Washington Winter Show 2020

49 Latin motto E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One) survives from those early efforts. Two subsequent committees also offered designs, but it was not until 1789 that official patterns for the two sides of the Great Seal of the United States were approved. Soon after the official seal was adopted, imitation patterns—especially focusing on the eagle-and-shield motif—appeared in the United States and abroad in every medium imaginable. Some designs carefully copied the seal; others modified details with artistic license. Were such discrepancies of concern to patriotic viewers? By no means! Amended symbols were simply accepted as alternate icons. On an impressive circa 1800 desk-and-bookcase, attributed to Nathan Lumbard of Sturbridge, Massachusetts, large eagles and shields appear on the doors as inlays of different colored woods (fig. 8). Smaller, ready-made Great Seal inlays sometimes are found as the published in St. Petersburg in 1815. Svinin’s watercolors included portraits of prominent Americans, such as George Washington, as well as American landmarks. Niagara Falls touched him deeply, and his beautiful moonlight view of the cascade was eventually reproduced as an English blue- printed dinnerware pattern (figs. 6 and 7). In his book, Svinin wrote: “Being amazed and dumbfounded by the grandeur of [Niagara], before which I myself seemed but a weak particle, my first thought rises up to the creator of this wonder, and with reverence I kiss the hand of the Almighty!” [Translation from Traveling Across North America 1812–13 : Watercolors by the Russian Diplomat Pavel Svinin (Abrams, 1992), no. 51.] On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress asked Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams to design a Great Seal representative of the new country. Although that committee’s designs were not accepted, the Fig. 7: Plate with Table Rock Niagara. Enoch Wood and Sons factory, Burslem, Staffordshire, England, 1818–46. Earthenware (pearlware). Gi of Dennis L. Milstein 2018.0041.