The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis (56 page)

[240]
Child, “A Chat.”

[241]
Passenger List,
SS Persia,
July 30, 1865. William Story and his wife arrived at New York. See also James,
William Wetmore Story,
II, 173-176. Mrs. Story called Stebbins’ work “the very worst thing I ever saw.”

[242]
Ellen Tucker
Emerson, Milton [MA], Oct. 19, 1869, to father,
Letters,
I, 534-535. The baby appears to be two-year-old Edith (“Violet”) Forbes (born Oct. 28, 1867), daughter of Edith Emerson and William Hathaway Forbes, who had hired Edmonia to make the child’s portrait.

NOTES FOR 11. A SECOND EMANCIPATION GROUP – 1866 to 1867

[243]
H. Honour,
The Image of the Black in Western Art
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), IV/2, 100-106, 166-171. See also Nelson,
The Color of Stone;
S. L. Gilman, “Black Bodies, White Bodies,”
Critical Inquiry
12 (1985): 204-242; K. Savage,
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 15-16; L. Collins, “Economies of the Flesh, Representing the Black Female Body in Art,” in
Skin Deep, Sprit Strong. The Black Female Body in American Culture,
ed. by K. Wallace-Sanders (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 99-127.

[244]
Story to C. E. Norton, Aug. 15, 1861, re his
Libyan Sibyl
(modeled 1861) in James,
William Wetmore Story,
II, 60-72. See also N. Hawthorne,
The Marble Faun
(1860), Chap. 14. Cf. W. J. Clark,
Great American Sculptures
(Philadelphia PA: Gebbie & Barrie Publ., 1878), 141-142; Nelson,
The Color of Stone,
146-147, 151-152, 176-177
.

[245]
Nelson,
The Color of Stone,
129-131.

[246]
Thomas Ball,
My Threescore Years
(Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892), 252-253; Nelson,
The Color of Stone,
36-37, 127-128; K. P. Buick,
Child of the Fire,
64-65
.

[247]
Rogers,
Randolph Rogers,
99-103; K. Savage,
Standing Soldiers, Kneeling Slaves
, 76-77, 83-86, 102. See also Nelson,
The Color of Stone,
131-133.

[248]
J. Rogers quoted in D. H. Wallace,
John Rogers, the People’s Sculptor
(Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1967), 81.

[249]
H. Hosmer,
Letters and Memories
(New York: Moffat, Yard and co., 1912), 319-321, incl. illustration. See also Culkin,
Hosmer,
126-127.

[250]
Murray,
Emancipation,
225. See also Bearden and Henderson,
A History,
115-125.

[251]
Child, letter to the editor, NASS, quoted in BL, Nov. 18, 1864.

[252]
Karcher,
The First Woman,
336-337.

[253]
Freedmen’s Record,
Jan. 1867; Child, “Illustrations of Human Progress.”

[254]
A-J, “The Freedmen’s Memorial to Abraham Lincoln,” Jan. 1, 1868, 8; Sherwood,
Hosmer,
244-253, 276-277, 279-281; Hosmer,
Letters,
227, 368-369. See also Nelson A. Primus, “Letter Feb. 3, 1867,” Correspondence 1867, Primus Papers II7-8, Connecticut Historical Society Library. Primus attributed Harriet Hosmer’s model to Edmonia in error.

[255]
Edmonia to Maria Weston Chapman, Feb. 5, 1867, MS.A.9.2 Vol. 32, no. 64. Boston Public Library. Reprinted in J. A. Porter,
Modern Negro Art,
Appendix.

[256]
Mr. Bowditch and Mr. Loring (probably Dr. Henry Ingersoll Bowditch and Loring Lothrop, both listed as committee members in
Freedmen’s Record).

[257]
Maria Weston Chapman to Mary Estlin, Mar. 5, 1867, Estlin Papers, 1840-1884 Microfilm, Library of Congress.

NOTES FOR 12. GROWING SUCCESS

[258]
Carleton, Mar. 1867.

[259]
Boston (MA) Post.

