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Head of Marquis de Lafayette (Lafayette Monument, Paris, France)
Paul Wayland Bartlett (born New Haven, CT 1865-died Paris, France 1925)
modeled 1899-1907
- Medium
- bronze
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 12 3/4 x 8 3/8 x 9 3/4 in. (32.3 x 21.3 x 24.7 cm)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Armistead Peter III
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
This sculpture is a reduced version of the head of Paul Wayland Bartlett’s Lafayette on Horseback, which was unveiled on July 4, 1900, at the Louvre Museum as a gift from America to France. It was customary in the nineteenth century for sculptors to supplement their incomes by making replicas and multiple versions of their work. A sculptor might produce a miniature reproduction or replicate part of a larger work, such as a head, to stand in for the monumental sculpture. These replicas and versions were not seen as inferior to the original, and could be purchased by private individuals for their homes or displayed in museums.
