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Helen Ruthven Waterston
Edmonia Lewis (born Greenbush (now Rensselaer), NY 1844-died London, England 1907)
1866
- Medium
- carved marble
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- 11 7/8 x 7 1/4 x 5 1/8 in. (30.2 x 18.5 x 12.9 cm.)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Dr. Richard Frates
- 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
Edmonia Lewis often carved portraits of her patrons, either for a commission or as an expression of thanks. This piece memorializes Helen Waterston the daughter of the poet and abolitionist Anna Quincy Waterston and Reverend Robert C. Waterston, who died at age seventeen. The Waterstons helped Lewis raise the funds to pay for the first marbles she carved in Rome. The sculpture shows an elegant young woman with a composed expression and a hint of a smile. The elaborate hairstyle and decorative clothing suggest a lady of wealth and importance in nineteenth-century society.
