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Horatio Greenough's The Chanting Cherubs
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Status: |
Missing |
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Date: |
about 1830 AD |
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Artist: |
Horatio Greenough (1805-1852) |
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Origin: |
Florence, Italy |
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Media: |
Carrara marble |
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Measurements: |
About 3 feet tall |
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Last Known: |
Sold to a private collector before 1851 |
What is it?A marble statue of two cherubs on a base.Why is it important?Horatio Greenough was among the first American artists to focus on sculpture. It was this small statue, his first figural group, that led to the commission of his monumental statue of George Washington.Description:A marble statue of two cherubs on a base, standing about three feet tall, the one with his arm around the shoulder of the other. The statue is signed on the back, "Sculpted in Florence for James Fenimore Cooper, 1830" and the front of the base reads, "In Exclesis Deo."History:The Chanting Cherubs was commissioned in 1829 by James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) while he and Greenough were in Florence, Italy. Cooper had the piece modeled on two cherubs singing from a scroll in the foreground of The Madonna del Baldacchino, a painting by Raphael that hangs in the Pitti Palace in Florence. The face of the cherub on the right is supposed to have been based on that of Cooper's son, Paul.
After its completion in 1830, the statue was shipped to Boston where it was first exhibited. It was moved to New York in 1831 where it was displayed at the National Academy of Design. In May 1832 the statue had its last exhibition at the National Academy. Cooper stored The Chanting Cherubs at the American Academy of Fine Arts, where he was a member, until a fire there in 1837.
Greenough's most famous sculpture is that of George Washington commissioned by the Congress of the United States in 1832 and completed in 1840. He received this commission in part because of the attention he received as a result of the exhibition of The Chanting Cherubs. The Washington statue is now at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.Clues:Cooper is though to have sold The Chanting Cherubs to a Mrs. Stephens of New York before his death in 1852.Special thanks to:
The Pitti Palace, Florence
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Period illustration of Greenough's "The Chanting Cherubs."
"The Madonna del Baldacchino" by Raphael. Courtesy of Pitti Palace, Florence
Detail from "The Madonna del Baldacchino" by Raphael. Courtesy of Pitti Palace, Florence . |
