Transactions of the American Art-Union for the Year 1846
Not on view
This pamphlet once belonged to the New York architect Alexander Jackson Davis (1893–1902). Two etched frontispieces of "The Jolly Flatboat Men" by George Caleb Bingham and "A Sybil" by Daniel Huntington advertize the subjects of large engravings that the American Art-Union chose in 1846 to have made for distribution to its subscriber-members. Eighty pages of text summarize the proceedings of a recent annual meeting, list 142 paintings distributed to subscribers by lottery in December 1846, and name the organization's officers and honorary secretaries across the United States. Also described are the 1840 Act of Incorporation and 1843 emended Constitution. Both the cover and title page are adorned with a vignette of three young women holding symbols of sculpture, painting and design or architecture, pointing to the Art-Union's mission of encouraging contemporary American art.
