same source. This
series presents no portraits of David Brearley of New Jersey, Thomas
Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania, and Jacob Broom of Delaware. With respect
to the others we give such information as Albert Rosenthal, the
Philadelphia artist, inscribed on each portrait and also such other data
as have been unearthed from the correspondence of Dr. Emmet, preserved
in the Manuscript Division of the New York Public Library.

Considerable controversy has raged, on and off, but especially of late,
in regard to the painted and etched portraits which Rosenthal produced
nearly a generation ago, and in particular respecting portraits which
were hung in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Statements in the case by
Rosenthal and by the late Charles Henry Hart are in the "American Art
News," March 3, 1917, p. 4. See also Hart's paper on bogus American
portraits in "Annual Report, 1913," of the American Historical
Association. To these may be added some interesting facts which are not
sufficiently known by American students.

In the ninth decade of the nineteenth century, principally from 1885
to 1888, a few collectors of American autographs united in an informal
association which was sometimes called a "Club," for the purpose of
procuring portraits of American historical characters which they desired
to associate with respective autographs as extra-illustrations. They
were pioneers in their work and their purposes were honorable. They
cooperated in effort and expenses, 'in a most commendable mutuality.
Prime movers and workers were the late Dr. Emmet, of New York, and Simon
Gratz, Esq., still active in Philadelphia. These men have done much
to stimulate appreciation for and the preservation of the fundamental
sources of American history. When they began, and for many years
thereafter, not the same critical standards reigned among American
historians, much less among American collectors, as the canons
now require. The members of the "Club" entered into an extensive
correspondence with the descendants of persons whose portraits they
wished to trace and then have reproduced. They were sometimes misled
by these descendants, who themselves, often great-grandchildren or more
removed by ties and time, assumed that a given portrait represented the
particular person in demand, because in their own uncritical minds a
tradition was as good as a fact.

The members of the "Club," then, did the best they could with the
assistance and standards of