TitleMarcella Sembrich
Artist
Karl Heinrich Gruppe
(1893 - 1982)
Date1936
MediumBronze relief
DimensionsOverall: 10 1/2 × 8 1/2 × 7/8 in.
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, October 2, 1950
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number42-S
Label TextPraxede Marcelline Kochanska was born in 1858 in Galicia; under her stage name, Marcella Sembrich, she attained fame as an operatic and concert soprano. During the 1870s she toured Europe and England, performing as both singer and pianist. She first came to the United States in 1883, and settled permanently in America in 1898. She was a member of the New York Metropolitan Opera company until 1909, and then toured America until 1917. Thereafter she made her home in New York, where she taught voice and lectured.Sembrich died in 1935. The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia then commissioned this plaque from Gruppe. Sembrich's friends and family were not pleased with the likeness, however. One of these, Mrs. Juliette Stengel, wrote to Gruppe in 1937 to ask him to make no further replicas. "For some reason," Mrs. Stengel believed, "the white plaster cast is incomparably better. It is unfortunate that the likeness is distorted in the bronze finish."
