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.