Wendell Phillips

Artist

John Adams Jackson (American 1825–1879)

Date

about 1855

Medium

Marble

Dimensions

23 3/4 x 18 3/8 x 12 in. (60.4 x 46.6 x 30.5 cm)

Inscription

Inscribed on reverse: J. A. JACKSON, SCULPTOR

Credit Line

Gift of Samuel May, 1858

Object Number

UH70

Dante

Artist

John Adams Jackson (American 1825–1879)

Date

19th century

Medium

Marble

Dimensions

16 1/4 x 13 x 2 5/16 in. (41.2 x 33 x 5.8 cm)

Description

Here, the Ameircan sculptor John Adams Jackson has chosen to depict the eminent Italian poet Dante in profile and framed in a way that suggests and enhances the subject’s position within literary history. The nineteenth century witnessed a renaissance of interest in Dante, and Boston/Cambridge became a veritable hotbed of Dante studies. As Italy’s greatest poet whose work was a harbinger of the soon-to-flourish Renaissance, Dante was a natural subject for the neoclassical sculptor.

Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson for the Boston Athenæum.

Credit Line

Bequest of Jane M. (Mrs. John Adams) Jackson, 1916

Object Number

UH60