American Painting and Sculpture

HIRAM POWERS
(American, 1805-1873)

Charity, 1871
Marble
Gift of Mrs. Hattie Bishop Speed 1928.50

One of the first great American sculptors, Hiram Powers was born in Vermont. In 1819 his parents moved to Cincinnati, where he subsequently found a job modeling figures for Dorfeuille’s wax museum. Like many young American sculptors, Powers moved in 1837 to Florence, Italy, the sculpture capital of the Italian Renaissance. There artists could study the works of Donatello and Michelangelo, learn techniques, and hire skilled studio workmen. During this period, American art collectors also were developing a taste for busts and statues carved from flawless, white marble, and a quarry in nearby Carrara offered a seemingly endless supply.

In Italy Powers began carving sentimental but idealized works, and soon his studio attracted an endless stream of American visitors asking for copies of his most famous sculptures, such as The Greek Slave and Proserpine.

Charity is a highly idealized female personification of virtue. The flame that rises above her forehead derives from a metaphor developed by Saint Bonaventura, in which he compared the love (or charity) of God to a burning flame.