Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/253

Rh States who make a specialty of the publication of postcards. Hardly any of them, however, are able to vie with the results obtained by the German postcard makers in clarity of detail or soft, velvety finish, while the prices they charge are so high as to be almost prohibitive. The Art Institute in Chicago is a shining example of how to cater to public demand and make money at the same time. They publish most of their own cards, having cuts made by an expert and printed by the best printers with care on specially selected stock. Their largest sales and largest profits are on the black and white reproductions sold at one cent each. Color cards should never be sold by a museum unless they are very accurate both in tone and in exact registering of plates. The museum should stand for the best in all such work.

It is very difficult to find any commercial photographer who understands how to photograph paintings or works of art. For this reason it is highly desirable that the museum should, whenever possible, have some one on its staff who can attend to this matter. The modern systems of registration call for small photographs of every object to be pasted upon the accession cards and these should, of course, be made within the museum. The expense of this is considerable unless it can be done in odd minutes by some one