Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1100404
THE CAPITOL DOME 32 New York alone in 1812. As for the young Crawford, there is real uncertainty about the date and the loca- tion of his birth. In his lifetime and since, it was always presumed that he was born in New York, and Crawford himself made such a claim in 1835 in his letter of application for a passport to travel to Europe. A letter of support to the Department of State, from sculptor John Franzee, with whom Crawford had been study- ing, indicated a belief that the applicant's statements were "substantially correct." 4 e silver plate on the lid of Crawford's coffin also stated that he was born in New York, giving an exact date of 22 March 1813. 5 But there is no official evidence to support this and, as yet, no such validated documentation has come to light— which makes a comment from a family friend at the time of Crawford's death particularly interesting (the claim being that the sculptor was born in Ireland and specifically in Ballyshanen [sic] in County Donegal). 6 At the time that Crawford was establishing his career, the insistence on selecting American rather than foreign artists for commissions had become an issue of note. 7 It must also be said, the Irish were not universally popular on the East Coast of America. As his was to become a career of considerable repute, it is unlikely that Crawford would have found it opportune to pro- claim any association with Ireland and perhaps even profitable to dissociate from it. Montgomery Meigs, who, as superintendent of the Capitol extension, over- saw Crawford's work for the building and maintained an extensive correspondence with him, has always been considered to have held the sculptor in high esteem. However, in a single entry in his journal, on 5 August 1856, Meigs revealed a certain cautious curiosity about Crawford's background. Aer a session with the sculp- tor looking over work at the Capitol, Meigs noted: "Mr. Crawford seems to me a man of somewhat rough man- ners. He has a pleasantness which is honest, no doubt, but which looks like the effect of a rather rough early education. I have had it upon my tongue today several times to ask him from what state he came, but I was pre- vented by some turn in the conversation." 8 Nonetheless, in spite of being able to identify a certain uncouthness in Crawford, Meigs was able to recognise "graceful and beautiful design" from the hands of the sculptor and the extent to which his work at the Capitol would serve as an "imperishable monument." 9 When it came time to choose a sculptor to carve the pediment at the House end of the building, Meigs found himself once more looking to Crawford aer rejecting several other sculptors. But Crawford's early death ultimately ruled this out, and the commission was held in abeyance for several years while further names were mooted, one of which was Launt omp- son (1833–1894), who was made an offer of the com- mission. A fellow Irish-American, ompson, born in the Irish midlands in Abbeyleix in Queen's County (now known as County Laois), had been brought to the U.S. as a teenager in 1847. He became a studio assistant to Erastus Dow Palmer in Albany, New York, before moving to New York City. In 1870, between trips to Italy—where Rome, from where he was recently returned, and Florence, to where he was about to depart, were his preferred destinations—and at his own instiga- tion, 10 he was given the opportunity to make a design and model a group for the south pediment, "to balance that by Crawford on the north." 11 ompson chose Peace and Abundance as his theme for the pediment, a written description of which met with the approval of the then-Architect of the Capitol Extension Edward Clark, who invited him to prepare a sketch model. 12 How- ever, the anticipated model failed to materialise and Thompson's opportunity passed ultimately—if nearly four decades later—to American sculptor Paul Wayland Bartlett who, in 1908, received the commission to carry Fig. 2. omas Crawford's (1813?–1857) "Progress of Civilization" pediment on the East Front of the Senate wing of the Capitol was completed in 1863; some of its figures represent early American history.