12 
THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART 
Charles B. King and others, had been deposited with the Insti- 
tute by the Secretary of War in 1841. The catalogues also 
enumerate about thirty-five busts, models, etc., a few in marble, 
the remainder in plaster. In the majority of cases the artists’ 
names were, unfortunately, not recorded, but there were a 
marble head of Saint Cecilia by Thorwaldsen, a bust of Cuvier 
by Louis Parfait Merlieux, and a number of pieces by Ferdi- 
nand Pettrich and Clark Mills, besides several antiques. 
Among the objects of the Smithsonian Institution, as defined 
by the act of establishment by Congress in 1846, was the forma- 
tion of a museum, a gallery of art and a library. That the 
museum, including the gallery of art, was intended to be com- 
prehensive in scope and national in character is evident from 
the wording of the law, which directed the erection of a building 
with suitable rooms and halls for the reception and arrange- 
ment on a liberal scale, among other things, of specimens of 
natural history and a gallery of art, and the transfer to this 
building of all objects of art, of foreign and curious research 
and of natural history, belonging to the United States. 
The Board of Regents, holding their first meeting in Septem- 
ber, 1846, adopted in January following a general programme 
of operations, in which four main branches were recognized as 
appropriate to the classification of the museum, namely, natural 
history ; ethnology and archeology ; the applied arts and 
sciences; and the fine arts. 
The division last named was to include paintings, sculpture, 
engravings and architectural designs, and provide studios for 
artists. Realizing that the collection of paintings and sculp- 
ture would accumulate slowly, it was proposed to assemble loan 
collections during the winter season while Congress was in 
session, and for the furtherance of this project the cooperation 
of art associations was to be solicited. After the lapse of sixty 
years it is impossible to conceive of a wiser or more effective 
fundamental scheme, the unification under one administrative 
body of practically all the functions proper to the museum of a 
great nation, thereby forestalling duplication, overlapping and 
the waste of public funds. 
The Government began sending out surveying expeditions 
early in the last century, and from these sources much material 
