American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art : Volume I. A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born before 1865. — New York, 1999

American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art : Volume I. A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born before 1865 / Edited by Thayer Tolles; Catalogue by Lauretta Dimmick, Donna J. Hassler, and Thayer Tolles; Photographs by Jerry L. Thompson. — New York : The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. — XXVII, 451 p., ill. — ISBN 0-87099-914-1

This publication, the first of two volumes, presents a definitive new catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum's distinguished and comprehensive holdings of American sculpture. Since 1872, when the first piece of American sculpture entered the new Metropolitan Museum of Art, the number of examples dating from the early nineteenth century to the early twentieth century has grown to approximately four hundred. The collection is particularly strong in neoclassical and Beaux Arts sculpture and is acclaimed for its preeminent group of life-size statues in marble and bronze. The Museum's holdings accurately document the history of American sculpture and its development as a profession, from the artists who lived in Italy and carved in marble and those who studied in Paris and cast in bronze, to those who worked only in the United States and were pioneers in the techniques of their art. The collection includes premier examples of neoclassical ideal nudes, expressive genre statuettes, naturalistic representations of Native American subjects, studies for and reductions after monumental sculpture, dramatic depictions of animals, and many portraits in the preferred styles and materials of each period. High points in the careers of such renowned sculptors as Hiram Powers, Erastus Dow Palmer, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Frederick William MacMonnies are represented. Volume 1 begins with an introduction on the history of the Museum's collection, particularly in the context of the outstanding personalities who have been involved in its formation. A summary biography of each of the 61 sculptors and entries for each of the 198 objects incorporate the most up-to-date scholarship as well as documentation from the wealth of archival material at the Museum. The sculpture has been specially photographed by Jerry L. Thompson for illustration in the catalogue.

Foreword

Philippe de Montebello ... VII

Preface

John K. Howat ... VIII

Acknowledgments ... IX

A History of the Metropolitan Museum's American Sculpture Collection

Thayer Tolles ... XIII

Notes to the Reader ... XXVII

Catalogue

Volume I, entries 1–198 ... 1

Selected Bibliography ... 445

Concordance of Accession and Catalogue Numbers ... 448

Index of Artists and Titles ... 449

About the authors

Thayer Tolles is Assistant Curator, Department of American Paintings and Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Lauretta Dimmick is an independent scholar in American art.

Donna J. Hassler is Executive Director, Rensselaer County Historical Society, Troy, New York.

Foreword

Since the founding of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, American sculpture has occupied a prominent position in the institutions history. The strength of the collection is directly and significantly related to the participation of American sculptors in the development of the Museum’s holdings and even in the construction and embellishment of its building. The first of these sculptors was John Quincy Adams Ward, “dean of American sculpture,” who was a member of the board of incorporators that founded the Museum in 1870 and was a trustee until 1901; Ward’s own work would come to be well represented in the collection. Another was Daniel Chester French, a trustee from 1903 until 1931, who championed the exhibition and acquisition of American sculpture during those years to an extent that has never been surpassed, as the concordance of accession numbers in the back of this volume graphically documents. Ward’s and French’s collegial contacts with other American sculptors facilitated the acquisition of the core of the collection, with a large proportion of works entering the Museum during their creators’ lifetimes. Indeed, when in 1872 the Museum was given its first piece of American sculpture, California by Hiram Powers, the artist was still working.

This definitive catalogue of the Metropolitan’s distinguished and comprehensive holdings of American sculpture succeeds the first one, written by Albert TenEyck Gardner and published in 1965, and is an example of the Museum’s ongoing commitment to the study of its permanent collection. The new catalogue, organized in two volumes, presents a thorough scholarly and photographic reexamination of American sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum. Its final realization is attributable to the rigorous stewardship of Thayer Tolies, assistant curator in the Department of American Paintings and Sculpture.

We are deeply indebted to The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc., for funding that initiated the project and sustained it to completion.We also thank the Surdna Foundation, Inc., and the National Endowment for the Arts for their generous support. The William Cullen Bryant Fellows of the Metropolitan Museum are due our gratitude for their contribution to the research and production costs of this volume.

Philippe de Montebello

Director

Preface

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection of American sculpture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been formed over the past 130 years through the efforts and beneficence of many individuals, among them collectors, curators, and artists. The prominence of American sculpture in the Museum’s history has been the result of a consistently high level of acquisitions and exhibitions as well as the sheer physical presence of the art. As with its sister art of painting, American sculpture is represented in the Museum through the active involvement of members of the American artistic community. The preeminent sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward was among the founding members of the Museum and served on the Board of Trustees until 1901. Ward and Olin Levi Warner both taught modeling in the art schools of the Metropolitan Museum. Frank Edwin Elwell held the position of curator in the Department of Ancient and Modern Statuary from 1903 to 1905. Daniel Chester French served for nearly thirty years as a trustee (1903—31) and as the indispensable head of the Committee on Sculpture, while Herbert Adams was an advisory member of that committee between 1917 and 1921. Philanthropist, adventurer, and sculptor George Dupont Pratt was a trustee from 1922 to 1935. Karl Bitter and Adolph Alexander Weinman contributed to the exterior decoration of the Museum’s grand Fifth Avenue facade at the turn of the twentieth century. Memorial sculptures by Paul Manship to J. Pierpont Morgan and Eli Harvey to employees who served in World War I adorn the Great Hall. And, in 1925, the Metropolitan, with funds provided by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., purchased George Grey Barnard’s collection of medieval objects, forming the core holdings of The Cloisters.

Since the first American sculpture entered the Metropolitan Museum in 1872, this institution has accumulated one of the most eminent and comprehensive collections of American sculpture of the early nineteenth to the early twentieth century, with particular strengths in neoclassical and Beaux Arts works. In 1965 American Sculpture: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, by Albert TenEyck Gardner, was published; it was one of the first in a distinguished series of scholarly catalogues on the Metropolitan’s American art holdings.The steady growth of the sculpture collection and the rapid acceleration of research and publication in the field of American art history induced the Museum, under the guidance of Lewis I. Sharp, then curator and administrator of the American Wing, to plan a new catalogue with a larger format. Art historians Lauretta Dimmick and Joan M. Marter joined the project in the mid-1980s as coauthors. When Sharp left the Metropolitan to become the director of the Denver Art Museum in 1989, first Donna J. Hassler and then Thayer Tolies served as project director, both also researching and writing for the publication. American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Volume l. A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born before 1865 discusses objects in the Department of American Paintings and Sculpture that were acquired by June 30, 1998. American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Volume 2. A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born between 1865 and 1885 (forthcoming in 2000) has catalogue entries on sculpture by artists represented in the Department of American Paintings and Sculpture and the Department of Twentieth Century Art acquired by June 30, 1999. We hope that this publication, with its inspiring photographs, reflects the current state of scholarship on American sculpture and will add to the knowledge and appreciation of American art.

The Metropolitan Museum received generous grants from The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc., the Surdna Foundation, Inc., and the National Endowment for the Arts to make this major undertaking possible. The William Cullen Bryant Fellows, who support publications originating in the Museum’s American Wing, contributed substantial funds for research, photography, and production.

John K. Howat

Lawrence A. Fleischman Chairman of the Departments of American Art