Dying Warriors (from Sketchbook)
ca. 1860
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
8 1/16 × 11 in. (20.5 × 27.9 cm)
Classification
Drawing
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Edward R. Grove, 1985
Accession Number
1985.351.11 recto
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum Art, John Quincy Adams's *Dying Warriors (from Sketchbook)* (ca. 1860) offers a poignant glimpse into the preparatory work of one of 19th-century America's leading sculptors. Rendered in graphite on paper, this modest 8 1/16 × 11 in. sheet captures dynamic studies of fallen male warriors, their nude forms twisted in agony and defeat. Ward, celebrated for monumental public sculptures like the *Indian Hunter* and Civil War memorials, often began with such sketches to refine anatomy and emotion before committing to marble or bronze. Created around ...
About the Artist
John Quincy Adams Ward · 1830–1910
John Quincy Adams Ward (1830–1910) was born in Urbana, Ohio, the fourth of eight children, and displayed an early aptitude for three-dimensional form, modeling figures in clay from childhood. In 1849 he moved to Brooklyn, New York, to apprentice under the sculptor Henry Kirke Brown, with whom he worked for seven years. Brown's emphasis on American subjects and his conviction that sculpture should ...