448 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1954 



Albans and the Cathedral Choir School in "Washington, the hospital 

 wing bearing her name at Johns Hopkins, and the Harriet Lane Home 

 for Invalid Children in Baltimore are outstanding among her generous 

 benefactions. 



Though not a memorial gift, the Harriet Lane Johnston Collection 

 very appropriately commemorates in Washington the exemplary 

 public lives of both its gracious donor and her gallant guardian. In 

 addition to the memorabilia, paintings, and sculptures already men- 

 tioned, the following are noteworthy. The Italian Renaissance is 

 represented by Bernardino Luini's (c. 1450-1535) "Madonna and 

 Child," and the Dutch and Flemish of a century later by Franz Pour- 

 bus's (1569-1622) "Josepha Boegart," more Englisli than Belgian in 

 appearance. There is also a portrait of Harriet's continental com- 

 panion, Madame Tulp, by the Dutch painter Jansen Van Ceulen 

 ( 1593-1661 ) . Paintings of English ladies were sought for the walls of 

 her stately parlors as agreeable reminders of the tour of duty in Great 

 Britain. Portraits of Mrs. Hammond, by Reynolds (1723-1792) ; 

 Mrs. Abington, by Hoppner (1758-1810) ; and Miss Kirkpatrick, by 

 Romney (1734-1802), have found places with Lady Essex, by 

 Lawrence (1769-1830). The identity of the subject of a portrait by 

 Sir William Beechey (1753-1839) as Miss Agnes Murray has not yet 

 been positively established. Her costume, restored through the re- 

 moval of later repainting, is in the style of the period in which the 

 artist painted her. 



The American paintings are few aside from "Independence." a 

 genre subject by F. B. Mayer (1827-1899), Maryland historical painter 

 who recorded this scene of easy life in Frostburg. The portrait of 

 James Buchanan by Jacob Eicholtz (1776-1842), painted between his 

 last year as Representative from Pennsylvania and the time he became 

 American Minister at the Russian Court in St. Petersburg, is of his- 

 torical importance. It shows Buchanan as he appeared about the time 

 his favorite niece, Harriet Lane, was born. He and the niece were 

 portrayed again in later life by J. Henry Brown. This artist had 

 made a miniature of Buchanan in 1851, and in 1876 he was asked by 

 Henry E. Johnston, husband of the ex-President's niece, to duplicate 

 it for her. The artist painted a new picture from daguerreotypes 

 instead of copying the earlier picture. Its companion-piece, a mini- 

 ature of the donor of the Harriet Lane Johnston collection, is an 

 exquisitely rendered portrayal of matronly beauty. At 43 years of 

 age, Harriet Lane Johnston was a queenly figure, combining gentleness 

 and feminine charm with the majestic mien of a woman fully awtire 

 of her trusteeship of the mementos of a golden epoch in White House 

 history and conscious of the importance of art to the Nation's future. 



