48 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



Attention was given to the previously much-discussed project of an 

 important exhibition of portraits, official and lay, to be held in the 

 gallery, but satisfactory arrangements for holding the exhibit in 

 1923 could not be made. The question of appealing to Congress 

 for a building for art and history was considered and discussion 

 took place as to the feasibility of having the building project in- 

 cluded in the program being formulated by Congress for prospective 

 public buildings. Secretary Walcott brought to the attention of the 

 commission the question of the advisability of an appeal to American 

 institutions and to the American people for aid in the building 

 project. Following a discussion of the Ranger bequest fund and its 

 administration, the commission appointed a committee of three — 

 Messrs. E. W. Redfield, Gari Melchers, W. H. Holmes — to look after 

 the gallery's interests in the final disposition of the purchases made 

 from this fund by the National Academy of Design. 



With this meeting, the inital one year terms of three members of 

 the commission — Herbert Adams, Gari Melchers, Charles Moore — 

 expired, and the Board of Regents at its annual meeting, December 

 14, 1922, elected these persons to succeed themselves for the full term 

 of four years. 



The art advisory committee appointed at the last meeting of the 

 Board of Regents, examined the several paintings and other works 

 offered to the gallery as permanent accessions. The following were 

 accepted : 



" Signing of the Treaty of Ghent," an oil painting by Sir A. Forestier, 1914. 

 Presented by the Sulgrave Institution. 



A cameo-cutter's outfit, consisting of wheel, dies, tools, etc., which formerly 

 belonged to and was used by Louis Bonet, an engraver on fine stone. Pre- 

 sented by Paul W. Bartlett. 



THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT COLLECTION 



As announced in the report for last year, a number of influential 

 citizens, desiring to preserve some pictorial record of the World War, 

 organized a National Art Committee immediately after the close of 

 the war, and arranged with a number of our leading artists to 

 paint portraits of certain distinguished leaders of America and other 

 allied nations in the war with Germany. The members of the com- 

 mittee as organized are: Hon. Henry White (chairman); Herbert 

 L. Pratt (secretary and treasurer) ; Mrs. W. H. Crocker, Robert W. 

 de* Forest, Abram Garfield, Mrs. E. H. Harriman, Arthur W. 

 Meeker, J. Pierpont Morgan, Charles P. Taft, Charles D. Walcott, 

 and Henry C. Frick (since deceased). 



Under this arrangement, 21 portraits were painted and assembled 

 in the national gallery during the month of May, 1921. Later these 



