DOI issue:
Nr. 160 (June 1910)
DOI article:Walton, William: The work of John Quincy Adams Ward, 1830-1910
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19866#0346
INTERNATIONAL
• STUDIO
VOL. XL. No. 160 Copyright, 1910, by John Lane Company JUNE, 1910
THE WORK OF JOHN QUINCY
ADAMS WARD, 1830-1910
BY WILLIAM WALTON
The first bronze equestrian statue
cast in the United States, so said the assistant sculp-
tor, is that which stands in Union Square, New
York City. It is one of the best in the United
States. When it was finished the young sculptor
whose budding talent had contributed largely to its
artistic excellence cut his master's name deep in
the base: "H. K. Brown, Sculptor." "Now," said
the older man, "put your own name on it, as assist-
ant sculptor." And as the other demurred, through
modesty, the master with his own hands added the
signature: "J. Q. A. Ward, Asst., 1854"—where it
may be seen to this day. The funds for the erection
of this monument were largely contributed by
wealthy residents of Union Square and vicinity, and
it was formally unveiled July 4, 1856. Cast by the
Ames Works, in Chicopee, Mass., its completion
was attended by the usual difficulties besetting great
and novel enterprises; the thickness of the metal
being insufficient, the hind quarters of the horse
sagged away from the body, and a great fissure
developed adown the Hanks on both sides; the
French bronze workers, chasers and riveters, em-
ployed on the finishing, struck for higher pay and
were promptly dismissed by the young man, who
assured his doubting elder that their services could
be dispensed with, and who, in his own words, spent
more days in the body of that horse than Jonah did
in his whale's—and, probably, much more strenu-
ous ones. Thanks very largely to his enterprise,
courage and skill in this then practically unknown
field, the equestrian statue of General Washington
was completed and erected, and though Brown
would sometimes look at it in later days and say,
doubtfully: "Ward, if we had that horse to do over
again we would do it differently—we might make
the tail a little less stiff, we might, etc., etc."—
though it is possible that they might have bettered
it, successive generations have cause to be well
satisfied with their maiden efforts.
Henry Kirke Brown, "the first American sculp-
tor," as he has been called, was forty years old at
the date of the signatures on this his masterpiece,
and J. Q. A. Ward was twenty-four, the former
having been born in the State of Massachusetts and
the latter in Ohio. As the noble art of monumental
sculpture was then practically unknown in the
United States they were both obliged to turn their
talents to lesser works, and first one and later the
other wrought in ornamental hilts for presentation
swords, figures of Columbia, cast in gold, heads for
canes and other practical objects for the house of
Tiffany and others, done into metal by the Ames
Works. In this young Ward displayed such apti-
tude that he was engaged at an annual salary, and,
as his time was not fully occupied, he turned his
thoughts to other themes, such as might be expected
to haunt the brain of a young sculptor, the ideal,
the nude. In his early home in the Western Reser-
vation traces of the noble redman still survived, of
the Wyandottes and the Shawnees, and that fore-
runner of the ethnological school of American
sculpture of the present day, the Indian with His
Dog, now in bronze in Central Park, was first
modeled as a statuette in 1857, and executed as a
statue seven years later, the former differing in some
respects from the latter. In the meantime, he had
made a journey to the far West to study the abori-
gines more intimately and to supplement his larger
sculpturesque conception with the technical ac-
curacy which seems to be required. The Indian,
in his first state, was exhibited in the great art store
of that day, Snedecor's. One day the sculptor
received a visit from a stranger, a gentleman halt-
ing a little in his step, who said that he had seen the
figure and was pleased with it, and wished the
author of it to make him a bronze portrait statue
of his father-in-law, Commodore Matthew C. Perry,
he who had opened Japan to the commerce of the
world in 1854. This request from August Belmont
lxxxi
• STUDIO
VOL. XL. No. 160 Copyright, 1910, by John Lane Company JUNE, 1910
THE WORK OF JOHN QUINCY
ADAMS WARD, 1830-1910
BY WILLIAM WALTON
The first bronze equestrian statue
cast in the United States, so said the assistant sculp-
tor, is that which stands in Union Square, New
York City. It is one of the best in the United
States. When it was finished the young sculptor
whose budding talent had contributed largely to its
artistic excellence cut his master's name deep in
the base: "H. K. Brown, Sculptor." "Now," said
the older man, "put your own name on it, as assist-
ant sculptor." And as the other demurred, through
modesty, the master with his own hands added the
signature: "J. Q. A. Ward, Asst., 1854"—where it
may be seen to this day. The funds for the erection
of this monument were largely contributed by
wealthy residents of Union Square and vicinity, and
it was formally unveiled July 4, 1856. Cast by the
Ames Works, in Chicopee, Mass., its completion
was attended by the usual difficulties besetting great
and novel enterprises; the thickness of the metal
being insufficient, the hind quarters of the horse
sagged away from the body, and a great fissure
developed adown the Hanks on both sides; the
French bronze workers, chasers and riveters, em-
ployed on the finishing, struck for higher pay and
were promptly dismissed by the young man, who
assured his doubting elder that their services could
be dispensed with, and who, in his own words, spent
more days in the body of that horse than Jonah did
in his whale's—and, probably, much more strenu-
ous ones. Thanks very largely to his enterprise,
courage and skill in this then practically unknown
field, the equestrian statue of General Washington
was completed and erected, and though Brown
would sometimes look at it in later days and say,
doubtfully: "Ward, if we had that horse to do over
again we would do it differently—we might make
the tail a little less stiff, we might, etc., etc."—
though it is possible that they might have bettered
it, successive generations have cause to be well
satisfied with their maiden efforts.
Henry Kirke Brown, "the first American sculp-
tor," as he has been called, was forty years old at
the date of the signatures on this his masterpiece,
and J. Q. A. Ward was twenty-four, the former
having been born in the State of Massachusetts and
the latter in Ohio. As the noble art of monumental
sculpture was then practically unknown in the
United States they were both obliged to turn their
talents to lesser works, and first one and later the
other wrought in ornamental hilts for presentation
swords, figures of Columbia, cast in gold, heads for
canes and other practical objects for the house of
Tiffany and others, done into metal by the Ames
Works. In this young Ward displayed such apti-
tude that he was engaged at an annual salary, and,
as his time was not fully occupied, he turned his
thoughts to other themes, such as might be expected
to haunt the brain of a young sculptor, the ideal,
the nude. In his early home in the Western Reser-
vation traces of the noble redman still survived, of
the Wyandottes and the Shawnees, and that fore-
runner of the ethnological school of American
sculpture of the present day, the Indian with His
Dog, now in bronze in Central Park, was first
modeled as a statuette in 1857, and executed as a
statue seven years later, the former differing in some
respects from the latter. In the meantime, he had
made a journey to the far West to study the abori-
gines more intimately and to supplement his larger
sculpturesque conception with the technical ac-
curacy which seems to be required. The Indian,
in his first state, was exhibited in the great art store
of that day, Snedecor's. One day the sculptor
received a visit from a stranger, a gentleman halt-
ing a little in his step, who said that he had seen the
figure and was pleased with it, and wished the
author of it to make him a bronze portrait statue
of his father-in-law, Commodore Matthew C. Perry,
he who had opened Japan to the commerce of the
world in 1854. This request from August Belmont
lxxxi