[260]
ChT, Apr. 7, 1872, was followed by notes in
Der Frauen-anwalt. Verband deutscher Frauenbildungs- und Erwerb-Vereine
(Berlin
, Germany
), SFDEB, BrDE, WoJ, and
Daily Southern Cross
(New Zealand). See also Urbino,
American Woman,
229.

[261]
Hugh Edward Cholmeley (the last name was often misspelled and is pronounced CHUM-lee).

[262]
Ernst Burger,
Franz Liszt: A Chronicle of His Life in Pictures and Documents
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 230. See also Nadine Helbig, “Franz Liszt in Rome,” in Raphaël Ledos de Beaufort,
Franz Liszt, the Story of His Life
(Boston: Oliver Ditson Co., 1910), 207-226.

[263]
Urbino,
American Woman,
229.

[264]
Tuckerman,
Book,
603-604. Excerpted BDET, NASS.

[265]
Tachnedorus is usually known as Chief Logan or John Logan; Tecumseh led a confederation of Indian tribes against the United States in the Ohio area; The Seneca orator Sagoyewatha was called Red Jacket for a coat given him by the British, and he later received a peace medal from George Washington; Chief Black Hawk fought for the British in the War of 1812; Osceola, who led the Seminole resistance against their removal from Florida, sat for oil portraits which in turn inspired engravings and other mementos; Montezuma, who ruled the Aztecs during the Spanish conquest of Mexico, was the subject of a number of eighteenth-century operas; Guatimozin was the last Aztec emperor; Huáscar was an emperor of the Inca empire who engaged in a civil war with his brother, Atahualpa, who became the last emperor of the Incas; Malinche is also known as Malintzin and Doña Marina.

[266]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, May 2, 1867, Whitney MSS. Cf. Payne MSS, 652, 662. Whitney and Manning sailed for Europe in February or March 1866. They stopped in Paris and in Florence where they met Hiram Powers, art critic-historian James Jackson Jarves, and Sarah Parker Remond, who was studying medicine. In Rome they rented an apartment one flight up at 107 Via Felice (now Via Sistina) with a vestibule, a good size salon, and two bedrooms for $25 a month, service included. Whitney soon found a studio up one flight of stairs on Via San Nicola da Tolentino for $13 a month. See also Payne MSS, 713, which noted Sarah Remond visited Rome around Apr. 17, 1868.

[267]
Tuckerman,
Book,
605. Child, Letter to the editor,
New York (NY) Independent,
Jan. 10, 1867, had written, “the career which she [Harriet] opened has become so thronged with competitors that female sculptors have ceased to be a novelty.”

[268]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, May 2, 1867, Whitney MSS.

[269]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, Oct. 28, 1867, Whitney MSS.

[270]
Payne
MSS, 824.

[271]
Whitney to Sarah Whitney, May 2, 1867, Whitney MSS.

NOTES FOR 13. CUSHMAN AND THE OLD ARROW MAKER

[272]
Cushman,
Her Letters,
204-208; Carleton, Mar. 1867; J. S. Dwight, “Mathieu’s Busts of the Composers;” AtM, Apr. 1868, 503-506; LRAU, Literary and Artistic, May 1868, 398-399. Wilhelm Mathieu had designed portraits of Palestrina, Mozart, and Beethoven. See also LRAU, Literary and Artistic, Nov. 1870, 398-400, refers to two more composers, Gluck and Mendelssohn.

[273]
Carleton, Mar. 1867; Bullard, “Edmonia Lewis.” Cf. Frances Densmore,
Chippewa Customs
(Washington DC: Gov’t Printing Office, 1929), 72, confirms the
custom implied by
the scene.

[274]
Frances Densmore, op. cit., 30-31, etc. “The man sat ‘crosslegged.’ … The woman ‘sat on her right foot’ with the left foot extending out on one side.”

[275]
Aleš Hrdlička, “Anthropology of the Chippewa,” in
Holmes Anniversary Volume. Anthropological Essays
(Washington, D.C.: J. W. Bryan Press, 1916), 198-227, compared measurements of 59 full-blooded Chippewa in Minnesota with other tribes and Europeans.

