Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American painter and inventor. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs… More at Wikipedia
In 1832, following a three-year European tour, Samuel F.B. Morse sailed home to America. Tucked away in the hold was Gallery of the Louvre (1831–1833), a massive six-by-nine-foot canvas that would take him 14 months to complete. Morse intended for the painting, which depicted some three dozen of the Louvre’s greatest works displayed together in an imagined museum gallery, to serve as a sweeping art history lesson for the American people. This painting, he was certain, would finally propel him to fame… The rest of the story at Artsy.net