This room is the Louvreâs Salon CarrĂŠ, which was filled with recent French paintings when Morse visitedâso he created his own greatest-hits museum that exists only in this painting.
There are 38 paintings, two sculptures, and a case of miniatures.
Samuel F.B. Morseâinventor of the telegraph and Morse codeâwanted to be famous for art. He made Gallery of the Louvre during a visit to Paris in the 1830s and brought it back to show Americans his idea of great art.
American novelist James Fenimore Cooper, a friend of Morseâs.
Oh, you know, Iâll just copy Leonardo da Vinciâs Mona Lisa here. Other artists he copied in this painting: Titian, Rembrandt, Poussin, Raphael, van
Dyck, Rubens, Caravaggio.
Morseâs copy of Veroneseâs The Wedding Feast at Canaâeasier to re-create in this squished sideways perspective, or harder?
Susan Walker Morse is seen here learning from her fatherâs art instruction, but the American public did not learn about art from Gallery of the Louvre during Morseâs life. His showings of it flopped (to the dismay of critics, who also believed Americans needed educating in Great Art), he sold it in 1834, and he took to creating other forms of transatlantic connection instead. Morse patented the electrical telegraph in 1837.