Excerpt from Handbook of the Paintings and Sculptures in the Permanent Collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art The Institution was chartered by Act Of Congress, May 24, 1870. By that Act the building and its contents were declared exempt from all taxation. The organization of the Gallery was completed by the Board Of Trustees on November 6, 1873, and on April 29, 1874, all of the rooms of the Institution for exhibition purposes were opened to the public. The building was used for the purposes for which it was intended until it became apparent that, as planned, it would, in a comparatively short time, be wholly inadequate for the proper display Of the works of art belonging to the Gallery, while larger and better facilities were already required for the rapidly growing Free Art School, forwhich thoughtful provision had been previously made by Mr. Corcoran. At the same time, it was found that it would not be possible to enlarge the then existing build ing so as to meet the future wants Of the two establish ments. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.