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Henry Kirke Brown, 1814-1886
After beginning his artistic career as a portrait painter, Henry Kirke Brown became a sculptor and created portraits in marble and bronze, several of which are in the national Portrait Gallery collection. After four years of study in Europe, where he also developed an interest in sculpting Native American subjects, Brown returned to the United States in 1848 and traveled west, visiting tribes on Mackinac Island in Michigan. Several important works resulted from this trip, including a large bronze, "Indian and Panther", which is now unlocated. A plaster model for this piece, lauded during his lifetime as his best work, is visible in the background of Louis Lang's small cabinet portrait. Lang and Brown had known each other since the mid-1840s, when both artists were studying in Rome.
Louis Lang, 1863 |