Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Classification:
Date:
1778
Medium:
Bisque with gold gilt and black frame
Dimensions:
Overall: 2 3/8 in. ( 6 cm )
Description:
Bas-relief portrait
Credit Line:
Bequest of Mr. Charles Allen Munn
Object Number:
1924.94
Gallery Label:
Bristol, England porcelain manufacturer Richard Champion, a politician and active friend of the American cause, produced medallions of Franklin and George Washington, examples of which he presented to Washington.
Provenance:
The Collection of Charles Allen Munn
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1778
eMuseum Object ID:
15993
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Stephen Burroughs (1795-1840)
Classification:
Date:
Mid-19th century
Medium:
Off-white painted plaster
Dimensions:
Overall: 10 3/4 x 6 1/4 x 9 in. ( 27.3 x 15.9 x 22.9 cm )
Description:
Death mask
Credit Line:
Purchase, General Fund
Object Number:
1946.366
Marks:
inscribed: on interior in pencil: "Stephen Buroughs"
paper label: under chin: "Burrough head 22-87, STEPHEN BURROUGHS/American Adventurer"
Gallery Label:
This cast was part of the Phrenological Museum of Fowler & Wells, which opened in New York City in 1842. Brothers Orson Squire Fowler (1809-1887) and Lorenzo Niles Fowler (1811-1896) and their business associate Samuel Roberts Wells (1820-1875) were noted phrenologists who read heads to understand the subject's "temperament." Their Phrenological Cabinet displaying casts, skulls, and charts became a popular fixture in the city.
Provenance:
The Fowler Mask Collection
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
0
eMuseum Object ID:
15884
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Augustus Cornwall Downing (1817-1895)
Classification:
Date:
1868
Medium:
White marble
Dimensions:
Overall: 29 x 19 1/2 x 11 in. ( 73.7 x 49.5 x 27.9 cm )
Description:
Portrait bust.
Credit Line:
Gift of the subject's grandchildren, through Miss Alys M. Downing
Object Number:
1943.184
Marks:
inscribed: center back of bust: "Nach der natur modell./u.i. marmor ausget./v.Prof.Ioh. halibig./Munchen, 1868"
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1868
eMuseum Object ID:
15561
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Daniel Parish, Jr. (1838-1914)
Classification:
Date:
ca. 1890
Medium:
Plaster
Dimensions:
Overall: 9 in. ( 22.9 cm )
Description:
Bas-relief portrait
Credit Line:
Gift of Mr. Daniel Parish, Jr.
Object Number:
1914.12
Marks:
signed: under proper left shoulder: "Lea Ahlborn"
inscribed: "DANIEL PARRISH JR."
Gallery Label:
Daniel Parish, Jr., was born in New York City, and there he died on December 17, 1914, in the house on West 48th Street that he shared with is sister Susan. Parish was secretary of the executive committee of The New-York Historical Society from 1886 to 1902, and from 1903 to his death was its chairman. In addition to several paintings, he gave the Society a collection of over 30,000 pamphlets, photographs, and books on slavery and the Civil War.
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1890
eMuseum Object ID:
15330
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
Classification:
Date:
1865
Medium:
Painted and overpainted plaster
Dimensions:
Overall: 11 x 8 x 7 in. ( 27.9 x 20.3 x 17.8 cm )
Description:
Life mask cast after the original taken by Clark Mills on February 11, 1865.
Credit Line:
Purchase, General Fund
Object Number:
1946.352
Marks:
inscriptions: on top of head: "Abraham Lincoln/Clark Mills/1865"
inscribed: back of head: "NY....INSTITUTE/PHRENOLOGY"
inscribed: paper label on interior: "Lincoln death mask 8 -78"
Gallery Label:
This cast was part of the Phrenological Museum of Fowler & Wells, which opened in New York City in 1842. Brothers Orson Squire Fowler (1809-1887) and Lorenzo Niles Fowler (1811-1896) and their business associate Samuel Roberts Wells (1820-1875) were noted phrenologists who read heads to understand the subject's "temperament." Their Phrenological Cabinet displaying casts, skulls, and charts became a popular fixture in the city.
