24 Inches High x 13 Inches Wide x 13 Inches Deep
In 1879 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), the famous transcendentalist essayist, sat for sculptor Daniel Chester French (1850-1931) almost every day for a month. The life-size bust was instantly recognized as one of the best depictions of Emerson, and Emerson himself said of the bust, “That is the face that I shave.” Copies of the sculpture were made in plaster, marble, and bronze, several of which are today in museum collections. Emerson and French met in 1869 in Concord, Massachusetts where they both lived, and Emerson was on the committee that awarded French the commission that would become The Minute Man.
Artist: Daniel Chester French
Museum: Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others
Time Period: Neoclassical, 1879
1911 Catalog ID # – 5460
Sources:
Denby, Vicki. “Where’s Waldo?” Houghton Library Blog, 22 Nov. 2013, http://blogs.harvard.edu/houghton/2013/11/22/wheres-waldo/.
“Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1879; cast 1906-7.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, http:///books?id=8jr6vNLLYMgC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Tolles, Thayer. “Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1879.” American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Volume I, A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born before 1865. Edited by Thayer Tolles, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, pp. 329-331. Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=8jr6vNLLYMgC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false.