Art Patron
He was a friend and patron of the artist Thomas Eakins. Following Eakins's 1886 firing from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, he may have suggested the artist's trip to the Badlands of North Dakota . The Philadelphia Chippendale chair seen in several Eakins paintings—such as William Rush Carving his Allegorical Figure of Schuylkill River (1877) and the bas-relief Knitting (1883) -- was owned by Mitchell.
The artist John Singer Sargent painted two portraits of Mitchell, one is in the collection of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the other, commissioned by the Mutual Assurance Company of Philadelphia in 1902, was recently sold (see External Links, below).
In memory of his daughter Maria, Mitchell commissioned a monument from the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, The Angel of Purity (a white marble version of Amor Caritas), now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In addition to commissioning August Saint-Gaudens works, he was commemorated in two identical brass reliefs sculpted by Saint-Gaudens himself.
Read more about this topic: Silas Weir Mitchell
Famous quotes containing the words art and/or patron:
“The middlebrow is the man, or woman, of middlebred intelligence who ambles and saunters now on this side of the hedge, now on that, in pursuit of no single object, neither art itself nor life itself, but both mixed indistinguishably, and rather nastily, with money, fame, power, or prestige.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds. I would rather chance my personal vision of truth striking home here and there in the chaos of publication that exists than attempt to filter it through a few sets of official, honorably public-spirited scruples.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)