THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART 
51 
until its transfer to the Library of Congress in 1866. The port- 
folios of prints and other art volumes were kept there, and a 
number of busts were arranged upon the cases. The range was 
fitted up as a reading room, but for a time contained many 
paintings and other art objects. 
It was not until 1855 that the main section of the building 
was completed. Its upper story, measuring 200 feet long by 
50 feet wide and 29 feet 3 inches high, was divided into three 
rooms, the middle one, about 100 feet long, being furnished and 
used as a lecture hall. Of the rooms on either side, each 50 
feet square, the eastern was appropriated to a museum of appa- 
ratus, the western to art purposes. The latter, generally spoken 
of as the gallery of art, was mainly occupied by Indian paint- 
ings, including the famous Stanley collection and a large series 
made for the Government. The Regents’ room, on the corre- 
sponding floor of the south tower, also contained a few paint- 
ings. A disastrous fire in January, 1865, burned out the entire 
second floor and both main towers, destroying their contents 
and leaving of the art collections practically only such objects 
as were displayed on the main floor. The loss and disarrange- 
ments thus occasioned had a prolonged effect in retarding the 
development of the department of art. 
NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THE ART COLLECTIONS 
UNDER THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 
1846, 1847 
CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY 
The first references to a specific art collection in the records 
of the Institution relate to Catlin’s celebrated series of por- 
traits and other paintings of North American Indians. At a 
meeting of the Board of Regents on December 9, 1846, “Mr. 
Seaton presented a communication from Mr. George Catlin, 
accompanied by a printed catalogue of his Indian Gallery, 
offering his collection of Indian memorials to the Smithsonian 
Institution, which was referred to the Committee on the for- 
mation of a library.” The subject was again brought up on 
