The Indomitable Spirit of Edmonia Lewis

by Harry Henderson

  While she has not a sufficiently marked development of the purely ideal and spiritual nature to carry her to the attainments of genius, she has the artistic temperament and patience and unwearied devotion to her work which mark the true artist.[736]

  It seems Edmonia pierced the façade of Victorian manners to detect arrogance toward the pope and her religion. When confronting the racist editor of the Daily Graphic six years earlier, she had offset his tilt by bragging and dropping names. Now she rose up again to boast – a detail that sets this interview apart – that the late pope “visited her studio and blessed a work upon which she was engaged.” Two years earlier, she had claimed only a blessing, likely in a general audience.[737] This new declaration that the Vatican (which keeps detailed records of the Pope’s meetings) could not confirm, was clearly inflated.

  The writer seems to settle scores by calling Edmonia “unplaced” and describing her at first as years older than she ever claimed to be. A second reference to her age conflicts with the first. The error suggests neurotic confusion, a careless editor, and perhaps a second writer.[738]

  The Boston imprint, haughty tone, and a quaint embrace of bygone neoclassical ideals are suggestive of Maria Child’s fierce attacks a decade earlier. Many details (even typos) appear cribbed from the 1879 New York Times piece.

  That the essay was not published for many months after Edmonia’s final tour begs the question of who wrote it. Did Mrs. Child (who died ten months after Edmonia sailed[739] and a month before the interview appeared) or Anne Whitney have a hand in writing it?

  Unquenchable feelings of superiority and frustration had filled the hearts of Maria Child, Anne Whitney, and others no matter the opinions of art critics, aristocratic patrons, and the public. Child was the first to celebrate the “colored sculptor,” a feather in her liberty cap. When her dream took on a life of its own with a spirited independence, the story could no longer be about her, her lofty ideals, and her radical ideas. Anne, too, had selflessly mentored the “queer little creature,” only to find her own name eclipsed in the press.

  Child’s curses echoed through her friends, perhaps even making it difficult for Edmonia to collect debts from Boston clients like Dio Lewis and the Minns family. Her Letters were selected, edited, and published by fellow reformer Wendell Phillips and Harriet Sewall.[740] Not surprisingly, they excluded any mention of Edmonia while praising Harriet Hosmer and Anne Whitney.

  Phillips, thanks to Mrs. Child, had been one of Edmonia’s first subjects for a medallion and a bust.[741] When he died four years after Child, the Hartford Courant reported the following slap: “The proposal to erect a statue to his memory has been abandoned at Mrs. Phillips’s request. Mr. Phillips had a poor opinion of American sculptors of his own race, and there is no colored sculptor who would be likely to satisfy the artistic sense of his more appreciative admirers.”[742]

  The comment could have referred only to Edmonia.

  Back to Baltimore – 1883

  After several years of media silence, the Baltimore Sun reported on Edmonia in early 1883. It announced her bas-relief in white marble would be unveiled during Easter week at the Protestant Episcopal Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin on Orchard Street. Describing it as the adoration of the Magi at Bethlehem, the Sun provided the following details:

  The Virgin Mary and the child Jesus are the central figures with Joseph to the left and the three Kings kneeling on the right. In accordance with tradition, one of the Kings is represented as a Caucasian, another as an Asiatic and the third as an African. As a compliment to the race worshiping in the church for which the piece is intended, the African King is given the greatest prominence.[743]

  It added that the work suffered delays in completion due to faults in marble blocks. Installation was further delayed as debts took priority for church funds.

  Rev. Calbraith Perry recalled meeting Edmonia at the Centennial. When he told her about the new building, she at once came up with the idea for a gift.

  Story Resolved – 1883+

  Unlike tax policies of today, tariffs (or duties) on imports financed most government spending while protecting domestic industry from foreign competition. (There was no income tax.) In 1883, the U. S. Congress suddenly spiked the tax on foreign art to thirty percent.[746]

  The impact was dramatic. The value of art imports fell nearly eighty percent. Europeans fumed at the loss of sales to Americans. They threatened to retaliate with duties on American artists, whether they worked in the Old World or New. They sought nothing less than free commerce in art across the Atlantic, in harmony with tariffs on the Continent. American artists and collectors fumed along with them.

