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White marble bust of woman with crown of stars

This white marble bust of a female figure stands on a low, square base. The woman’s expression is neutral, and her head is turned slightly down and to the right. Her hair is wavy with a center part. It is pinned up behind her head. She wears a simple, pointed crown with thirteen three-dimensional stars. Drapery covers her left shoulder and breast with the right shoulder and breast left exposed. The arm areas of the bust are cut at an angle, and a small diagonal panel connects the bare right arm to the body.

Gallery Text

In this allegorical portrait, America is personified as a white marble goddess. Dressed in classical attire and crowned with thirteen stars representing the original thirteen colonies, the figure gives form to associations Americans drew between their democracy and the ancient Greek and Roman republics.

Like most nineteenth-century American marble sculptures, America is the product of many hands. Powers, who worked in Florence, modeled the bust in plaster and then commissioned a team of Italian carvers to transform his model into a full-scale work. Nathaniel Hawthorne, who visited Powers’s studio in 1858, captured this division of labor with some irony in his novel The Marble Faun: “The sculptor has but to present these men with a plaster cast . . . and, in due time, without the necessity of his touching the work, he will see before him the statue that is to make him renowned.”

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1958.180
People
Hiram Powers, American (Woodstock, NY 1805 - 1873 Florence, Italy)
Title
America
Other Titles
Former Title: Liberty
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
1854
Places
Creation Place: North America, United States
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/228516

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Marble
Dimensions
71.1 x 49.5 x 35.6 cm (28 x 19 1/2 x 14 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: on back: H. Powers Sculp.

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Sold to father of Mrs. T. O. Richardson, 1865; Mrs. T. O. Richardson; her gift to Harvard College, 1924; transferred to Fogg Art Museum, 1958.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Transfer from Harvard College, Gift of Mrs. T. O. Richardson
Accession Year
1958
Object Number
1958.180
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Description
Replica of the original of 1850-54.

Publication History

  • Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists: American Artist Life, Comprising Biographical and Critical Sketches of American Artists, Preceded by an Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of Art in America, Putnam (New York, NY, 1867), p. 290
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne, French and Italian Notebooks (Boston, MA, 1873), p. 431
  • Oliver W. Larkin, Art and Life in America, Rinehart (New York, NY, 1960), p. 180
  • James Jackson Jarves, The Art-Idea, ed. Dr. Benjamin Rowland, Jr., Belknap Press (Cambridge, MA, 1960), p. 215
  • Neil Harris, The Artist in American Society: The Formative Years, 1790-1860, Braziller (New York, NY, 1966), p. 408, n. 78; reproduced fig. 13
  • Wayne Craven, Sculpture in America, Thomas Y. Crowell Company (New York, NY, 1968), p. 132
  • H. Wade White, "Nineteenth Century American Sculpture at Harvard, a Glance at the Collection", Harvard Library Bulletin (Cambridge, MA, October 1970), vol. XVIII, no. 4, p. 362, pl. VI
  • Cornelius C. Vermeule III, "America's Neoclassic Sculptors: Fallen Angels Resurrected", The Magazine Antiques (November 1972), p. 874-875, fig. 14
  • Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, Peter G. Huenink, Earl A. Powell III, Harry Z. Rand, and Nanette C. Sexton, American Art at Harvard, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1972), cat. 58, ill.
  • Richard P. Wunder, Hiram Powers: Vermont Sculptor, 1805-1873, Vol. II, University of Delaware Press/ Associated University Presses (Newark DE/London and Toronto, 1991), p. 124, cat. 22
  • Timothy Anglin Burgard, American Art at Harvard: Cultures and Contexts, brochure, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1994), p. 11, cat. 37
  • Stephan Wolohojian and Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard Art Museum/ Handbook, ed. Stephan Wolohojian, Harvard Art Museum (Cambridge, 2008), ill. p. 148

Exhibition History

  • American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/19/1972 - 06/18/1972
  • American Art at Harvard: Cultures and Contexts, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/01/1994 - 12/30/1994
  • 32Q: 2100 19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 08/25/2021
  • 32Q: 3620 University Study Gallery, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 09/02/2023 - 12/31/2023; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/20/2024 - 05/05/2024

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu