Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1100404
THE CAPITOL DOME 36 Milmore's has been generally considered the most out- standing. 36 e vice-presidential busts by Cushing and Dun- bar are all located within the Senate Chamber. Cush- ing's Millard Fillmore (twelh vice president, fig. 7) was carved in 1895 and Dunbar's busts of omas A. Hen- dricks (twenty-first vice president, fig. 8) and Martin Van Buren (eighth vice president) were carved in 1890 and 1894 respectively. All three sitters are depicted in contemporary costume rather than à l'antique in the manner of Sumner and have not been in receipt of similar praise. Milmore had the advantage of working from life in his portrait, whereas Cushing, with Fillmore long dead by the time of the commission, had difficulty sourcing imagery and descriptions of the man. He ended up relying on "two old but very good engravings of the ex-President to make the bust," and on a bust he bor- rowed from Fowler & Wells, who were proponents of phrenology. 37 When the clay model was completed late in 1894, Cushing made several, mostly unsuccessful, attempts to get people who had known Fillmore to visit his studio, to hear their comments on the portrait likeness. 38 Born in Ireland and based in New York, Cushing was described in an obituary headline as "A Catholic Artist Who Advanced Sculpture in is Country"—this America, where he had auspicious beginnings, studying first with J.Q.A. Ward, before going to Rome to work in the studio of Randolph Rogers. 39 His familiarity with Italy, coupled with the high cost of marble cutting in America, prompted him to dispatch the plaster model for the Fillmore bust to Carrara in 1895, where it was translated to marble. 40 e finished marble bust was returned later that year and was Cushing's last work. Ulric Dunbar, more forthright in his pursuit of work, offered his ser vices to the Capitol when he became aware of the resolution adopted by the Senate to acquire busts of former vice presidents. In June 1886, he approached the chairman of the Library Committee of the U.S. Senate with the offer of a bust of Hendricks that he had already modeled and on which he was will- ing to carry out further work. 41 A group of friends of the late Hendricks, who were invited to comment on the plaster bust, deemed it a "faithful likeness," aer which the sculptor was permitted to proceed to the marble version, which was completed in 1890. 42 For his Van Buren bust, Dunbar, clearly intent on seeing what his eminent predecessor had done, requested access to the Hiram Powers's White House portrait of the sitter, which in turn was loaned to him to serve as a model. 43 Among the many portrait statues in the Capitol only one can be attributed to an Irish-American sculp- Fig. 7. Millard Fillmore, by Robert Cushing (1841– 1896), modeled 1894, carved 1895 Fig. 8. omas A. Hendricks, by Ulric Stonewall Jackson Dunbar (1862–1927), modeled 1886, carved 1890