Lot 1156: George Housman Thomas (1824-1868) after Thomas Crawford (1814-1857) and Frederick Catherwood (1799-1854) Fine American and European Furniture, Silver, Folk and Decorative Arts and Clocks

Proposed Colossal Statue of Washington, 1845 Lithograph Published by Bartlett & Welford, New York 16 1/4 x 13 3/8 (41.2 x 33.9cm)

41.2 x 33.9cm

: Fraunces Tavern Museum, New York, 1989, cat. no. 11.

Thomas was born in London and apprenticed to a wood engraver there; he subsequently worked in Paris and New York, where this engraving was produced during his approximately two-year stay in the United States. The proposed colossal statue of Washington depicted in this engraving was designed by the sculptor Thomas Crawford, who would later create Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace, the statue that remains at the apex of the dome of the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C.. Crawford's design for the colossal statue was drawn for this lithograph by British architect and artist, Frederick Catherwood. See Patricia A. Anderson, Promoted to Glory: The Apotheosis of George Washington, exhibition catalogue, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA, 1980, p. 49.