THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART 51 



until its transfer to the Library of Congress in 1 866. The port- 

 folios of prints and other art volumes were kept there, and a 

 number of busts were arranged upon the cases. The range was 

 fitted up as a reading room, but for a time contained many 

 paintings and other art objects. 



It was not until 1855 that the main section of the building 

 was completed. Its upper story, measuring 200 feet long by 

 50 feet wide and 29 feet 3 inches high, was divided into three 

 rooms, the middle one, about 100 feet long, being furnished and 

 used as a lecture hall. Of the rooms on either side, each 50 

 feet square, the eastern was appropriated to a museum of appa- 

 ratus, the western to art purposes. The latter, generally spoken 

 of as the gallery of art, was mainly occupied by Indian paint- 

 ings, including the famous Stanley collection and a large series 

 made for the Government. The Regents' room, on the corre- 

 sponding floor of the south tower, also contained a few paint- 

 ings. A disastrous fire in January, 1865, burned out the entire 

 second floor and both main towers, destroying their contents 

 and leaving of the art collections practically only such objects 

 as were displayed on the main floor. The loss and disarrange- 

 ments thus occasioned had a prolonged effect in retarding the 

 development of the department of art. 



NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE ART COLLECTIONS 

 UNDER THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



1846, 1847 



CATUN INDIAN GALLERY 



The first references to a specific art collection in the records 

 of the Institution relate to Catlin's celebrated series of por- 

 traits and other paintings of North American Indians. At a 

 meeting of the Board of Regents on December 9, 1846, "Mr. 

 Seaton presented a communication from Mr. George Catlin, 

 accompanied by a printed catalogue of his Indian Gallery, 

 offering his collection of Indian memorials to the Smithsonian 

 Institution, which was referred to the Committee on the for- 

 mation of a library." The subject was again brought up on 



