- 11
Thomas Crawford 1813-1857
Description
- Thomas Crawford
- George Washington
- inscribed with the artist's monogrammed initials T.C.
- white marble on a 5 1/2 in. marble base
- height: 26 in.
- (66 cm)
- Executed circa 1850.
Provenance
James Lenox, New York (purchased from the above), March 1875
Gift to the present owner from the above, 1876
Exhibited
Literature
Ernest Harms, "A Rediscovered Washington Portrait," Antiques, February 1953, p. 135
Antiques, January 1954
Ernest Harms, "The Real Features of George Washington," Art in America, December 1955, pp. 46-7
Thomas B. Brumbaugh, "The Evolution of Crawford's Washington," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1962, p. 13
Robert L. Gale, Thomas Crawford: American Sculptor, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1964, pp. 197, 215
Catalogue Note
One of America’s foremost neoclassical sculptors, Crawford was born in New York City in 1813. He began his career at the age of nineteen as an apprentice at the stone-cutting firm of Frazee and Launitz, the leading monument makers of the day. Frazee was one of the first American artists to work successfully in the classical tradition and Launitz had studied under the well-known Danish sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen. After three years at the firm, Crawford, like many of his contemporaries, sought European training and he departed for Rome in May of 1835. He arrived at the studio of Thorwaldsen with a letter of introduction from Launitz and soon thereafter became the Danish sculptor’s only American student. Thorwaldsen’s studio was a popular destination for Americans touring Europe and as Crawford’s skill became increasingly apparent, he began to receive numerous commissions for portrait busts. Throughout his career, Crawford also created allegorical works and large-scale public monuments, most notably The Progress of American Civilization (1853-63), now in the Senate Wing of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.