Selections from the North American Collection: People and Places

Charles Street Building, Level 3

Selections from the North American Collection: People and Places examines the ways that 19^th-century North American artists drew inspiration from a variety of places and cultures at home and abroad, whether the Hudson Valley, Japan, or an ancient town outside of Rome.

Visitors will experience 16 works featuring paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and silver. On view is a marble bust by Edmonia Lewis, an African American and Native American (Ojibwa) sculptor, and a 19th-century portrait by Joshua Johnson, a Baltimore-based Black American artist. Other works have ties to Baltimore, including a recently acquired mid-1880s vase by D.F. Haynes and Company, a ceramics factory formerly located in Locust Point, that showcases a gold and silver raised decoration influenced by Japanese art.

Several objects have never been on view to the public in the museum’s 90-year history, providing visitors the opportunity to be among the first to experience them. The Arch of Nero (1871) by Sandford Gifford, which depicts a ruined aqueduct near Tivoli, Italy, makes its debut after a complex treatment in the Walters’ Conservation Lab in 2022; and in their inaugural display, three silver vessels by Tiffany & Co. showcase the influence of Asian and Islamic art on the firm’s designers.