The Winter Art Show

One would think this 1876 representation of the private gallery of the Boston Athenaeum would have to be mural-size to accommodate its subject. But in fact the canvas is only thirteen by twenty-one inches (just a bit larger than reproduced here). Enrico Meneghelli recorded all the artwork that actually appeared on the walls and put each Lilliputian painting in a frame that, at this scale, seems truly jewellike. He completed this tribute months before the salon was dismantled.