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11 unusual facts about Daniel Chester French


Abbott Handerson Thayer

Returning to New York, he established his own portrait studio (which he shared with Daniel Chester French), became active in the Society of American Painters, and began to take in apprentices.

Alice Freeman Palmer

A committee headed by prominent men and women such as Charles William Eliot raised subscriptions and hired Daniel Chester French as the artist, for it was felt that he would best convey her character.

Concord Museum

Other museum collections include Native American stone tools, Puritan household goods, lyceum and cattle show posters, clocks and other machinery manufactured in Concord, and works by sculptor Daniel Chester French.

Dewey Medal

This medal was designed by celebrated artist Daniel Chester French, who sculpted the statue of a seated Lincoln in Washington's Lincoln Memorial and the "Minuteman" at Concord, Mass.

Four continents

The iconography survived as the Four Corners of the World, however, generally in self-consciously classicizing contexts: for instance, in New York, in front of the Beaux-Arts Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House (1907), four sculptural groups by Daniel Chester French symbolize the "Four Corners of the World."

James Monroe Law Office

The outside includes a memorial garden to James Monroe, which features a bust of him sculpted by Margaret French Cresson, daughter of Daniel Chester French.

Old North Bridge

The first stanza of "Concord Hymn" is inscribed at the base of the statue Minute Man by Daniel Chester French.

Progress of the State

The sculpture, made by Daniel Chester French and Edward Clark Potter, was completed and raised to the roof of the capitol in 1906.

Sua sponte

The Fenn School in Concord, Massachusetts uses Sua Sponte as its school motto usually seen written in a furled banner beneath an engraving of the famous Daniel Chester French The Concord Minute Man of 1775 statue.

The Spirit of Life

"The Spirit of Life" is a sculpture by American sculptor Daniel Chester French.

Thomas S. Buechner

He rescued sculptures by Daniel Chester French representing Brooklyn and Manhattan which had sat at the Brooklyn plaza of the Manhattan Bridge and that were removed as part of construction on the bridge's approaches, and placed them at the entrance to the museum.


Columbia University traditions

Legend has it that the first freshman to find the owl tucked within the folds of the Daniel Chester French sculpture of Alma Mater that sits on the steps of Low Memorial Library will graduate as valedictorian.

M.L. Snowden

Her father, sculptor George Holburn Snowden, was mentored by Swiss sculptor Robert Georges Eberhard, a contemporary of Daniel Chester French and Saint Gaudens and a professional in the Rodin studios at the turn of the 19th century.