John Pierpont Morgan Memorial – Scorpio

Paul Manship, John Pierpont Morgan Memorial--Scorpio, 1915-1920, bronze, 8 ¹⁄₄ x 4 ¹⁄₈ x ¹⁄₈ in. (21.1 x 10.5 x 0.2 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1965.16.108

Artwork Details

Title: John Pierpont Morgan Memorial – Scorpio
Artist: Paul Manship
Date: 1915-1920
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: 8 ¹⁄₄ x 4 ¹⁄₈ x ¹⁄₈ in. (21.1 x 10.5 x 0.2 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of the artist
Mediums: bronze
Mediums Description: bronze
Classifications: Sculpture
Relief
Subjects: Mythology — classical — Scorpio
Animal — insect — scorpion
Monument — memorial — Morgan
Object Number: 1965.16.108
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1965.16.108

Artwork Description

John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) was a prominent Gilded Age financier. When Pierpont died in 1913, Paul Manship began working on a memorial tablet commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which eventually received almost forty percent of Pierpont’s collection of medieval and Renaissance art. This uniface cast represents one of the signs of the zodiac that line the sides of the Morgan tablet, which appears in the southeast wall of the museum’s vestibule. Manship intended these figures to represent the “Cycle of the Year” or the “Compass of Life.”