History of the Portrait Collection, Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia (American Philosophical Society)

History of the Portrait Collection,
Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia
by Doris Devine Fanelli and Karie Diethorn (American Philosophical Society)
(Paperback, 360 pages, 2001, ISBN: 0871692422, $65.00)

The American Philosophical Society in conjunction with the Independence National Historical Park announces the publication of the first catalog of the portraits in the National Park collection.

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These portraits, most of which are exhibited in the Second Bank of the United States, consist of 255 works, 109 of them by Charles Willson Peale. Many are likenesses of heroes of the American Revolution and Founding Fathers of American government, statesmen, jurists, men of science, arts and letters. The collection was enhanced by the addition of the works of notable 18th and 19th Anglo-American artists.

The book is divided into two sections: a history of the collection dividing it chapters covering works pre-1950, 1850-1900 and 1900-1951, and a catalog. Each catalog entry is enhanced with either a black and white or four-color reproduction and contains a physical description of the portrait, a brief biography of the subject, the circumstance of the portrait’s commission and its provenance.

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John Neagle: Philadelphia Portrait Painter (Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

John Neagle:
Philadelphia Portrait Painter
by Robert W. Torchia, foreword by Peter J. Parker (Historical Society of Pennsylvania)
(Paperback, 195 pages, 1989, ISBN: 1422358283, $25.00)

This catalog records an exhibition held at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP).

In 1861, John Neagle himself recorded on canvas his earliest-known association with the HSP. When he captured the appearance of three Plains Indians visiting Philadelphia in 1821, he was an artist functioning as a historian.

The Society has collected 15 of Neagle’s paintings, and its manuscript holdings on the artist were most impressively augmented in 1985 through the generosity of the Barra Foundation.

Torchia has done much to restore a long-underrated painter to his proper place in American art history. In planning the exhibition upon which this catalogue is based, Torchia selected paintings and related material from 14 private and public collections in the Delaware Valley. Illustrations.

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