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Excerpt from The National Gallery of Art: Department of Fine Arts of the National Museum Among the objects of the Smithsonian Institution, as defined by the act of establishment by Congress in 1846, was the forma tion of a museum, a gallery of art and a library. That the museum, including the gallery of art, was intended to be com prehensive in scope and national in character is evident from the wording of the law, which directed the erection of a building with suitable rooms and halls for the reception and arrange ment on a liberal scale, among other things, of specimens of natural history and a gallery of art, and the transfer to this building of all objects of art, of foreign and curious research and of natural history, belonging to the United States. The Board of Regents, holding their first meeting in Septem ber, 1846, adopted in January following a general programme of operations, in which four main branches were recognized as appropriate to the classification of the museum, namely, natural history; ethnology and archeology; the applied arts and sciences; and the fine arts. The division last named was to include paintings, sculpture, engravings and architectural designs, and provide studios for artists. Realizing that the collection of paintings and sculp ture would accumulate slowly, it was proposed to assemble loan collections during the winter season while Congress was in session, and for the furtherance of this project the cooperation of art associations was to be solicited. After the lapse of sixty years it is impossible to conceive of a wiser or more effective fundamental scheme, the unification under one administrative body of practically all the functions proper to the museum of a great nation, thereby forestalling duplication, overlapping and the waste of public funds. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an im