and types of material represented in the collection. While some of the letters document routine transactions such as responses to requests for information, and transmittals of autographs, others document specific artist commissions and projects, exhibition and financial arrangements, business relationships, family events, and travels. The collection includes documentation of portrait painters, including Chester Harding and Rembrandt Peale; nineteenth century landscape artists and artists of the Hudson River School including Albert Bierstadt, George Henry Boughton, Samuel Colman, Jasper Francis Cropsey, and George Inness; sculptors including Daniel Chester French whose letters include sixty-three letters to Charles Dupuy, the caretaker of French's summer home in Massachusetts; publishers such as Mathew Carey, in letters from John Neagle; and the activities of arts institutions such as the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.
In addition to those mentioned above, letters and signed documents are from Washington Allston, William Holbrook Beard, Eugene Benson, William Tilden Blodgett, Jr., James Renwick Brevoort, Frederic Edwin Church, James Claghorn, John Singleton Copley, Kenyon Cox, F.O.C. Darley, Joseph DeCamp, Frank Duveneck, John Mackie Falconer, Horatio Greenough, Childe Hassam, Ignaz Michael Marcel Gaugengigl, George Healy, George Hollingsworth, William Morris Hunt, Daniel Huntington, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington, Henry Inman, Hugh Bolton Jones, Thomas Dow Jones, Louis Ashton Knight, Charles Robert Leslie, Will Low, Frederick William MacMonnies, Frank Blackwell Mayer, Samuel F. B. Morse, Erastus Dow Palmer, Rubens Peale, Elizabeth Robins Pennell, Tobias (Toby) Edward Rosenthal, John Singer Sargent, George Henry Smillie, Marie Spartali Stillman, William James Stillman, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Abbott Handerson Thayer, Charles Yardley Turner, Stephen Arnold Douglas Volk, William Walcutt, Henry Antonio Wenzler, Benjamin West, Stanford White, Worthington Whittredge, and others.
The collection also includes a friendship album belonging to William Tilden Blodgett, Jr., with poems, sketches, and botanical watercolors, eight photographs including carte de visites and cabinet cards with images of George Hollingsworth, Thomas Dow Jones, Louis Ashton Knight, Henry Antonio Wenzler, and William Walcutt, and two photographs of a model used by Francis Blackwell Mayer when painting The Burning of the Peggy Stewart.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 1 series.
Biographical / Historical:
Mary K. McGuigan and John F. McGuigan Jr. are art historians and collectors in Milford, Pennsylvania.
Provenance:
John F. McGuigan Jr. and Mary K. McGuigan purchased these letters and generously donated them to the Archives of American Art between 2000 and 2019. The McGuigans have purchased and donated additional archival materials to the Archives, including a portion of the Douglas Volk and Leonard Wells Volk papers. In 2017 the McGuigans donated an addition to the Sylvester Rosa Koehler papers, including sixty-nine letters from A. Barry, Truman Howe Bartlett, William Merritt Chase, Timothy Cole, Edward Henry Clement, Cyrus Edwin Dallin, Robert Swain Gifford, George Inness, Anna Lea Merritt, Stephen Parrish, John Sartain, Francis Hopkinson Smith, and Frederic Porter Vinton.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
