The New Scholar
Engraver Alfred Jones American
After Francis William Edmonds American
Publisher American Art-Union, New York American
Not on view
As a mother delivers her son to school for the first time, the boy's apprehension is mirrored by the family dog sniffing the teacher's leg. The latter appears genial, but a switch partly hidden behind his back points to a strict disciplinarian. The print was published by the American Art-Union, a New York institution that boasted nearly nineteen thousand subscribers at its height in 1849–50. For an annual fee of five dollars, each member received a large, finely engraved, print and was entered in a lottery to win original artworks which were exhibited at the Art-Union's Free Gallery. Aimed at educating the public about contemporary American art, the group's distribution network reached every state. This contributed to the creation of a national market for landscapes, genre paintings, and small bronze sculptures. The system flourished for a limited period, however, with no lottery taking place in 1851, the year that the Art-Union issued this work as part of a set of small engravings titled "Gallery of American Art," No. I. In 1852–53, the institution was forced to dissolve.
