Artwork Details
- Title
- James Gibson Powers
- Artist
- Date
- modeled ca. 1838?
- Location
- Dimensions
- 11 1⁄4 x 6 1⁄4 x 5 5⁄8 in. (28.7 x 16.0 x 14.4 cm)
- Credit Line
- Museum purchase in memory of Ralph Cross Johnson
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- plaster
- Classifications
- Keywords
- Study — sculpture model
- Portrait male — Powers, James Gibson — child
- Portrait male — Powers, James Gibson — head
- Object Number
- 1968.155.110
Artwork Description
James (Jimmy) Gibson Powers was Hiram Powers’s first child. He died from a brain tumor in 1838, when he was only four years old. Shortly after the boy died, Powers took a cast of his son’s face to preserve his likeness and perhaps use as a model for a bust. Some of the child’s eyelashes, eyebrows, and hair are embedded in the plaster, making the tragedy of his death real to viewers of this piece more than a century later.