More than two decades ago, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery acquired a 19th- century album filled with nearly 2,000 silhouette portraits, including those of two former presidents. Before displaying the cut-paper portraits, made by a traveling artist named William Bache, the museum needed to create a new, sturdier binding for the book. The museum put the collection online last month, allowing anyone to virtually thumb through the images and learn more about Bache’s life and work through an interactive timeline. Robyn Asleson, the museum’s curator of prints and drawings, said that researchers had identified a little over 1,000 of the 1,800 portraits. By digitizing the album and making it available online, she said, she hoped it will eventually be possible to identify every portrait in the collection.

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