10 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1953 



RENOVATION OF NATIONAL COLLECTION OF FINE ARTS 



A complete rearrangement of the paintings and art objects in the 

 National Collection of Fine Arts was completed in May under the 

 supervision of its director, Thomas M. Beggs. The collection, housed 

 in the Natural History Building, consists of several major bequests 

 to the Nation through the Smithsonian. Terms of the bequests some- 

 times require that the collections be preserved as entities, although 

 they often consist of paintings quite miscellaneous, both in subject 

 matter and style. Compliance with these terms sometimes has been 

 difficult, especially with the limited space available for exhibition of 

 constantly increasing material. This problem has been solved by the 

 rearrangement in which paintings from the different collections repre- 

 senting various nationalities are grouped in adjacent alcoves without 

 breaking up the integrity of any collection. 



Nucleus of the rearrangement is the Harriet Lane Johnston collec- 

 tion, bequeathed to the Nation by the niece of President James 

 Buchanan and First Lady of the White House during his administra- 

 tion. It was this bequest, quite typical of the Civil War period taste 

 in art and containing such relics as the Bible used by President 

 Buchanan at liis inauguration, that started the original National Gal- 

 lery of Art. This collection is maintained in its entirety in the new 

 arrangement. This is also true of the Kalph Cross Johnson, John 

 Gellatly, and Alfred Duane Pell collections. Other large collections 

 are represented by only a few examples. These include the William 

 T. Evans collection, the Henry Ward E anger bequest, and the A. R. 

 and M. H. Eddy donation. 



SUMMARY OF THE YEAR'S ACTIVITIES OF THE BRANCHES OF THE 



INSTITUTION 



National Museum. — The collections of the National Museum in- 

 creased by more than 1,607,000 specimens during the year, a million 

 more than the previous year, bringing the total catalog entries to 

 34,764,250. Some of the year's outstanding accessions included : In 

 anthropology, more than 300 chipped-stone artifacts from Dauphin 

 County, Pa. ; 2,000 potsherds from Transjordan and Palestine; and a 

 fine collection of ceramic ware representing New England folk pot- 

 tery ; in zoology, more than 1,000 mammals from South West Africa, 

 about 2,400 bird skins and skeletons from Colombia, 14,000 fishes from 

 Bermuda and the Caribbean, 14,000 ladybird beetles, and 3,200 iden- 

 tified polychaete worms; in botany, 45,000 plant specimens from 

 Ecuador and Colombia ; in geology, an array of minerals, gems, and 

 meteorites, 500,000 Arctic Foraminifera, and several excellent fossil 

 vertebrate remains ; in engineering and industries, about 500 radio and 

 electronic devices and a collection of lithographic materials and exiuip- 



