Margaret R. Laster is an independent scholar. Her research centers on art and material culture of the nineteenth century and on histories of collecting and patronage. Previous posts include Associate Curator of American art at the New-York Historical Society and the Lunder Consortium for Whistler Studies Fellow at the Freer Gallery of Art. Laster’s publications include New York: Art and Cultural Capital of the Gilded Age (coeditor, 2019), and forthcoming essays on art collecting in pre–Civil War New York. Laster was a guest scholar at the Getty Research Institute in 2019 and currently serves as a consultant to the Frick’s Center for the History of Collecting.