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[[preprinted]]
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
[[line]]
BOSTON . MASSACHUSETTS . 02115
Office of the President
[[/preprinted]]

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Given the Smithsonian's extensive regional loan program, which you have stimulated so effectively, and the recent example of the willingness of the Egyptian government to ship even frail wooden objects from the Tutankhamun excavations, I cannot believe that steel encased, environmentally controlled and fireproof shipment of these portraits currently represents a substantially greater risk than their public display.

But, it is to the origin and acquisition of these portraits that i am addressing this letter. The Washington portrait is the definitive portrait from life used by Stuart to make his numerous copies. The label describes it as perhaps the best known portrait in America and states that "it stands today as one of Boston's greatest artistic treasures." The portrait of Martha Washington is an even greater rarity and the pair are objects of incalculable cultural importance. The portraits came with Stuart to Boston in 1805 (he had been born in New England) and hung there in his studio until his death in 1828. The Boston Athenaeum had been organized in 1806 to serve not only as a library but as Boston's museum, and in fact was later one of the three founding organizations of the Museum of Fine Arts to which it transferred the function of displaying these portraits over 100 years ago. At the time of Stuart's death, there was also functioning in Massachusetts a Commission, designated the Washington Monument Association, which had raised funds by public subscription for the purpose of erecting what was intended to be the first monument to Washington in the nation.

I attach, both for the flavor of the times and because they set forth the conditions by which the Washington Monument Association raised funds and the understanding of those who gave those funds, two pages from the beginning and end of the John Brooks address launching this public subscription.