Page:The Academy Of the Fine Arts and Its Future, Edward Hornor Coates, 24 January 1890.djvu/13

 this connection that twenty-four years earlier, in 1806, "in consideration of the unblushing casts" from the marbles of the Louvre, "Mondays were set aside for ladies exclusively."

Of necessity there have been breaks in the chain occasioned by the fire in 1845, years between 1870-1876, when the Academy was without a home, and other causes; but in the main there has been regularity, and the Exhibition to open in a few days will be the 60th of the series. As for several years past, it is in charge of a Committee of Artists, nominated by the exhibitors of the previous year, and in connection with the regular Exhibition Committee of the Directors.

Of the permanent collection of the Academy it is not always the fashion to speak with the respect which it deserves. Whether this be owing to ignorance, or to the fact that the frames of some of the pictures sadly need renewing, or to that wilful lack of appreciation, regarding its own things, which distinguishes Philadelphia among American cities, it is difficult to say. A defense of each and every canvass certainly could not be made and will not be attempted; but it must be borne in mind that the collection has grown by gift and purchase, beginning in the earliest days of American art, and continuing through a period in which the country was growing in this direction as in all others. Much that is otherwise uninteresting is of exceeding importance as illustrating the progress of art in the first century of the Republic. Much else was of especial value when presented or obtained. Speaking however without apology, and in high terms of praise, attention may briefly be called to:—

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