The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis (57 page)

[293]
Child to Mrs. [Annie (Adams)] Fields, Nov. 25, 1865, Child MSS 1695. Huntington Library.

[294]
Whitney to Home, Feb. 7, 1869, Payne MSS, 758-761.

[295]
John T. Sargent, letter to the editor, BDET, quoted in NASS, Oct. 12, 1867. See also
Indianapolis (IN) News,
Nov. 18, 1878; Buffalo Historical Society,
Annual Report
(1885), 22, cites a plaster cast given to the Society’s collections by Dio Lewis’s brother; Walter Mayer, Buffalo and Erie Co. Historical Society email Aug. 4, 2008: not found in 1954.

[296]
ChRec, Oct. 26, 1867.

[297]
C. M. S., letter to the editor, “Bust of Dio Lewis, M.D.,”
Boston (MA)
Commonwealth
, Dec. 14, 1867:

Besides this general truth of the features and proportion, the artist has seized a happy pose of the head, which tones the almost overpowering vitality and directness of the doctor in a more genial and welcome mood. It is not the doctor of the platform but the Doctor of social life, in a subdued and thoughtful moment and so the best rendering for friends and pupils.

[298]
New Bedford (MA) Daily Mercury,
“Bust of Dio Lewis,” Feb. 20, 1868.

[299]
Herald of Health and Journal of Physical Culture,
“Bust of Dio Lewis,” Mar. 1868.

[300]
LRAU, Literary and Artistic, Oct. 1867, 318.

[301]
SFEl, June 12, 1868, quoted Cushman to the YMCA, May 1, 1867, and added, “[The Wooing of Hiawatha] which was presented to the Young Men’s Christian Association through Miss Charlotte Cushman … has been suitably mounted and placed in position at the rooms of the Association in Tremont Temple, Boston.” Solon B, Cousins, Greater Boston YMCA, to Harry Henderson Aug. 25, 1969, reported the building burned to the ground in 1910 along with all records; the statue is not to be found.

[302]
Dwight’s Journal of Music,
“Memorial Services in Honor of John Albion Andrew,” Dec. 7, 1867, 149-150.

[303]
Board of Women Managers for the Exhibit of the State of New York at the World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893,
Report
(New York: Press of J. J. L
ittle and Co., n. d.), 53. We are not sure when the WMCA acquired the piece.

[304]
Passenger list,
SS Scotia,
arriving New York June 30, 1868, listed Cushman (57, “Spinster”), Stebbins (52, “Sculptor”) [they were both about 52 at the time], and Mercer (35, “Servant”). Henry Stebbins (55, “Banker”) and Charles Stebbins (25), Emma’s brother and nephew, respectively, were also aboard. See also Leach,
Bright Particular Star,
340 (chap. 28).

[305]
For more detailed photos of this and other works, see www.edmonialewis.com/links.htm
.

[306]
SFC, Aug. 26, 1873.

[307]
Cf. Whitney, Feb. 7, 1869; NYDG, July 10, 1873;
Indianapolis (IN) News,
Nov. 18, 1878. Adamo Tadolini, who died in 1868, taught at the Accademia di San Luca, a Roman art school, and headed a family of sculptors. Giulio Tadolini inherited and operated the family atelier at 150 Via del Babuino, now the Canova Tadolini Museum. Other sculptor family members included Scipione, Tito, and Enrico.

[308]
New York (NY) Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper,
Aug. 1, 1868. The feature also pictured
The
Wooing of Hiawatha.
Leslie and Squire visited Rome after the 1867 Paris expo.

[309]
Wreford, “A Negro Sculptress.”

[310]
Tuckerman,
Book,
603-604, was copied by NASS,
New York (NY) Evening Post,
and the
Herald of Health and Journal of Physical Culture.

NOTES FOR 16. RENEWAL OF THE SPIRIT

[311]
William Wetmore Story,
Roba di Roma
(1866), I, 214. See also NYDG, July 10, 1873; NYT, Dec. 29, 1878.

