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(b New Haven, CT, Feb 21, 1791; d New Haven, CT, Jan 10, 1858).

American sculptor. Although as a youth he showed talent for handling tools, his father, a joiner and carpenter, discouraged him from becoming a wood-carver. After opening a fruit shop in New Haven, he began carving musical instruments and furniture legs for a local cabinetmaker. With his invention of a lace-making machine, he was able to settle his business debts and devote himself entirely to sculpture.

About 1825 Samuel F. B. Morse encouraged Augur to try working in marble. Among his earliest attempts in this medium was a bust of Professor Alexander Metcalf Fisher (c. 1825–7; New Haven, CT, Yale U. A.G.), which was exhibited in 1827 at the National Academy of Design in New York. The impact of the Neo-classical style is clearly evident in his most ambitious work, Jephthah and his Daughter (c. 1828–30; New Haven, CT, Yale U. A.G.), a pair of free-standing half life-size marble figures. The treatment of the heads shows Roman influence, which Augur must have absorbed from engravings; this is borne out by the detailed work on Jephthah’s armour. The bold handling of the hair and drapery reveals his experience as a wood-carver. In ...

(b Rome, July 4, 1751; d Paris, Jan 30, 1801).

Italian sculptor, active also in England and the USA. Ceracchi is best known for his portrait busts of the heroes of the American Revolution, executed during his two visits to the USA (1791–2 and 1794–5), where he made a significant contribution to the introduction of Neo-classicism. The son of a goldsmith, he studied in Rome with Tommaso Righi (1727–1802) and at the Accademia di S Luca. Following his arrival in London in 1773, Ceracchi worked for Agostino Carlini and modelled architectural ornament for Adam, Robert (ii). He also taught Anne Seymour Damer to model in clay, and c. 1777 he produced a life-size terracotta statue of her as the Muse of Sculpture (marble version, London, BM) holding one of her own works, a Genius of the Thames. His bust of Admiral Keppel (marble version, 1779; Mausoleum, Wentworth Woodhouse, S. Yorks) was considered ‘extremely like’ by Horace Walpole when the terracotta model (...

(b 1774; d c. 1846).

English painter and sculptor, active also in America. He worked in porcelain, plaster, and terracotta and after an early career in an artificial stone factory in London he moved c. 1792 to the Derby Porcelain Factory, where he worked as a modeller. In 1816 he emigrated to America, where he contributed architectural decoration to the University of Virginia, including the plaster of Paris friezes for the university buildings and internal plaster and lead ornaments for various buildings....

(b New York, ?1813; d London, Oct 10, 1857).

American sculptor. One of the major American Neo-classical sculptors, Crawford learnt wood-carving in his youth. In 1832 he became a carver for New York’s leading marble shop, operated by John Frazee and Robert E. Launitz (1806–70). He cut mantelpieces and busts, and spent his evenings drawing from the cast collection at the National Academy of Design. In 1835 Crawford became the first American sculptor to settle permanently in Rome. Launitz provided Crawford with a letter of introduction to Bertel Thorvaldsen, who welcomed Crawford into his studio, gave him a corner in which to work and provided occasional criticism, including the advice to copy antique models and not Thorvaldsen’s own work. It is not known precisely how long Crawford remained under Thorvaldsen’s tutelage, but it was probably less than a year. Crawford always esteemed Thorvaldsen’s sculpture and continued friendship.

Once in his own studio, Crawford at first eked out a living by producing portraits, such as his bust of ...

(b Vermont, 1827; d Merano, Italy, Dec 7, 1877).

American sculptor, active also in Italy. Foley was one of the women expatriate sculptors in Rome in the third quarter of the 19th century whom Henry James called “a white marmorean flock.” The historical and mythological female subjects executed by her peers, Harriet Hosmer and Edmonia Lewis, have attracted more scholarly attention, but Foley’s medallion portraits are highly regarded for their combination of subtle vision and striking detail. Her idealized reliefs helped finance the single monumental work of her career, a whimsical fountain located in Philadelphia’s West Fairmount Park.

