The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis

by Harry Henderson

  Tremont Temple was the very place where she and Mrs. Child first met. Like the Sewalls, Mrs. Child now stayed away. Later she angrily condemned the statue’s realism and its admirers: “Good Elizabeth Peabody had written a flaming description of it for the Christian Register in which she said, ‘Every muscle is swelling with emotion.’ Now the fact is, her figure had no muscles to swell. The limbs were more like sausages.”[401]

  One of Child’s old friends accused her of deserting her mission, a charge she denied: “Miss Peabody rebuked me for what she called ‘my critical mood.’ She said, ‘as the work of a colored girl, it ought to be praised.’”

  Child puffed herself to higher ground, claiming, “I replied, ‘I should praise really good work all the more gladly because it was done by a colored artist, but to my mind Art is sacred, as well as Philanthropy, and I do not think it either wise or kind to encourage a girl, merely because she is colored, to spoil good marble by making it into poor statues.”

  Michelangelo himself could not have satisfied Child’s red-faced wrath. Edmonia’s religious coming out probably aggravated all the other irks. She had turned Catholic without warning, and in Rome no less. Child opposed religious intolerance. She clearly detested, however, the ancient hierarchy of the Church, its power, and its conflict with the representative institutions of America.

  Irate enough to shake off shared goals, Child immolated their relationship and cut all ties. The historic bond forged at a celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation ended over a statue recalling the very moment of liberty.

  New Commissions

  Edmonia’s return visit to America was an overall triumph. Forever Free rested in the bosom of her people, debt free and safe. Her uncanny Longfellow strategy became part of her legend and a source of pride as she carved it in marble for Harvard. She had new commissions and she would also carve a bust of Rev. Grimes in expensive marble.[402]

  Her fame reached beyond newspapers. Summing up the progress of art the next year, a writer of popular history extolled expatriate talents of Ball, Powers, and Story. He added, “There is in Italy a young American coloured lady, Edmonia Lewis, whose talent in sculpture is already widely admired, and who has produced more than one proof of artistic genius.”[403]

  Back in Rome by December, Edmonia called on Anne Whitney directly.[404] She carried a book from Caroline Healey Dall of Boston, a women’s rights champion.

  Although from a wealthy family, Miss Dall supported herself by lecturing, writing, and encouraging female pioneers. It seems she was also a fan of Edmonia’s.

  Anne, no doubt, filled in Edmonia on the latest buzz of Rome – the outrages of Vinnie Ream – explained in the following chapter. Anne also took the occasion to visit Edmonia’s studio. She had not seen it for some time, perhaps since before Edmonia’s financial meltdown. What she saw prompted a full reversal of her earlier assessments. Writing to her sister, she remarked that Edmonia had improved and that her work was now superior to that of Vinnie Ream (now the object of Anne’s envy) and unnamed others.[405]

  From Edmonia’s confident air, Anne sensed new commissions in America. Edmonia did let not her in on details. If she had, Anne would have hastened to tell. Anne’s sister, Sarah, instead, gave the news to her.[406] In our opinion, one was particularly important and from Boston.

  The Hunt Memorial

  As Boston’s first female physician, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt could identify with Edmonia’s struggles for recognition without confusing the issue with suffrage. Her successful practice forced the world to recognize her skill. Now seriously ill, she did not expect to live long. She commissioned a life-size marble statue of Hygeia (Figure 29), the daughter of the Greek god of medicine, for delivery by June 1872.[407] She wanted it to mark her grave. As she made her will, she assured that Edmonia would be paid.

  After her return to Rome, Edmonia must have plunged into study of the Greek goddess of health. By April 1871, she was reportedly finishing the statue.[408] An interview two years later provided a unique account of its design, indicating the panels for its base represented both physician sisters (Sarah Augusta Hunt as well as Harriot).[409]

  Dr. Hunt died in 1875. Hygeia stands in the rolling hills of Mount Auburn Cemetery, final resting place of Boston’s most famous and wealthy.[410] There was no public unveiling ceremony or publicity. Possessing a distinctively feminine grace, it is one of Edmonia’s most unusual works. It was unrecognized by art historians for more than a century.

