Solomon Sturges was a successful grain merchant in Chicago. During the Civil War, he organized and financed a large group of Union volunteers called the Sturges Rifles. The sitter’s son, Benjamin Sturges, commissioned this portrait in 1862. As Solomon Sturges was unable to travel to Italy, Hiram Powers worked from photographs and measurements provided by the son. Unfortunately, crossing the Atlantic from Florence to the United States was complicated by the war, and the marble sculpture reached America only a week before Sturges’s death.
- Title
-
Solomon Sturgis
- Artist
- Date
- modeled 1862
- Location
- Dimensions
- 23 3⁄8 x 15 1⁄4 x 10 3⁄4 in. (59.3 x 38.6 x 27.4 cm)
- Credit Line
-
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Museum purchase in memory of Ralph Cross Johnson
- Mediums
- Mediums Description
- plaster
- Classifications
- Keywords
-
- Occupation – monetary – banker
- Portrait male – Sturges, Solomon – bust
- Portrait male – Sturges, Solomon – nude
- Study – sculpture model
- Object Number
-
1968.155.49
- Palette
- Linked Open Data
- Linked Open Data URI