[276]
Devine,
Historic Caughnawaga,
245-247; Schoolcraft,
Notes on the Iroquois,
221. Darren Bonaparte, “The First Families of Akwesasne,”
People’s Voice,
Apr. 15, 2005, accessed May 24, 2010, http://www.wampumchronicles.com/firstfamilies.html.

[277]
For example, Juanita Marie Holland, “Mary Edmonia Lewis’s Minnehaha: Gender, Race and the ‘Indian Maid,’” in
Diaspora and Visual Culture,
ed. by Nicholas Mirzoeff (London: Routledge, 2000), 45-56. See also Buick,
Child of the Fire,
96-100, 125.

[278]
Cushman to Boston YMCA, May 1867, Papers of Charlotte Cushman, Library of Congress.

[279]
Alfred S. Woodworth to Cushman, July 30, 1867, Cushman Papers, Vol. XIV, #3934-6, Library of Congress. See also: BrDE, Miscellaneous Items, Aug. 10, 1867, announcing Cushman’s success raising funds.

[280]
St. Paul (MN) Northwestern Chronicle,
“Miss Edmonia Lewis,” Oct. 2, 1875; Gay, “Edmonia Lewis.”

NOTES FOR 14. THE GARDENS OF SALLUST

[281]
Murray’s Handbook
(1867); Tuckerman,
Book,
604;
Boston (MA) Post.

[282]
Another former Canova studio is nearby on a small street running north from Via della Frezza to Via di San Giacomo (today Via Antonio Canova).

[283]
Anne Brewster, “American Artists in Rome,”
Lippincott’s Magazine of Literature, Science, and Education,
Feb. 1869, 197-199; Rogers,
Randolph Rogers,
115. See also Shakspere Wood,
The New Curiosum Urbis: A Guide to Ancient & Modern Rome
(London: Thomas Cook & Son, 1875), 91: “It is now turned into coach houses.”

[284]
Kim J. Hartswick,
The Gardens of Sallust
(University of Texas Press, 2004). Sallust (86-34BC) was a wealthy historian whose famous gardens contained a number of pavilions and monumental sculptures. The area gave way to urban development
around
1880.

[285]
NYT, May 17, 1873.

[286]
According to
Murray’s Handbook
and other guides, her studio was at 8 Piazza [or Via] di San Nicola da Tolentino from 1867 to 1882 when she moved next door to no. 9 (consecutive numbers are adjacent, not
odd
across the street from even). A small piazza still exists by the church across the street and can be found on Figure 17. See also NYT, May 17, 1873. A German Jesuit College now extends from Nos. 5 to 10 Via di San Nicola da Tolentino.

NOTES FOR 15. PARIS 1867 AND MORE

[287]
Frank Leslie, [pseud., Henry Carter],
Report on the Fine Arts
(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1868), 34.

[288]
Ibid.

[289]
See Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Freedman, accessed May 1, 2012, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1979.394.

[290]
Cf. Jarves,
The Art Idea,
283-284.

[291]
Tuckerman,
Book,
581-582. Cf. James Jackson Jarves,
The Art Idea,
(1865) 283-284

[292]
Edmonia to Maria Weston Chapman, Aug. 6, 1867, MS.A.9.2 Vol. 32, no. 71. Boston Public Library. Reprinted in J. A. Porter,
Modern Negro Art,
Appendix:

I have been remodeling my Freedman over from your kind criticism. I have made a motch [much] better work of it. I shall send you another photograph of it soon and I hope that before the end of the year, 1868, it will be in the hands of dear Mr. Garrison who has indeed been the friend of the poor slave. I hope dear Mrs. Chapman that you will forgive me for troubling you so often. Hoping this may find you in good health, I remain, Yours very sincerely, Edmonia Lewis, Care of Freeborn and Co., Rome, Italy. Edmonia Lewis.

See also Edmonia’s undated letter in Swann Galleries,
African-Americana,
Feb. 26, 1998, lot 35: “You will please talk with Mrs. M. W. Chapman … she will tell you about other Freedmen. Believe me to remain in perfect submission to your judgment of my work. Edmonia Lewis.”