The Commodore
Presenters
Emily Angelucci, Dickinson College; and J. Andrew Dufton, Dickinson College
Abstract
A Grand Tour through Europe
attracted numerous European elites throughout the 18th–19th centuries with the
promise of intellectual and cultural enlightenment. Many Americans also looked
to the promise of the Grand Tour following the push for independence. Beyond
the European focus on personal growth and private collection, American
travelers also donated objects of antiquity from their European travels to
colleges and museums. This movement of materials and ideas from Greece and Rome
to America provided a foundational basis for the educational and cultural
institutions of the young nation.
This paper investigates
American experiences of the Grand Tour through the travel itinerary and
donations of a single figure, the commodore Jesse Duncan Elliott. During the
1830s, Elliott traveled throughout the Mediterranean in command of the USS Constitution,
acquiring objects and animals along the way. His eclectic collection consisted
of architectural and sculptural fragments, skeletal remains, Arabian horses,
ancient coins, sarcophagi, and much more. An in-depth analysis of the
antiquities collection at Dickinson College, donated primarily by Elliott, and
Elliott’s communications with the college highlight an underlying motive for
his active—and contested—collecting practices during his Mediterranean service.
Dickinson’s small collection is also contextualized through an examination of
archival records from the Cumberland County Historical Society, the USS
Constitution Museum, and over fifteen other institutional collections enriched
by Elliott following his travels. Studying these donations alongside Elliott’s
own account of his collecting demonstrates his hopes of enhancing the study of
classical antiquity and also his use of donated items as a justification for
less altruistic ambitions and conduct. Figures such as Elliott thus provide a
novel appreciation of the role of the Americanized Grand Tour in the history of
classical collecting in North America.
AIA-5F