Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial)
Abraham Lincoln | |
---|---|
Artist | Daniel Chester French |
Year | 1920 |
Type | Georgia marble (Murphy Marble) |
Dimensions | 580 cm (228 in) |
Location | Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C., United States |
38°53′21.4″N 77°3′0.5″W / 38.889278°N 77.050139°W |
Abraham Lincoln (1920) is a colossal seated figure of the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), sculpted by Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) and carved by the Piccirilli Brothers. Located in the Lincoln Memorial (constructed 1914–1922), on the National Mall, Washington, D.C., United States, the statue was unveiled in 1922. The work follows in the Beaux Arts and American Renaissance style traditions.
Description
The 170-
History
Daniel Chester French was selected in 1914 by the Lincoln Memorial Committee to create a Lincoln statue as part of the memorial to be designed by architect Henry Bacon (1866–1924). French was already famous for his 1874 The Minute Man statue in Concord, Massachusetts, and other works such as his 1884 John Harvard statue. He was also the personal choice of Bacon, who had already been collaborating with him for nearly 25 years. French resigned his chairmanship of the Fine Arts Commission in Washington, D.C. — a group closely affiliated with the memorial's design and creation — and commenced work in December.
French had already created (1909–1912) a major memorial statue of Lincoln—this one standing—for the
Three plaster models of the Lincoln statue are at French's Chesterwood Studio, a National Trust Historic Site in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, including a plaster sketch (1915) and a six-foot plaster model (1916). The second of French's plasters, created at Chesterwood in the summer of 1916 (inscribed October 31), became the basis of the final work, which was initially envisioned as a 12-foot (3.7 m) bronze. In deciding the size of the final statue, French and Bacon took photographic enlargements of the model to the memorial under construction. Eventually, French's longtime collaborators, the firm of Piccirilli Brothers, were commissioned to do the carving of a much larger sculpture in marble from a quarry near Tate, Georgia.
French's design took a year to transfer to the massive marble blocks. French provided finishing strokes in the carvers' studio in
Legends
It is often said that the Lincoln figure is signing his own initials in the American manual alphabet: A with his left hand, "L" with his right. The National Park Service is at best ambivalent toward the story, saying, "It takes some imagination to see signs in Lincoln's hands."[2] French had a deaf son[3] and had depicted Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet signing in the manual alphabet.[2]
See also
- Public sculptures by Daniel Chester French
- Outdoor sculpture in Washington, D.C.
- List of statues of Abraham Lincoln
- List of sculptures of presidents of the United States
References
- ^ a b Jacob, Kathryn Allamong (1998), Testament to Union: Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C., Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 119–125.
- ^ a b "Lincoln Memorial National Memorial – Frequently Asked Questions". National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. 2008. Archived from the original on 30 May 2009. Retrieved 2009-05-29.
- ISBN 0-7922-7499-7.