8.1955.5: Hero: Male Figure in Costume, illustration for the poem "Modern Sublimity"

Identification and Creation

Object Number

8.1955.5

People

Washington Allston, American (Georgetown, SC 1779 - 1843 Cambridge, MA)

Title

Hero: Male Figure in Costume, illustration for the poem "Modern Sublimity"

Other Titles

Alternate Title: Hero 1799 ("Modern Sublimity: cooked to the most fashionable palates")

Classification

Drawings

Work Type

drawing

Date

1799

Culture

American

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/305468

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Brown ink on ivory laid paper

Dimensions

22.5 x 36.9 cm (8 7/8 x 14 1/2 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• inscription: recto, right side, brown ink, in artist's hand: Modern Sublimity; cooked to the most / Fashionable palates. // Oh! thou who wast ere [underlined] time began / And whose beginning ere eternity, / and whose existenc [sic] gave to [underlined:] nothing birth. / Oh touch thy harp, and with a thrill divine / Inspire a [underlined:] speck to sing an [underlined] Universe!!! / I sing [crossed out: the] a man if man he can be call'd / Whose name would beggar alphabets eternal [crossed out: waste eternal alphabets] / Far in a vale remote from mortal ken, / He liv'd in land of infinite infinitude, / A wonder of conception inconcievable! [sic] / There from the world oppress'd with age / This [underlined:] This* [footnote at bottom of page, crossed out: [three words, illeg.] As this author can find no incomprehensible / name or epithet comprehensible enough he begs leave to call him [underlined:] "This"] retired with his lone son, young / [underlined:] Chaos. Oft to beguile the lazy Time [crossed out: illegible] / Ling'ring thro weakness on his crooked scythe [crossed out: Resting in tedium] / He would relate his deeds of youthful war. / So hath the youth in friendship told me all / His parents play [crossed out: had?] was wont to give his ear. / [crossed out: But what of all did pleased [sic] me the most/best - his person / Magnificently great/magnificent sumblime [sic] and dress. / Reader thou hast it if I've pow'r to give. / Filling up the endless bounds of space his person,] / beyond the measurement of magnitude. -- (so much for his form) / [crossed out: Upon] his head a spacious [underlined:] helmet [crossed out: sat] crown'd, / Forged of the brazen beaten [underlined:] thunder.
• inscription: verso, brown ink, in artist's hand: Whose [underlined:] crest a [underlined] whirlwind form'd, waving sublime. / And in his hand the [underlined:] forked [underlined:] lightning hove / Like to a [underlined] spear; while to his left arm cleaved / The Sun itself, as clinging for a shield. / His vest was made of the blue void, celestial. / His mantle, wove of sable chaos threads, / Formd one huge veil of [next two words underlined:] endless night. / Our [next three words underlined:] buff like horizon his [next two words underlined:] small cloaths [sic] form'd. / The orbs of Mars and Saturn were his boots, / Whose [underlined:] straps, the [next two words underlined] latter's belt being sliced did make / And hooffed thus, with booted continents* [footnote at bottom of page, crossed out: His parable the reader may ask how he could fasten two / balls to his feet. Hear ye that will! Remember there are such things as / volcanoes in this earth [ ] as other planets have well. T'was in / the gullies of two of them that he put his feet.] / He strode immensity.
• inscription: verso, brown ink, signed, in artist's hand: Washington Allston / Hero / 1799

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

To the artist's wife Martha Dana Allston at his death, 1843; to the Washington Allston Trust, 1862.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Loan from The Washington Allston Trust

Object Number

8.1955.5

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Publication History

• Thomas W. Leavitt, "Washington Allston at Harvard", Harvard Alumni Bulletin (Cambridge, MA, April 21, 1956), vol. 58, no. 13, p. 551
• Kenyon Castle Bolton, III, "The Drawings of Washington Allston: A Catalogue Raisonné" (Ph.D. Diss., Harvard University, 1977), no. 216, reproduced in b/w fig. 541

Verification Level