Provenance:
The Fowler Mask Collection
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1865
eMuseum Object ID:
15262
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Joseph Clay Neal (1807-1847)
Classification:
Date:
Mid-19th century
Medium:
Painted and overpainted plaster
Dimensions:
Overall: 10 3/4 x 6 3/4 x 8 1/2 in. ( 27.3 x 17.1 x 21.6 cm )
Description:
Death mask
Credit Line:
Purchase, General Fund
Object Number:
1946.367
Marks:
inscribed: inside in pencil: "Jos Neal"
label: "J. C. Neal head 23-87"
Gallery Label:
This cast was part of the Phrenological Museum of Fowler & Wells, which opened in New York City in 1842. Brothers Orson Squire Fowler (1809-1887) and Lorenzo Niles Fowler (1811-1896) and their business associate Samuel Roberts Wells (1820-1875) were noted phrenologists who read heads to understand the subject's "temperament." Their Phrenological Cabinet displaying casts, skulls, and charts became a popular fixture in the city.
Provenance:
The Fowler Mask Collection
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
0
eMuseum Object ID:
15209
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Johanna Maria ("Jenny") Lind (1820-1887)
Classification:
Highlight:
Not promoted
Date:
Mid-19th century
Medium:
Bisque
Dimensions:
Overall: 8 x 3 in. ( 20.3 x 7.6 cm )
Description:
Figurine: Jenny is shown wearing a black evening dress with her mouth wide open.
Credit Line:
Gift of Mr. Leonidas Westervelt
Object Number:
1945.276
Provenance:
The Jenny Lind Collection of Leonidas Westervelt
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
0
eMuseum Object ID:
15173
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
William Henry Harrison (1773-1841)
Classification:
Date:
1837
Medium:
Painted plaster
Dimensions:
Overall: 25 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 10 in. ( 64.8 x 41.9 x 25.4 cm )
Description:
Portrait bust.
Credit Line:
Gift of Mr. Benjamin R. Winthrop
Object Number:
1840.3
Marks:
inscribed: on back: "S.V. Clevinger./1837."
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1837
eMuseum Object ID:
15158
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Wax-Relief Portrait of a Member of the Vanden Huysen Family (Daughter).
- Read more about Wax-Relief Portrait of a Member of the Vanden Huysen Family (Daughter).
- Order a Digital Image
Classification:
Highlight:
Not promoted
Date:
Early 18th century
Medium:
Wax, silk, silk ribbon, black thread, and painted and shellaced frame
Dimensions:
Overall: 7 x 4 7/8 x 1 5/8 in. ( 17.8 x 12.4 x 4.1 cm )
Description:
Bas-relief portrait.
Credit Line:
Gift of Mrs. J. Insley Blair
Object Number:
1942.557
Marks:
inscribed: on back in pencil: "9218 C 75849 E"
inscribed: paper label: "9218/c"
inscribed: in pencil: "F W H" [illegible]
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
0
eMuseum Object ID:
15017
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.
Hide And Seek: Whoop!
Classification:
Date:
1874
Medium:
Painted plaster with ferrous metal
Dimensions:
Overall: 46 x 21 x 15 1/2 in. ( 116.8 x 53.3 x 39.4 cm )
Description:
Bas-relief portrait
Credit Line:
Purchase, James B. Wilbur Fund
Object Number:
1941.243a
Marks:
signed: top of tree stump: "JOHN ROGERS/NEW YORK"
inscribed: back: "PATENTED MAY 26 1870"
inscribed: front of base: "HIDE AND SEEK/WHOOP"
Gallery Label:
During a period of experimentation in the early 1870s, Rogers attempted full-size figures, beginning with Bubbles (1929.110) in 1872. A few years later, Rogers produced this pair of figures that represented a bold experiment from technical, commercial, and aesthetic standpoints.
