Book excerpt: Excerpt from Descriptive Catalogue of the Bowdoin College Art Collections From his time to 1870 no critical work was done, at least none has been recorded, in the way of determining disputed matters of as cription or other open questions about the schools of painting or artists represented. In 1870 Professor Jotham B. Sewall, then curator, prepared and saw through the press a catalogue of the Bow doin College collection of paintings, adding to the description exist ing in manuscript many valuable notes which have been of great assistance in the preparation of the present catalogue. All the paint ings have been examined recently, and are found in several cases to furnish unmistakable external evidence as to the artists, such as sig natures, which had not been previously taken into account. The widow of the benefactor of the College, herself a Bowdoin bv birth, and subsequently wife of General Henry Dearborn, a former Secretary of War, added in 1826 a series of family portraits to this collection, which then numbered eighty-four Oil paintings. From the first the paintings have been highly appreciated here, but the best accommodation which the College in its early days could af ford was limited and not always adapted even to preserving the can vases. In 1826 President Allen and Professor Cleaveland were ap pointed by the trustees a committee to remove pictures from the closets in the gallery and to place them where they would be preserved from injury. The condition of the paintings in 1847 was such that the College voted to expend from its meager income the sum of two hundred dollars for their examination and preservation. Upon the advice of the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, the care Of restoring was entrusted to Mr. D. Chase and Mr. G. Haworth of Boston, whose labors when finished revealed to many for the first time the value of the collection. The cost of restoration proved to be over three times the amount of the sum appropriated, and in 1850 the sale of some of the paintings deemed improper for exhibition in this gallery was authorized to meet the unforeseen expense. 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 important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.