Samuel F.B. Morse's gallery of the Louvre and the art of invention / edited by Peter John Brownlee ; with essays by Jean-Philippe Antoine, Wendy Bellion, David Bjelajac, Peter John Brownlee, Rachael Z. DeLue, Sarah Kate Gillespie, Lance Mayer and Gay Myers, Andrew McClellan, Alexander Nemerov, Tanya Pohrt, Richard Read, and Catherine Roach.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Known today primarily for his role in the development of the electromagnetic telegraph and Morse code, Samuel F. B. Morse began his career as a painter. His monumental Gallery of the Louvre was the culmination of an extended period of study in Europe--

Samuel F. B. Morse's (1791-1872) large-scale painting Gallery of the Louvre (1831-33) is one of the most significant, and enigmatic, works of early-19th-century American art. It is also one of the last works Morse painted before turning his attention to the invention of the telegraph and Morse code. Gallery of the Louvre, owned by the Terra Foundation for American Art, was the focus of three separate international symposia held in 2011-13 at the Yale University Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. This collection of essays, carefully drawn from the proceedings of these scholarly sessions, brings together fresh insights by academics, curators, and conservators, who focus on the painting's visual components and the social and historical contexts that make it such a rich, complex work. The book accompanies a multi-year tour of the painting to prominent museums around the country--