Decorative Arts
As objects for daily use, the decorative arts allow a close insight into cultures of the past. Among its holdings, the National Gallery has an extensive collection of European furniture, tapestries, and ceramics from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as well as medieval church vessels and Renaissance jewelry. In addition, there is a fine selection of eighteenth-century French furniture—including many pieces signed by cabinetmakers to Louis XV and Louis XVI and, of historic interest, the writing table used by Queen Marie Antoinette while she was imprisoned three years during the French Revolution (gallery 55). The Gallery also contains a large collection of Chinese porcelains, including porcelains from the Ch’ing Dynasty of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Until the East Building is completed, only a few selected works can be placed on exhibition in the galleries.
Prints and Drawings
The collection of prints and drawings at the National Gallery contains about fifty thousand examples from the fifteenth century to the present time. Included are drawings by Dürer, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Blake, as well as a wide range of prints by the major graphic artists of the Western World. The National Gallery’s collection incorporates an extremely fine selection of early Northern woodcuts and engravings and one of the most important groups of eighteenth-century French prints, drawings, and book illustrations outside of France. There is also an excellent group of early manuscript illuminations.
Visitors may examine prints and drawings not on exhibition by appointment with a curator in the Department of Graphic Arts.
Index of American Design
The Index of American Design is a collection of watercolor renderings of objects of popular art in the United States from before 1700 until about 1900. The renderings represent American ceramics, furniture, woodcarving, glassware, metalwork, tools and utensils, textiles, costumes, and other types of American craftsmanship. There are some seventeen thousand renderings and about five hundred photographs. These are available for study, by appointment. The works themselves may be loaned to organizations for exhibition outside the Gallery.
GENERAL INFORMATION
The National Gallery is open to the public every day in the year except Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Admission is free at all times.