REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 55 



as a loan, first by the artist and later by his daughter, Miss Ruth B. 

 Moran, has been added to the gallery's permanent collections. In 

 May of the present year during a visit of Mr. Pratt to the gallery 

 he became deeply impressed with the national importance of this 

 great work, and soon after announced his willingness to contribute 

 $10,000 to its purchase. Miss Moran was so greatly pleased with 

 the prospect of having the picture become the property of the Nation, 

 thus retaining its place in the National Gallery, that she decided to 

 accept this amount. Moran may M-ell be regarded as our greatest 

 master of landscape, marvelously skilled with the pencil, the graver, 

 and the brush, and he was a colorist unsurpassed. After three visits 

 to the Yellowstone he chose this as the subject most worthy of his 

 crowning effort, and prepared the way for its realization by a multi- 

 tude of studies in pencil and water color. The canvas finally chosen 

 was so large — 8 by 14 feet — that it could not be accommodated in 

 his East Hampton studio and a near-by carpenter shop was utilized 

 for the purpose. The acquirement of this work is a triumph for the 

 National Gallery. 



SPECIAL EXHIBITS HELD IN THE GALLERY 



With the opening of the calendar year 1928 the gallery entered 

 upon a period of exceptional activity. Four important exhibits 

 followed one another in quick succession. The space required for 

 their installation was obtained by removing to storage the contents 

 of four of the main exhibition rooms of the gallery. This was made 

 less embarrassing by the withdrawal at the particular moment of the 

 McFadden collection of British old masters, which had occupied two 

 of the rooms for a number of years awaiting the completion of the 

 Philadelphia Museum of Art, in which institution they are destined 

 to find a permanent resting place. 



THE OSTERMAN COLLECTION 



It happened also at this time that the Henry Cleveland Perkins 

 collection of British and Dutch masters, exhibited for several years 

 in the northeast room of the gallery, was withdrawn, and in this room 

 the first of the series of exhibits, the remarkable collection of por- 

 traits with one figure subject, by Bernhard Osterman, of Stockholm, 

 Sweden, was installed. This exhibit, held under the patronage of 

 His Excellency, W. Bostrom, the Swedish minister in Washington, 

 was opened to the public January 11, a private view by special invi- 

 tation having been given on the 10th. An illustrated catalogue was 

 supplied by the artist, the foreword to which, by Christian Brinton, 

 is in part appropriately quoted in this place. 



