Smithsonian Magazine January/February 2024

IN AN ALCOVE IN the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), a new exhibition displays just 12 works: three landscape paintings by Robert S. Duncanson and nine photographs, including two daguerreotypes on silver-coated copper plates, by James P. Ball. Duncanson and Ball were collaborators in the 19th century, but the work of these Black artists—among the first to be internationally recognized for their talent—has seldom been shown together since their deaths more than a century ago. A curatorial team at SAAM has positioned these works close to one another, just as they were at the height of their popularity. Both artists lived in Cincinnati, once considered the western hub of the art world, where Ball opened the Great Daguerrian Gallery of the West. Duncanson worked with Ball as a colorist. Cincinnati…

“Artificial intelligence is brainless: It does only what it is told to do.” Dignity and Respect I was pleased to see the column by Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch in the December 2023 issue (“Course Correction”). Repatriation of human remains now held in the Smithsonian’s collections is something that all museums and other historical organizations should be pursuing. How many people today would think it appropriate sometime in the future for their bodies or the bodies of their family members to be dug up from their “final resting place” and carted off for that future generation to study? All remains, but particularly those of sentient beings, should be managed with dignity and respect for the lives they represent. My thanks to Mr. Bunch for presenting this important information. Jay Paulsen |…

TWO HUNDRED YEARS ago, in the summer of 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to America for the first time since he fought in the American Revolution. The Frenchman had become a major general in the Continental Army at the age of 19, was a close friend of George Washington’s and played a key role in the colonists’ conclusive victory at Yorktown. Now 67, Lafayette traveled by steamboat to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where a group of surviving officers from the Continental Army had assembled in Washington’s tent from the Revolutionary War. Entering the thread-bare canopy for the first time in nearly half a century, Lafayette and others were overcome and shed “tears of glory, gratitude and joy,” as Secretary of State John Quincy Adams described them later that day.…

EDMUND RANDOLPH Randolph was recommended to Washington by Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, who wrote to the general that the young lawyer’s abilities “cannot fail to gain him your countenance.” After serving as an aide-de-camp in 1775, Randolph became governor of Virginia, U.S. attorney general and finally secretary of state. ROBERT HANSON HARRISON Maryland-born litigator Harrison was at the top of Washington’s list when the war began—having already earned the commander’s trust as his lawyer—and he became an aide-de-camp in 1775 before serving for years as Washington’s military secretary. STEPHEN MOYLAN Hailing from Ireland, Moylan immigrated to Philadelphia in 1768 and built a respectable reputation as a trade merchant. In 1775, Washington appointed Moylan the muster-master general of the Continental Army. The following year, he served as Washington’s senior aide-de-camp…

ZAHIRU’D-DIN Muhammad Babur (1483-1530), the founder of South Asia’s Mughal dynasty, believed that wooing allies was as important as fighting battles when it came to building an empire. With no finer way to win friends than over a good meal, his memoir, The Babur-nama (a plate from a 1590 illustrated version, left), is full of references to parties and picnics, replete with wine and fruit syrups, goose kebabs, “loaves of fine flour” and “plenty of sweet melons.” Babur’s epicureanism was part of a longstanding culture of feasting in the Islamic world. “So much of Islamic art is related to the sourcing, preparation, serving and consumption of food,” notes Linda Komaroff, curator of “Dining with the Sultan,” a new exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that brings together…

THEY GATHERED one afternoon in late October of 1960, at the Atlantic Records studios in a nondescript building at 234 West 56th Street in New York: pianist Mc-Coy Tyner, just 21, a prodigy from Philadelphia; Steve Davis, upright bass, 31, also from Philly; and Elvin Jones, at 33 a veteran drummer who had played with everyone from Art Farmer and Pepper Adams to Gil Evans and Miles Davis. And then there was John Coltrane, 34, already widely acknowledged as the next great jazz saxophonist, following Charlie Parker’s death in 1955. The little band had been playing together since May. It was the first proper recording session for the John Coltrane Quartet—and it promptly produced one of the greatest moments in jazz history: Coltrane’s rendition of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s “My…