Erastus Dow Palmer (1817–1904)

ERASTUS DOW PALMER (1817–1904)
Evening, 1864
Marble 20 1 /2 in. 
Signed and inscribed: (at lower right): E. D. PALMER.SC; signed, dated, and inscribed (on the back); E.D. PALMER SC. / ALBANY N.Y. U.S. / 1864 
Model executed in 1851

RECORDED: cf. Henry T. Tuckerman, Book of the Artists (1867), as "Evening Star," p. 357 // cf. Lorado Taft, The History of American Sculpture (1903; revised ed., 1924; reprint, 1969), as "Evening Star," p. 135 // cf. Wayne Craven, Sculpture in America (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1968, p. 159) // cf. William H. Gerdts, American Neo-Classic Sculpture: The Marble Resurrection (1973), pp. 45, 86–87 nos. 66–67 illus. // cf. Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Art (1979), p. 262 // cf. J. Carson Webster, Erastus D. Palmer: Sculpture—Ideas (Newark, Delaware: University of Delaware press, 1983), generally, pp. 22, 24, 94, 143–45, p. 160 plate 29 illus.; this specific marble, p. 144, “Ex[ample]. J” from “Extracts of Diaries,” January 17, 1864, January 20, 1864  

EXHIBITED: cf. American Art-Union, New York, 1851, no. 279, and 1852, no. 219 as "Evening—Bas-relief in Marble" // cf. Church of the Divine Unity, New York, 1856, Exhibition of Palmer Marbles, nos. 8–9 // Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, April 20–June 4, 1982, Carved and Modeled: American Sculpture 1810–1940, p. 28 illus. as "Evening Star" // The Heckscher Museum, Huntington, Long Island, 1983, American Sculpture. . . Perfection or Reality?, illus. as poster, listed in checklist, n.p. as "Evening Star" // Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, April 26–June 6, 1986, From the Studio: Selections of American Sculpture 1811–1941, pp. 14–15 illus. // Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, November 16, 1996–January 4, 1997, A Marvellous Repose: American Neo-Classical Sculpture, 1825–1876, pp. 44 illus., 46 no. 21 

EX COLL.: the artist; to Chas. Morrison, London, England, by May 1864; [Fairburn Ltd., London]; to [Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1982–86]; to private collection, New York, 1986 until the present

Evening (modeled in 1851) is one of a pair of tondos, the younger sibling, by a year, of Morning (1850). William Gerdts points out that Palmer's choice of subject, technique, and medium for these works reflects the pervasive influence of the great Neo-Classical Danish sculptor resident in Rome, Bertel Thorvaldsen (1786–1844):

The sources for [Palmer’s] paired reliefs can be found in the figures of Night and Morning by the great patriarch of neoclassic sculpture, Bertel Thorwaldsen [sic]. These were probably the most famous relief sculptures of the nineteenth century and reproductions and engravings after them found their way into many American homes (p. 87).

In fact, the full names of Thorvaldsen’s reliefs, created in 1815, Day—Aurora with the Genius of Light and Night with Her Children: Sleep and Death (Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark; see Hirschl & Adler Galleries, A Marvellous Repose: American Neo-Classical Sculpture, 1825–1876, p. 9 fig. l illus.), convey the intricacy of the Danish sculptor’s representations. He portrays “morning” and “night” as fully realized female angels with abundant detail, mothers carrying their babies through the heavens, brimming with appropriate attributes. Palmer’s conception is strikingly different and, by comparison, starkly simple. Each medallion contains a bust profile portrait of a winged angel silhouetted against the heavens and rising from a cloud pillow. Palmer’s angels are not mothers, but familiarly, “little angels,” that is to say, children. The model was likely his eldest daughter, Isabella, born in 1845. Morning looks to the right, head slightly raised, eyes wide open, wings poised to fly. Evening, facing left, looks downward, her eyelids heavy and one wing relaxed as if in preparation for sleep. In Evening a young crescent moon sits directly overhead, top center on the marble.

The history of these reliefs is well-documented and offers a fascinating glimpse into Palmer's early career. On June 14, 1850 the sculptor wrote to John P. Ridner, Secretary of the American Art-Union in New York City, offering that the Art-Union might be interested in commissioning in marble a medallion entitled Morning, which he had already modeled. 

I ... [am] sending to you a daguerreotype of a medallion which I recently modeled and now am executing in marble. I design it to represent Morning, not “Aurora,” simply Morning. The medallion ... head [is] ... nearly the size of life. I have introduced a star “Morning Star,” and a torch (emblem of light) without a handle, it being so hackneyed, and in my mind always associated with a turning lathe or manufacture, and would have detracted from the spirituality of my composition (quoted in Webster, p. 261 from the papers of the American Art-Union at the New-York Historical Society).

Palmer explained that though he had at least two local patrons who would happily purchase his marble, he was "desirous to have one thing at least of mine go there [the Art-Union], and as this is the last thing I execute before going to Europe, I offer it." The trip to Europe was put off for many years, until, in fact, 1873, but the Art-Union did purchase the marble for the sum of $300. The American Art-Union was an organization of New York City art patrons dedicated to encouraging the development of American art by commissioning, purchasing, and distributing across the nation work by American artists wherever they might be found. It flourished from 1838 and 1852 during which time, for the $5.00 price of an annual subscription, Art-Union members were entitled to a specially commissioned work of graphic art; the mailings of the organization, which ultimately included a serious art journal; and a chance to win, in an annual lottery, an original painting, sculpture or medal. In 1850, the year in which the Art-Union purchased Palmer’s Morning, the Art-Union purchased 400 works from 158 artists at a total cost of $43,120.73, which it distributed by a lottery drawn from among 16,310 subscribers. 

The Art-Union was clearly pleased with Morning, since, in 1851, the following year, it purchased Palmer’s follow up, Evening. Similarly, John Sparrow, of Portland, Maine, the subscriber who won the Art-Union's Morning in the December, 1850 lottery, was sufficiently delighted with his prize to commission Evening directly from the sculptor in 1851. The Art-Union’s Evening was included in the organization’s concluding auction held in 1852. Ogden Haggerty, a noted New York City auctioneer and art collector who was the major early patron of George Inness, purchased it for the substantial sum of $340, reflecting the high esteem Palmer already enjoyed. 

After 1851 Morning and Evening were generally commissioned as a duo. Immediately and enduringly popular, these medallions remained, quite evidently, a favorite of their maker, since they decorate his gravestone in Albany Rural Cemetery. Webster reports (p. 145) that by 1852, frescoes of the pair decorated either side of the proscenium arch in Albany's Greene Street Theater. In Webster’s preliminary inventory of Palmer’s work (the beginnings of a catalogue raisonné), he lists twelve known versions of Morning, and thirteen known versions of Evening, some in plaster, some in marble, and one set, as noted, on Palmer's gravestone.