Broadside 1850 Barnum]]> Broadside 1850 Walnut]]> Oval mat. Gilt and gesso frame: Inner frame is oval, outer frame is serpentine oblong with floral and foliate scroll decoration at corners. (Frame is identical to frames for 1977.05.01-03)]]> Broadside 1851 Chestnut]]>
Correction: Likely from E. [Elizabeth] Oakes Smith]]>
Daniel Webster (1782- 1852), American Statesman, was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire. Aspiring to but never attaining the Presidency of the United States, Webster's political career included terms as a Congressman, Senator, and Secretary of State. His eloquence as a speaker and writer, however, earned him the widest renown.

This statuette is a replica of a figure modelled by Thomas Ball (1819-1911), son of a Charlestown, Massachusetts, house and sign painter. Art dealer C.W. Nichols obtained the copyright to reproduce this popular statuette, making it one of the earliest examples of mass-produced American sculpture.
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Correction: Likely Charles Brickett Haddock]]>
Correction: William H. Witte]]>
French-born sculptor and stoneworker Charles Bullett (1820-1873) studied at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris before moving to New York City in 1848, and then to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1850. He earned widespread acclaim for his sculpture, and served as the principal of the sculpture department during the building of the capitol in Columbus. He eventually settled in Louisville, Kentucky, where he helped establish the Muldoon Monument Company, a marble cutting firm highly regarded for its work throughout Kentucky and the American South. Bullett supervised the production of monuments in the firm’s workshop in Carrara, Italy, until he died in 1873.
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Born in Boston and educated in France, Breck (1771-1862) served as president of the Athenaeum from 1845 to 1862. It was during his tenure that the cornerstone of the present Athenaeum building was laid in 1845. In 1855 the Board of Directors decided to honor Beck's service to the institution by commissioning a medallion of him by sculptor Henry Dmochowski Saunders. A political exile from Lithuania (then part of Russian Poland), Saunders lived in Philadelphia from 1853 to 1857, having developed a good reputation for creating busts, medallions and statuettes of many notable figures. His busts of Kosciuszko and Pulaski are in Washington, at the Capitol.]]> ]]> Oval mat. Gilt and gesso frame: Inner frame is oval, outer frame is serpentine oblong with floral and foliate scroll decoration at corners. (Frame is identical to frames for 1977.05.01-02, and 1977.05.04)]]>
Edit : Likely 1863, as it mentions sympathy regarding her daughter]]> ]]>
Correction - possibly Sarah Josepha Hale to Mrs. C. A. Hopkinson
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Correction - appears to be Sarah Josepha Hale to Mrs. C. A. Hopkinson.]]>
Correction: Signature appears to be S. D. Doremus, so possibly Sarah DuBois Doremus , daughter of Sarah Platt Doremus]]>
Sculptor Joseph A Bailly (1825-1883) was born in Paris and came to the United States in 1848 and to Philadelphia in 1850. In 1876 he became the professor of sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
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Architect Charles Garnier won the Paris Opera commission in 1861 over a field of nearly 200 contestants. Garnier and Carpeaux were friends, and Carpeaux executed many sculptural works for Garnier's finest building, the Opera. A version of this portrait bust greets visitors as they climb the grand stair of the Opera, and there is a third casting at the Louvre in Paris. Carpeaux was the most successful French sculptor of the mid-19th Century; he was widely recognized as the official sculptor of the Second French Empire.]]> ]]>