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Young Octavian
Edmonia Lewis (born Greenbush (now Rensselaer), NY 1844-died London, England 1907)
ca. 1873
- Medium
- marble
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 16 3/4 x 8 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (42.5 x 21.0 x 15.9 cm.)
- Culture
- Italians
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Young Octavian, or Augustus, shows the adopted heir of Julius Caesar. It is a copy of a sculpture in the Vatican galleries that dates from the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Many artists copied this piece, and it became so popular that tourists could even order reproductions from a catalogue. Edmonia Lewis’s version was considered to be one of the best available, as described by a descendant of one of her patrons: “[It] seemed to all of us the best reproduction of the original then offered by any artist in Rome.”
