This plaster replica of Giuseppe Ceracchi's 1794 marble bust was made by Lanelli following Hamilton's tragic death. Ceracchi (b.1751), the renowned Roman sculptor, visited Philadelphia in 1791 and 1794. Here he modeled many of America's founding fathers, Washington, Jefferson, etc., in the guise of Roman emperors. The engraving of Hamilton on the US $10 bill is based upon the Ceracchi bust.

Banished from Italy because of his liberal political views, Ceracchi was executed in Paris in 1801 after plotting to assassinate Napoleon.

The bust was painted in 1955.
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French sculptor Jean Antoine Houdon was well known for portrait busts of public figures of the late 18th century. Houdon sculpted Benjamin Franklin’s likeness during Franklin’s tenure as American minister to France from 1776 to 1785. While only two marble versions of the bust are known to exist (one at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the other at the Metropolitan Museum of Art), Houdon also produced plaster versions such as this one in response to the public’s fascination with the popular American statesman.
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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.]]> ]]> ]]>
Born in Paris of Russian parents, Pierre Nicolas Tourgueneff (1854-1912) specialized in portrait and equestrian sculpture. He exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1880 to 1911, four times receiving honorable mentions and the Grand Prize at the Universal Exposition of 1889. Tourgueneff's realistic modeling of this uniformed soldier and horse reflects more than an artistic interest in his subject. He was a member of the Legion of Honor, achieving the rank of "Chevalier" in 1903, after twenty years of active service. The Legion of Honor, instituted by Napoleon in 1802, is France's highest honor for citizens of military or civil distinction.
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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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Born in Italy, Luca Madrassi (fl. 1869-1914) studied at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In addition to his realistic military sculpture, Madrassi was a master of the fantastic, modeling such allegorical subjects as fairies, cupids, satyrs and genies.
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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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Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier (1769 - 1832), known as Baron Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist widely admired for his research and publications on zoology and paleontology. Cuvier was a major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century and was instrumental in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils. He was perpetual secretary of the National Institute and as a public official was connected with public education generally. In 1808 he was placed by Napoleon upon the Council of the Imperial University.

The Athenaeum of Philadelphia holds books by Cuvier on the subjects of zoology, geology, and paleontology in its Rare Book Collection.]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]>
The bust was deposited at the Athenaeum in November of 1814 with several other plaster castings by the sculptor. When moving out of the American Philosophical Society (where the Athenaeum had been renting rooms) and into their own new building in 1847, the Athenaeum for some reason left the bust of Minerva behind. It was finally returned to the Athenaeum in 1961.]]> ]]> ]]>
Note: From the time he was born in 63 BCE until 44 BCE, he is generally referred to by historians as Octavius. After 44 BCE, when he became the adopted son and heir of his recently-assassinated great-uncle Julius Caesar, he is known as Octavian. Beginning in 26 BCE, he is known as Augustus, the name conferred upon him by the Roman Senate. (See also 1972.03.01.)]]> ]]>
Note: From the time he was born in 63 BCE until 44 BCE, he is generally referred to by historians as Octavius. After 44 BCE, when he became the adopted son and heir of his recently-assassinated great-uncle Julius Caesar, he is known as Octavian. Beginning in 26 BCE, he is known as Augustus, the name conferred upon him by the Roman Senate. (See also 1966.01.01.)]]> ]]> ]]>
Phrenology is based on the belief that certain delineated areas of the brain are responsible for different functions, and that an individual’s personality and character can be ascertained by studying the corresponding bumps and indentations on the person’s skull. The theory was developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gallin in the 1790s, and further advanced by his assistant Johann Gaspar Spurzheim. Phrenology faced skepticism from the scientific community, but enjoyed immense popularity with the American public throughout the 19th century. Today, phrenology is regarded as a pseudoscience.
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Phrenology is based on the belief that certain delineated areas of the brain are responsible for different functions, and that an individual’s personality and character can be ascertained by studying the corresponding bumps and indentations on the person’s skull. The theory was developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gallin in the 1790s, and further advanced by his assistant Johann Gaspar Spurzheim. Phrenology faced skepticism from the scientific community, but enjoyed immense popularity with the American public throughout the 19th century. Today, phrenology is regarded as a pseudoscience. ]]> ]]> ]]>
Robert Swain Gifford (1840 – 1905) was an American painter and printmaker. He spent much of his youth in the coastal areas of Massachusetts and Connecticut, where he developed an affinity for New England land- and seascapes. In 1866, he settled in New York City, where he taught art for nearly thirty years at the Cooper Union School, and helped establish the New York Etching Club. He won medals at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition and numerous other venues. His work is represented in a number of institutions, including the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

William Rudolf O'Donovan (1844 – 1920) was a successful self-taught sculptor. Born in Virginia, he served in the Confederate Army. After the Civil War, he opened a studio in New York City and began his career as a well-regarded professional sculptor, producing many public monuments as well as portrait busts and bas reliefs of prominent persons, including Walt Whitman, Thomas Eakins, and George Washington.
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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.]]> ]]>
Alexei Petrovitch Gratcheff (c. 1780- 1850) was born in Russia. He made his career as an engraver, and was a member of the Russian school. Gratcheff studied under the engraver, A. A. Ossipoff, who like Gratcheff engraved portraits of famous contemporaries, book illustrations, and copies of paintings."
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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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The full size version of this sculpture is a 37-foot high, 27-ton bronze figure of William Penn (1644 - 1718) atop Philadelphia's City Hall. English colonist William Penn, a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), founded the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The figure of Penn wears colonial garb, with his right hand extended gracefully, and a copy of the Charter of Pennsylvania in his left hand. ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]> ]]>