[312]
Child to Harriet Sewall, July 10, 1868, Child MSS 69/1841; Pickle, On the Wing, “Edmonia Lewis—An Episode;” HELBAA; NYDG, July 10, 1873; SFC, Aug. 26, 1873; Gay, “Edmonia Lewis.”

[313]
Child to Harriet Sewall, July 10, 1868, Child MSS 69/1841.

[314]
Cortazzo,
Recollections,
67.

[315]
Willard,
Writing Out of My Heart,
328-329.

[316]
Cleveland,
Story,
109-110.

NOTES FOR 17. WHITNEY’S DISDAIN – 1868

[317]
NYDG, July 10, 1873; NYT, Sept. 25, 1879;
Boston (MA) Daily Traveller,
Nov. 17, 1880.

[318]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, Feb. 9, 1868, Whitney MSS.

[319]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, Feb. 9, 1868.

NOTES FOR 18. FOREVER FREE

[320]
Leach,
Bright Particular Star,
338 (chap. 28).

[321]
Peabody, “Miss Edmonia Lewis’ Works,” was reprinted by SFEl. Various guides mention the studios of Overbeck, Wolf, Steinhäuser, Fuerbach, and Platner nearby.

[322]
BrDE, Dec. 16, 1868; reprinted in LCN and
Guardian; a Monthly Magazine for Young Men and Ladies
(Philadelphia, Pa.).

[323]
Boston (MA) Commonwealth,
All Sorts, June 26, 1869, attributed to NASS;
American Phrenological Journal,
Personal, Aug. 1869, 321 (“worthy of mention for fidelity of portraiture and artistic finish. Miss Lewis deserves encouragement.”). See also A-J, Visits to the Studios of Rome, June, 1871, 163; NYT, May 17, 1873.

[324]
Peabody, “Miss Edmonia Lewis’ Works.”

[325]
Ednah D. Cheney, “Jean Francois Millét,”
Radical, A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Religion,
July 1867, 667-671.

[326]
Child, “Illustrations of Human Progress.”

[327]
Child to Sarah Shaw, [Aug.? 1870], Child MSS 74/1958.

[328]
Cf. Child, letter to the editor,
New York (NY) Independent,
Apr. 5, 1866. At forty-one inches tall, the finished work is more than a third taller than the thirty-inch high
Freed Woman.

[329]
Huidekoper,
Glimpses,
184.

[330]
For example, John S. Crawford, “The Classical Tradition in American Sculpture: Structure and Surface,”
American Art Journal
11, no. 3 (July 1979), 38-52
:

For her classical model [Edmonia] selected the Montosoli restoration of the
Laocoön
[ca. 150 BC, in the Vatican museum], an archetypal portrayal of the suffering hero. Although the Trojan priest is forever a captive, the male figure in
Forever Free
defiantly holds his broken chain aloft and places his foot confidently on the ball. The kneeling female figure may come from the pose of Doidalsas’s
Crouching Aphrodite
[ca. 250 BC, in the Vatican museum], but I am not certain. The freedom in altering the upper part of the figure, the clothes, and especially the unidealized proportions of the model makes it difficult to be sure.

[331]
Buick, “Sentimental Education,” 161-162, suggested that Edmonia also drew from Hosmer’s
Temple of Fame
model. Cf. A-J, “The Freedmen’s Memorial to Abraham Lincoln,” Jan. 1, 1868, 8, (illustration), Hosmer’s “negro … exposed for sale” on the right looks down with hands folded in front.

[332]
Preghiera
is illustrated in Dabakis, “Ain’t I a Woman?” Figure 4-9. Cf. Dunning’s, Inc.
Fine Art,
Feb. 26, 1995, lot 1269.

[333]
Murray,
Emancipation,
225-226, which included Story’s
Libyan Sibyl
among the prior “others,” may have been the first to publish on the artist’s racing of her figures: “Miss Lewis … dealt frankly enough, in that respect, with the man. My own opinion concerning this practice of ‘toning’ … [is] there may have been some justification for such a procedure at the time….” See also Bearden and Henderson,
A History,
115-125, for a discussion of the “Black Renaissance.”

