Alexander Hamilton

TitleAlexander Hamilton

Daten.d.

MediumPlaster

DimensionsOverall: 23 1/2 × 12 3/4 × 9 1/2 in.

Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY, Purchase, 1842

Object number20-S

Label TextCeracchi's original terra-cotta bust of Hamilton, now lost, was modeled from life in Philadelphia, then the seat of the U.S. government, probably in 1791 or 1792. Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury in George Washington's administration. The artist blended the neoclassical precepts in which he was trained with his personal revolutionary sentiments, depicting Hamilton as a classical hero wearing the ribbon of the Order of the Cincinnati. The baked-clay models of this and other busts were sent to Rome, and Ceracchi soon followed to translate them into marble. In July 1792, he wrote Hamilton that he was "impatient to receive the clay that I had the satisfaction of forming from your witty and significant physiognomy" (Christman, 39). On returning to America in 1794, he presented Hamilton with his marble replica, dated that year, which remained in the Hamilton family until Hamilton's grandson Alexander Hamilton II gave it to the New York Public Library. Hamilton paid Ceracchi six hundred twenty dollars for the work (Christman, 42).
Ceracchi's bust became the best-known image of Hamilton and was used extensively by later artists for posthumous portraits of him. John Trumbull used it in 1805 for a full-length portrait (City Hall, New York) commissioned by the City of New York, and Horatio Greenough based his marble portrait of Hamilton (Unanswered query: date?, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) on Ceracchi's head done from life. Two other sculptors, William Rimmer and Horatio Stone, also used it for the heads of their full-length figures of Hamilton on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston and at the U.S. Capitol, respectively. William Birch translated the bust for an enameled portrait in profile, and Henry Inman produced a miniature of Hamilton using Ceracchi's head. Daniel Huntington suggested the spiritual presence of the dead statesman by including Ceracchi's bust in the background of his portrait of Hamilton's grandson Alexander Hamilton II in 1864 (New York Public Library). Drawings after Ceracchi's work were published as engravings throughout the nineteenth century. In 1870 the bust appeared on the thirty-cent U.S. postage stamp. In addition, and most important in relation to the Academy's bust, hundreds of casts of the work, mostly in plaster, were made by artists such as John Dixey and artisans such as J. Lanelli.
This proliferation of copies and casts makes it difficult to ascertain the source of the Academy's bust. The versions with older, firmer provenances tend to be in marble, carved in Florence from the clay model, and dated 1794. Both Dixey and Lanelli were known to have signed at least some of their copies. The Academy's bust, however, bears no inscription and is therefore impossible to date.
The present bust is probably the work purchased in 1842 by the National Academy in the sale of the effects of the American Academy of Fine Arts, New York. If so, it was certainly the work exhibited at the American Academy in 1833 as by Ceracchi, Bust of General Alexander Hamilton. A bust of Hamilton, presumably the same one, was listed in the several inventories of its property that the National Academy published in the mid-nineteenth century, without identification of an artist. It was not assigned to Ceracchi until the 1911 publication of the collection inventory.
The history of the Academy's bust of Hamilton is further complicated by the inclusion in the 1843 published inventory (but the 1843 listing, only) of another bust, described as "Model in clay of General Hamilton" presented by "M. E. Thompson, Esq." This donor was almost certainly Martin E. Thompson, architect, partner of Ithiel Town and a founder of the National Academy. The exact relationship, if any, between these two Hamilton busts is not known.