Before Morse Code, There Was Morse’s ‘Gallery of the Louvre’

Samuel F.B. Morse’s oil painting “Gallery of the Louvre” is packed with works by Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Raphael — a grouping that didn’t actually exist all in one room. He meant to exhibit “Gallery” in the U.S. for the those who had few chances to see fine art

By Michael Upchurch
Special to The Seattle Times
Samuel F.B. Morse’s oil on canvas “Gallery of the Louvre,” which arrived this week at the Seattle Art Museum for a four-month visit, is actually three dozen or more paintings in one.

It’s simultaneously a document, a fantasy, an art tutorial and a piece of epic-scale legwork for an artist who had even grander projects in mind. It’s also the painting that, after being spurned by the public in his lifetime, set Morse on his path as an inventor.

For, yes, this is the same Morse who invented the telegraph and the dot-dash-dot alphabet that went with it. Far from dreaming of being an inventor, Morse (1791-1872) was determined to pursue an art career from the time he was in his teens. He trained at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and hoped to specialize in historical scenes. His only source of income upon his return to the U.S., however, was portrait painting — a genre he disdained, despite his brilliance at it….

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