The word “ballot” is derived from the Italian word “ballotta,” meaning little ball. The artifact here is a Civil War-era ballot box with 14 black and 25 white clay balls or marbles. Well before the American Revolution, fraternal clubs such as the Masons were using similar boxes to decide elections. Marbles or balls were dropped…
Wagon Wheels (1934)
The trio of Belmet, Burch, and O’Meary are leading a wagon train west and Murdock is out to stop them. The settlers fight off his initial Indian attack and reach the mountains. With the wagon train vulnerable as it crosses a river, Murdock has the Indians make a final attack. Written by Maurice VanAuken.
Nuestra Senora del Rosario Pomata
(Our Lady of Rosario Pomata), Anonymous. A wonderfully vibrant painting of the Holy Mother, attended by two knights, from the Church of Santa Clara, Ayacucho, Peru, as seen through the perspectives of both the indigenous peoples of the Andes and of Spanish Church figures. The painting is unattributed, though dates from the mid-19th century, approximately…
Rose Canton
Rose Canton serving dish. Formed vessel in traditional “shrimp dish” style. Heavily gilded handle. Qing dynasty, 19th century.
The Pamplin International Collection of Art and History include many items relating to World War II.
This year’s exhibit showed a Japanese government POW flag, Signed by Prime Minister Tojo and other top ministers of the WWII government of Japan. Obtained by a guard at the Sugamo Prison, where the Japanese officials were incarcerated after the war. A Japanese Surrender card (often such cards were dropped from airplanes into enemy territory…
American Beauty
by Bradshaw Crandell (American, 1896-1966) While Bradshaw Crandell’s greatest satisfaction as an artist came as a result of his later portraiture of governors and heads of state, it was as a commercial artist that he achieved his greatest recognition. For a dozen years Crandell was the cover artist for Cosmopolitan Magazine, illustrating Hollywood’s most attractive…
Benjamin Franklin at the Court of King Louis 16th
Late 19th-century Lithograph, Benjamin Franklin at the Court of King Louis 16th. Franklin charmed, and sometimes scandalized, the French, America’s strongest ally during the Revolutionary War. He served as the American Minister (ambassador) to France from 1778 to 1785.
Christmas at the Cunninghams
Study for a Saturday Evening Post cover (December 11, 1954), by Amos Sewell (American, 1901-1883). Sewell sustained a strong relationship with the Saturday Evening Post, illustrating 45 covers between 1949 and 1962. He also achieved recognition as a WWII wartime artist and won a special art award for his War Bond ad illustration, What’s It…
Shepherd to the Flock
by James Bama (American, 1926-). Illustration for a story in The Saturday Evening Post, February 5, 1962. Bama is an American artist known for his realistic paintings and etchings of Western subjects. His work is collected in The Western Art of James Bama (Bantam Books, 1975) and The Art of James Bama (1993). He was…
Two Cowboys
by Frank McCarthy (American, 1924-2002). McCarthy was a prolific artist who created illustrations for Colliers, Argosy, and True magazines as well as posters for such films as The Ten Commandments, The Great Escape, The Dirty Dozen, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, among many others. McCarthy was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of…