Collection Information
Size: 21 Items, (on partial microfilm reel)
Summary: Nineteen letters from Hiram Powers in Florence to Eaton, 1845-1867, concerning: the future of the Fine Arts in America; sculpture for the Capitol building; government patronage and politics; his commissions for portrait busts and ideal figures; his biographer, C.E. Lester, whom Powers rejects as "a scroundrel capable of any amount of falsehood"; the London exhibition and the American tour of the sculpture the GREEK SLAVE; European reaction to the outcome of the American Civil War; the art community in Florence; Powers' 1846 trip to Turin and Rome; and his health, family, and personal ambitions. In closing his letters, Powers often sends regards from Miner Kellogg.
Also included is a letter from Eaton to Powers, December 5, 1864, regarding a shipment of modelling clay from Baltimore to Florence, and a letter from Thomas Sully in Philadelphia to Eaton, September 27, 1847. Eaton was disappointed to learn that a painting he had inspected was not a Sully. "I am mortified at your disappointment," Sully wrote, "...had the picture been an original by me, I should have charged double the price."