McNamee, John
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Portrait of a Young Girl |
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John McNamee
Late 19th/Early 20th Century
21" x 16" x 9"
Carrara Marble
Signed John McNamee Sculptor
on the reverse of plinth |
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Marble is limestone, crushed and heated until its structure becomes
metamorphic rock. "It is compact and crystalline, sparkling
when broken and cut, slightly translucent, receptive to many
degrees of polish… uniform in color and hard." (Nicholas
Penny, Materials of Sculpture. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1993, p.38.)
To remove the layers of stone to reveal the figure beneath, the
sculptor had as his tools axes, saws, hammers, and wedges, gauges,
drills, rasps, chisels, files, and, for the finishing stages,
abrasives consisting of pumices and up to 6 grades of emery paper.
To assist in capturing a likeness, the artist relied on a variety
of measuring tools and pointing devices. (See Peter Rockwell,
The Art of Stoneworking: A Reference Guide. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1993.)
This extraordinary life-sized bust of a young teen-aged girl
is signed "John McNamee Sculptor." McNamee was a 19th
century American sculptor known to have done society portraits.
He was probably working in New York.
There is a marble bust of Brooklyn, New York Mayor Martin Kalbfleisch
(1861-1864), located in Brooklyn’s Borough Hall, by McNamee.
It is also life-sized and shares many stylistic elements with
the portrait of the young girl. It is signed identically, except
for the addition of the date: 1877.
"Portrait of a Young Girl" appears to be later than
the Kalbfleisch bust. She wears a "middy," or sailor
collar blouse (derived from midshipmen’s wear), a popular
children’s clothing style from about 1890-1910, although
the "middy" continued to be worn throughout the first
half of the 20th century.
Significantly, a middy is really playwear. This subject (or the
party who commissioned her likeness) chose to depict her not
in her finest outfit, but as an athletic young woman. This choice
reflects the "new woman" of the late 19th/early
20th century, portrayed as strong, athletic, professional,
and intellectual, as opposed to earlier conventions where women
were portrayed as delicate and vulnerable. (See Holly Pyne Connor,
ed. Off the Pedestal: New Women in the Art of Homer, Chase
and Sargent. Newark: Newark Museum; New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press, 2006.
Research on the background of John McNamee, the identity of the
young girl, as well as the date McNamee carved this marble statue,
is on going. |
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