[334]
Cf.
Revolution,
“Miss Edmonia Lewis,” June 4, 1868; Buick, “Ideal Works.”

[335]
Buick,
Child of the Fire,
56-59.

[336]
Child to Sarah Shaw, [Aug.? 1870]; Child, “Illustrations of Human Progress;” Peabody, ChReg.

[337]
H. Honour,
The Image of the Black in Western Art
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), IV, part I, 250-251.

[338]
Freedmen’s Record,
Jan. 1867, quoted in James A Porter, “Versatile Interests of the Early Negro Artist: A Neglected Chapter of American Art History,”
Art in America and Elsewhere
24, 1 (Jan. 1936): 16-27.

[339]
Peabody, ChReg [1869], quoted in Hanaford,
Women of the Century,
264-266.

[340]
Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis.”

[341]
The arrival was first noted by LRAU, Feb. 1868; three months later by BrDE and LCN.

[
342
]
LRAU, Feb. 1868.

[
343
]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, Apr. 3 and Apr. 26, 1868, Whitney MSS. Frances Rollins, diary, May 9, 1868, in Sterling,
We Are Your Sisters,
459.
We have not found any examples of these.

[344]
Edmonia to Maria Weston Chapman, May 3, 1868, MS.A.4.6a, vol. 2, no. 37, Boston Public Library.

[345]
Child, “Plea for the Indian.” The piece soon reappeared as
An Appeal For the Indians
(New York, William P. Tomlinson, 1868).

[346]
Child to Sarah Shaw, [Aug.? 1870], Child MSS 74/1958.

[347]
We found, for example, the following during this period:
New Bedford (MA) Daily Mercury,
“The Bust of Dio Lewis,” Feb. 20, 1868;
Herald of Health and Journal of Physical Culture,
“Bust of Dio Lewis,” Mar. 1868, 135; BrDE, Three Cents. Miscellaneous News Items, May 9, 1868; LCN, “Miss Edmonia Lewis,” May 13, 1868;
Revolution
, Miss Edmonia Lewis,” June 4, 1868; SFEl, “Miss Lewis, the Colored Sculptor,” June 12, 1868.

[348]
Child to Harriet Sewall, June 24, 1868, Child MSS 69/1839.

[349]
Child to Harriet Sewall, July 10, 1868, Child MSS 69/1841. Karcher,
The First Woman,
475, suggested
Child projected anger at her husband’s
spendthrift habits
.

[350]
Maria Naylor,
National Academy of Design Exhibition Record 1861-1900
(New York: Kennedy Galleries, 1973), 558.

[351]
Our earliest mention of
Hagar
appears in the Feb. 15, 1868, diary entry of Urbino,
American Woman,
229
: “Miss Lewis … was at work upon a Hagar.”
See also Whitney to
Home, Feb. 7, 1869, Payne MSS, 758-761. This was also about the time Miss Peabody appeared and Edmonia became a Catholic.

NOTES FOR 19.
HAGAR

[352]
Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis.”

[353]
Callahan, “‘Brother Saul.’”

[354]
Gen. 21:15-16, KJV.

[355]
Gal. 4:30-31.

[356]
Gen. 21:17-18.

[357]
A-J, Mar. 1870, which interviewed Edmonia: “She has represented the cast out bondswoman at the moment when she hears the voice of the angel, ‘What aileth thee, Hagar?’;” Chicago (IL) Evening Post, reprinted as “Edmonia Lewis—The Sculptor,” in Sacramento (CA) Daily Union, Sept. 13, 1870. The quoted phrase marked her source as the Protestant King James version (although we cannot say if the writer was faithful to Edmonia’s reference or tendered it according to the her own persuasion). The Catholic Douay-Rheims edition reads: “What art thou doing, Agar?”