Head of a Woman
c. 1859/1860
Sculptor, American, born England, 1816 - 1879
Artwork overview
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Medium
granite
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall without base: 48.26 × 23.02 × 23.81 cm (19 × 9 1/16 × 9 3/8 in.)
base (height x largest diameter): 13.97 × 20.32 cm (5 1/2 × 8 in.)
weight with base: 90 lbs (40.824 kg) -
Accession
2015.19.3628
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
Probably inherited from the artist by his daughter, Caroline Hunt Rimmer [1851-1918], Boston; her niece, executor of her will, and the artist's granddaughter, Edith Rimmer Durham Simonds [1877-1935, Mrs. Henry Simonds], Lexington, Massachusetts;[1] gift 1920 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2015 by the National Gallery of Art.
[1] Caroline Rimmer's will, dated 10 February 1917, article X, left the sculpture to the "National Art Gallery at Washington, D.C.," the "Smithsonian Institute[sic]," but the bequest was refused in 1919. (This "National Art Gallery" was the original National Gallery of Art, housed first within the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, and now the Smithsonian American Art Museum.) See: _William Rimmer: A Yankee Michelangelo," exh. cat., Brockton Art Museum, Massachusetts; Cleveland Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum; Hanover, New Hampshire, 1985: no. 4.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1916
Loan for display with permanent collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1916-1920.
1949
19th and 20th Century Sculpture, Watkins Gallery of American University, Washington, 13 November - 20 December 1949, no catalogue.
1966
Past and Present: 250 Years of American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 15 April - 30 September 1966, unpublished checklist.
1970
American Sculpture, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 11 September - 15 November 1970, no. 132, repro.
1985
William Rimmer: A Yankee Michelangelo, Brockton Art Museum, Massachusetts; Cleveland Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum of Art, 22 September 1985 - 26 July 1986, no. 4, repro.
Bibliography
1882
Bartlett, Truman H. The Art Life of William Rimmer: Sculptor, Painter, and Physician. Boston, 1882: 27, pl. 6..
1949
Seymour, Charles Jr. Tradition and Experiment in Modern Sculpture. Washington, 1949: 40, 42.
1984
Craven, Wayne. Sculpture in America. Newark and New York, 1984: 352, 367.
2022
Evans, Dorinda. William Rimmer: Champion of Imagination in American Art. Cambridge, 2022: 120, 121 figs. 86-87, 123, 152 nn. 14, 16 (identified as Saint Cecilia).
Wikidata ID
Q63864505