About this artwork
A leader among the nation’s second generation of sculptors, John Quincy Adams Ward played a significant role in elevating the medium in the United States, calling for a new realism to address moral concerns. Inspired by Abraham Lincoln’s 1862–63 Emancipation Proclamation, The Freedman reflects not only Ward’s aspiration to create relevant statements on pressing issues of the day but also his abolitionist sentiments. Using antiquity as his inspiration, he depicted a seminude man seated on a tree stump who has just been liberated from the shackles that bound him to slavery. Ward broke artistic convention by showing the former enslaved person as master of his own destiny, not a man reliant on white men for freedom. The vestiges of chains, potent symbols of his bondage, dangle from both wrists, and his muscular body, turned to look over his shoulder, is contained within a formal, triangular composition. The Freedman was modeled from life and is generally considered among the first naturalistic sculptural representations of an African American. Shortly after The Freedman was first exhibited in 1863, art critic James Jackson Jarves effectively summarized the work’s power: “We have seen nothing in our sculpture more soul-lifting or more comprehensively eloquent. It tells in one word the whole sad story of slavery and the bright story of emancipation.”
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Arts of the Americas
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Artist
- John Quincy Adams Ward (Sculptor)
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Title
- The Freedman
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Modeled 1863
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Medium
- Bronze
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Inscriptions
- Signed on base: J.Q.A. Ward. Scp. 1863
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Dimensions
- 49.9 × 40 × 23.9 cm (19 5/8 × 15 3/4 × 9 3/8 in.)
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Credit Line
- Roger McCormick Endowment
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Reference Number
- 1998.1
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/149776/manifest.json
Extended information about this artwork
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