Erastus Dow Palmer

Erastus Dow Palmer by Matthew Brady

On March 10, 1904, the New York Times published the obituary of Erastus Dow Palmer, referring to the long-time resident of Albany as "one of the pioneers of American sculpture."

He was born in Pompey, New York on April 2, 1817.  The son of a farmer, he learned to carve wood at an early age.  In addition to helping cut axe handles and other utilitarian tools, he also is said to have carved toy horses, windmills, and even made a little fiddle from a cigar box.

As a young man, he moved to East Aurora (near Buffalo) to work as a carpenter.  While living in East Aurora, he married, but illness claimed both his wife and infant son.  Shortly after this double loss, he relocated to Utica where he continued as a carpenter and woodcarver.  In 1843, he married Mary Jane Seaman.

Having seen illustrations of cameos in the home of a client, Palmer was inspired to cut a cameo of his wife using an oyster shell and the smallest of his carpentry tools.  He showed the finished piece to a local lawyer for whom Palmer had done work.  The lawyer was very impressed by Palmer's work and immediately lent him books with engravings of famous artwork, provided him with letters of recommendation to a number of prominent artists of the era, and strongly encouraged Palmer to pursue a career as a sculptor.

That career began with a series of portrait cameos, mainly of prominent Utica residents.  However, Palmer found that working on such a small scale was straining his eyesight.  He began producing larger reliefs in marble.  One early work is the allegory of Faith which hangs in St. Peter's Episcopal Church in downtown Albany and is shown below.

Faith at St. Peter's Episcopal Church

He would move from reliefs such as the Spirit's Flight (shown below) and a haunting image of the poet Sappho to busts (including likenesses of Washington Irving, Erastus Corning, and Henry Burden) and, eventually full length-statues such as the White Captive and The Indian Girl.  Later in his career, he produced sculptures in bronze such as the bust of Doctor James Armsby in Washington Park and the statue of Robert Livingston in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall (with a copy in New York State Capitol.)

Early his career, Palmer relocated to Albany, a larger city that would provide him with many opportunities for commissions.  His home and studio still stand just north of City Hall on Columbia Place.  He later moved to nearby Lafayette Street (since demolished to make way for the park of the same name) and to a farm in Glenmont which he named Appledale.  He maintained close friendships with a number of contemporary artists including Frederick Church (a pair of reliefs by Palmer hang at Church's Olana) and Asa Twitchell.  Palmer would often spend time with the latter at Lawson Annesley's gallery and art store on North Pearl Street.

Palmer died at the age of eighty-six on March 9, 1904 and was buried in the Albany Rural Cemetery.

A number of Palmer's works are on display in a permanent gallery at the Albany Institute of History & Art.  This exhibit includes the previously mentioned Sappho, Peace In Bondage (an allegory created during the Civil War), First Sorrow (a full length-figure of a little girl holding an empty nest), as well as plaster casts of the Indian Girl and The White Captive (the original pair of marbles is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art).  The centerpiece of the AIHA exhibit is the plaster cast of his masterpiece, the Angel At The Sepulchre.  A vivid portrait of Palmer by Charles Loring Elliott is also on display, as well as a painting of Palmer at work in his studio, surrounded by apprentices (including Charles Caverley) and many recognizable works.

The Angel At The Sepulchre

The Angel is one of ten monuments Palmer created for the Albany Rural Cemetery, including Grief, Remembrance, portrait medallions of Thomas Olcott, Lewis Benedict, and Benjamin Knower, as well as the granite headstone of Governor William Marcy.  A pair of reliefs representing Morning and Evening were incorporated into Palmer's own monument by architect Marcus T. Reynolds.

Grave of Erastus Palmer at the Albany Rural Cemetery

The Angel At The Sepulchre

Perhaps the most famous monument in the historic Albany Rural Cemetery – and certainly one of the most written of - is Erastus Dow Palmer's heroic Angel at The Sepulchre.

Commissioned by Robert Lenox Banks, a Treasurer for the New York Central Railroad and, later Secretary to the Board of Directors of the Cemetery, for the grave of his first wife, Emma Rathbone Turner, the Angel sits alone in a circular plot atop a hill near the Cemetery's ornamental pond. A strikingly beautiful monument, it quickly became a draw for lovers of art who ranked the Angel as one of the world's great masterpieces.

Not that the contemporary praise for Palmer's Angel was unanimous. One critic regarded the both the face and figure as “a very fleshy and unangelic type.” In short, the Angel was too human and even "too American." On the other hand, at least one religious publication praised the Angel enthusiastically as “a royal herald” and the work of “an original and poetic mind.”

As early as 1894, concerns were raised about the damaging effect of the elements on the white marble Angel. The New York Times addressed the issue in an article, “Monuments At Albany.”

Art critics are much concerned over the future of Palmer's masterpiece, “The Angel at the Sepulchre,” which is one of the finest pieces of monumental art in Northern New-York. It is on the burial plot of Gen. Robert Lenox Banks in the Albany Rural Cemetery, and is of large proportions, being 7 feet in height. The figure is deceptive, appearing larger at a distance than when close to it. Chiseled out of one piece of stone, it stands a monument to the sublime creation of a master mind. What the critics fear is that, being of marble and exposed to the severe changes of this climate, scaling of the stone may set in and degeneration certainly take place. Already a part of one of the toes has disappeared, and this fact has caused the lovers of art to renew their entreaties that this work of art be placed under cover and preserved.

Those concerns were well-founded. Today, the elements have softened and worn the Angel's clear features and the white marble is crusted with scaly gray lichen.

Born in Pompey, New York in 1817, Erastus Palmer was one of America's finest 19th-century artists. Entirely self-taught, he began his artistic career carving small cameo portraits before moving on to marble. His works include The White Captive in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Robert Livingston in Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol. The Albany Institute of History & Art in his adopted city includes an excellent gallery of his work, including the plaster cast of the Angel. His son, Walter Launt Palmer, was a respected painter best known for his snowy scenes and detailed interiors.

Palmer himself, lies in the Rural Cemetery in a family plot with a Roman-style marble monument just steps downhill from his magnificent Angel.

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