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¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Florence 468
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 representing courage, strength, and perseverence [sic], while honor was standing victoriously holding the bridle and warriors arm. He was just finishing a full length figure of an English Dutchess [sic] sitting in a magnificent chair covered with fine work of Lions, birds, vines coat of arms +c the back being the most elaborate. Busts $600. Ea.
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 1 The rooms of L.G. Mead Jr we found full of work quite crowded with pieces finished or nearly so. Mr. Mead is a small sized modest appearing young man who kindly showed us a good deal without much effort- Finished already for shipment is a large group, heroic size, of Columbus receiving assurance of support from Queen Isabella, beside her a Page, to order, for Legrand Lockwood of NY. $15000 but I opine that Mr Lockwood will be slightly disgusted when he goes up fifth avenue and finds two copies of it (smaller $2600. Ea) in the houses of Vanderbilt and Keep (?)
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 Mr Mead has successfully produced another group, his ideal, $3000, per copy under life size, of Columbus at the moment of discovering land, with two sailors at his feet- a charming conception- He also has two excellent figures, small size $400. Each. “Echo” a maiden with a mountain horn- and “the mountain boy” listening to the horn-
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 [-Hiram Powers-]
Larkin Goldsmith Mead (1835 – 1910) was an American sculptor, working in a neoclassical style. He was born at Chesterfield, New Hampshire, and was a pupil (1853–1855) of Henry Kirke Brown. During the early part of the American Civil War he was at the front for six months, with the Army of the Potomac, as an artist for Harper’s Weekly; and in 1862-1865 he was in Italy, being for part of the time attached to the United States consulate at Venice, while William Dean Howells, his brother-in-law, was consul. He returned to America in 1865, but subsequently went back to Italy and lived at Florence where he died. His first important work was a statue of Agriculture, designed to top the dome of the Vermont State House at Montpelier, Vermont. This work proved so successful that he was soon after commissioned to sculpt a statue of Ethan Allen for the State House portico.
Other principal works are: the Lincoln Tomb, a sepulchral monument to President Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois; Ethan Allen (1876), National Statuary Hall, United States Capitol, Washington; a heroic marble The Father of Waters, Minneapolis City Hall; Triumph of Ceres, made for the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893, and a large bust of Lincoln in the Hall of Inscriptions at the Vermont State House. His brother William Rutherford Mead (1846–1928) was a well-known architect, the Mead of McKim, Mead, and White. (Wikipedia)