Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Last updated
Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning MET DT8282.jpg
Artist Harriet Hosmer   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Year1853
Collection Metropolitan Museum of Art   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Identifiers The Met object ID: 11156

Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning is an 1853 sculpture by Harriet Hosmer. Plaster casts are in the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, [1] and at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. [2] As a bronze sculpture, versions are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art [3] and in the "Cloister of the Clasped Hands" at Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University. [4]

Contents

Early history and creation

Hosmer described the work's creation thus:

The history of the hands is very brief. In the winter of 1853, my second winter in Rome, I made the personal acquaintance of Mr and Mrs Browning. I then conceived the idea of casting their hands and asked Mrs Browning if she would consent. "Yes," she said "provided you will cast them but I will not sit for the formatore." Consequently I did the casting myself. [5]

It was one of earliest works created that Hosmer created in Rome. [6] First created in plaster, the work was only cast in bronze years later. [7]

Description and interpretation

View from a different angle Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, Clasped Hands of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, model 1853, NGA 132405.jpg
View from a different angle

The work directly depicts the clasped hands of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning, without other parts of the body. [3] The artist Harriet Hosmer cast the hands of the poets herself at the request of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The artist left the casting exactly as it came from the mold to preserve the textural quality of the casting and the lovers' sensitive physiognomy. [8] The difference in size of the hands, as well as the cuff at each wrist, indicate the identity of each hand; and, although her hand is inside of his, hers is more visible, and there is a sense of equal partnership in the representation. [9]

The signature of the artist is on end of Robert Barrett Browning's wrist and reads: HANDS - OF - ROBERT / AND / Elizabeth Barrett Browning / cast By / Harriet Hosmer / Rome 1853.

The work was in the same tradition as Hiram Powers' Loulie's Hand, and they were both inspired by contemporary Spiritualism. [10]

Later history and influence

Nathaniel Hawthorne alludes to the work in the 1860 novel The Marble Faun , as "Harriet Hosmer's Clasped Hands of Browning and his wife symbolize the individuality and heroic union of two highly poetic lives". [5] [11] Later in life, Hosmer commemorated the Brownings in some lines of poetry, "Parted by death we say... Yet hand in hand they hold their eternal way". [5] [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antonio Canova</span> Italian Neoclassical sculptor (1757–1822)

Antonio Canova was an Italian Neoclassical sculptor, famous for his marble sculptures. Often regarded as the greatest of the Neoclassical artists, his sculpture was inspired by the Baroque and the classical revival, and has been characterised as having avoided the melodramatics of the former, and the cold artificiality of the latter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Paul Akers</span> American sculptor

Benjamin Paul Akers was an American sculptor from Maine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bronze sculpture</span> Sculpture cast in bronze

Bronze is the most popular metal for cast metal sculptures; a cast bronze sculpture is often called simply "a bronze". It can be used for statues, singly or in groups, reliefs, and small statuettes and figurines, as well as bronze elements to be fitted to other objects such as furniture. It is often gilded to give gilt-bronze or ormolu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet Hosmer</span> American sculptor (1830–1908)

Harriet Goodhue Hosmer was a neoclassical sculptor, considered the most distinguished female sculptor in America during the 19th century. She is known as the first female professional sculptor. Among other technical innovations, she pioneered a process for turning limestone into marble. Hosmer once lived in an expatriate colony in Rome, befriending many prominent writers and artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmonia Lewis</span> American sculptor

Mary Edmonia Lewis, also known as "Wildfire", was an American sculptor, of mixed African-American and Native American heritage. Born free in Upstate New York, she worked for most of her career in Rome, Italy. She was the first African-American and Native American sculptor to achieve national and then international prominence. She began to gain prominence in the United States during the Civil War; at the end of the 19th century, she remained the only Black woman artist who had participated in and been recognized to any extent by the American artistic mainstream. In 2002, the scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Edmonia Lewis on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sculpture of the United States</span>

The history of sculpture in the United States begins in the 1600s "with the modest efforts of craftsmen who adorned gravestones, Bible boxes, and various utilitarian objects with simple low-relief decorations." American sculpture in its many forms, genres and guises has continuously contributed to the cultural landscape of world art into the 21st century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Randolph Rogers</span> American sculptor

Randolph Rogers was an American Neoclassical sculptor. An expatriate who lived most of his life in Italy, his works ranged from popular subjects to major commissions, including the Columbus Doors at the U.S. Capitol and American Civil War monuments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Whitney</span> American sculptor

Anne Whitney was an American sculptor and poet. She made full-length and bust sculptures of prominent political and historical figures, and her works are in major museums in the United States. She received prestigious commissions for monuments. Two statues of Samuel Adams were made by Whitney and are located in Washington, D.C.'s National Statuary Hall Collection and in front of Faneuil Hall in Boston. She also created two monuments to Leif Erikson.

<i>Resting Satyr</i> Greek sculpture

The Resting Satyr or Leaning Satyr, also known as the Satyr anapauomenos is a statue type generally attributed to the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles. Some 115 examples of the type are known, of which the best known is in the Capitoline Museums.