Foley’s specialty was the product not only of her skill at sculpting likenesses, but also of her formative experiences as a self-trained carver. In the 1840s, she left her post as a school teacher in northern Vermont for Lowell, MA, where she worked in the spinning mills, whittling wooden bobbins in her spare time. Lowell attracted young rural women like Foley with the promise of independence and education. While most mill operatives worked long enough to earn a dowry and marry, Foley used her savings to relocate to Boston. By ...

Folk art, or vernacular art (specific to a group or place), developed in Colonial America out of necessity when individual households produced most of the utilitarian objects required for daily life. Using traditional tools and techniques, many of these makers created pieces in which aesthetics came to play a substantial role, through form, ornamentation, or both. In some groups, notably the Shakers, function was emphasized, with pure form evoking an aesthetic and spiritual response. Religious beliefs have informed American folk art, such as the saints and other figures (Santos) carved and painted by Catholic settlers in the Southwest as early as 1700. Although the majority of folk art is now anonymous, the oeuvre of numerous individual artists can be determined by their distinctive styles or marks. Folk art is often considered within the field of ‘material culture’, with an emphasis on the object’s context rather than its creator. Most American folk art falls within three categories: painting and cut paper, textiles and fibre, and three-dimensional work such as furniture, carvings, metalwork, ceramics, and outdoor installations....

(b Rahway, NJ, July 18, 1790; d Compton Mills, RI, Feb 24, 1852).

American sculptor. The youngest of ten, Frazee worked as a farmhand, and was then apprenticed to a local builder. He launched his career by carving architectural ornament and gravemarkers; by 1818, local success encouraged him to establish a monument-making company with his brother William in New York. His visual repertory and his clientele expanded: a cenotaph to Sarah Haynes (c. 1821; New York, Trinity Church) fuses Ionic pilasters, an illusionistic swag of drapery, and clusters of oak leaves; his monument to patriot Elbridge Gerry (1823; Washington, DC, Congressional Cemetery) unites a truncated obelisk with a flaming urn. Such ambitious combinations of decorative elements probably derive from pattern books.

His business gained him some financial success, but Frazee aspired to the status of artist. The Marquis de Lafayette agreed to a sitting (1824, plaster, lost), and New York patroon Giulian Verplanck lobbied for a posthumous portrait of Chief Justice John Jay (...

American, 18th – 19th century, male.

Active in Pennsylvania.

Born at the end of the 18th century, in France.

Painter, watercolourist, sculptor, architect. Historical subjects, allegorical subjects, figures, landscapes, urban views, architectural views.

P. Maximilian F. Godefroy exhibited several times at the Royal Academy of Arts between ...

American, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 1779, in Hubbardston (Massachusetts); died 1856, in Hubbardston.

Painter, sculptor. Portraits.

By 1803 Ethan Allen Greenwood was painting portraits at Dartmouth College. He later studied with Edward Savage in New York. He travelled through the New England states, painting portraits, and then settled in Boston....

American, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 1770, in Massachusetts; died 1842, in Roxbury (Massachusetts).

Painter. Portraits.

Rufus Hathaway was a gifted carpenter and wood sculptor, and it is said that he made his own frames. He began to paint in 1791. In 1795 he married and became a doctor in Roxbury. His paintings pay no attention to perspective. He was mainly a portrait painter, humorously arranging familiar objects and natural elements in an unexpected way around the figures....

(b Madison, WI, Sept 25, 1847; d Washington, DC, Nov 20, 1914).

American sculptor. Born Vinnie Ream, Hoxie was a pioneer in a field long dominated by male artists and the first woman sculptor to gain a federal commission. Her strikingly good looks and controversial lifestyle sometimes led male contemporaries to dismiss her as the “pretty chiseler of marble,” but her considerable talent and skill eventually earned her praise and commissions.

Hoxie attended the Academy (part of Christian College), in Columbia, MO, where she began her artistic studies. By 1861 she was living with her family in Washington, DC, and one year later she was working for the postal service. At the age of 16 she became a student–assistant for sculptor Clark Mills (1810–83), and shortly thereafter made relief medallions and portrait busts of congressmen and other public figures. She was still in her teens when she modeled a bust of Abraham Lincoln (1865; Ithaca, NY, Cornell U. Lib.) from life—an early success that brought her national attention....

