Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/90

 *fers some want of that original capacity, without which no man can impart to a work, however exact it may be in its mechanical details, the charm of expression. In the case of Mr. Greenough, I was led even to try the experiment of an original. The difference in value between an original and a copy is so greatly in favor of the former, with anything like approach to success, that I am surprised that more of our amateurs are not induced to command them. The little group I have sent home, (the Chanting Cherubs) will always have an interest that can belong to no other work of the same character. It is the first effort of a young artist who bids fair to build for himself a name, and whose life will be connected with the history of the art in that country which is so soon to occupy such a place in the world. It is more; it is probably the first group ever completed by an American sculptor."

When this beautiful group had been exhibited a sufficient time in the United States, to bring its merits before the public, Mr. Cooper, in the hope of influencing the government to employ Greenough on a statue of Washington, wrote to the President, and to Mr. McLane the Secretary of the Treasury, strongly urging the plan of a statue of the "Father of his Country," by the first American sculptor who had shown himself competent to so great a task. He was successful, and Congress commissioned Greenough to execute a statue of Washington for the Capitol. The sculptor received the intelligence