Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/89

 *dence abroad, are generally poor, and frequently undergo every privation to enable them to achieve the object of their ambition. Weir says that at one time during his residence at Rome, he was obliged "to live on ten cents a day for a month." Greenough, during his second visit to Italy, was almost driven to despair. Mr. J. Fenimore Cooper found him in this deplorable state in 1829, and gave him a commission for his beautiful group of Chanting Cherubs. He had already distinguished himself by several admirable busts of John Quincy Adams, Chief Justice Marshall, Henry Clay, and others, but this was the first commission he had ever received for a group. The grateful sculptor says in a letter to Mr. Dunlap, "Mr. Fenimore Cooper saved me from despair, after my second return to Italy. He employed me as I wished to be employed; and has, up to this moment, been a father to me in kindness."

Mr. Cooper, in a letter published in the New-York American, April 30, 1831, says:

"Most of our people, who come to Italy, employ the artists of the country to make copies, under the impression that they will be both cheaper and better, than those done by Americans, studying here. My own observation has led me to adopt a different course. I am well assured that few things are done for us by Europeans, under the same sense of responsibility, as when they work for customers near home. The very occupation of the copyist, in