  Figure 29. Hygeia, ca 1872

  This graceful figure of Hygeia, goddess of health, marks the grave of Harriot K. Hunt in Mount Auburn Cemetery. Air pollution and winter freezes have taken their toll on the marble sculpture, 4 ft. 4 in. high on a marble base and a granite block. Her right hand once held a staff. Since this photo, the statue lost its right arm. Inscriptions now partly illegible read, The Lord is Our Lawgiver, and Great Peace Have They Which Love Thy Law – The Sisters Physician, 1855. Photo: Harry Henderson.

  24. VINNIE REAM

  Washington

  While Edmonia was celebrating in Boston, a young sculptor of her generation arrived in Italy with her parents.[411] Like Edmonia, Vinnie Ream was naturally gifted and largely self-taught. Four years before, she had obtained permission from President Lincoln to model his bust in his White House office. She was nearly done when the assassin struck and her work became the art-sensation of Washington DC society.

  Fate, grief, and her uncommon boldness made her famous at the tender age of seventeen. Her work was uniquely fresh, and an emotional Congress promptly entertained giving her a commission for a life-size memorial statue.

  As an upstart bred on the frontier, she had more in common with Edmonia than with society sculptors such as Anne Whitney, Harriet Hosmer, and Emma Stebbins. Both she and Edmonia lacked tutors, formal anatomical studies, and years of apprenticeship. They both made art their sole source of income. They pressed beyond classical themes to portray modern times, shamelessly sold their medallions, and boldly sought social connections that could advance their careers. They were both driven to sculpt and first among their hobbies was music.

  Writers Wreford and James matched them at once, the first in crisp support and the other with hollow scorn.[412] Another English writer called Vinnie a full-blooded Indian, citing her dark complexion and a costume that often included moccasins. Vinnie had romped with Winnebago children and wore Indian garb as a small child. She also took Indians as her subjects. Her brother hunted with the Cherokee and chose an Indian bride.

  As women, they both met contempt in the male-oriented art world. Where Edmonia suffered because of the color of her skin, Vinnie bore a special cross of her own design. Many sculptors were bitter about how she enticed Congress to vote her $10,000 to memorialize the late President. Nearly all of them had dreamed of such a commission. Many had sketched bozzetti. (Many won sponsors. Thomas Ball’s memorial we described in the chapter on Florence. In Rome, Randolph Rogers was at work for the city of Philadelphia.[413]) Bedazzled by Vinnie’s bold charm and political connections, Congress had no interest in any of them.

  Where Edmonia held favor with strong women, Vinnie snapped gender bias like a buggy whip with men. Coy glances. Pretty smiles. Charming familiarity. She bloomed by flirting with powerful men, juggling amorous rivalries even by mail. Providentially located in the nation’s capital, she lured generals and members of Congress to her studio where she toyed with their instincts while she captured their faces. In an era of strictest modesty, the boldly nude female figures she displayed in her studio could be seductive, even if they were not self-portraits. Their sittings provided unique connections that led to Vinnie’s ability to drop powerful names.

  The friendships and infatuations of men old enough to be her father were priceless. Her proposal to Congress for a life-size Lincoln memorial easily sank all others in its wake. It boasted 178 endorsements, including the President, the Speaker of the House, Members of the Cabinet and of Congress, General Grant and Lincoln’s ot
her pallbearers. Imagine the scene as she arrived at the Senate gallery escorted by General William Tecumseh Sherman. Members greeted her with applause and waves from the floor.

  Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, a visionary leader of Reconstruction, entered a joint resolution, already approved by the House. It could hardly fail.

  Massachusetts Senator Sumner, more often in league with Stevens than opposed, had argued most resolutely against it. He emphasized she was too young, too inexperienced. She had never made a full-size statue. Better-qualified artists with records of such monuments deserved a chance. Many hailed from his hometown of Boston. His longtime friend and former law partner was, in fact, William Wetmore Story.

