Houghton, Mifflin Company, there is interesting reference to Gilbert Stuart's sojourn in Washington. In 1803, a friend wrote to Mrs. Madison, who was temporarily away. "Stuart is all the rage, he is almost worked to death and everyone is afraid that they will be the last to be finished. He says all the ladies come and say, 'Dear Mr. Stuart, I am afraid you will be very tired, you really must rest when my picture is done.' His great success seems to lie in his power to interest and amuse the sitters so as they forget themselves and appear simple and natural.”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Madison were painted, and in the spring of 1804, Mrs. Madison wrote her sister Mrs. Cutts, "Our city is now almost deserted and will be more so in a week or two. Mr. and Mrs. T. sat yesterday for the last time. Stuart has now finished nearly all his portraits and says he means to go directly to Boston, but that is what he has said this two years. Being a man of genius he, of course, does things differently from other people. I hope he will be here next winter as he has bought a square to build a temple upon."

Unluckily Stuart did not return and the Temple of Art which he planned to build in the National Capital was never erected.

Other famous painters doubtless passed other seasons in Washington. We know that St. Memin, passed many months here making by his unique method many portraits of men and women prominent in official and social circles. There was no photography in those days and the builders of the young Republic had not only the traditions of their English ancestors to maintain, but a sufficient self-esteem and confidence in the future to wish to be commemorated by portraits of a worthy character which might be passed on to succeeding generations.

It is not unlikely that there was a more congenial art

atmosphere in Washington in those early days, when to a great extent the city was little more than a wilderness, than there has been at subsequent times. L'Enfant, who made the plan of Washington (a plan which one hundred years after its making was resurrected by the now famous Park Commission, and gave impetus to city planning all over the world), was an artist of no mean quality. To be sure he was not one of the most genial natures. His zeal for art far exceeded the bounds of law, and his temperament was so ill regulated that he was not only perpetually in trouble himself, but got everyone else in trouble, as Mr. Jusserand most delightfully describes in his engaging book entitled, "With Americans of Past and Present Days."

Dr. Thornton, the architect of the Capitol, of The Octagon and Tudor Place in Georgetown, was not a trained architect, but one of the best the country has ever had, and as genuine an artist as America has produced. In his own adopted field he has left behind him monuments of which we all may be proud.

The early builders of Washington, Jefferson and his colleagues, were men who recognized the value of art and who did their best to build no less beautifully than well, that future generations might have a standard to uphold. It was Jefferson who said in a letter to President Madison in 1785, "How is a taste in this beautiful art (architecture) to be formed in our countrymen unless we avail ourselves of every occasion when public buildings are to be erected, of presenting to them models for their study and imitation?" Adding, "You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the Arts, but it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world and procure them its praise."

In those early days, as perhaps not since, there was a

relation between the Government and art eminently to be desired. Artists were honored guests at the White House and prominent figures in the social life of the National Capital.

On a shelf in my library is a little volume about the size of an old fashioned spelling book, a Washington Directory for the year 1822. Turning the pages of this little book I am profoundly impressed with the completeness of the life that must have been lived here at that time, and not only its completeness but its pleasurable qualities. No doubt the streets were muddy, the houses far apart, many of the conveniences of today were lacking, but also, were some of the great inconveniences. Glancing through this list of names one finds men and women in all walks of life, each apparently doing his or her part in the community. There were professional men, there were merchants, and tradesmen of all kinds, carpenters, painters, builders, blacksmiths, cabinet makers, seamstresses, printers, coach makers. Whatever necessity there was of life there seems to have been some one to supply it. There were schools and churches. (I am in doubt about the places of amusement.) There were, of course, no art gallaries, but there were artists, architects, painters and teachers of drawing.

Dr. Thornton had yielded his place as architect of the Capitol to Bulfinch, and was serving as Commissioner of Patents. His home was on the north side of F Street between 13th and 14th Streets.

Under the charge of Bulfinch, who lived on 6th Street between D and E, the work of building our Capitol was being conducted. A number of expert carvers were employed on the decorative work for the exterior, among them Theopolis Pettigru, Francis Iradella and Giovani Andrei, the last "Chief Carver," according to the Directory.

James Hoban, architect of the White House, was living

on the north side of F Street between 14th and 15th Streets. And an architect named George Hadfield, had his residence on the corner of F and 8th Streets, N.W.

Among the painters, most distinguished perhaps, was Joseph Wood who had a studio in the Weightman Building, corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 6th Street. But there was also, "Mr. King"-Charles B. King, of whom we find the following mention in Isham's History of American Art. "King settled in Washington and painted portraits for forty years, of all the political celebrities. A man of exemplary character and simple life who left a handsome competence, bequeathing pictures and endowment to the Redwood Library of Newport, Rhode Island, his birthplace. It was the same Charles King who contributed numerous paintings of Indians to our first National Art Collection.

Sully was introduced to Benjamin West, by King and was always an intimate friend of his. Mr. King's residence was on the south side of F Street "one door east of 12th" a little more than a block below where Dr. Thornton lived.

Lewis Clephane, portrait painter, lived on G Street between 12th and 13th Streets.

Finally there was Charles Burton, teacher of drawing, who lived on Louisiana Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets, N.W. With such a coterie there was little danger of art being left out of the life of the Capital City.

Our early American painters for the most part got their training in England; our early American sculptors chiefly went for their training to Rome. From these two old world cities came the best we had in the way of art, prior to 1850. In sculpture the classical idea predominated and most of the work produced was of a rather feeble imitative order, but those in Washington who had it in their power to give National commissions gave them on the best advice to the most talented of the day. Some of the results were pitiful,

some really tragic, others are far better than might have been expected. The point that I would like to make is that these works, good, bad and indifferent, witness to a sincere desire to patronize art.

Furthermore on the part of the people there was a real curiosity concerning these productions. Letters that came from Rome gave flowery descriptions of visits to the studios of American artists, and admiring comment on the works that were being produced for the National Capital, and later the arrival of these works constituted events in the National and local life. If one wishes to follow the joys and the sorrows of these early sculptors whose works still “adorn” our National Capital let them read Lorado Taft's "History of American Sculpture" in which the story is more fully and charmingly told than I can tell it.

-Comparatively few of the works of sculpture in and about the Capitol were produced in Washington, neither were our other sculptural monuments for the most part executed here. The first of these was, however. It was, as you all know, the equestrian statue of Jackson in Lafayette Square, the work of Clark Mills. This was not only the first to be erected in Washington, but the first equestrian statue by an American sculptor produced in this country.

When the commission was offered to Mr. Mills, he declined it on the grounds that he had not sufficient knowledge or capability. He had himself never seen an equestrian statue. But his objections were overruled by his friends. He undertook the commission and succeeded, not only in pleasing those who ordered the statue but in producing, under the most difficult circumstances, a statue which possesses decorative quality of a rather high order and is much more deserving of commendation than the ridicule which it commonly receives. It was, as one of our contemporary sculptors has said, “an attempt of surpassing audacity."