Statue of Lewis Cass

Public art

Lewis Cass

The statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection

Artist| Daniel Chester French
Year| 1889 (1889)
Medium| Marble sculpture
Subject| Lewis Cass
Location| Washington, D.C., United States

Lewis Cass is an 1889 marble sculpture by Daniel Chester French of the soldier, diplomat and politician that the state of Michigan donated as their first statue to the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C., United States.

## Description and history[edit]

French received the commission and decided to make the statue in Paris. He dressed his figure, a "biography in stone",[1] of the rather portly Cass in the swallow tailed coat popular in that time, and depicted him standing solidly with his weight evenly distributed on both legs. This stance was criticized in Paris as being an out-dated way to portray a subject, but French was more interested in the "benediction of approval" he received from American artist George Peter Alexander Healy, who had been both a friend and the painter of a portrait of Cass.[2]

When French was finished producing his clay statue he had it carved in marble in Paris, a task that would take a year, before executing the final touches himself and then having the finished work shipped to the United States.[3] There it was unveiled in the Capitol on February 18, 1889. At this event Michigan Senator Thomas Witherell Palmer said of Cass that he knew of "no public man who has filled so many places in the economy of life-teacher, explorer, negotiator of treaties, governor, pioneer, lawyer, legislator, marshal, soldier, diplomat Secretary of War, Senator, Secretary of State".[4]

On December 6, 2022, the Michigan Legislature adopted a resolution, championed by State Senator Adam Hollier, to replace the Cass statue in the National Statuary Hall with a statue of Coleman Young, the first Black mayor of Detroit.[5]

## See also[edit]

* 1889 in art
* Public sculptures by Daniel Chester French

## References[edit]

1. ^ Cresson, Margaret French, Journey Into Fame: The Life of Daniel Chester French, Harvard University press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1947 p.146
2. ^ Cresson 1947, p. 146. sfn error: no target: CITEREFCresson1947 (help)
3. ^ Cresson 1947, p. 148. sfn error: no target: CITEREFCresson1947 (help)
4. ^ Murdock, Myrtle Chaney, National Statuary Hall in the Nation’s Capitol, Monumental Press, Inc., Washington, D.C., 1955, pp. 46–47
5. ^ Burr, Alyssa. "Statue of Detroit's first Black mayor set to replace Cass statue in U.S. Capitol". MLive. Archived from the original on December 7, 2022. Retrieved December 7, 2022.

## External links[edit]

* Media related to Lewis Cass by Daniel Chester French at Wikimedia Commons

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Daniel Chester French

Sculptures
(public)|

* The Minute Man (1874)
* John Harvard (1884)
* Memory (1886–1887)
* Thomas Gallaudet Memorial (1889)
* Lewis Cass (1889)
* Death and the Sculptor (1889)
* Thomas Starr King (1892)
* John Boyle O'Reilly Memorial (1896)
* T. A. Chapman Memorial (1896–1897)
* Richard Morris Hunt Memorial (1898)
* Rufus Choate (1898)
* Ulysses S. Grant (1899)
* George H. Perkins (1902)
* Joseph Hooker (1903)
* Alma Mater (1903–1904)
* Colonel James Anderson Monument (1904)
* William Francis Bartlett (1904)
* Four Continents (1905–1907)
* Charles Devens (1906)
* Progress of the State (1906)
* James Oglethorpe Monument (1907–1910)
* George Frisbie Hoar (1908)
* Russell Alger Memorial Fountain (1913–1921)
* Samuel Spencer (1910)
* Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln, Nebraska; 1912)
* Butt–Millet Memorial Fountain (1913)
* Wisconsin (1913–1914)
* The Spirit of Life (1914)
* Wendell Phillips (1914)
* Lafayette Memorial (1917)
* The Republic (1918; replica of 1893 statue)
* Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial (1918)
* Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln Memorial; 1920)
* Dupont Circle Fountain (1921)
* Marquis de Lafayette (1921)
* Alfred Tredway White Memorial (1923)
* Victory statue, First Division Monument (1924)
* George Robert White Memorial (1924)
* Washington Irving Memorial (1925–1926)
* Westinghouse Memorial (1926–1930)
* William Henry Seward Memorial (1930)
* Beneficence (1930)
* Equestrian statue of George Washington

Medals|

* Pulitzer Prize (1917)

Museums|

* Chesterwood

Related|

* Henry Flagg French (father)
* William M.R. French (brother)
* William M. Richardson (grandfather)
* Audrey Munson (model)
* Berkshire Playhouse
* National Sculpture Society
* Minute Man National Historical Park
* Lexington–Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar

* v
* t
* e

National Statuary Hall Collection

Statues|

* Samuel Adams
* Ethan Allen
* Stephen F. Austin
* Charles Brantley Aycock
* Edward Lewis Bartlett
* William Henry Harrison Beadle
* Mary McLeod Bethune
* Francis Preston Blair Jr.
* William Borah
* Norman Borlaug
* John Burke
* John C. Calhoun
* Charles Carroll
* Lewis Cass
* Dennis Chávez
* James Paul Clarke
* Henry Clay
* John M. Clayton
* George Clinton
* Jacob Collamer
* Jefferson Davis
* Amelia Earhart
* Thomas Edison
* Dwight D. Eisenhower
* Philo Farnsworth
* Father Damien
* Gerald Ford
* Robert Fulton
* James A. Garfield
* James Z. George
* Barry Goldwater
* John Gorrie
* Nathanael Greene
* Ernest Gruening
* Hannibal Hamlin
* Wade Hampton III
* John Hanson
* Sam Houston
* Andrew Jackson
* Kamehameha I
* Philip Kearny
* Helen Keller
* John E. Kenna
* William King
* Eusebio Kino
* Samuel J. Kirkwood
* Robert M. La Follette Sr.
* Jason Lee
* Robert R. Livingston
* Crawford Long
* Huey Long
* Jacques Marquette
* Pat McCarran
* Ephraim McDowell
* John McLoughlin
* Esther Hobart Morris
* Julius Sterling Morton
* Oliver P. Morton
* Mother Joseph
* Peter Muhlenberg
* Francis Harrison Pierpont
* Po'pay
* Jeannette Rankin
* Ronald Reagan
* Henry Mower Rice
* Caesar Rodney
* Will Rogers
* Uriah M. Rose
* Charles Marion Russell
* Florence R. Sabin
* Sakakawea
* Maria Sanford
* Sequoyah
* Junípero Serra
* John Sevier
* Roger Sherman
* James Shields
* George L. Shoup
* Standing Bear
* John Stark
* Alexander Hamilton Stephens
* Richard Stockton
* Jack Swigert
* Harry S. Truman
* Jonathan Trumbull
* Zebulon Baird Vance
* Lew Wallace
* Joseph Ward
* Washakie
* George Washington
* Daniel Webster
* Joseph Wheeler
* Edward Douglass White
* Marcus Whitman
* Frances Willard
* Roger Williams
* Sarah Winnemucca
* John Winthrop
* Brigham Young

| Replaced|

* William Allen
* Thomas Hart Benton
* William Jennings Bryan
* Zachariah Chandler
* Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry
* George Washington Glick
* John Campbell Greenway
* James Harlan
* John James Ingalls
* Thomas Starr King
* Robert E. Lee
* Edmund Kirby Smith

|

Related|

* National Statuary Hall
* Hall of Columns
* United States Capitol crypt
* Statue of Rosa Parks (U.S. Capitol)
* United States Capitol
* rotunda
* Emancipation Hall

* Category
* Commons

Portals:

* Michigan
* Visual arts
* United States

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