{"label":"Benediction","metadata":[{"label":"Date","value":"1922"}],"description":"Benediction was modeled in 1922, the same year Daniel Chester French's most well known sculpture—Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial—was dedicated. A sixteen-foot version of Benediction was to have been the centerpiece of a monument near St. Mihiel, France, honoring soldiers from Massachusetts who had died in the First World War. The shrouded, winged figure, a recurring image in French's work, would have hovered high above the recumbent figure of a soldier covered by an American flag, offering a final blessing. Neither the monument, designed by architect Henry Bacon (1866-1924) (also the architect of the Lincoln Memorial), nor the full-scale sculpture, was ever made, though four smaller versions of Benediction, including this one, are known to exist. Bacon's base for the sculpture has been executed here for the first time from the original plans.\r\n\t\r\nFrench studied in Boston and New York, and later in Florence and Paris. Though often selecting to sculpt allegorical subjects in the Neoclassical tradition, French also looked to the newer styles of late nineteenth-century European sculpture, which emphasized life-like forms, naturalistic movement, and lively surfaces. Over the course of his career, French would create a number of large public pieces, including the Minute Man, from 1874, in Concord, Massachusetts, and a series of four groups symbolizing various continents, from around 1905, in the United States Customs House, in New York City.","related":[{"format":"text/html","label":"View details","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/objects/6469/benediction"}],"rendering":[{"format":"text/html","label":"View details","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/objects/6469/benediction"}],"sequences":[{"label":"default","canvases":[{"label":"Photography © 2014 Fredrik Nilsen","width":900,"height":1200,"images":[{"resource":{"service":{"profile":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/level2.json","tiles":[{"width":256,"height":256,"scaleFactors":[1,2,4,8],"@type":"iiif:Tile","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json"},{"width":512,"height":512,"scaleFactors":[1,2,4,8],"@type":"iiif:Tile","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json"},{"width":1024,"height":1024,"scaleFactors":[1,2,4,8],"@type":"iiif:Tile","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json"}],"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/image/v2/29917"},"format":"image/jpeg","width":900,"height":1200,"@type":"dctypes:Image","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/image/v2/29917/full/full/0/default.jpg","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json"},"motivation":"sc:painting","on":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/presentation/v2/1-objects-6469/canvas/1064932","@type":"oa:Annotation","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/presentation/v2/1-objects-6469/annotation/1064932","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json"}],"@type":"sc:Canvas","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/presentation/v2/1-objects-6469/canvas/29917","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json"}],"@type":"sc:Sequence","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/presentation/v2/1-objects-6469/sequence/default","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json"}],"logo":[{"@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/internal/media/logodispatcher/Huntington_Wordmark_SingleLine_L1Green.jpg"}],"@type":"sc:Manifest","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/presentation/v2/1-objects-6469/manifest","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/2/context.json","thumbnail":[{"service":{"profile":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/level2.json","@context":"http://iiif.io/api/image/2/context.json","@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/image/v2/29917"},"@id":"https://emuseum.huntington.org/apis/iiif/image/v2/29917/full/%21100%2C100/0/default.jpg"}]}