In this richly illustrated study, the first book-length exploration of illusionistic art in the early United States, Wendy Bellion investigates Americans' experiences with material forms of visual deception and argues that encounters with illusory art shaped their understanding of knowledge, representation, and subjectivity between 1790 and 1825. Focusing on the work of the well-known Peale family and their Philadelphia Museum, as well as other Philadelphians, Bellion explores the range of illusions encountered in public spaces, from trompe l'oeil paintings and drawings at art exhibitions to...

Insightful essays that offer a wide-ranging examination of a 19th-century American masterpiece
Samuel F. B. Morse's (1791-1872) Gallery of the Louvre (1831-33) is one of the most significant, and enigmatic, works of early 19th-century American art. It is also one of the last works Morse painted before turning his attention to the invention of the telegraph and Morse code.

A signature painting in the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, Gallery of the Louvre underwent an extensive conservation treatment in...