New photography by Ed Pollard captured with a digital camera-2008.

The Battle Story (The Returned Soldier)

Artist Larkin Goldsmith Mead (American, 1835-1910)

CultureAmerican

Datemodeled ca. 1863-65, carved 1865-66

MediumMarble

DimensionsBase: 28 in. (71.1 cm)
Overall: 83 3/8 x 31 7/8 x 42 5/8 in. (211.8 x 81 x 108.3 cm)

Credit LineGift of James H. Ricau and Museum purchase

Object number86.486

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 213

DescriptionThis is a marble statue of a soldier with a young girl on his lap. He is dressed in military uniform with a cape over his shoulders - he is a Union soldier from the Civil War in America. He has a mustache and his eyes are cast downward. The little girl reaches out to put her left arm around him; her right hand hovers near her collarbone. His right arm reaches forward toward the viewer and his left arm is around the little girl's waist. He wears knee high boots, and his the tip of his sword is visible under his left leg, where the girl sits.

Label TextLarkin Goldsmith Mead American, 1835–1910 The Battle Story (The Returned Soldier), modeled ca. 1863–65, carved ca. 1865–66 Marble Imagine the heroism and suffering this soldier witnessed during the Civil War. Newspaper illustrations and battlefield photography made the brutality of this conflict frightfully real to all Americans, but many deemed these scenes too gruesome for fine art. Larkin Mead’s Battle Story presents instead a comforting image of a survivor reunited with his daughter and narrating his adventures. The war is present, but Mead’s statue hopes for a peaceful resolution and a return to the pleasures of family life. Gift of James H. Ricau and Museum purchase 86.486 ProvenancePrivate collection, Croton, N.Y.; [The Den of Antiquity, Mamaroneck, N.Y., by ca. 1960]; James G. Gordon, Mamaroneck, N.Y., ca. 1960-64; [The Den of Antiquity, Mamaroneck, N.Y.]; [United Housewrecking, Stamford, Conn.]; [Paul Gabel, Nyack, N.Y., after 1973]; James H. Ricau, Piermont, N.Y.; Gift of James H. Ricau and Chrysler Museum of Art Purchase, 1986. Exhibition HistoryTenth Street Studio Building, New York, N.Y., May 1866. "The Ricau Collection," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Va., February 26 - April 25, 1989. Published References"Fine Arts," _New-York Evening Post_ (December 3, 1863): 1. "Fine Arts," _New-York Evening Post_ (May 1, 1866): 2. "An American Art Feuilleton," _New York Times_ (May 3, 1866): 4. Katherine C. Walker, "American Studios in Rome and Florence," _Harper's New Monthly Magazine_ 33 (June 1866): 105. Henry T. Tuckerman, _Book of the Artists_ (New York: J. F. Carr, 1867), 597-598. B. T., "American Sculptors in Florence," _New-York Daily Tribune_ (April 23, 1868): 4. "Brief Jottings. Personal," _Boston Daily Evening Transcript_ (August 22, 1868): 2. "Art in Connecticut," _New-York Evening Post_ (April 12, 1869): 4. Ambrose Brera, "American Artists in Florence," _Boston Daily Evening Transcript_ (July 12, 1890): 12. Clara Erskine Clement Waters and Laurence Hutton, _Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works_ Rev. ed. 2 vols. (New York and Boston, 1894), 2:106. Lorado Taft, _The History of American Sculpture_ (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1925), 237-238. Mary Rogers Cabot, _Annals of Brattleboro_ (Brattleboro, Vt., 1921-1922), 721. A. A., "Larkin Goldsmith Mead," _Dictionary of American Biography_ (New York, 1933), 7:472. Jan Seidler Ramirez, "Larkin Goldsmith Mead," in _American Figurative Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston_, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., 1986, 178. ISBN: 0878462724 H. Nichols B. Clark, _A Marble Quarry: The James H. Ricau Collection of Sculpture at The Chrysler Museum of Art_ (New York: Hudson Hills Press, Inc., 1997), 238-240, no. 62. ISBN: 1-55595-131-7 Martha N. Hagood and Jefferson C. Harrison, _American Art at the Chrysler Museum: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_ (Norfolk, Va.: Chrysler Museum of Art, 2005), 81, no. 45. ISBN: 0-940744-71-6