Label TextNew Orleanians—and eventual Austinites—Harvey and Catherine North received the classicizing treatment from sculptor Hiram Powers when they visited the artist in Florence. Powers gave his modern sitters the aura of antiquity by representing them as if they were ancient Romans sitting for portrait busts. The works’ combinations of very contemporary hairstyles (and clothing, in the case of Mrs. North) with the impassive grandeur and white marble of the Antique may seem jarring to today’s viewers, but represented the ultimate in fashion to sophisticated patrons of the day.
Hiram Powers settled in Florence in 1837 and became the leader of an international community of expatriate artists who found inspiration in the Classical past.
(William Keyse Rudolph, 2014)