We are an authorized, direct-from-the-publisher retailer of NEW books. Our titles are ON HAND and available for immediate shipping. Table of Contents Often objects can provide a better window into history than words alone. In this book, Becoming a Nation: Americana from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms U.S. Department of State, American works of art and cultural artifacts are combined with intriguing texts to provide the reader with a unique perspective on the attitudes and values of the generations that spawned the United States. The exceptional objects presented in this volume were all made or used in the country during its formative years, from about 1730 to 1840 the decades preceding and following the American Revolution in which the country coalesced from a group of disparate colonies into a new nation, then expanded westward across the continent. Among the extraordinary works illustrated and discussed in Becoming a Nation are paintings by John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, and Fitz Hugh Lane; silver by Paul Revere and Myer Myers; important Chinese, English, and French ceramics made for the American market; and fine examples of baroque, rococo, and neoclassical furniture from Boston, Newport, Philadelphia, and New York. A special feature of this catalogue and the nationwide traveling exhibition that it accompanies are the fascinating items owned, used by, or associated with the statesmen and diplomats of early America, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison. Detailed entries interpret and evaluate the historical significance of each of these objects, while longer essays explore broader topics, such as crafts and commerce in colonial America, the flourishing of the neoclassical style in the Federal period, and the westward expansion of the nation. All of the works in Becoming a Nation are drawn from the extraordinary collection of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the United States Department of State in Washington, D.C. This collection was brilliantly assembled in order to provide the Department of State and the nation as a whole with beautiful and suitable surroundings for the benefit of American statesmanship; no other collection in this nation has been created with such a singular mandate. Thus the works of art carefully selected for this exhibition and catalogue not only reflect great beauty and craftsmanship but are also important historical documents that shed light on American history and the growth of our prosperous nation.
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