  It was to no avail. The Capitol was still reeling from the ridicule of a half-naked George Washington made by such an established artist. The resolution passed twenty-three to nine. Moreover, they gave her a workroom in the Capitol basement. It soon became a hangout for many of them. For this bonus, Mark Twain dubbed her, “the shrewdest politician of them all.”[414]

  To the amazement of everyone, Vinnie then seemed to block the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.

  Lincoln’s successor had been a pro-Union southerner and former slave owner. After the War, he supported the desire of Confederate states to rejoin the Union without conditions – that is, without extending new rights to former slaves.

  The issue was as crucial to northern believers in racial advantage as it was to abolitionists. Without Federal intervention, the old Confederacy would deny colored Americans the vote and southern Members of Congress would rise to greater power. The goose that laid the golden eggs of cheap labor might yet lay again.

  President Johnson’s accusers were irate over his opposition to reforms. They charged him with blocking every effort to secure rights for freed slaves, and they overrode his vetoes. In 1867, three days after he fired a Lincoln Cabinet appointee,[415] the House voted a bill of impeachment. Passage in the Senate required a two-thirds majority.

  The vote of one Kansas senator could tip the balance. He happened to board in with the Ream family.

  Vinnie’s bond with the southern President and the Confederate ties of her brother marked her as a problem for the impeachment team. They feared she and her family would influence the Senator’s vote. One of them went to the Ream home to convince their boarder to support the bill. She diverted him, and he never completed his mission.

  The next day, the Kansas Republican voted nay, and the impeachment died.[416]

  The prosecution team was irate. Seeking a scapegoat, its leaders accused the Kansas senator of accepting bribes. They interrogated Vinnie, litigated on the record, and evicted her from her studio. They then used the space to detain a gambler who refused to answer questions.

  The media treated her to savage abuse. Horace Greeley’s New-York Tribune even called the man’s incarceration with her unfinished work “cruel and unusual punishment.” (June 1, 1868)

  The crisis eventually subsided. Vinnie returned to her studio-hangout with her statuettes and other feminine clutter. Debated in Congress and roasted by the national press, she was more notorious than the mixed race orphan was after a yearlong tarring at Oberlin. Far from being wounded, however, she flourished, insulated by a close family and a dedicated following. Thus, she escaped with no discernible baggage of betrayal.

  Rome

  Preceded by news and attitudes, Vinnie descended, determined to prove herself as an artist. She deployed her wiles at once to rein in the social lions that crossed her path. In May, she drew on the U. S. consul and Randolph Rogers to help her purchase fine Carrara marble for five works, including Miriam and her partly nude Sappho. As quickly as she could manage, she made busts of Franz Liszt and other notables including Cardinal Antonelli, the powerful administrative secretary to Pope Pius IX.

  Any present from a man to a woman – and her acceptance of it – carries extra meanings. In July, Cardinal Antonelli visited her studio to flirt and present her with jewelry, a gold chain and an inscribed medallion. His unmistakable horse-drawn carriage parked in front of her studio at 45 Via San Basilio surely caused a stir. As one of the last of the lay cardinals, he had never taken the vows of priesthood.

  Such quick familiarity further enraged many local Americans (nearly all of whom were Protestants). None had done his portrait. Some had labored up four flights of stairs to get his permission to visit the Vatican museums, but few ever glimpsed him in person. Their inner Puritan flamed at his alleged corruption and Machiavellian politics. Wasn’t he to blame for everything wrong with papal control of the city?

  From feminists’ perspective, a greater sin could have been Vinnie’s often-quoted snub of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: “For whilst I never got any justice from a woman, I was never treated meanly by a man.”

  To this surfeit of outrages, add that Vinnie paraded about her studio with a dove on her shoulder. She had her portrait painted in peasant garb ironically bejeweled by the cardinal’s expensive gift (cf. Figure 30). While models and fashion-conscious ingénues shared the contadina costume, the offers of marriage from strangers were unique and outnumbered her many commissions.

