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8 THE CAPITOL DOME Fig. 10. Left to right: Minerva models, Giuseppe Ceracchi, for the van der Capellen monument (1788); Johann Gottfried Schadow, for the Brandenburg Gate (1792); and by B. Henry Latrobe, for the Capitol (c. 1810) ART QUARTERLY 27[1964]:483; COURTESY OF DEMETRIUS CHRYSSIKOS; PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SOME OF LATROBE'S ARTISTIC INFLUENCES Latrobe deeply admired the sculpture of Englishman John Flaxman (1755-1826) from his London days, as well as that of the world's top sculptors working in Rome. Charles Brownell has pointed out that Latrobe emulated Flax- man figures in his own sketches on at least two occasions.* Besides Latrobe's admiration of the artistry of Flaxman, Canova, and the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (ca. 1770-1844), he certainly saw and admired other neoclassi- cal sculptors in Europe prior to coming to America in 1796. He must have known the work of Ger many's leading neoclassical sculptor, Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764-1850). Schadow's model for Minerva at the Brandenburg Gate (1792), when reversed, is strikingly similar to Latrobe's drawing of a Minerva for the Capitol from about 1810 (as well as his drawing of Liberty), and similar also to Ceracchi's Minerva from the van der Capellen monument (fig. 10). He certainly knew Jean-Antoine Houdon's masterful busts of Jefferson and Franklin and the full standing figure of Washington in Virginia's statehouse, which Latrobe would have seen when he toured Richmond imme- diately upon arriving in America the year the statue was unveiled.