 President Benjamin Harrison invited "all the world" to take part; many foreign countries erected buildings, and every US state and territory was represented.Efforts to promote a commemorative coin for the exposition began around January 1892.They were strongly advocated by the head of the Company's Committee on Liberal Arts, James Ellsworth, who was particularly interested as he had recently purchased a 16th-century painting by Lorenzo Lotto of a learned man, said to be Columbus.