Art - Overview The National Museum of American History is not an
art museum. But works of art fill its collections and testify to
the vital place of art in everyday American life. The ceramics
collections hold hundreds of examples of American and European
art glass and pottery. Fashion sketches, illustrations, and
prints are part of the costume collections. Donations from
ethnic and cultural communities include many homemade religious
ornaments, paintings, and figures. The Harry T Peters "America
on Stone" collection alone comprises some 1,700 color prints of
scenes from the 1800s. The National Quilt Collection is art on
fabric. And the tools of artists and artisans are part of the
Museum's collections, too, in the form of printing plates,
woodblock tools, photographic equipment, and potters' stamps,
kilns, and wheels.