  William Story sprang into action. He revived rusty legal skills and political connections to briskly oppose the tax. Mounting his new cause, he kicked off a campaign that would run for decades.

  Declaring, “Art is a free field to which all competitors should be admitted on equal terms,” his first petition made news.[747] He criticized the tariffs as unjust, illiberal, and impolitic, “unbecoming the free spirit of a great nation … injurious to the development of art in our own country.” As a famous artist and author, he could proclaim with certainty, “The productions of the master of the past and the present are to the artist what the great works of literature are to the scholar.” He appealed to national pride: “What our country requires is not protection … but rather the establishment of a national department for art and a great national museum.” At one point he added that high tariffs favored cheaper items – “the refuse of foreign studios”[748] – that discouraged the private acquisition of works of high quality.

  Nothing like new taxes makes comrades of old rivals. Hat in hand, Story asked the American artists of Rome for their help, deploying charm few could muster. One suspects he personally poured the tea or wine brought by servants to his palazzo drawing room. More than thirty artists, many of whom he had snubbed for years, signed his petitions. Many were quite famous:

  Dwight Benton, who edited the Roman World and specialized in painting souvenirs of the Protestant Cemetery;

  Moses Ezekiel, whose Religious Liberty was commissioned for the 1876 Centennial;

  James E. Freeman, whose painting the Savoyard Boy hangs in the Smithsonian American Art Museum;

  Richard S. Greenough, whose bronze Benjamin Franklin fascinated Edmonia in her youth;

  Albert E. Harnisch, whose equestrian Robert E. Lee can be seen in Richmond;

  Chauncey Bradley Ives, whose Roger Sherman stands in Statuary Hall;

  Randolph Rogers, noted for the bronze doors he made for the Capitol and for his Nydia, which he reproduced 100 times;

  Franklin Simmons, who produced George Washington for Valley Forge and Roger Williams for Statuary Hall;

  Elihu Vedder, known for his devotion to beauty and art as an end in itself, whose painting Roman Girls on the Seashore would hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  William Story invited Edmonia to add her name to the signatures of artists who had slighted and slandered her since her arrival. She could have said no. But it seems more likely she rejoiced that Story and the rest acknowledged her as a valued American member of Rome’s arts colony. The document appeared in newspapers, books, and Congressional papers. Nowhere was the usual reference to her color, mixed blood, or sex.[749] The words were probably not missed by most readers, but Edmonia must have noted it with satisfaction.

  When Story was done with his first petition, he started over, consulting friends, writing letters, and twice more launching the petition for more rounds of signatures.

  William Story’s behavior had veered but not his heart. He had called on her only to bolster his cause. Ten years later, he died and now lies under his own personal, marble mourner, The Angel of Grief. His biography by Henry James, commissioned by his heirs, made clear his low opinion of artists and the Cushman crowd, lower yet of Edmonia – not even mentioned by name. It is doubtful Story ever sponsored her or made her a regular at his soirées,
as some twentieth century rumors would have one believe.

  The debate over tariffs, by the way, dragged on for long after Story’s death. Some people had imported lead statues of Venus and Mercury as art only to melt them down and avoid higher duties on metal.

  In the end, the artists won. In their petitions, they had claimed harm to American museums. Collectors, backed by museums, adopted this tactic in earnest, eventually with success. J. P. Morgan and other rich Americans bought European art worth millions of dollars and just stored it abroad.

  Word of the private embargo sharpened Congressional focus on the ill effects of the tax. Noting that great museums depend on bequests and donations for the bulk of their collections, the argument supporting free art for the people discredited any complaint of tax credits for the rich and threats of second-rate artistry.

