Untitled

30 March 2022

This petition protesting the tariff on works of art reads like a who’s who of the art world in late nineteenth century America.

Artists Childe Hassam, Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, Asher Brown Durand, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Thomas Eakins, Jasper Francis Cropsey, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, William Merritt Chase, Frederic Edwin Church, Eastman Johnson, and Daniel Chester French, and architects Stanford White, Frank Furness, and James Renwick, Jr., are among hundreds of signatories on this 1886 petition which was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee.

These artists asked Congress to enact a law admitting works of art – paintings, sculptures, engravings, casts, models, antiques, and photographs – ;from foreign countries into the United States free of duty. They joined a growing movement protesting the 30% tariff on imported works of art enacted by Congress in 1883. While the petition argues that art is a means for education and civilization, some artists, like Childe Hassam, added their own arguments. Hassam handwrote on his petition “art is universal and needs no taxation,” but apparently he did not think much of Italian watercolors sold to tourists, as he added, “tax the rot that comes into the country in the way of Italian watercolors.” Ouch! As ever, art is in the eye of the beholder.