Between 1831 and 1832, artist, educator, and inventor Samuel F.B. Morse, along with a close circle of family and friends living in Paris, regularly visited the Louvre to copy works of art. The practice of copying venerated paintings to align eye, hand, and mind in intellectual and kinetic response has been part of academic training of artists for centuries. For Morse’s circle, observing persons of varying nationalities and social classes engaging in aesthetic discussions and experiences together was as educational as perfecting formal techniques of composition.
For this audacious ars pictura, or painting about painting, Morse represents 38 European works he believed offered instructive examples for an American audience. Though they were spread throughout the Louvre in Morse’s time, he presents them here as hanging together in the iconic Salon Carré, the gallery associated with the annual Salon.
This painting is on loan from the Terra Foundation for American Art, as part of its Terra Collection-in-Residence initiative. From 2023 to
2027, the Harvard Art Museums are participating in the initiative, which involves loans of significant works of art and related programming.
