Artwork Details
- Title
- Edmund Pendleton Gaines
- Artist
- Date
- modeled ca. 1837
- Location
- Dimensions
- 20 7⁄8 x 14 7⁄8 x 10 3⁄4 in. (53.0 x 37.7 x 27.2 cm)
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase in memory of Ralph Cross Johnson
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- marble
- Classifications
- Keywords
- Occupation — military — general
- Portrait male — Gaines, Edmund Pendleton
- Portrait male — Gaines, Edmund Pendleton — bust
- Object Number
- 1968.155.14
Artwork Description
After the War of 1812, General Edmund Pendleton Gaines was promoted to major general and received a gold medal for his service. During the Mexican War, he was court-martialed for failing to obey orders, but the charges were dropped after he defended his patriotism. This bust was modeled at the request of General Memucan Hunt, a soldier and politician who also sat for Hiram Powers. After the sculpture was completed, Powers described how General Gaines “brought a bevy of ladies . . . to look at his bust . . . and did everything but gobble while they praised it.”
“General Gaines . . . is quite a tall man, with a white head . . . He is quite a strange mixture of vanity, good sound sense, and nonsense . . . He has always a smile upon his face and is remarkably polite and good-natured to all around him.” Hiram Powers, 1841, in Richard P. Wunder, Hiram Powers, 1989-91