The story begins with Peter Hovenden, a retired watchmaker and Owen's former master, walking by with his daughter Annie.

Owen secretly loves Annie and is despondent for a time but, once his spirits revive, he returns to his project with vigor.

He offers his invention to Annie as a late wedding gift and instructs her to open an extravagantly decorated box.

"The Artist of the Beautiful" was first published in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review in its June 1844 issue before being included in the collection Mosses from an Old Manse in 1846.

[1] Margaret Fuller, in the June 22, 1846, edition of the New York Daily Tribune, stated that the story "presents in a form that is, indeed, beautiful, the opposite view as to what are the substantial realities of life".

[3] Critics generally include the story, along with "The Birth-Mark" and "Drowne's Wooden Image", as Hawthorne's most significant explorations of the nature of Art and its creation.