37 



Many of your readers have had an opportunity of judging for them- 

 selves of the merits of those paintings. Having visited several of the 

 best European galleries myself, and studied some of their best pieces, I 

 may be allowed to observe, that I consider several of the collection as 

 works of rare merit, and, if not actual originals, at least most excellent 

 copies. It is to be hoped that this Government will not lose this occa- 

 sion of procuring, at a price far below their real value, a large number 

 of paintings, such as are but seldom if ever seen in this part of the 

 world. They will form an appropriate nucleus and beginning for the 

 great Smithsonian gallery, and should not be allowed to be lost to the 

 public by passing into private hands under the sacrificing and desecrat- 

 ing hammer of an auctioneer. 



I do not know whether any of your readers will have been struck with 

 the reflection that, although this city is regularly visited by artists and 

 amateurs, there is no fit place for the exhibition of their paintings. The 

 Rotundo is almost completely occupied by the large pieces which orna- 

 ment its walls, and by the empty panels which await those of Inman 

 and Vanderlyn, thus leaving but a very small space indeed for the ex- 

 position of any others, and forcing the owners to place them on the floor, 

 or in such positions as to prevent amateurs from viewing them in their 

 best lights, and thus appreciating their beauties. The hall of the Patent 

 Office, whither I am told the collection lately exhibited in the Rotunda 

 has been transported, is too much crowded with the cabinets of the Ex- 

 ploring Expedition and the National Institute, and receives the light in 

 too imperfect and irregular a manner, to permit it to be considered for a 

 moment a suitable locale for a public exhibition of the kind. No one 

 will presume, I imagine, to assert that any one of the Departments is 

 a fit place for such exhibition. So that the expediency and necessity 

 of erecting some structure suited to the purpose must be evident to every 

 mind. 



But let us suppose, by way of argument, that Congress shall not see 

 fit to devote a part of the Smithsonian buildings to a hall for the per- 

 manent and annual exposition of works of art, what prevents them 

 from adopting some other mode of supplying the desideratum I deem 

 so desirable and important? 



I would suggest that an appropriation sufficient for the purpose be 

 promptly made to erect a proper building within the Capitol grounds, 

 where that masterpiece of American skill, Greenough's WASHINGTON, 

 and the long-expected works of Persico, whereof report speaks in flatter- 