Rogers made Hide and Seek: Whoop! first, featuring a young girl modeled after his daughter Katherine Rebecca. She stands behind a tree stump, her face peeking from behind the vase, about to give the cry signaling that she has hidden and the game can begin. The following year Rogers released the companion piece, Hide and Seek, depicting a boy removing the hat that covered his eyes while his playmate hid. Harry Stimson posed for the boy; his parents were longtime friends of Rogers and summer residents of New Canaan, Connecticut, where Rogers spent considerable time beginning in 1860. The boy stands with his head tilted, listening for the "Whoop" that will send him searching. Not only are the figures intended to be seen in three dimensions and on all sides, but they also function dialogically across space-which could be a large space, if the owner had ample room. This enhances the figures' sense of arrested time, which was dependent on how the viewer encountered them in relation to each other; they most vividly suggest a suspended moment, as both figures are poised to begin their part of the game.
Rogers worked for years, both before and after developing this pair, to create a type of "composition stone" that would be light and durable when exposed to the elements. He realized that an outdoor sculpture involved new practical considerations; he offered cast-iron pedestals to protect the figures from the damp, cold ground. Both statues included vases that drained into a cup in the back. His catalogues guaranteed potential buyers that if they followed his guidelines, the figures would not suffer from changing weather conditions.
For years Rogers' sculptures won praise for their meticulous detail, but the sudden move from table sculpture to life-size scale (forty-six and forty-nine inches tall) raised a difficult question: was his realism still art or merely verisimilitude? Rogers exhibited Whoop! at the National Academy of Design in 1874. He was selective about the sculptures he sent there, and his choice to submit Whoop! indicates that he definitely considered it a work of art. At least one critic disagreed. The writer for the New York Tribune felt the artist was "straying out of bounds. His life-size statues, though creditable in motive, and trying to deal naturally with every-day subjects, are not statues at all; they are simply figures in clay, which is quite another thing." A Philadelphia writer expressed his admiration of Whoop! along with his discomfort: "She is a little too realistic to stand out in the rain, without making one feel like holding an umbrella over her."
In offering his works as garden ornaments, Rogers entered a new market that was overtly oriented toward decoration rather than art. In fact, when the pair was displayed at James S. Earle's art gallery in Philadelphia, they were surrounded by flowers and shrubs with grass underneath. By placing them in their intended setting, the gallery graphically demonstrated their decorative function. Geyer's Stationer, a publication for the book and paper trade, encouraged proprietors to "look out around their customers and keep track of the improvements they are making, and help to cultivate a taste for ornamenting both the inside and out of homes as the owners accumulate wealth," suggesting the Hide and Seek pair as just such a tasteful enhancement. The writer's reference to wealthier customers was on point. In a departure from his customary practice of "large sales and small profits," Rogers priced the figures at fifty dollars each, twice the price of his most expensive groups, and an additional ten dollars for pedestals.
Rogers pushed the boundaries of his oeuvre in size, price, and function, hoping that he would make his fortune on these large, outdoor sculptures; however, they sold poorly. Perhaps they were too expensive for his usual middle-class customers, and they lacked the fine art status that had distinguished his work as an affordable art for the people. Today examples of the Hide and Seek pair are quite rare.
Bibliography:
Articles, Scrapbooks of miscellaneous clippings, etc. about John Rogers, Vols. 3, 4, New York Historical Society.
"National Academy of Design," The New-York Tribune, May 2, 1874, p. 3.
New York Evening Post, May 4, 1874, p.1.
"The Fine Arts," Daily Evening Transcript, Boston, May 12, 1874, p. 5.
Exhibition of the National Academy of Design," Watson's Art Journal, New York, June 14, 1874. p. 1
"Centennial Exposition Memoranda," Potter's American Monthly, Philadelphia: John E. Potter & Co., Oct. 1876, pp. 317-20.
Smith, Mrs. and Mrs. Chetwood, Rogers Groups: Thought and Wrought by John Rogers, Boston: Charles E. Goodspeed & Co., 1934, pp.80-1.
Wallace, David H., John Rogers, The People's Sculptor, Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1967, pp. 129, 235-6, 290, 300.
Bleier, Paul and Meta, John Rogers Statuary, Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 2001, pp. 44, 146-7, 228-9.
Date Begin:
0
Date End:
1874
eMuseum Object ID:
14974
Due to ongoing research, information about this object is subject to change.










