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Pre-1877 Art Exhibition Catalogue Index

Search the Pre-1877 Exhibition Catalogue

The Pre-1877 Art Exhibition Catalogue Index (AECI) contains more than 136,000 records describing fine artworks exhibited in the United States through 1876 (the Centennial year). The AECI includes artists of all nationalities who exhibited works from 1773 to 1877—including Old Masters.

The database indexes more than 1,500 exhibition catalogues, broadsides, newspaper articles, and gallery notices. A separate entry appears for each time an artwork was exhibited. Transcribers made every attempt to remain faithful to the source materials, thus misspellings and inconsistencies reflect the original documents.

Users can search the database by artist, title, subject, media, type of object (painting, drawing, photograph, graphics, sculpture, silhouette, etc.), provenance (owner at time of exhibition), catalogue titles, or exhibition venue. You can also search by keyword or browse records alphabetically.

Search the Pre-1877 Art Exhibition Catalogue online via SIRIS (the Smithsonian Institution Research Information System) at AmericanArt.si.edu/search/search_data.cfm.