Mr. Ruggles talk is drawn from a chapter on Edward Beyer in the book manuscript for “Lithographic Views of Virginia.” After an early career in Europe, Beyer traveled at age 28 or 29 with his wife to America. Arriving about 1849, he created a moving panorama on events during the Revolution of 1848 and exhibited it for three years. The tour closed in Cincinnati at the end of 1853 on a rather tumultuous note. In 1854, Mr. & Mrs. Beyer came to Virginia and stayed for about four years. As they traveled around the state, he paid the bills by painting, then envisioned and produced the well-known Album of Virginia in lithography from 1856-58. Finally Beyer returned to Germany where he made a new moving panorama about his American travels and exhibited it until his early death in 1865. Topics to be covered in the gallery talk include the moving panorama, the Dusseldorf school of art, Beyer’s method of working, and lithography.
From 2002–10, Jeffrey Ruggles served as Curator of Prints and Photographs at Virginia Historical Society. He has researched and is currently completing a manuscript about lithographic views of Virginia.
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