  Anne Whitney, not alone, damned her audaciousness.[417] She, Edmonia, Emma Stebbins, Margaret Foley, and other artists stormed through Vinnie’s shop. Their signatures in the guest book, among hundreds, were hardly noticed by the young artist.[418]

  Anne summed up their comments on the plaster Lincoln cast in a single epithet.[419] A skilled Prussian artist she called Carlo Voss[420] then tattled that Vinnie and William Story had induced him to correct its anatomical faults.[421] Story was not only Vinnie’s admirer; he had become her ally! Shrugging off the failed advocacy of Senator Sumner, he seemed eager to have her speak well of him to her high-ranking fans.

  Edmonia chose to side with Anne and the other American artists in Rome in spite of her own abundant commonalities with Vinnie. She articulated their complaint at length for the press. So did another old friend of Charlotte’s. Journalist Grace Greenwood was renowned for her vivid turn of phrase. When Vinnie’s tribute to Lincoln finally appeared with great publicity in the National Statuary Hall at the Capitol, Grace published a vicious judgment, calling the work “a frightful abortion” in the New-York Tribune.[422]

  Only the maverick Hatty Hosmer, for once outdazzled, remained aloof. After emerging from Charlotte Cushman’s cocoon years earlier, she had aligned with William Story’s select crowd. About eight months after Vinnie’s arrival, Hatty invited her to share bland conversation and a dinner of broiled chicken, tea, and cake soaked in strawberries and cream.[423]

  It was Hatty who finally came to Vinnie’s defense. She recalled the public accusations that she did not do her own work, and she responded: “I cannot remain silent while such an attack is made upon any woman or her works…. having heard it of myself for years.”[424] She added, “I knew Miss Ream personally when in Rome, and I lift up my voice in her defense. I believe her to be a conscientious and hard-working artist and as much entitled to the credit of her work as any artist I know.”

  That was not the end of it. There were further outrages. Vinnie pleaded poverty to her friends in Congress, and they increased her payment for the Lincoln statue by $5,000! A few years later, they would award her $20,000 for a memorial to Admiral David C. Farragut.

  Hatty’s defense changed few minds among colleagues whose opinions were formed in clay, set in plaster, then rendered and polished with stony finality. Most sculptors in Rome decried Vinnie’s work for years. On tour in 1873, Edmonia would tell a reporter, “[they] think that statue of Lincoln a terrible business. They are of the opinion that she bought a cheap plaster head and fitted it on a trunk made by herself.”[425] She explained, “the shoulder of the arm that seems to be giving the paper, instead of being lowered, as is natural when the arm is extended, is actually raised. All the English and French sculptors and critics who saw it in Rome used to laugh at it.”

  Justifying her friend’
s defense, she cast new light: “Miss Hosmer felt very much mortified about it, because it might seem to indicate that American artists, and especially the women, were not able to produce anything better than that.” As if that were not sufficient excuse, Edmonia added, “the Tribune had been very unjust to Miss Hosmer previous to that, and so she defended Vinnie on general principles. As to the statue itself, what she says amounts to this: That it was as good as could have been expected.”

  Edmonia attributed Vinnie’s success “to making herself fascinating. She tries to keep on touching you when she is talking and she has got beautiful eyes… She obtained the commission through her little fascinating ways.” Summing up, she quoted Hiram Powers, “if that is the way commissions are to be given by the Government, they ought to take down the statue of the Goddess of Liberty[[426]] from the dome of the Capitol, and put a statue of Cupid there.”

  More vital to our sense of Edmonia’s spirit, her statement echoed the lasting spite of many of the American artists in Italy. They envied Vinnie’s access to power more than they resented the novel advantage of a colored, female competitor. Even Thomas Ball proudly made a point that he never sought or accepted a government commission.[427]

  For the expatriate artists of Rome, Vinnie Ream was the fodder of preference. Edmonia could have made no comment. For her to pile on with gusto revealed her wish to belong, to share a common complaint, and to direct ill will away from herself. None among her competitors would truly accept her anyway. Nor would she ever publicly complain again on her own behalf.