Turning Point
"IF MORSE HAD FOUND SUCCESS AS A PAINTER, IT'S NOT LIKELY HE WOULD HAVE EVER DABBLED WITH THE TELEGRAPH."
-Interview with Jim Wilson, Telegraph Expert & Consultant on the movie Lincoln
-Interview with Jim Wilson, Telegraph Expert & Consultant on the movie Lincoln
Samuel F. B. Morse Returns to America
Etching of Samuel Morse on 'Sully.' 1899. "Album of Science."
"...His ambitious painting of the interior of the Louvre was so far finished that he could complete it at home. He sailed from Havre on the 1st of October in the packet-ship Sully. The name of the ship has now become historic, and a chance conversation in mid-ocean was destined to mark an epoch in human evolution."
-Edward Lind Morse, son of Samuel F.B. Morse
Samuel Morse returned to America in October of 1832 with his painting "Gallery of the Louvre" stored below deck on the American packet Sully. Conservators Gay Myers and Lance Mayer say it appears Morse returned home quickly, for financial reasons, because the frames within the painting were not complete and Morse had used a lot of varnish mixed with the paint to speed up the drying process. While Morse hoped to "educate" the American public with his masterpiece, he was also returning home with the idea for the telegraph.
"Samuel Morse was, in a sense, giving the 'Gallery of the Louvre' to America as a way to have the arts flourish, but he might have misjudged the timing."
-Interview with Gay Myers, 'Gallery of the Louvre' Conservator