<i>The Mature Age</i> Sculpture by Camille Claudel

The Mature Age, also named Destiny, The Path of Life or Fatality (1894–1900) is a sculpture by French artist Camille Claudel. The work was commissioned by the French government in 1895, but the commission was cancelled in 1899 before a bronze was cast. A plaster version of the sculpture was exhibited in 1899, and then cast in bronze privately in 1902. A second private bronze casting was made in 1913, and it is thought that the plaster version was destroyed at that time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brenda Putnam</span> American sculptor teacher and author (1890–1975)

Brenda Putnam was an American sculptor, teacher and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Barrett Browning</span> English painter

Robert Wiedeman Barrett Browning, known as Pen Browning, was an English painter. His career was moderately successful, but he is better known as the son and heir of the celebrated English poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, of whose manuscripts and memorabilia he built up a substantial collection. He also bought and restored the Baroque palace Ca' Rezzonico in Venice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patricia Cronin</span> American painter

Patricia Cronin is a New York-based feminist cross-disciplinary artist. Since the early-1990s, Cronin has garnered international attention for her photographs, paintings and sculptures that address contemporary human rights issues. Cronin's conceptual artistic practice transits across many aesthetic platforms addressing social justice issues of gender, sexuality and class, including: lesbian visibility, feminist art history, marriage equality and international rights of women and LGBTQ+ people. She subverts traditional art images and forms in a wide range of two and three-dimensional time-honored artists' materials and breathes new life into these images and forms by injecting her specific political content. Her critically acclaimed statue, "Memorial To A Marriage", is the first and only Marriage Equality monument in the world. A 3-ton Carrara marble mortuary sculpture of her life partner and herself was made before gay marriage was legal in the U.S., and has been exhibited widely across the country and abroad. Cronin began her career working for the Anne Frank Stichting (Foundation)Archived 2015-10-25 at the Wayback Machine in Amsterdam installing the traveling exhibition "Anne Frank in the World" in Europe and the U.S. Giving presence to female absence is a consistent thread that runs through and connects each body of work.

<i>King and Queen</i> (sculpture) Sculpture series by Henry Moore

King and Queen is a bronze sculpture by Henry Moore, designed in 1952. It depicts two figures, one male and one female, seated beside each other on a bench, both facing slightly to the left. It is Moore's only sculpture depicting a single pair of adult figures. Moore's records suggest it was originally known as Two Seated Figures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louisa Lander</span> American sculptor

Louisa Lander (1826–1923) was a member of the expatriate community of American women sculptors who settled in Rome in the mid-nineteenth century, led by Charlotte Cushman and Harriet Hosmer. Lander was ostracized from this community in 1859 due to a rumored personal scandal, and many of the details of her later life remain unknown.

<i>The Great God Pan</i> (sculpture) Sculpture by George Grey Barnard in Manhattan, New York, U.S.

The Great God Pan is a bronze sculpture by American sculptor George Grey Barnard. Since 1907, it has been a fixture of the Columbia University campus in Manhattan, New York City.

<i>Bacchante and Infant Faun</i> Statue by Frederick William MacMonnies

Bacchante and Infant Faun is a bronze sculpture modeled by American artist Frederick William MacMonnies in Paris in 1893–1894.

<i>Raised left hand</i>

Raised Left Hand is a bronze sculpture by Julio González displayed in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, created in 1942, the year of his death. This work of art was created as a plaster cast, and then later cast in bronze. It is unclear if the when or if the artist cast the final sculpture. Other sculptures created within the last months of the artist's life were cast in bronze posthumous. For example, the other monumental sculpture created in this period, Head of theMontserrat, II, was cast in bronze after the artist's death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Statue of Robert R. Livingston</span> Bronze sculpture

Robert R. Livingston is an 1875 bronze sculpture of Robert R. Livingston, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, executed by the New York born sculptor Erastus Dow Palmer. The state is installed in the United States Capitol, in Washington, D.C., as part of the National Statuary Hall Collection. It is one of two statues donated by the state of New York.

<i>Iris, Messenger of the Gods</i> Sculpture by Auguste Rodin

Iris, Messenger of the Gods is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin. A plaster model, created between 1891 and 1894, was cast in bronze by Fonderie Rudier at various times from about 1895. Iris is depicted with her right hand clasping her right foot and her naked body posed provocatively with her legs spread wide, displaying her genitalia.

References

  1. "Immortal Hands". Harvard Magazine. 2004-07-01. Retrieved 2017-06-01.
  2. "Clasped Hands of Elizabeth and Robert Browning | National Museum of Women in the Arts". nmwa.org. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  3. 1 2 "Clasped Hands of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning". Metropolitan Museum of Art.
  4. "Baylor University || Armstrong Browning Library || Sculpture". www.browninglibrary.org. Retrieved 2017-05-25.
  5. 1 2 3 Hosmer, Harriet Goodhue (1912). Harriet Hosmer: Letters and Memories. Moffat, Yard and Company.
  6. N.Y.), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York (2003-01-01). Perspectives on American Sculpture Before 1925. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN   9781588391056.
  7. 1 2 N.Y.), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York); Dimmick, Lauretta; Hassler, Donna J. (1999). American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: A catalogue of works by artists born before 1865. Metropolitan Museum of Art. ISBN   9780870999147.
  8. Colbert, Charles (1997). A Measure of Perfection: Phrenology and the Fine Arts in America. UNC Press Books. ISBN   9780807846735.
  9. Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher; Gaskell, Ivan; Schechner, Sara; Carter, Sarah Anne; Gerbig, Samantha van (2015-02-06). Tangible Things: Making History through Objects. Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780199382293.
  10. Chapman, Alison (2015-07-16). Networking the Nation: British and American Women's Poetry and Italy, 1840-1870. OUP Oxford. ISBN   9780191035456.
  11. Hawthorne, Nathaniel (2015-06-12). The Marble Faun. Booklassic. ISBN   9789635224210.