Print Size: 8" x 10" (Frame Size: 16" x 20")Artist: Vinnie Ream
This presentation drawing in graphite, ink and wash is the work of Vinnie Ream (1847 – 1914), the first woman and youngest artist ever to receive a government commission. In 1865, at age 18, she was asked to sculpt a full-size likeness of the late President Lincoln for the U.S. Capitol. In this drawing for a columnar monument Ream was evidently inspired by Robert Mills who executed a similar Monument to George Washington at Baltimore in 1815-29. In Ream’s version, the niched Renaissance base supports an erect column issuing a sculptural figure from its head; certainly she seems to have grasped the masculine symbolism of heroicism. The monument climaxes 600 feet above the ground, precisely the height Mills had specified for the Washington Monument on the National Mall. The full name of the artist, who married Lieutenant Richard L. Hoxie in 1878, appears at bottom right.
