ABSTRACT
Albert Eugene Gallatin was born in Villanova, Pennsylvania, the only son and future heir of Louise Belford Ewing and Albert Horatio Gallatin. From an early age, he expressed great admiration for his great-grandfather and namesake, Albert Gallatin, a founder of the New-York Historical Society and New York University, who served as US Secretary of the Treasury under Presidents Jefferson and Madison, as well as minister to France and England from 1816 to 1827. Gallatin's fascination with art also began with his family. The first works he inherited or purchased were portraits of his great-grandfather. His initial interest in ancestral paintings evolved into a preference for nineteenth-century works, such as those found in his cousin R. Horace Gallatin's collection. As the variety of his affiliations suggests, Gallatin's participation in contemporary life remained tempered by continual assertions of his august family tradition. Gallatin's pastimes were always driven by the desire to render them worthy of someone of his social stature.
