Christ

Artist

Thomas Ridgeway Gould (American 1818–1881)

Date

1863

Medium

Marble

Dimensions

21 9/16 x 15 3/16 x 14 5/16 in. (54.7 x 38.6 x 36.4 cm)

Description

Thomas Gould began his professional life in his native Boston as a dry-goods merchant, but when the Civil War brought a downturn in business, he turned an already developed avocation into a vocation and became a sculptor. He was immediately proficient as a portraitist but made his reputation with allegorical and literary figures and busts, such this bust and its mate, Satan, also in the Athenæum’s collection.

Gould exhibited plaster versions of his Satan and Christ at the Boston Athenæum in 1864. Having seen them there, a group of Bostonians then commissioned Gould to translate his plasters into marble in his studio in Florence, where he had moved permanently in 1868. It took Gould a full decade to complete the works, and they finally arrived at the Athenæum in 1878.

Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson for the Boston Athenæum.

Inscription

Inscribed on reverse: T. R. GOULD/SC: 1863

Credit Line

Gift of several subscribers, 1878

Object Number

UH81

Satan

Artist

Thomas Ridgeway Gould (American 1818–1881)

Date

1862

Medium

Marble

Dimensions

22 1/8 x 14 5/8 x 11 5/16 in. (56.2 x 37.2 x 28.8 cm)

Description

Thomas Gould began his professional life in his native Boston as a dry-goods merchant, but when the Civil War brought a downturn in business, he turned an already developed avocation into a vocation and became a sculptor.

He was immediately proficient as a portraitist but made his reputation with allegorical and literary figures and busts, such as this one and its mate, Christ, also in the Boston Athenæum’s collection. Gould exhibited plaster versions of these busts at the Athenæum in 1864. Having seen them there, a group of Bostonians then commissioned Gould to translate his plasters into marble in his studio in Florence, where he had moved permanently in 1868. It took Gould a full decade to complete the works and they finally arrived at the Athenæum in 1878. Although the busts have long been exhibited as a pair, they were not obviously created as such. In fact, of the two, Satan is the more imaginative and original and therefore, oddly, the more inspirational.

Photograph by Jerry L. Thompson for the Boston Athenæum.

Inscription

Inscribed on reverse: T. R. GOULD/SC: 1862

Credit Line

Gift of several subscribers, 1878

Object Number

UH80

John Albion Andrew

Artist

Thomas Ridgeway Gould (American 1818–1881)

Date

about 1863

Medium

Plaster

Dimensions

30 13/16 x 20 15/16 x 15 3/16 in. (78.2 x 53.2 x 38.5 cm) (integral base)

Inscription

Inscribed on reverse: PAUL A. GAREY/BOSTON

Credit Line

Gift of William A. Jones, 1930

Object Number

UH139