Art and Commerce in Jacksonian America: The Steamboat Albany Collection

Abstract

When the Stevens family of Hoboken, New Jersey, commissioned twelve paintings by seven leading American artists in 1826 and then installed them in its new Hudson River steamboat, the Albany, it constituted one of the earliest important instances of arts patronage by a private business in the United States. The Albany collection included paintings by Birch, Doughty, Cole, Vanderlyn, Sully, and Morse. In this essay, I reconstruct this historically influential collection and explore its significance for the Stevenses who commissioned it, for the artists who contributed to it, and for travelers who could have seen it in its original installation.

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