Letter from LARKIN GOLDSMITH MEAD to GEORGE PERKINS MARSH, dated February 3, 1858.
Primary tabs
Hon. Geo. P. Marsh
Dear Sir
I have completed my little design and send you the cast by this mornings express. I
hope it will reach you safely and meet your approbation. I have endeavored to make
it in all it's proportions as the large one should be made. The long neck and
heaviness of the upper part of the figure are nescessary I think when you consider
the height of its position. As you will observe the hands are poor. The reason of
which is this. My mould cracked and with it the fingers which were the most delicate
parts came off and were destroyed. I have restored them in plaster though not
satisfactorily. I have coated the figure with bronze, to make it in color as the
large one is to be. The drapery I have model from a sitter, arranged as I
thought, simple
and effective. A daguereotype
(which please find in the box) shows the figure as it was in clay, but the dark
shadow cutting the head from the body destroys the effect.
Should you be pleased with the figure and if nescessary to have a duplicate cast I can send it to Boston and have the piece mould made. I have not yet furnished Mr Powers with a cast as you directed
I hope I may hear from you when convenient
Your Ob SrLarkin G. Mead Jr.
Hon Geo. P. Marsh
Burlington
I have not heard of the Allen Statue lately. I suppose it is not time.
References in this letter:
A photographic process using a silver-coated copper plate that has been chemically sensitized. It was invented by the Frenchman Louis Daguerre and made public in 1839.
Dr. Thomas E. Powers, (1808-1876), of Woodstock, Vermont, was appointed by Governor Fletcher to be the Superintendent of Construction of the 1858-1860 project, to build a new State House in Montpelier to rebuild the structure burned in 1857. He and the architect, Thomas W. Silloway, were soon at loggerheads over their roles in the project. Powers became State Senator in 1861.
Larkin Goldsmith Mead Jr.(1835-1910) was a sculptor from Brattleboro, Vermont. although he spent most of his life in Florence. He created the statue of Agriculture that crowns the Vermont State House in 1857, and the statue of Ethan Allen in the same building in 1861. He was also responsible for the statue of Allen in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol and for an elaborate memorial to Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois.
Ethan Allen, (1737/38-1789), is considered, with Ira Allen and Thomas Chittenden, one of the founding fathers of the state of Vermont. As a commander of the Green Mountain Boys, a local militia, outlawed in New York, Allen was a considerable force in the defense of the newly formed state against the British.