Dillenberger, Jane
Between faith and doubt: subject for meditation. Jane Dillenberger.
Excerpted from Perceptions and Evocations: The Art of Elihu Vedder. Published for the National Collection of Fine Arts by the Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979.
From the moment of its publication, Elihu Vedder's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám achieved unparalleled success. The first edition appeared in Boston on 8 November 1884; six days later, it was sold out. Critics rushed to acclaim it as a masterwork of American art, and Vedder (1836 - 1923) as the master American artist. Now, over a hundred years after their first publication, all of Vedder's designs for the book, except the small publisher's mark, are available online from the Smithsonian American Art Museum's collection.