(b Hamden, CT, Dec 14, 1810; d Rome, Aug 2, 1894).

American sculptor, active in Italy. Ives trained as a wood-carver in New Haven, CT, and he may also have studied with the sculptor Hezekiah Augur. In 1838 Ives launched his career as a portraitist. Among the works that contributed to his rising reputation during the next two years were portraits of the professor Benjamin Silliman (plaster, c. 1840; New York, NY Hist. Soc.) and the architect Ithiel Town (marble, c. 1840; New Haven, CT, Yale U. A.G.)

Due to illness, Ives sought the milder climate of Italy; he lived in Florence from 1844 to 1851, when he settled permanently in Rome. In the third quarter of the 19th century, he rivalled Hiram Powers as the foremost American sculptor in Italy. He continued to produce portraits, notably statues of Connecticut governor Jonathan Trumbull (1869) and statesman Roger Sherman (1870) for Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol, but he developed a reputation as a sculptor of idealized marble figures. He excelled at representations of childhood; for example his ...

Canadian family of artists, of French origin. Jean Levasseur (1622–86) and his brother Pierre Levasseur (1629–c. 1681) trained in France as master joiners, before settling in Quebec. From the mid-17th century they and their numerous descendants executed ornamental interiors for civil and ecclesiastical buildings, greatly contributing to the richness of French-influenced architectural decoration in churches throughout Quebec. Records in public archives show contracts and receipts for major new projects, repairs, restoration, statues, crucifixes, candlesticks, coats of arms and boat-carving undertaken by family members, many of whom remain unidentified. The most notable member of the family was the architectural sculptor Noël Levasseur (1680–1740), who worked with his two sons François-Noël Levasseur (1703–94) and Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Levasseur (1717–75), also both sculptors, and with his brother Pierre Levasseur (1684–1744), who was a master joiner. Noël Levasseur is credited with introducing the open-balustraded ...

American, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 1757, in Salem (Massachusetts); died 1811, in Salem.

Sculptor (wood), architect.

Two wooden sculptures by McIntire are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and two portraits in relief of Washington, medallions on wood, are in the Essex Institute in Salem....

(bapt Salem, MA, Jan 16, 1757; d Salem, Feb 6, 1811).

American architect, draughtsman, and wood-carver. His father was a house carpenter, and with his two brothers he was brought up to the same trade. He went on to become a skilled draughtsman, thus qualifying himself to design buildings in whose construction he was to have no part. His work as a wood-carver included ships’ figureheads and the decoration of interiors designed by himself and of furniture designed by others—he was not himself a furniture designer or maker (see fig.)—and a few pieces of sculpture (mostly symbolic eagles, portrait busts, and reliefs). As an architect McIntire won many commissions and was second in importance only to Charles Bulfinch in New England during the early Federal period. As a result of the American War of Independence, Salem became a prosperous seaport, whose merchants were wealthy enough to commission large houses. McIntire was particularly fortunate, at the beginning of his career, in coming to the notice of one of the wealthiest Salem merchants, ...

Elise Madeleine Ciregna

Term coined in the 19th century to describe the overwhelmingly dominant style in the fine and decorative arts in Europe and North America during the 18th and 19th centuries. Neo-classicism is not one distinct style, but rather the term can describe any work of architecture or art that either copies or imitates ancient art, or that represents an approach to art that draws inspiration from Classical models from ancient Greece and Rome. The most influential theorist of Neo-classicism was the German art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann, whose major work, Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks, was translated into English in 1765. The Neo-classical style in North America was most popular from about 1780 to 1850.

Interest in Classical art and architecture has remained more or less constant throughout Western history, peaking most notably during the Renaissance and again in the 18th century. The systematic excavations and ensuing scholarship on the archaeological sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii, buried by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in ...

American, 18th – 19th century, male.

Born 15 April 1741, in Queen Anne's County (Maryland); died 22 February 1827, in Philadelphia.

Painter, engraver, sculptor, writer, inventor. Portraits, landscapes, miniatures.

