TitleRobert F. Blum
Artist
Charles H. Niehaus
(1855-1935)
Datec. 1906
MediumPlaster
DimensionsOverall: 26 × 14 × 12 in.
SubmissionNA diploma presentation?
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number86-S
Label TextBlum and Niehaus, who were almost exactly the same age, may have known each other during their youth in Cincinnati when they were both students at the McMicken School. They were in Europe at roughly the same time and any earlier acquaintanceship easily could have been renewed in New York during the 1880s or 1890s. The year following Blum's death, his half-sister, Henrietta Haller, commissioned Niehaus to execute a bust of the late painter based on a now-lost death mask. A version of the bust, possibly the Academy's plaster, was shown at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904 (cat. no. 2211) and Haller gave a bronze cast of the work to the Cincinnati Museum the following year. A version, possibly the Academy's, was also shown at the large National Sculpture Society exhibition in Baltimore in 1908 (cat. no. 310). Considering the bust's origins in a death mask, Niehaus has managed to give the work a certain amount of liveliness that transcends the expected limitations and inherent impersonal qualities of a death mask.The Academy minutes fail to record when this piece entered the collection but it was almost certainly Niehaus's diploma work and would therefore have come into the collection around 1906. It was in the Academy's possession by 1911 when it was included in the inventory of the Academy's holdings. It may well be the same version that was shown at the St. Louis Exposition and also may be the original plaster model for the conception.
A bronze cast of this bust is in the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum.
1803
