THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION CLAKK. 151 



art. The gallery is now administered as the department of fine arts 

 of the National Museum. 



The collections of the gallery include (a) paintings and other 

 objects Avhich had long been in the custody of the Institution; (b) 

 the Harriet Lane Johnston bequest, including a number of highly 

 interesting and valuable paintings and sculptures; (c) the William 

 T. Evans gift of more than 150 carefully selected works by modern 

 American painters; (d) the Charles L. Freer collection, numbering 

 more than 5,000 items of paintings, sculptures, pottery, bronzes, 

 jades, and other works of art; (e) a collection of 82 drawings in 

 pencil, pen, charcoal, chalk, crayon, and water color executed by 

 eminent contemporary French artists. 



The munificent donation by Mr. Freer of his collection and pro- 

 vision for its preservation is unsurpassed in this country and is one 

 of the most notable gifts of its character in the world's history. 

 Mr. Freer describes his collection as follows : 



These several collections include specimens of very widely separated periods 

 of artistic development, beginning before the birth of Christ and ending to-day. 

 No attempt has been made to secure specimens from unsympathetic sources, 

 my collecting having been confined to American and Asiatic schools. My 

 great desire has been to unite modern work with masterpieces of certain 

 periods of high civilization harmonious in spiritual and physical suggestion, 

 having the power to broaden esthetic culture and the grace to elevate the 

 human mind. 



The original collection consisted of about 2,300 paintings and 

 other objects of art and has since been increased to 5,346 items, 

 including American paintings and sculptures, the Whistler collec- 

 tion, and oriental paintings, pottery, bronzes, and jades from China, 

 Korea, Japan, and other Asiatic countries. 



Mr. Freer retains his collection in his home city until the com- 

 pletion of the building now under construction in the Smithsonian 

 Park, for which he has placed in the hands of the Institution the 

 sum of $1,000,000. 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY. 



The Bureau of American Ethnology is an outgrowth of early 

 ethnological and archeological researches of the Institution, and of 

 later investigations conducted in behalf of the Commissioner of 

 Indian Affairs to determine the affinities of the various tribes of 

 Indians to serve as a guide in grouping them on reservations, as it 

 Avas believed that an effective classification of the tribes materially 

 reduced the danger of warlike outbreaks. A vast amount of lin- 

 guistic and bibliographical information relative to the American 

 Indians has been published by the Bureau, and great collections of 