Charles Willson Peale's fame, is, above all, associated with Philadelphia, the city he moved to with his family in 1776. However, this highly populated and prosperous city had no tradition of portrait painting until Peale's arrival there. As a result, he has been recognised as one of the great figures of late 18th-century art in America, changing American perception, both through his work and the institutions he was involved with or founded. He was as important to Philadelphia as Copley was to Boston, yet his start in life was not auspicious. His father, an English Post Office clerk had been exiled to the American colonies, a convicted embezzler. His family moved to Annapolis, then capital of the province of Maryland, 10 years later, just after his father's death. In Annapolis Charles Peale started his working life doing manual jobs including working as a saddler, though he seems to have painted shop signs and there was little to suggest that he would become the central figure in a great family of artists....

(b Woodstock, VT, July 29, 1805; d Florence, June 27, 1873).

American sculptor. He grew up in Cincinnati, OH, and his career as a sculptor began when he created animated wax figures for a tableau of Dante’s Inferno at the Western Museum in Cincinnati, where he was employed as an ‘inventor, wax-figure maker, and general mechanical contriver’. He had learnt to model clay and make plaster casts from Frederick Eckstein (c. 1775–1852). The portrait busts he created of his friends attracted the attention of the wealthy art patron Nicholas Longworth, who financed a trip for Powers to Washington, DC, in 1834, when he sculpted President Andrew Jackson (marble, modelled 1834–5, carved 1839; New York, Met.). Powers’s strikingly lifelike bust, classicized only by the drapery, had great appeal and resulted in other Washington luminaries agreeing to sit for him, including John Marshall (marble, modelled 1835, carved 1838–9; Washington, DC, US Capitol), Martin van Buren (marble, modelled 1836, carved 1862; New York, NY Hist. Soc.), and ...

(b St Vincent-de-Paul, Oct 14, 1749; d St Vincent-de-Paul, March 11, 1823).

Canadian sculptor. He began his career as a woodworker at the beginning of the 1770s. Around 1790 he worked on the decoration of churches near his village and then produced sculpture for several parish churches in the Montreal region. Around 1800 he attempted to extend his business to the Quebec area. Quévillon’s workshop became a large-scale enterprise, employing up to 15 apprentice sculptors around 1815. He worked in collaboration with several sculptors, in particular Joseph Pépin (d 1842), Amable Charron (1785–1844), Urbain Brien (Desrochers) (1781–1860), Paul Rollin (1789–1855) and René Beauvais (St-James) (1785–1837). Quévillon had a wide influence on contemporary ecclesiastical sculptors and architects. The number of parishes in which he worked is impressive: nearly 40 parishes employed him to produce sculpted, gilt, silvered and marbled works, mostly in wood.

The work of the Quévillon workshop is characterized by the Louis XV-style appliqué motifs that became fashionable in Quebec only at the end of the 18th century. Quévillon’s talent consisted in deriving the maximum advantage from the guild and apprenticeship systems by standardizing and mass-producing the component parts of his sculptures. The output of the Quévillon workshop was prolific, but much has been lost in fires. Among surviving pieces are the altarpiece in the church at Verchères and a few examples of ecclesiastical fittings and sculptures in the Musée de Québec, Quebec, the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa....

Term referring to the romantic character underlying the use of Roman and Greek forms in the art and architecture of the late 18th century and early 19th. First used by Sigfried Giedion in 1922 and later, in an important essay by Fiske Kimball in 1944, the term is most often applied to architecture. Henry-Russell Hitchcock used it extensively as a stylistic term that defined early Neo-classicism in his volume on 19th- and 20th-century architecture. But it also can be applied to painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts. The term recognizes the fundamental idea that the past evokes emotional associations. Even the seemingly rational and austere forms of Roman and Greek art could evoke sentiment.

One concept that helps explain Romantic Classicism is ‘associationism’, a principle that underlay much of the use of historical revival styles in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. When contemplating a building whose forms evoked a bygone era, the viewer made certain connections between the use of the style in the past and its appearance in the present. Thus when Thomas Jefferson chose the Roman temple, the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, as a model for the Virginia State House (...