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Lester has issued, in 1845, The Artist, The Merchant and the Statesman of the age of medici, and of our own Times, in two volumes, and the next year The Artists of America. Lester, Then U. S. Consul and Genoa, was one of the. earliest to show concern [[strikethough]] whether [[/strikethrough]] with the patronage of art in America. A little later came James Jackson James, whose four titles [Art-Hints,1855; Art-Studies, 1861, in 2 volumes; Art-Idea, 1864; and Art-Thoughts, 1869] offer a corpus of curiously "modern" criticism. Already in the forties and early fifties the American Art-Union, Through its various publications, was made from Brigham's and Mount's Paintings. After the Civil War, criticism underwent a change, as did painting itself; and the elaborate album or portfolio, with gravure plates and brief text came into fashion for the adornment of parlor tables, as [[strikethrough]] as [[/strikethrough]] might diminution in the quality of art [[strikethrough]] may be noted [[/strikethrough]]. Nonetheless, amid Gérôme, Bougereau [[strikethrough]] r [[/strikethrough]], Lefevre and other "French" favorites, Americans sometimes received favorable attention, as may be read in G. W. Sheldon's American Painters, published in 1879. Finally, at the turn of the century a writer like Charles H. Caffin maintained a more respectable level of liberalism, writing in support of [[strikethrough]] the [[/strikethrough]] "The Eight" in 1907, Just one year after they had held their anathematizized exhibition which brought down