Daniel Webster

Arts of the Americas

Modeled and cast 1853

Thomas Ball
American, 1819–1911
Cast by J. T. Ames
Chicopee, Massachusetts

Thomas Ball modeled Daniel Webster prior to receiving his first formal training in sculpture. A Massachusetts native, Ball admired the great orator and was inspired to create this full-length statuette a year after Webster’s death. Despite the mid-19th-century taste for Neoclassicism, Ball rendered his figure with decided naturalism. Webster stands assuredly with his right hand tucked Napoleon-like into his lapel, yet Ball likewise portrayed the senator’s rumpled clothing and round waistline. A commercial success, Daniel Webster was one of the earliest sculptures in the U.S. to be patented and mass-produced. The artwork later inspired two monumental versions, one of which stands in Central Park in New York.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Thomas Ball (Sculptor)
Title: Daniel Webster
Place: Boston (Object made in)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1853
Medium: Bronze
Inscriptions: Incised at back of drapers: "T Ball Sculpt/Boston Mass/1853/Patent assigned to / C W Nichols"
Dimensions: 76.2 × 30.4 × 27.9 cm (30 × 12 × 11 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
Reference Number: 1986.1347
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/109442/manifest.json

Kirk Savage, “Molding Emancipation: John Quincy Adams Ward’s The Freedman and the Meaning of the Civil War,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 27, 1 (2001), 26–39, fig. 3.

Chicago, David and Alfred Smart Gallery, Alumni Who Collect II: Sculpture from 1600 to the Present, Apr. 18–June 16, 1985, no cat.

Richard and Mary L. Gray, Chicago, by 1986; the Art Institute of Chicago, 1986.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.