  Today, works of art, collectors’ pieces, and antiques, with some exceptions (such as mass-produced castings), pass United States Customs duty-free.

  The Brooklyn Orphanage – 1886

  Weeksville started as a settlement of freed slaves in Brooklyn, New York.[750] Before the Civil War, its people served the Underground Railroad. When the draft rioters crossed the East River, these freedmen defended their homes. Then they set up the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum[751] to fill the void left by vandals who burned down the large building in Manhattan.

  Twenty years later, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported a testimonial benefit for the Asylum’s superintendent, Rev. William F. Johnson.[752] Blind but not halted, Rev. Johnson took care of one hundred fifty children without government aid. To solicit donations, he visited churches near and far. A grateful community felt it was time for a show of gratitude. The large and elegant Bridge Street AME Church could easily seat twelve hundred people.

  The high point of the evening was the unveiling of a marble bust of Rev. Johnson made by Edmonia in Rome. We found no record that she attended.

  Douglass Surprise – 1887

  Rome was still a stop on the grand tour of Europe. Guides to Roman sculptors, such as Murray’s Handbook, however, ailed from lack of care. The 1888 edition listed Edmonia and a few other Americans – as well as two long dead.[753]

  A weekly colored newspaper relayed a brave boast, saying she was “at work on a new piece of statuary at her studio in Rome, Italy, which bids fair to eclipse all her former efforts.”[754] Details remain a mystery.

  Edmonia was still at odds with highly competitive American sculptors in Rome. One declared, “All the women who attempted sculpture there have died,” [755] even though Edmonia’s signature appeared by hers on William Story’s petitions. The New York Times printed the claim as fact.

  Real estate development and urban renewal chased most artists from the Gardens of Sallust.[756] Story moved his studio east to Via San Martino della Battaglia, past the railway terminal and far from the art districts. Edmonia moved hers in the other direction, down to the Via Babuino and later back up to the huge Piazza Barberini where Bernini’s pagan god still snubs mobs of tourists.

  By 1887, Dr. Sarah Parker Remond lived in Rome. Formerly of Salem, MA, and born free, she had once flourished as a formidable anti-slavery speaker. She had moved to Florence to study medicine about the same time Edmonia arrived in Rome. She dwelled with her two sisters, a nephew, and his wife at a tourist hotel they operated. Palazzo Moroni was just outside the Vatican, at 165 Borgo Vecchio.

  It was probably there that gray-bearded Frederick Douglass rediscovered Edmonia as he toured with his second wife, Helen.[757] Their reunion must have had a grand dimension. He had cheered her on since meeting her at Oberlin. He had reprinted Laura Bullard’s 1871 interview, written an editorial about her in 1873, covered her New York reception in 1874, and surely applauded her in person at the Centennial.

  She made herself useful as a guide, pointing out historic sites and landmarks. They went to Naples together where they toured art and artifacts from Pompeii. Before their departure, Douglass visited her flat. Following is his description of her and her room, taking barely half a page:

  Jan. 26. Called to see Miss Edmonia Lewis who had loaned Helen some books – Found her in a large building near the very top in a very pleasant room with a commanding view, No. 4 Venti Settembre, Roma. Here she lives and here she plies her fingers in her art as a sculptor. She seems very cheerful and happy and successful. She made us obliged to her for kind offers to serve us in any way she could and she certainly seems able to serve us in many ways. She had resided in Rome twenty years and constantly speaking Italian has somewhat impaired her English.

  Interestingly, the “commanding view” probably looked down on William Story’s palazzo apartments next door. Judging from the 1876 map of Rome (Figure 17), which showed a ball court [sferisterio] at the address, she occupied a new building.

  Frederick Douglass’s sparse notes give us the last report on Edmonia by one who knew her history and understood who she was. Her street address and that of the Remonds were among the few he noted – signaling his wish to stay in contact or pass it on.

