Salvaged from a townhouse on St. Paul Street, this doorway typifies the neoclassical style that dominated domestic as well as public design in early Federal Baltimore. Recent paint tests established that the semicircular fan light had touches of gilding, a luxurious embellishment probably derived from English sources. The house was razed in 1935 but the doorway survived at the Maryland Historical Society before coming to the BMA in 1983. Severn Teackle Wallis (1816-1894), a Baltimore lawyer interested in literary and historical criticism, was associated with this house. He was a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of History in Madrid and a fellow of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries of Copenhagen in Denmark. A bronze statue of Wallis by the French sculptor Laurent-Honoré Marqueste still stands in East Mount Vernon Place.