50 ANNUAL, REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 



mission. Owing to the nonacceptance of election to membership 

 on the commission of Mr. Denman Koss, Mr. James E. Fraser was 

 elected to fill his place, and owing to a wrong understanding of the 

 resignation of Mr. French, which was intended merely as resignation 

 as chairman of the commission and not from membership in the com- 

 mission, Mr. Joseph E. Breck was selected to fill the supposed 

 vacancy. Mr. Breck, however, declined the appointment, making 

 possible the restoration of Mr. French to the commission from which 

 his resignation had been accepted under a misapprehension. 



A special meeting of the gallery commission was held in the 

 Regents' room of the Institution February 11, 1924, to consider the 

 report of the committee appointed at the December 11 meeting of 

 the commission to complete the raising of the $10,000 fund estimated 

 as required for the preparation of preliminary plans for a national 

 gallery building. Six members of the commission were present — 

 Gari Melchers, James Parmelee, Herbert Adams, Charles Moore, 

 Charles D. Walcott, and W. H. Holmes. The funds committee of 

 three, Messrs. Parmelee, Moore, and Walcott, reported that $11,000 

 had been subscribed. The commission then proceeded to consider 

 the question of the character of the proposed building, after which, 

 complying with the request of the Board of Regents of the Institu- 

 tion, a vote was taken on the selection of an architect to prepare 

 plans. The vote of members present, supplemented later by votes of 

 those not present at the meeting, resulted in the naming of Charles 

 A. Piatt. 



The advisory committee on acceptance of works of art met on 

 December 15, 1923, and the following works, received subsequently 

 to the previous annual meeting but in large part listed in the annual 

 report for 1923, were favorably considered: Twenty-two paintings 

 in pastel, comprising 71 portraits of survivors of the Civil War, 

 Federal and Confederate, 50 years after the Battle of Appomattox, 

 painted by Waiter Beck; gift of the artist. Thirteen portraits 

 painted by eminent American artists and representing distinguished 

 leaders of American and allied nations in the war with Germany; 

 presented by the national art committee. Bust in bronze of Jeanne 

 d'Arc, by Madame Berthe Girardet; presented to the American 

 Nation by the artist, through Mrs. John Jacob Hoff , in these words : 

 "To the American people in memory of what our soldier boys have 

 done in France at a crucial time of need " ; acceptance by the Smith- 

 sonian Institution was approved by the committee. Mantel of carved 

 white holly, with fireplace of pink Numidian marble, from the 

 recently demolished residence of the late Benjamin H. Warder, 1515 

 K Street NW., Washington, D. C, Henry Hobson Richardson, archi- 

 tect; gift of William W. W. Parker. Four paintings. The Storm, 