  He did not record much of their conversation, which could have touched on the passing of John Jones and the 1883 Supreme Court decision that finally voided the Civil Rights Act of 1875. While many lost heart, Douglass held that the Act “was a banner on the outer wall of American liberty, a noble moral standard uplifted for the education of the American people.”[758]

  From Rome to Paris in La Belle Époque – 1889 to 1893

  Documents of later years offer only maddening traces, wisps and hints, rarely yielding much description or detail for our narrative. She registered at the U.S. consul in Rome some time after Dec. 3, 1889, and gave her address as number 46 on Via Ludovisi, a street created after 1876.[759] The site is fashionable and high on a hill, a few steps from the gates of the Pincian Gardens. The latest guide books no longer listed her studio.

  By January 1891, she moved down to Vicolo Alibert, probably to the economical and charming hotel at the foot of Via Margutta once favored by Liszt (who died in 1886; Princess Carolyne, who died the next year, had lived nearby on the Via del Babuino). Amelia Edwards had described it as “a quiet, cheerful nook — just the place in which to live a life of work and solitude; day repeating day, and year year, till the end should come.”[760] The American tourist who placed her there added, “[she] continues her work, though I fancy of this she has little to execute as orders, but the habit of twenty-five years is too strong to be broke, and Rome holds her fast by its charm.”[761]

  But not for long. She was in the process of leaving Italy.

  Her friends, Sarah and Maritcha Remond, both decades older than she was, died in 1894 and 1895, respectively. Their third sister, Caroline Remond Putnam, had moved to England. The recently founded Society of the Divine Savior took over the property at 165 Borgo Vecchio, remodeling and making it their motherhouse.[762]

  By 1893, Edmonia made Paris, France, her home. To what extent she enjoyed the wonders of visual arts and entertainment that made the era particularly memorable, we shall probably never know. Henry Ossawa Tanner and other Americans were there, but little mention of Edmonia in Paris has surfaced.

  Only her brother, it seems, and a few others in America were aware of the move. The colored women of Allegheny County (which includes Pittsburgh) reached her there to order a bust of America’s first colored poet, Phillis Wheatley.

  Proud to be summoned, Edmonia agreed to provide a life-size portrait in bronze at a heavily discounted price. As she requested engravings of her subject to guide her, she sighed, “This is indeed a little history and always to be remembered.”[763]

  Colored Women Go to Chicago, 1893

  The Death of Cleopatra remained in Chicago where the 1893 World’s Fair would honor Columbus’s landing. An archived photo suggests the Fair managers considered it.[764] But they let her down.

  Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who sought what was fresh, ran the show. The statue seemingly had three strikes against it. One: It had appeared at the
Centennial and orphanage fund-raisers as well as the 1878 Chicago Expo, where it boasted headline rank. Strike two: It was dirty and damaged.[765] Strike three: The Inter-State Exposition Building, about to be demolished or moved to make way for the Fair, suddenly needed to get rid of it.

  A saloon on Clark Street took it away.[766] Until recently, the street had been the hub of Chicago gambling, and the barkeep must have hoped that fine art might replace the glamour of Lady Luck. (Decades later, William Story’s Cleopatra would grace a New York restaurant, a favorite of tourists, in much the same way.)

  The Fair’s backers tried to exclude women from participating, but they failed. They eventually allowed a “women’s building” where members of the fair sex could run their own show.

  Female sculptors fiercely objected to the separation. The ever-bold Hosmer, who promoted her entry via newspapers years in advance, even got herself named to the otherwise all-male jury of acceptance. She also established a studio in Chicago where she spoke out for women’s rights.[767] Her vision of Queen Isabella of Spain finally stood outside the California building, the result of a negotiated compromise. A plaster cast of Whitney’s Roma made it to the main show while her bust of Lucy Stone and a fountain appeared with women’s exhibits. The official catalog listed Vinnie Ream (now the domesticated Mrs. Hoxie, exiled to Arkansas, and retired as an artist) with three statues in the sex-segregated hall and Edmonia, vaguely, with “statuettes”[768] sponsored by her admirers.