The Capitol Dome

Summer 2016

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1. The term "Statue of Liberty" connotes for many people the actual size and stance of the later statue by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, Liberty Enlightening the World, conceived in the early 1870s and finally installed in New York Harbor in 1886. The term is also sometimes applied, mistakenly, to Thomas Craw- ford's "Statue of Freedom" installed on top of the Capitol dome in 1863. (Crawford never saw it raised. He died in 1857 before the plaster version was shipped from his studio in Rome.) Within the Capitol itself, another "Statue of Liberty," called The Genius of the Constitution by its sculptor Enrico Causici (ca. 1790-1833), was installed in a niche high over the entablature of Statuary Hall in the late 1820s. As of 2016, it is still in its plaster state, in that same room, although it has come to be known as Liberty and the Eagle. This article discusses the development of the idea of a personification of a monumental Liberty sculpture leading up to 1807; Causici's, Crawford's, and Bartholdi's statues embody the same ideals, but they are different examples of artistic expres- sion from different periods. The term "Statue of Liberty" is used throughout this article on the premise that the statue itself is part of the "concept." Latrobe himself often referred to it in his letters as the (lower case) "statue of Liberty," making it a less formal concept. 2. This period corresponds to a period known as Latrobe's "first construction campaign," when he served as "Surveyor of the Public Buildings of the United States at Washington" from March 1803 until July 1811. He returned, this time as "Architect or Surveyor of the Capitol," from April 1815 until his resignation in November 1817. 3. Latrobe to Philip Mazzei, 12 April 1806, in John C. Van Horne et al., eds., The Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (3 vols.; New Haven, Conn., 1984-88) 2:229n. 4. For the only two contemporary newspaper descriptions of both the interior and exterior of Federal Hall, which were reprinted dozens of times from New Hampshire to North Carolina, see Charlene Bangs Bickford, Kenneth R. Bowling, Helen E. Veit, and William Charles diGiacomantonio, eds., The Documentary History of the First Federal Congress, 1789-1791 (19 vols. to date; Baltimore, 1972-) 15:32-35. 5. Peter L'Enfant to George Washington, 22 June 1791, in Dorothy Twohig et al., eds., Papers of George Washington: Presi- dential Series (17 vols. to date; Charlottesville, Va., 1987-) 8:290. 6. Albert Ten Eyck Gardner, "Fragment of a Lost Monu- ment," Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 6, 7(March 1948):189. Ceracchi (1751-1801) studied in Rome but spent his first formative years as a professional artist in England. 7. "A Description of a Monument…" [14 Feb. 1795], Printed Ephemera Collection, Portfolio 222, folder 3, Library of Congress; Ceracchi to Alexander Hamilton, 16 July 1792, in Harold C. Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (26 vols., New York, 1961-79) 12:36-37. The "Description," which circulated as a broadside, included "a plan by which the means for the undertaking are to be provided," and in some cases, at least, was accompanied by a printed letter signed by sixty prominent men (presumably committed subscribers to the plan), who included President Washington, Secretary of State Edmund Randolph, Attorney General William Bradford, Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, Jr., and Secretary of War Timothy Pickering ("An Appeal for Funds for a Monument…14 February 1795," in Syrett, Papers of Alexander Hamilton 18:271). 8. Ceracchi's busts of notable Americans include Benjamin Franklin (now at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts), Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson (at "Monticello," Virginia), President George Washington (at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and Chief Justice John Jay (at the U.S. Supreme Court), illustrated here (fig. 7). 9. Latrobe Correspondence 2:21-24, 3:76. Mazzei (1730- 1816) had first come to America in 1773, where his neighbor Thomas Jefferson encouraged his experimental horticulture. For much of the Revolutionary War he served as arms agent for Virginia, but in 1785 he settled permanently in Pisa, Italy. 10. Latrobe Correspondence 2:21-24, 141-45. Antonio Canova (1757-1822) was the most famous Italian neoclassicist sculptor of his day. 11. Latrobe Correspondence 2:225-31. Latrobe summa- rized their modified contract on 6 April 1806 (Ibid., 2:219-22). Both Giovanni Andrei (1770-1824) and Giuseppe Franzoni (ca. 1777-1815) would also work under Latrobe in a private capac- ity, when work at the Capitol slowed; several works in Baltimore can be attributed to them. Franzoni is sometimes confused with his younger and reputedly more talented brother Carlo (1789- 1819), who was recruited to work on Latrobe's second building campaign in 1815 and completed Statuary Hall's famous Car of History just before his death (Ibid., 3:802). Unlike Giuseppe, Carlo is memorialized in a portrait, currently located in the Office of the Curator of the Architect of the Capitol. 12. Latrobe Correspondence 2:233-35. The formal definition of "colossal" as a term in sculpture is a figure at least twice the life-size. 13. Latrobe Correspondence 2:328-29. 14. Latrobe Correspondence 2:346-48. 15. Latrobe Correspondence 2:475-76. 16. To Samuel Harrison Smith, 22 Nov. 1807, Latrobe Correspondence 2:499-506. 17. Ibid. Notes 15 THE CAPITOL DOME

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