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The crowd at Franklin Pierce’s 1853 inauguration on the Capitol’s East Front appears in surging, baroque form in this print from Frank Leslie's early Illustrated News. The artist, Christian Schussele—a well-respected teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts—was known for his highly expressive history and genre paintings. Leslie himself engraved the print block. The gesture and movement of the crowd in this scene, a subject often rendered prosaically in the illustrated weeklies, exemplifies the artist’s flair for figural drama.
History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, “Assembling of the Multitude at the Eastern Portico, at the Commencement of the Inauguration Ceremonies,” https://history.house.gov/Collection/Listing/2015/2015-001-002/ (April 20, 2021)
Office of the Historian
Office of Art and Archives
Attic, Thomas Jefferson Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
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